USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 5
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Next to the grater comes the hominy block, an article in common use among the pioneers. It consisted simply of a block of wood-a section of a tree, per- haps-with a hole burned, or dug, into it a foot deep, in which corn was pulver- ied with a pestle. Sometimes this block was inside the cabin, where. it served as a seat; sometimes a convenient stump in front of the cabin door was prepared for, and made one of the best of hominy blocks.
Hominy blocks did not last long, for mills came quite early and superseded them, yet these mills were often so far apart that in stormy weather, or for want of transportation, the pioneer was compelled to resort to his hominy block, or go without bread. In winter, the mills were frozen up nearly all the time, and when a thaw came and the ice broke, if the mill was not swept away entirely by the floods, it was so thronged with pioneers, each with his sack of corn, that some of them were often compelled to camp out near the mill and wait several days for their turn. When the grist was ground, if they were so fortunate as to possess an ox, a horse, or mule, for the purpose of transportation, they were happy. It
was not unusual to go from ten to twenty miles to mill, through the pathless, unbroken forest, and to be benighted on the journey, and chased, or treed by wolves. A majority of the pioneers, however, settled in the vicinity of a stream, upon which mills were rapidly erected. These mills were very primitive affairs -mere "corn crackers"-but they were an improvement on the hominy block. They merely ground the corn, the pioneer must do his own bolting. A wire sieve was then one of the most important articles of household furniture. It always hung in its place, on a wooden peg, just under the ladder that reached to the loft. The meal was sifted and the finest used for bread. How delicious was that "Indian pone," baked in a large deep skillet, which was placed upon coals raked from the fireplace to the hearth. Fresh coals were continually placed under it and upon the iron lid until the loaf, five or six inches thick, was done through. This was a different thing from johnnycake; it was better, and could not always be had, for to make it good, a little wheat flour was needed, and wheat flour was a precious thing in those very early days.
A road cut through the forest to the mill, and a wagon for hauling the grist, were great advantages, the latter especially was often a seven day's wonder to the children of a neighborhood, and the happy owner of one often did, for years, the milling for a whole neighborhood. About once a month this good neighbor, who was in exceptionally good circumstances, because able to own a wagon, would go about through the neighborhood, gather up the grists and take them to mill, often spending several days in the operation, and never thinking of charg- ing for his time and trouble.
Cooking, in pioneer times, was an interesting operation. The trammel and hooks were found among the well-to-do families, as time progressed. Previous
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
to this, the lug-pole, across the inside of the chimney, about even with the chamber floor, answered for a trammel. A chain was suspended from it, and hooks were attached, and from this hung the mush-pot or teakettle. If a chain was not available, a wooden hook was in reach of the humblest and poorest. When a meal was not in preparation, and the hook was endangered by fire, it was shoved aside to one end of the lug-pole for safety. Iron ware was very scarce in those days. Instances are related where the one pot served at a meal to boil water for mint tea or crust coffee, to bake the bread, boil the potatoes, and fry the meat. By fine management this was accomplished. Frequently the
kettle had no lid, and a flat stone, heated, and handled with the tongs, was used instead of one, when a loaf or pone or pumpkin pie was baked. A shortcake could be baked by heating the kettle moderately, putting in the cake, and tipping it up sidewise before the glowing fire. Bannock, or boardcake, was made by mixing the cornmeal up with warm water, a pinch of salt and a trifle of lard, into a thick dough, spreading it on a clean, sweet-smelling clapboard, patting it with the cleanest of hands, and standing it slanting before the fire, propped into the right position by a flatiron behind it. Baked hastily, this made a delicious cake, sweet and nutty and fresh, and the pretty stamp of the mother's dear, unselfish, loving fingers was plainly detected in the crisp crust.
"Kicking frolics" were in vogue in those early times. This was after wool was more plenty, and it was carded, spun and wove into cloth. Half a dozen young men, and an equal number of young women (for the "fun of the thing" it was always necessary to preserve a balance of this kind), were invited to the kieking frolic. The cabin floor was cleared for action and a half dozen chairs, or stools, placed in a circle in the center and connected by a cord to prevent recoil. On these the six young men seated themselves with boots and stockings off, and pants rolled up to the knee. Just think of making love in that shape ! The cloth was placed in the center, wet with soap suds, and then the kicking commenced by measured steps, driving the bundle of cloth round and round, the elderly lady with gourd in hand pouring on more soap suds, and every now and then, with spectacles on nose and yard stick in hand, measuring the goods until they were shrunk to the desired width, and then calling the lads to a dead halt. Then, while the lads put on hose and boots, the lasses, with sleeves rolled up above the elbow, rung out the cloth and put it on the garden fence to dry. When this was done, the cabin floor was again cleared and the supper spread, after which, with their numbers increased somewhat, perhaps, they danced the happy hours of the night away until midnight, to the music of a violin and the commands of some amateur cotillion caller, and were ready to attend another such frolic the following night.
The costume of the woman deserves a passing notice. The pioneers proper, of course, brought with them something to wear like that in use where they came from ; but this could not last always, and new apparel, such as the new country afforded, had to be provided. Besides, the little girls sprang up into woman- hood with the rapidity of the native butterweed, and they must be made both decent and attractive, and what is more, they were willing to aid in making themselves so. The flax patch, therefore, became a thing of as prime necessity as the truck pateh.
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Clothes for Sunday wear were made of linen copperas and white checked or striped and when bleached was very pretty. Very few could afford to wear it made all of flax ; for every day wear, the warp was of flax and the filling tow. What was known as linsey-woolsey was wool and cotton mixed in the weaving, the chain being cotton and the filling wool. The dye stuff in those days was within the reach of all-butternut or walnut hulls colored brown; oak bark and copperas dyed black; hickory bark or the blossoms of golden rod colored yellow ; madder, red; indigo, blue; green was obtained by first coloring yellow, and then dipping it into the blue dye. Stocking yarn was dyed black, brown or blue. If the clothes of the pioneers were poor, they made up in brain and heart.
Hunting occupied a portion of the time of the pioneers. Nearly all were good hunters, and not a few lived almost entirely for a few years on the results of the chase. The woods supplied them with the greater amount of their suh- sistence, and often the whole of it; it was no uncommon thing for families to live several months without a mouthful of bread of any kind. It frequently happened that the family went without breakfast until it could be obtained from the woods.
The fall and early part of winter was the season for hunting deer, and the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and furbearing animals. It was a customary saying that fur was good during every month in the name of which the letter r occurred.
As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light snow, the pioneer hunter, who had probably worked pretty faithfully on his clearing during the summer, began to feel uneasy about his cabin home; he longed to be off hunting in the great woods. His cabin was too warm; his feather-bed too soft; his mind was wholly occupied with the camp and the chase. Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was nothing of skill and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter, before setting out in the morning, was informed by the state of the weather in what situation he might reasonably expect to find his game; whether on the bottoms, on the hillsides or hilltops. In stormy weather the deer always seek the most sheltered places, and the leeward sides of the hills; in rainy weather, when there was not much wind, they kept in the open woods, on high ground. In the early morning, if pleasant, they were abroad, feeding in edges of the prairie swamp; at noon they were hiding in the thickets. In every situation, it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain the course of the wind, so as to get to leeward of the game; this he often ascertained by placing his finger in his mouth, holding it there until it became warm, then holding it above his head, and the side that first cooled indicated the direction of the wind.
These hunters needed no compass; the trees, the sun and stars took its place. The bark of an aged tree is much thicker and rougher on the north side than on the south; and the same may be said of the moss; it is much thicker and stronger on the north than the south side of the tree; hence he could walk freely and carelessly through the woods and always strike the exact point in- tended, while any but a woodsman would become bewildered and lost.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
THE EARLY SETTLERS.
The early settlers of this region were largely from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with quite a "sprinkling" from the New England states. They were generally revolutionary stock, and this may be the reason why Ohio has taken such a prominent position in the nation, politically and socially. The sub-stratum of its population was composed of Revolutionary heroes, whose seven years of struggle and privation had made them men-giants they might be called. From such stock and from veterans of the War of 1812, the people of this county largely trace their ancestry. It was fortunate for Ohio that her territory was upon the frontier at the close of the Revolution. The old soldiers, without money, but with land warrants in their pockets, sought the wilderness beyond the Ohio for their future homes. This state caught the larger share of these most desirable emigrants, for the reason that it was the most promising territory then open to settlement in the west. A treaty with the Indians had been made by the government which opened the larger part of the state to white settlement and a considerable portion of the state was espec- ially reserved for the soldiers, and was known as United States military lands. These lands amounted to two million six hundred and fifty thousand acres.
The War of 1812 checked immigration somewhat, but after it ended the tide began to flow in greater volume than ever. The passage of troops during the war had served to make new roads and widen the old ones, and the war also introduced to the new country hundreds of men who would not otherwise have known its beauty and advantages, and who when at libetry to do so, returned and settled in it. The country no doubt settled far more rapidly than it would have done had there been no War of 1812.
Where no roads existed numerous "blazed" trails led off through the woods in every direction to the cabin of the solitary settler. The most important of the early roads in this section was the one leading north to the lake. This was the great outlet for grain and other produce. Freight wagons did most of the carrying trade for the country. The merchant who wished to purchase goods in the east sent his order and received his goods by these wagons, and in order to pay for the same often intrusted large sums of money to the team- sters. The products of the country, received by the merchant in exchange for goods, consisting mostly of wheat, whiskey, furs, etc., were also shipped by these wagons, going, generally, to the lake, where they were sold or shipped on a vessel for some point east, and months would often elapse before returns could be received.
Another source of outlet for the produce of the country was by the water- courses, which were then untrammelled by mills or bridges; and, by reason of the swampy condition of the country and consequent abundance of water, were navigable for small boats to points which would seem incredible at this time. Flat-boats were built, carrying from twenty to fifty tons. These were loaded with pork, flour, whiskey, the products of the chase, etc., and taken down the Mohican to the Muskingum to the Ohio and Mississippi river to New Orleans, where the cargoes were disposed of, after which the shippers returned home by way of New York city.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
The fact that Perrysville was on the old surrey maps as Freeport was owing to the fact that flatboats were built there, loaded and floated for the markets at New Orleans. The Blackfork was a larger stream then than it is now making the town of Perrysville quite a town for flatboats. Larger boats however, were built at Loudonville, one of which left there with a cargo of sixty tons. The tonnage of the flatboats differed, usually ranging from twenty tons upward.
About forty years elapsed from the time of the first settlement of Ashlant. county before these means of transportation were superseded by that great civilizer-the railroad.
The products of the country, for want of a market brought very low prices, the average for wheat being thirty-five cents per bushel; oats twelve cents; corn twenty cents; whiskey fifteen cents per gallon; pork one dollar and fifty cents per hundred weight; cows eight to ten dollars each, and horses from thirty to forty dollars each. Coffee brought from seventy-five cents to one dollar per pound; salt from four to six dollars per barrel; calicoes from fifty cents to one dollar per yard, etc. Money was the exception, traffic and trade the rule. The great wagons carried the produce to Portland (now Sandusky city) and returned with salt, fish, etc.
Cabins for the purpose of trade and traffic sprang up all along the new roads, and were occupied by some pioneer family, who procured a living partly by hunting, partly by working the "truck patch," partly by trading whiskey, tobacco, knives, blankets, tomahawks and trinkets with the Indians and settlers, and as travel on the roads increased, by keeping travellers over night, finally converted the cabin into a tavern. Frequently these taverns were the means of starting a town, which grew and prospered, or became extinct, according to circumstances. Establishing a town was like investing in a lottery ticket, which might draw a prize or a blank.
SETTLEMENTS AND IMPROVEMENTS.
The spring of 1812 saw the tide of emigration on the increase. At that period a war was impending between Great Britain and the United States. This checked the influx of the pioneers, for it was evident the Indians of the northwest would be invited to assist the enemy. In fact, it had been observed for nearly two years, that the Greentown and Jerometown or Mohican Johns- town Indians had been in the habit of making frequent visits to Upper Sandusky, and always returned with new blankets, tomahawks and ammunition in a- bundance. Indeed, it was suspected that British agents were busily at work sowing the seeds of disaffection among the northern Ohio Indians.
These settlers commenced improvements along the Black fork, the Clear fork, and the Rocky fork of the Mohican, each erecting a small cabin, and clear- ing a few acres of ground for corn. The majority of these settlers were of German descent, and had come directly from the western counties of Pennsyl- vania, Virginia, Maryland and the eastern part of Ohio; and had found the way to their new homes up the branches of the Mohican, and by Indian trails.
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Many of them had entered their lands at Canton, Ohio, without seeing them, and had followed their neighbors into these wilds.
These settlers erected new homes along the Blackfork; Alexander Finley and Thomas Eagle, James Loudon Priest, Nathan Odell, Joshua Oram, Benjamin Emmons, John Baptiste Jerome, Ezra Warner, Elisha Chilcoat, Benjamin Bunn, James Conley, Amos Norris, William Metcalf, John Newell, Westel Ridgely, Vatchell Metcalf, Josialı Crawford, and Jolin Shinnabarger. The Odells, Orams, Priests and Metcalfs, settled in the present limits of Lake township. Mr. Emmons settled in Perry, and Mr. Warner in the lower part of Vermillion. These settlers were mostly from the border states, and from Jefferson county, Ohio. They had found their way to their new homes like the settlers on the Blackfork, and commenced the erection of cabins, and clearings, in the same way. Corn was generally purchased and ground, the first year, in Knox county; and the new settlers either packed it on horses, or descended the Mohican in canoes, and transported it in that way. The hominy block was in universal requisition among the early settlers; and jonacake, or journey-cake, pork, and wild game.
Surrounded by dangers and enured to hardships, the pioneer learned to think for themselves, and acquired courage to accomplish the task they had undertaken. It was no place for faint hearts or irresolution. Their limited means, dangers, and dependence upon each other, had the effect to cement the friendship.
At that time two shillings a day, and twenty-five cents a hundred for cut- ting and splitting twelve foot rails, in trade, was the customary price. He often traveled five miles on foot, to help roll logs or raise a cabin, and was really glad to assist in this manner all new settlers. There were no improved roads; all was new, and no road fund to repair highways. The willing hands and stout arms of the resolute pioneer had it all to do, and right cheerfully did they perform the task.
At the time of the first settlement on the Blackfork there was not a white man in Montgomery, Milton, Clear Creek, Orange, Jackson, and the three north- ern townships. The number of the cabins in the lower part of Vermillion, in Lake and Perry, as well as all over Mohican, was rapidly on the increase; and the prospect for a large influx of settlers in 1812 was fair. The pioneers were keenly alive to their interests, and traveled far and near to aid each other in raising cabins, felling the forest, rolling logs and fencing new fields. Many hardships were encountered the first year or two, by reason of unripe grain, and the great distance to be traveled in reaching mills. Still, those difficulties were met with fortitude and soon overcome.
In the early settlement of the territory now constituting Ashland county, the system of education adopted by the pioneers were very ineffective. The schools of that period were supported almost exclusively by individual sub- scriptions, the only aid being a nominal sum received in each township, from leases on section 16. Teachers were employed for low wages, or it would have been impossible for the sparse settlers to have maintained or supported any schools. At first, a few pupils were collected in a cabin of one of the pioneers, for instruction, by a volunteer teacher, deemed capable of imparting a knowledge of the elementary branches.
THE NARROWS Up the Clear Fork, Near Loudonville
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
The course of instruction in those days was generally limited to elementary branches, such as spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, to the rule of three.
The earlier teachers were from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and the New England states. Sometimes an educated Irishman sought and obtained employment as a teacher. In a general way, good order, in school hours, was rigidly enforced; and if a ready compliance, on the part of the pupil, was not yielded an application of birch readily induced the recreant scholar to comply. The theory of moral suasion was not so popular then as now. The commands of the teacher were obeyed, much as those of the military officer, where no argument, as to the right or wrong of a command, is permitted.
The forest abounded in an abundance of game, and these early pioneers could easily supply their families with a sufficient quantity of flesh, though salt to cure and preserve it was a rare article.
Making sugar was rare sport for the young people. Small camp houses of poles were erected and covered with clapboards or bark, and a furnace of stones, cemented with yellow clay, and sufficiently long to receive eight or ten large iron kettles, in which the sugar water was speedily evaporated, and prepared for granulation. When large iron kettles could not be obtained, iron pots,
brass kettles and other cooking utensils were brought into requisition. The large iron kettles were generally purchased at Zanesville, Pittsburg, and Port- land. Large troughs, dug-outs of white ash, holding two or three hogsheads, were made for the surplus water in a good run. The usual mode of tapping, sugar trees being abundant, was to notch, and bore a hole so as to intersect the inner part of the notch, which sloped down and back, so as to fit in a spile of elder or alder to convey the water into a trough or other vessel. The troughs were generally made of black and white ash, dug out, and would hold two or three gallons each. It was not uncommon for a pioneer to tap from three hundred to six hundred trees, and make from one thousand to one thousand five hundred pounds per season.
SETTLING IN THE WILDERNESS.
The following is taken from statements made to Dr. P. II. Clark by the late Daniel Carter. Mr. Carter says :
"My father settled in the wilderness one mile northeast of where Ashland now is, on February 12, 1812. I was then between nine and ten years of age (being born May 23, 1802) just the age for such events as then occurred to make a deep and lasting impression on my memory. My father's place was six miles beyond the then frontier settler. That spring Benjamin Cuppy, Jacob Fry, Mrs. Sage and family and Stephen Triekel moved into the neighbor- hood, all built cabins, cleared land, planted corn and potatoes and all went well for some time. The Indians were living at their villages, Jerometown and
Greentown and came frequently to our house. Sometimes there were forty or fifty of them at a time, but they were always peaceable and friendly. Father and mother always tried to treat them kindly; fed them when they came hungry, lodged them as best they could, which had its effect when they made their raid
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
on the frontiers. The British were trying to influence all the tribes of Indians to join them and fight the Americans. A chief of some tribe visited Chief Pipe at Jerometown and Armstrong, the chief of Greentown, and used his best endeavors to persuade them to join the British in the war against America. The Indians agreed to call a council and decide on the course they would pursue. The council was held and they decided to remain neutral. I was sent to Odell's mill with a sack of corn and had to go through Jerometown as there was no other trail. When I returned in the evening they were holding their war dance. They wanted me to stay and see the performance. I hitched my horse and staid till the dance was over, then rode home, a distance of nine miles through the wilderness, arriving at home about two o'clock in the morning.
"This chief visited all the states and territories. Where he could get their consent to join the British he would give them a red stick in token of blood. Consequently he was known as the chief red-stick. This council at Jerometown was held about the last of June, 1812. But after Hull's surrender August 16, 1812, the government thought best to remove them; not so much for fear of their making trouble, but to keep them from harboring unfriendly Indians.
"When Captain Douglas informed them that he came with orders to remove them they were much excited and would not consent to go. Captain Douglas called on Mr. Copus to go with him and use his influence to obtain their consent. Mr. Copus replied that he and the Indians were on friendly terms and they would not think it kind in him to persuade them to leave against their wills. But Douglas threatened to arrest him as a traitor if he refused. He consented on condition that their town and property should be respected. As they could not talk with them Mr. Copus was prevailed upon to go as an interpreter. He told them that if they would consent to go their property should be taken care of and that the officer had authorized him to say so, on the strength of this promise they reluctantly consented to go. They packed up what they could take with them and started. They had not gone more than two miles when looking back they saw their village on fire, some of Douglas' soldiers having lingered behind and applied the fatal torch.
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