History of Ashtabula County, Ohio, Part 29

Author: Williams, W. W. (William W.)
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 458

USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > History of Ashtabula County, Ohio > Part 29

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1875, Mr. Wade participated in the State canvass, and several public speeches were made by him in behalf of the Republican party and General Hayes, its candidate for governor. He was a delegate from the Seventeenth congressional district of Ohio in the Republican convention in 1876, and was very influential in procuring the nomination of General Hayes as the candidate for the presidency.

He was also one of the presidential electors for the State at large, that cast the vote of Ohio for General Hayes for President, and was selected to convey the electoral votes to Washington.

He took a deep interest in the affairs of the nation, and was prompt in expressing his disapprobation of the policy adopted by President Hayes, regarding his course as unjust to the Republicans of the south and as endangering the per- petuity of the Republican party, which Mr. Wade regarded as essential to good government and the protection of the rights of the citizens.

In the summer of 1861, when the call of the President was issued for seventy- five thousand men, in pursuance of a proclamation by the governor of Ohio the citizens of Jefferson came together and were addressed by Mr. Wade. A call was made for volunteers, and Mr. Wade's name appeared first upon the roll. The requisite number for a company was immediately obtained, and the company was organized and their services tendered to the governor. But the result showed that seven companies in Ashtabula County had organized at the same time, and the governor could receive only two of that number. The Jefferson company was not one of those selected.

Through life Mr. Wade was abstemious in his habits, alike in eating and drinking, and he possessed a strong and vigorous constitution, which rendered lim capable of great endurance, and this, with his indomitable perseverance and untiring industry, always enabled him to discharge with promptness whatever duties devolved upon him. Hence he never seemed to be pressed with business, but possessed much of apparent leisure.

He was plain and unassuming in manners, whatever position he held, whether at the bar, on the bench, or presiding over the senate of the nation. He was zealous and earnest in the advocacy of measures, and sometimes sarcastic in language, but he impressed all who heard him with his sincerity, and he rarely created an enemy. He was prudent and economical in his personal expenses, but liberal in his charities, and the sufferer never went empty-handed from his door when he had the power to relieve. Integrity of purpose and a keen sense of honor were conspicuous traits in his character. The writer of this sketch on one occasion went into his law-office and found him alone and apparently moody and in ill temper ; at length he broke out : " I never have felt so humiliated in my life as by an incident that has just occurred. I cannot restrain myself from speaking of it, and still I should feel disgraced in the opinion of all honest men were it made public." He referred to a citizen of intelligence and good standing in the com- munity, saying, " That man has just left my office, and while here he referred to a suit which I am prosecuting against him, indirectly offering me a consideration if I would not press the suit against him. My first impression," said Wade, " was to kick him out of the office ; but on reflection, on second thought, I was so humiliated by the proposition that it seemed to me that I had been guilty of some wrong myself. I asked him what I had ever done, or what he had ever seen or heard of me that led him to suppose it was safe to offer me a bribe to induce treachery to my client." Mr. Wade said it was the first time he had ever been approached by any man with such an intimation, and he hoped his character for integrity stood high enough so that it might never be repeated. It probably never occurred again. And his friends have the satisfaction of knowing that through his long career of public and private duties no man ever impeached his integrity or made a charge of pecuniary wrong against him.

Since the foregoing sketcli was prepared for publication Mr. Wade has passed away. The following announcement of his death in the Cleveland Herald, of March 4, 1878, we append, as a just tribute to his memory.

OBITUARY. EX-SENATOR BENJAMIN F. WADE.

The Hon. Benjamin Franklin Wade, formerly United States senator from Ohio, died at his home in Jefferson, Ashtabula County, March 2, after an illuess of more than four weeks, which he bore with characteristic fortitude. The news of the death of Mr. Wade, at the ripe age of seventy-eight years, has long been anticipated by the public. His vigorous constitution gave way slowly to disease, and death came only after a long aud painful struggle. Mr. Wade has for a quarter of a century been a prominent figure in the politics of Ohio, and is among the last of the anti-slavery pioneers. Elected to the senate by the Whig party in Ohio, in 1851; after serving two terms in the senate of this State, and as judge of his district, he was twice re-elected, and for eighteen years held a conspicuous position in the councils of the nation. His fame as a statesman will rest upon his long, earnest, and devoted adherence to the principles of the anti-slavery party in America. It was during his term of service in the senate that the slavery excitement culminated in civil war, and the north and south met in bloody conflict to decide the issue by an appeal to arms. From his entrance into the senate he was known as an Abolitionist, and one year aftor taking his seat voted in favor of the repeal of the fugitive slave law. On all questions calculated to extend or henefit slavery he was always found bravely and fearlessly in the opposition, and his speeches against the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise, the Lecompton constitution for Kansas, the purchasing of Cuba, are all fresh in the memory of our people. A genuine friend of the laboring man, he advocated for years the passage of the Homestead bill, and had charge of the measure when it passed the senate. As chairman of the joint committee on the conduct of the war, he urged the most vigorous actiou on the part of our armies, favored confiscation of the property of leading rebels, and the

HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.

emal fali f the r lavea. lle was prominent in e mpelling the abolition of slavery in the Ditriet f ( u=\a. an ] in ]>62 reporte l a bill abolishing slavery in all the Territories of the I'n , rin any that might le ac quir 1. Ilis connection with the impeachment of President J hin is well kn wn, and his narrow escape fromu becoming President familiar to all our r alers.

When Mr. Wale enterel the senate he was unknown to nearly all its members. l'lain in Ferson au ] speech, with h mespun manners and provincial dress, bulding principles abhorrent to nearly all his colleagues, he met with a coll receptiou, and for a time was almost personally ign rød. Hle was placed on no committee, anil the majority of the senate took small pains to lisguis how little sympathy they felt for him or his principles. But Mr. Wade was naturally a hall, fearless, courageous man, and the efforts to silence his voice and discourage his speech were carly met by him with open defiance, and senators soon found he not only was determined t be heard, but had the will and the pluck to assert his rights fearlessly and with manly vigor. lle sought no personal quarrel, nor avoided one hy any sacrifice of principle. It was soon dis- covered that the plain, unassuming man from Ohio was equal to any emergency, and would pruve an ugly customer if forced into a merely personal confliet. Ilence he gained the genuine respect of his opponents, and finally their warm friendship and regard.

Mr. Wade, during the years of his public life, was eminently trusted and beloved by the people. They liked his rugged manner, plain, straightforward, homely speech. They knew he was earnest, honest, sincere. llis fearless utterances upon the question of human liberty found a ready response in their hearts, and his stirring eloquence upon the stump aronsed their enthusiasm and stimulate l their zeal. Few men could portray the evils of slavery with more effective skill, and his denunciation of the " hellish traffic" in human beings found ready response in the heart of his bearers.

The life of MIr. Wade has been one eminently useful to his country. From the humblest position, with seanty education, and from the home of poverty, relying npon his own common sense, shrewdness, and practical nature, he rose steadily in the affection and confidence of the people, until he became the acting vice-president of the United States. Mr. Wade was the most earnest and sincere of men in his convictions, and even under the influence of strong emotion bad full command of suitable and expressive words, and the power to move his bearers in strains of true and genuine eloquence. His manners were open and frank, his speech at all times free and unreserved, and the absolute sincerity of the man was stamped in every line of his countenance.

Photo. by M. A. Loomis, Jefferson, O.

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS .*

Turn baek the years to 1806, and imagine the state of the American world of that period. Telegraphs. railroads, and steamboats .- steam itself, were not. The west was an undreamed-of empire, the east a possibility. The population of the United States was but six millions. Ancient Boston dwindles to a town of twenty-five thousand, and New York shrinks to sixty-five thousand. If one should journey west, he would find less than six thousand iu the old town of Albany, Buffalo a straggling village of a thousand, while the huts and eabins of Cleveland held less than a hundred souls : Cincinnati would have twelve or fifteen hundred ; and there were the old towns of Marietta and Chillicothe, in the infant State of Ohio, four years old.

Her whole population did not number fifty thousand, scattered in rude eabins through her interminable forests, which sheltered many fragments of Indian tribes, and hid the scenes of savage ambuseades. battle forays and fields, destined

to be renewed within her borders. All animals known to her natural history, save the buffalo, inhabited her woods in undiminished numbers. The river whose name she bore ran in solitude along her southern border, and the lake, a lonely waste of waters, was the boundary of her unpeopled northern wilderness. With her nine outline counties, she was herself but a giant outline, whose fortune was yet to be fashioned. The Federal capital, six years old, was an unseemly scattered village, uneonseious that within the span of a single life it was to be the scene of interminable war between the darkness of old oppression and the light of new aspiration, the chronic barbarity of eenturies aud the long-repressed throbbings of freedom.

The element of slavery which had enmeshed itself in the fibre of the organie law of the nation was an ever-active principle, insidiously extending and per- vading, corrupting the sources of thought and springs of action, moulding the poliey, and inspiring the national law, till the unconscious republie awoke, to mark with little coneern the wide departure already taken from the principles on which it had been founded. It awoke, bound and helpless, seemingly without the will, almost without a wish to return to them. The land was yet to be filled with many millions, new States were to be born, great eities to spring up, ere this confliet should set its armed hosts in battle array. The men of these armies were yet to be born, and in that final struggle the thought, the intelligence that should mould and marshal the minds and opinions of the free States, and so conduct them to the inevitable contest. were yet to have birth, take form, be worked out, diffused, aeeepted, and aeted upon. The men who were to do this great work were already in childhood, and unconsciously receiving the tuition, taking the bent that should fit them for their mission. Men of the old heroie mould they must be. Men capable of sacrifieing all. enduring all, daring all. Clear to see, strong to feel, inflexible in justice, relentless in hatred, ehangeless in love, narrow and bigoted it may be for the right, never wearying, never despair- ing. Men of power, of resources, masters of themselves, greatly practical, who eould wield themselves as hammers, as elaymores, as rapiers. A man fitted to this work must be one born and practiced to partisan warfare, who could assault a fortification single-handed, withstand a thousand in the field alone, or with his single arm defend a pass against an army. One who on the approach of success could see himself superseded by the soldiers of his own training, see them wear and bear the erown and fruits of victory. Such men must be of the people, knowing them, and what will move them. From the levels of life, knowing all around, above, and below them.

The woods of the infant Ohio, with the wild Indians and beasts in them, its virgin soil, fresh life, and rude experienees, were to be the nursery, the training- ground, of one of the foremost of these exceptional men.

The 16th of June, 1806, was noted for a total eclipse of the sun. Darkness came down on an emigrant team of four oxen slowly moving a wagon in which were a middle-aged woman, a fresh young girl-a bride, whose young husband drove the cattle and guided the movement, aided by a youth, and attended by a lad of ten. Just across the Ohio and Pennsylvania line were they when the darkness came down, and they were obliged to camp in the woods. They journeyed, all the way from Canandaigua, for weeks on the road ; from Buffalo, mueh of the way on the lake-beach. beaten hard by the waves. Six days more to the point of rest and toil. One night's eamp in the forest, eaused by the breaking of the wagon, and they were kept awake by the howling of the near wolves, the most melan- eholy and plaintive sound of all the wilds. At night-fall of the 21st they erossed a stream called by the natives Pymatuning; on the thither bank they found a de- serted wigwam, where they passed the night, not far from the famous Omie's town. The next day they made their way aeross the woods to where the eentre of Wayne now is, in Ashtabula County, where they found a new rude eabin. without hearth, chimney, or window, surrounded by a small elearing, prepared by the father and eldest son, who went on the preceding winter.

The man was Joshua Giddings, and these were his wife, ehildren. and son-in- law. The lad was Joshua Reed Giddings, just arrived to finish his growth and complete his education.

The Giddingses came over from England in 1635. and settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The boy's great-grandfather removed to Lynn. Connectieut, abont 1725. and there his father was born. In 1753 the family changed its residenee to Hartland, in the same State ; thenee. in 1773, his father, having acquired a family, removed to Bradford county, Pennsylvania. The mother was Elizabeth Pease, descended from John Pease, who settled on Martha's Vineyard in 1635. Nomadie were the Giddingses, as if gathering here and there material and elements to furnish forth the remarkable man who was to erown their line. Joshua R. was the youngest of his father's family, and was born at Tioga Point, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1795, two years after the birth of the first fugi- tive slave aet. Six weeks after his advent his parents removed to Canandaigua, a new but fertile region. Here they remained till the migration to Ohio. In the

· By Hon. A. G. Riddle.

HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.

winter preceding, the elder Joshua, accompanied by his oldest son, made his way into the woods, built a cabin, cleared a space of ground, planted a garden and small corn-field, where they were joined by the rest of the family, as stated. It was at the beginning of the colonization of the Western Reserve by New England. So much of Massachusetts and Connecticut transplanted and translated into the freer expanse of the west. Vigor, hardihood, courage, and enterprise were needed to carry the emigrants so far into the wilderness. An exercise of the same qualities, with endurance, industry, frugality, and hopefulness, were necessary to their mainten- ance in their forest homes. Their lives were elementary. They took every- thing at first hand. When their small supply of food and clothing was exhausted they must go to the earth, the forest, streams, and Indians, to the wild fruits of the plum bottoms. They carried with them the frugality, industry, religious faith, love of law and liberty, the hope and wish of bettering their condition, with the habits of thought, intelligence, and deep strong lines of character, of their dear " down country" home, relieved of the constraints of the older society aud the oppressions of poverty. They planted themselves and native institutions in a more fertile soil, a more genial climate, a perfectly free atmosphere, with the glow and warm life of young communities, under conditions that called into con- stant exercise the warmest social elements, and permitted the rapid development of individual traits, where men are strong and women fruitful. The first years were a struggle for existence ; the first social condition that of absolute democ- racy,-the best for the formation of character.

From what young Joshua grew to be we may fancy what he was at ten,-a tall, raw, rather shapeless boy, with a pleasant face, frolicsome gray eyes, and abundant light, curly hair, that grew dark, fairish till the sun tanned him. He had mas- tered the English alphabet in Canandaigua. He has a plenty of growing and filling out to do, and the rudiments of a great many things to master. He had doubtless acquired some elements of pioneer life, and rapidly gained the knowledge and habits of wood-craft. The faithful, patient oxen were unyoked and turned into the woods with a bell on the neck of " Bright," and it was his duty to bring them up at night-fall, and he soon became familiar with all the forest haunts, and could conduct his mother and sister to the nearest neighbors, two miles and a half away, and made the acquaintance of most of the wild animals of the forest, including Omic and his Massasauga red folk, at their town on Indian Pymatuning.

When the corn ripened a cavity was hollowed in the top of a large hard wood stump with fire, and a heavy pestle attached to a spring-pole hung over it, and in this " samp mortar" he did the family grinding. He was soon furnished with an axe, and, broad-shouldered and long-armed, he became an expert axeman, one of the most thoughtful of all employments. Next came the shot-gun and rifle, old flint-locks. That first autumn we know that the pioneers sowed wheat on the eorn-land, and were busy felling the trees during the winter; that they con- structed a chimney of sticks and clay mortar, and a stone hearth, and lit up the one-roomed eabin with bright wood-fires and hickory-bark torches; that the boys elimbed up a ladder and slept in the loft, and put their clothes under the bed to keep them from being covered with snow. We know that they heard the wolves howl every night, and that many deer came about their small elearing, and that the young men becaque hunters ; that they had a supply of venison, many wild turkeys, and occasionally a bit of delicious bear-meat from their owu guns or from Omic's hunters ; that in the spring they made sap-troughs with their axes, tapped the maples, and made sugar ; that they cleared a good deal of land that season and raised potatoes and flax ; that somebody became a benefactor and set up a saw-mill not far away ; that a cow was purchased that summer, a log barn built with a thrashing-floor, and hand-flails were made, and a hand-fan to winnow the new wheat, which it took three days to earry to a mill; that new settlers came, new cabins were built, and more woods cut away. Roads were opened and bridges built, more cows were driven in, and sheep made their appear- auce, hand-cards for wool and hatchels for flax, wheels and looms, and finally somebody set up a fulling-mill. We know that the elder Giddings was a God- fearing Presbyterian, aud the first Sabbath-worship was held at his cabin during the first summer ; that a school was established the second winter, and that the new community in the woods began to assume the forms and practice the usages of eivil and social life.

Young Giddings grew up, passing through all the vicissitudes of frontier life. Seeing the sun rise and set amid the trees till his own hands had helped to clear them away. Eating venison and bear-meat, wearing a tow frock and pauts in the summer, and butternut-colored flannel, faced and seated with deerskin, in the winter, with his feet in Indian moccasins. Chopping, logging, and clearing land, gathering ashes and boiling black salts, making maple-sugar, going to mill, hunting stray cattle on the bottom lands, breaking steers, turning grindstone, and saying the New England Catechism. Became a hunter expert with the rifle. Spent days and nights in the woods. A fisherman, and knew all the streams, with excursions to the lake. Went to meeting and Sunday-school. Docile, and

of a joyous temperament, an athlete, trained in pioneer life, where muscle and agility are at a premium, the swiftest footman, and the masterful wrestler of all the strapping youths of the range, he grew broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, straight of limb, strong of loin, erect, carrying his massive head with the pose of a man, his motions and manners fashioned in the frec, bold atmosphere of the west ; dreaming his boy dreams and thinking his boy thoughts. Hearing stories of adventure in forest, of hunting and Indian warfare. Legends of dowu- east life and catching echoes of the great world beyond the woods.

Came the War of 1812. Suddenly to the dwellers in the woods ; a frighteued whisper borne on the wind ; and later the terrible names of Proctor and Tecumthá on the Maumee, and marching eastward. Hull surrendered Detroit and the whole of Michigan in August, and there was a call for soldiers. Though but sixteen, young Giddings took his place in the ranks of Colonel Hayes' regiment, which was hurried on to the Huron, encamping near the present town of Milan. From this point, Major Frasier, with one hundred and thirty men, was pushed forward to a little stoekade, afterwards known as Fort Stephenson, and famous for its defense by Croghan. Of this band was our young soldier, which was soon weakened by sickness. On the 28th of September came word that Indians were plundering the abandoned farms on the " Peninsula," and sixty-four men, under Captain Cotton, volunteered at night-fall to meet them. Young Giddings, on coming off guard, found them marching at drum-beat up and down for recruits, and took his place with them. They made the advance by water that night, fought two sharp battles the next day, lost twelve men and their boats. The Indians were more numerous and might have cut them off, but were too roughly handled. Their hardships were very great on the return. Their old friend Omic, to whom they had always been kind, must have led the enemy, as his scalping-knife was found in the body of one of their slain, advertising his presence and prowess.

Colonel Hayes' regiment was not needed for long service, and after five months the young soldier returned home. It is curious that, although several men were killed in this affair on the Peninsula, no account of it is to be found in any history of the war. Though his term of service was short, it was very useful in many ways to young Giddings. His strength, vigor, and endurance on the mareh, good conduct in camp, his courage and coolness in battle, were themes of praise through the regiment, and laid the foundation for the love and confidence of the people within his personal influenee. The restraints and discipline of even five months' service were a useful lesson to him.

Though the young soldier returned, the war-cloud darkened the woods that sheltered his home. In the early autumn General Harrison assumed command of the northwestern army, yet to be created. In the latter part of January, 1813, Winchester was surprised, eaptured, and his army massacred at the river Raisin. In February, Perry was constructing his fleet at Erie, and Harrison compelled Proctor and Tecumtha to raise the siege of Fort Meigs early in the following May. They made another invasion of the Ohio the following summer, and were beaten off at Fort Stephenson in August. Then came the famous sea- fight of Perry, followed by the flight, pursuit, and capture of Proctor's army and the death of Tecumtha. Though the tide of war rolled backward and forward across the border below Lake Erie, flight and terror were forever banished from the homes and dreams of maids and matrons in the cabins of the Western Reserve.

The elder Joshua had invested his all in lands, the title to which failed ; the party of whom he purchased was insolvent, and he was reduced to poverty, from which he never recovered. He changed his place of habitation and began anew, and the youngest son was remitted to his old tussle with the trees and beasts of the forest. A writer in the New York Tribune said of him that he suffered aud accomplished more between his tenth and twentieth years than any other young man on the frontier. There were no schools, no time or opportunity for education. Few books, no newspapers, or magazines. It is said that all the days spent by him iu sehool in auy place of public instruction were but a few weeks. Never- theless, among his sagacious neighbors, he acquired the reputation of a sebolar. He early manifested that avidity and eagerness for knowledge, that longing for books, which amounts to bibliomania. Every book that he could hear of, within long distances of his father's cabin,-aud his information was extensive in this respect,-that he could borrow, and none were refused him, every pamphlet, news- paper, or serap of print that his hands could reach, he made his own. History, travels, biography, the Bible, poetry, tales,-all, he made their life-blood his. Every erevice of time, every moment snatched from toil or needed sleep, by the hickory torch, the sugar-camp fire, at his hunter's camp, was devoted to reading and study. No volume was too soiled or worn, no author was so dull that he did not find them of interest. Stupidity, which is said to be too much for the gods, yielded to his assaults when in print. It was before the improvements in school- books with uew methods. He came into possession of a Lindley Murray, and mastered English. Rev. Harvey Coe helped him into mathematics, and he helped

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Ashtabula County, Ohio, Part 29

Author: Williams, W. W. (William W.) Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia : Williams brothers Number of Pages: 458

Author: Williams, W. W. (William W.)
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 458