USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 111
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he started out into the woods one morning to procure enough wild game to last them on their perilous journey. But on the morning mentioned he was constantly haunted with fears that his family was in danger. His fears grew on him and he became so apprehensive of his family's welfare that he started in the direction of his home. When a short distance from his little log hut, his eyes were met with a most appalling and heart-rending scene. His house was in flames; his wife had been murdered and his youngest child had been taken captive by the heartless Indians. Just what later became of this man is not now known.
WOLVES AS REVENUE PRODUCERS.
The county commissioners' records bear frequent testimony to the fact that wolves were very common hereabout in the early days of the county. A bounty was paid for every wolf scalp and some farmers made a comfortable sum every winter hunting wolves. As late as in the forties wolves were to be found all over the county and wolf-drives were held in which scores of the animals were rounded up. Many stories have come down concerning these wolf-drives. The settlers for miles around gathered, having been instructed to meet along certain roads at an appointed time. The four lines of the hol- low square were from three to ten miles apart, and the lines began to march toward each other at a given time. each line being in charge of a leader. No firearms or dogs were allowed, but the men were usually provided with pitch- forks, clubs and horns. When the lines finally converged there was a motley collection of wolves, foxes, rabbits and even deer within the living wall. Then the animals were dispatched, sometimes with dogs, sometimes with pitchforks and clubs, but often they were captured alive. These drives con- tinued until after the Civil War.
THE FITHIAN TAVERN.
One of the most prominent of the early buildings of Urbana was the tavern which George Fithian built in 1805 on the corner now occupied by the Grace Methodist church. Samuel McCord opened a store in the building in March, 1806. One evening in 1808 it was reported that the Indians were going to attack the village and orders were at once issued for everyone in the village to collect in Fithian's tavern. They all got there, about fifteen or twenty families, and they remained there all night, so for this one night the old tavern was a fort. Fithian used the building as a tavern from 1805 to about 1813. He sold it to John Enoch, who kept the tavern for about a
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year and then sold it to one Birdsley who also used it as a tavern for about two or three years. He was the last one to use it as a public house. A man by the name of Thomas, a watch repairer, next bought the building and he and his wife lived in it until it was sold at public auction on April 27, 1878, for fifty-five dollars. It was used as a school house at one time and also as a jail.
CHAMPAIGN COUNTY AND URBANA IN 1819.
That Urbana and Champaign county were already recognized nearly a century ago as forming a prosperous, progressive and representative Ohio community is proved-if proof were necessary-by a copy of a rare old book found only a few years ago in a garret at Akron, Ohio, after having reposed there, undisturbed and covered with dust, for more than three-quarters of a century.
The book is a copy of "Ohio Gazetteer and Topographical Dictionary", published in 1819 by John Kilbourn, at Columbus. It contains a description of every Ohio county, city, town, lake, river, etc., as then known. Despite its great age and neglect, the old book is still well preserved and it provides the basis for an interesting comparison of bustling Urbana as it is now with conditions when Ohio was an infant state and considerable of its area was still known as Indian country.
NO RAILROAD OR TELEGRAPH.
There were no railroads at that time and the telegraph was unknown. If anyone in that day had predicted the aeroplane and the wireless tele- graph he probably would have been consigned to a lunatic asylum. No canals had been constructed and travel was by stage, horseback, on foot or aboard, a few pioneer steamers just making their first appearance on the Great Lakes and the larger inland streams
Much of Ohio was still covered with verdant forests. The population of the entire state was not more than a quarter of a million, and one of the objects of the publisher of the "Gazetteer", as explained in his preface, was to circulate the book among the people of the Eastern states, and thus encour- age emigration to what was then considered the far West.
The following quotations from the "Gazetteer" are those that refer specifically to Urbana and Champaign county. No doubt they include a number of facts not generally known to the people of the city and county today :
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URBANA HAD A "GAOL."
Urbana, a flourishing post, and county seat for Champaign county, contains a printing office, court house and gaol, a bank, a. Methodist meeting house, a market house. nine mercantile stores, 120 houses, principally of wood, and 600 inhabitants. It is situated on a fertile and tolerable well cultivated body of country, and therefore is fast improving. Distance, 44 miles West by North from Columbus and 34 Northeastwardly from Dayton, N. Lat. 40 deg., 8 min., W. long, 6 deg., 41 min.
MUCH BOIL WAS WET.
Champaign, a fertile and wealthy interior county, bounded on the North by Logan county, East by Delaware and Madison counties, South by Clark county, and West by Miami county. It is 26 miles long from East to West, and 16 broad from North to South. It is descriptively named, from the generally level and champaign face of the country. Part of the land is rather elevated and roaming, while much of It is low and wet. The soll is very rich and productive. The principal streams are the head waters of Mad River, Deer, Darby and Boques Creek.
TOWNS THAT HAVE GONE.
The county is populous and wealthy containing 10.455 inhabitants, among whom are 2,097 voters, and a valuation of $2.445,557. It is divided into ten following named townships: Urbana, Mad River, Concord. Salem, Wayne. Jackson, Goshen, Harrison, I'nion, and Miami. It also contains the towns of Urbana, the seat of justice, Mechanics. burg. Harrison, Leesburg, Winchester and New York.
CHAMPAIGN COUNTY IN THE TWENTIES. By Dr. Thomas Cowgill.
In representing some account of my knowledge and experience of the trials and privations, the pleasures and friendships of the pioneer settlers of this county. I may not do better than to give the history of the "emigration and settlement" of our family here. The history of one is mainly the his- tory of all the families of the early settlers, as they all had nearly the same object in view-they were in search of a home in the wilderness; and they generally had about the same means of conveyance-they moved in covered wagons, in carts, on horseback, and on foot. There was not then the con- venience of railroad, turnpike, canal and river conveyance, as at present.
They traveled through the woods on the new and rough roads, and often without roads, to the respective places selected for their homes. They were generally about on an equality in point of property, were mostly comparatively poor, and had sought this new country where land was plenty and cheap. to better their condition in life. Yet some had left comfortable homes in Vir- ginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, etc., and had come to settle in this country,
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that they might be entirely free from any participation in that "sum of all villainies,"-that scourge and curse of the human race-human slavery.
About the middle of October, 1817, our family had made necessary preparation, and started on our journey toward the setting sun, leaving our family home in Columbiana county, Ohio. In the latter part of this month, we traveled up the valley of Darby to the neighborhood where Middle- burg now stands. This neighborhood, and north and east of it, as far as settled, was then known as the "Beech-woods", and farther south and west, in Mingo, Kingscreek and Madriver valleys, was called the "Plains". In the east part of this state, and perhaps other places, all this section was known as Madriver, or the Madriver country. We remained in that neigh- borhood two or three days, visiting some relatives, and many old Virginian acquaintances of my parents, and among those old acquaintances were the Elberts, Sharps, Garwoods, Jameses, Stokeses, Ballingers, Bishops, Euanses, Inskeeps and Warners.
On the morning of November 1, we started, and traveled on the laid- out road from Urbana to Garwood's Mills (now East Liberty), and at about 11 o'clock, a. m., on that day, being the second day of the week, arrived in Mingo Valley, at the spot which was since that time the home of my parents during their lives, and still belongs in the family. The place was entirely in the woods, except a small cabin, seventeen by twenty feet, which had been built and used as a school house, by a fine spring of water. The logs of this house were of large oak and hickory trees split in two, and the building was five logs high to the square, with puncheon floor, or slabs about four inches thick, split out of large trees, and hewed a little where they were too rough. The fire-place occupied the entire south end of the house-about seventeen feet-with a back wall of round stone and clay, built up about five feet high against the log wall. At the top of the square, a log was laid across about three feet from the south wall, and on this log and the wall the chimney was built of sticks and clay; that is, a little house was built up there, about three by four feet, a little higher than the roof, and the cracks filled up with mortar; there was no upstairs to the house. and the roof was tolerably flat. In this house our family of ten persons lived about eighteen months. During the winter of 1817-18, a school was taught by the late Judge Daniel Baldwin, about one mile south of our house, in a house similar to our dwelling, except there were some joists and an upper floor. This school was largely attended by the young men and women of the neighborhood-a number of them coming four miles to school. There were at least ten young men attending this school over six feet high and large in
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proportion, and weighing about two hundred pounds each. There were about the same number of young women attending this school. Verily, there were giants in those days. And those large and tall young men exhibited more signs of humility than some of the smaller scholars, for in walking across the floor they must bow, or they would bump their heads against the joists every time. A number of those young men and women were in their spell- ing-books. The young women were neatly clothed in home-spun, mostly the work of their own hands. Their educational privileges seemed to be poor, yet they were highly favored of nature; they were fair and comely, and I have never beheld a more beautiful company of young ladies.
The school books consisted of Webster's Spelling Book, Lindley Mur- ray's Works, the introduction English Reader, Sequel, and the New Testa- ment, Walsh's and Pike's Arithmetic. I think there was no one studying English Grammar or Geography. The late Nicholas Williams, his two sisters and several brothers attended this school.
I have taken some note of the subsequent history of the young men and women who attended this school. With a few exceptions, they have all gone to the house appointed for the living; and with the exception of one or two prodigals, they all did well in life, were mostly bright ornaments to society, lived useful lives, and died respected and lamented.
A little incident occurred which may be worth relating as an evidence of the care and protection of Divine Providence. On a beautiful sunshiny Sabbath day, in the spring of 1818, all of our family, except my mother and I, and three smaller children, had gone to a meeting about three miles from home. About noon, mother was walking in the yard near the door, and no doubt that she felt lonesome, when a man came running through the woods towards our house. In passing by, in sight, he discovered our cabin was on fire; at the junction of the clap-board roof with the stick and clay chimney, the fire had kindled and was burning in a blaze. In a moment, he was on the roof, and with a bucket of water soon put the fire out. If this good man had not been passing by at the time, there is no doubt that our home would have been destroyed in a few minutes.
I think it was Samuel Adams, in speaking of the history of the early settlement of this country, who said: "These things, my countrymen, should not be forgotten. For the benefit of our children and those who come after them, they should be recorded in history."
One object with me in writing these notes, is to induce others of the early settlers still living in our favored country, to write their experience of early times in order that they may be perpetuated in history for the benefit
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of those who live after us. And thus each one who can, bring their "tithes into the storehouse", may call to mind many pleasant scenes now forever past and gone.
"And here our pilgrim fathers bowed, In fervent faith and prayer."
I propose to give an account of two ministers of the gospel of the Society of Friends, who visited this country in early days. I believe many of the pioneers paid much attention to the promotion of religion, to founding churches and building meeting-houses.
"For angels of mercy oft met with us here, In the wilderness home that we loved."
One of those ministers was a lady over seventy years of age, resid- ing in North Carolina. This aged and devoted Christian traveled on horse- back through the wilderness from her home in North Carolina, on her mission to the people of this then new country, mostly camping out at night, and where she could find a little settlement, holding meetings and preaching the glad tidings of mercy and peace to the lonely settlers. In passing through the woods from a meeting held in "Marmon's Bottom", to an appointment at Job Sharp's house, near where Middleburg now stands, the party was overtaken by a heavy rain, accompanied with much wind, thunder and light- ning, and her companions proposed to halt and shelter under the trees as best they could. She at once said, "No, go on ; go on, we shall be too late to meeting." Her mission and desire seemed to be to do the will of her Divine Master.
"Her shield was faith in God."
The above relation was given to me by some one of the early settlers of this country, and I cannot now give the lady's name, as the incident took place before we removed to this country.
About the year 1820, Joseph Hoag, whose home I think was in the state of Vermont, in the course of a religious visit to the people of the South and West, was a guest at my father's house, and held meeting for Divine service at our meeting-house, and also held a number of meetings in the vicinity, mostly with the members of his own church. He was a remark- able man-a first cousin to Lorenzo Dow-and spent about sixty-five years
(71)
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of his life in traveling and preaching the gospel; his wife also spent about the same length of time in the same service. He had nine children, all married, and all his children and children-in-law, with two exceptions, were able ministers of the gospel, of the same church with him. Several of his children became public preachers before they were fifteen years of age. At the time he visited my father's house, he had been traveling through the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and other states. He related to my father how the Kentuckians treated him. At Lexington, he was taken sick, and Henry Clay removed him to his house and treated him in the most kind and friendly manner until he recovered from his illness. Being unable to travel for some time, he held several meetings in the neighborhood of Lexington, and preached to the people. When he was about to take his leave, the Presbyterian church sent a committee to him, inviting him to remain with them as their pastor for one year, offering him a house, furnished as he desired, and every convenience about it that he wanted, and fifteen hun- dred dollars per year (which was considered a great salary fifty years ago,) and if that was not satisfactory, they wanted him to say what would be, as they desired him to remain with them.
He stated to them that he felt that his duty was discharged to them- that his mission was to visit other churches and people, and that he must leave them and travel on. The committee evinced much feeling on the occa- sion and proposed that if he could not remain with them, that he would accept a purse of one hundred dollars to enable him to pursue his journey. He thanked them for their kindness, and said that if he needed help, he would be as willing to receive help from them as any other people, but as he was prepared to pursue his journey, he desired that they would help other persons, if they met with such that were needing help, and they would not lose their reward .- From "Antrim's "History of Champaign and Logan Coun- ties," published in 1872.
HIDDEN TREASURE. By Edward L. Morgan.
One of the early settlers of Champaign county, was Richard Stanup, a Virginian, and a man of color. When the writer first knew him, he lived on the hill a short distance north of the place where Mr. Saul Clark now lives, in Salem township, about one mile north of Kings creek, in sight of that creek and its beautiful valley. A short distance east of the spot where Stanup then lived and on the brow of the hill, which inclines to the south, lie
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buried the mouldering remains of a number of human beings, white, red, and black, without a stone to mark the place of their earthly repose. A few short years and they and the place where their ashes lie, will pass from the memory of man.
Richard was a Baptist preacher, known to many of our citizens of the present day, for he lived to a great age, and died a few years ago at the age of about one hundred and twelve years. Stanup, although comparatively an illiterate colored man, was in the prime of life, and before the commence- ment of his second childhood, one of the ablest preachers of his time. His comparisons and illustrations were mostly drawn from living nature, as it then existed, and could be easily understood by the learned scholar, or the unlettered plowboy. The writer once heard him preach the funeral of a young colored woman, at the graveyard before mentioned : after describing the pun- ishment of the wicked in their place of torment in another world, he spoke of the happiness of the righteous in heaven, and when he came to describe that happiness, he pointed toward the beautiful valley which lay before us. then clothed with wild prairie flowers of every color and variety that was pleasing to the eye, from the "rose of Sharon" to the humblest "Jump up Johnny," and said that to us here was a pretty sight, but only a faint resem- blance of the country to be hereafter inherited by the righteous.
Richard was not only a good preacher, but a good hand to dig wells. He and Major Anderson did most of the well-digging in this part of the county ( Salem) in old times. Between forty and fifty years ago, Stanup was employed by John McAdams, Esq., to dig a well on his farm. McAdams then lived upon a farm which is now owned by M. Allison Wright, and is situated about one mile south of Kennard, and on the Atlantic & Great Western railroad. The digging was begun about the first of September, and at the depth of about sixty feet the old man "struck water," and immediately informed those above of the good news. As was the custom on such occa- sions, a bottle was filled with whiskey, corked with a corncob, and placed in a "piggin", which was let down to the bottom of the well in a large tub, which was used to draw up the sand and gravel. At the moment the tub and its contents reached the bottom of the well, it began to cave in, and instantly covered the tub, bottle and piggin. Stanup seized hold of the rope and climbed slowly until he had ascended something more than half way to the top of the well, when the earth gave way and the unfortunate man was covered up with dirt, sand and coarse gravel, at least twenty feet below the surface. All the men and women who were present and able to work, went at it to remove the earth as soon as possible, and the younger portion of the family were sent
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in haste to alarm the neighbors. It was late in the evening when the body of Richard was reached, and all supposed that life was extinct. The rub- bish having been removed from the upper part of his body, Mrs. McAdams cut a few yards of linen from a web she had in her loom, which was placed around his body, below the arms: to this was fastened the well rope, and the body was drawn up by the men at the windlass.
On reaching the surface, all supposed that life had fled; not the slightest symptoms of breath or pulse could be detected; yet as there was some warmth about the body, every known remedy was applied, and after a long time there began to be signs of life: breathing could be perceived for a few moments and then ceased, when all present said in a loud voice, "Richard is dead!" This appeared to rouse him up: he again rallied, and with a voice audible to all, he exclaimed, "I is worth two dead niggers yet!"
The "hidden treasure" consists of a mattock, shovel, large tub, piggin and bottle of whiskey, at the bottom of the well, where they now are, untouched by human hands, and the whiskey untasted by mortal lips.
Now, as the question as to the relative merits of old and new whiskey is still unsettled, I propose that some gentlemen test the matter by unearth- ing the whiskey I have described, and all I shall ask for giving account of its whereabouts, will be the first swallow from the old bottle, after the cob shall be removed .- From Antrim's "History of Champaign and Logan Counties." published in 1872.
PICTURE OF URBANA IN 1849.
URBANA CITIZEN AND GAZETTE.
Urbana. Champaign County, Ohio, Friday, April 20, 1849.
Whole No. 573 Vol. 12-No. 1
The oldest paper on file in the auditor's office in the court house bears the above title and date. It was a seven-column sheet, owned and edited by Joshua Saxton, subscription $1.50 per year. There is absolutely no local news in the twenty-eight columns of the paper, and the only value of the paper as a historical record lies in its varied advertisements and "notices". The first article on the front page is entitled "Marrying for Money" and this financial disseration is followed by "The Battle of Hohenlinden." A few articles of a miscellaneous nature, such as "Fearful Scene at Sea", "The
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Land of the Bible", "Hired Girls", "The Charms of Life", etc., make up the remainder of the first page.
The "notices" include a directory of lodge meetings, the Masons, Odd Fellows and Sons of Temperance listing their regular meetings. The post- master, James Taylor, informs the public of the incoming and outgoing mails. The town had daily mail by this time.
The physicians represented include only E. P. Fyffe and J. S. Carter and they are running a notice to the effect that they have dissolved partnership. from and after March 26, 1849. While these are the only physicians men- tioned in the advertising columns, there is a wonderful and fearful array of patent medicines set forth in all their curative splendor. Brandreth's Pills are "ninety-two years old" and are equally good for "man, woman or infant"; "a genuine cure" for paralysis, St. Vitus dance, epilepsy, rheuma- tism, cholera morbus, "dysentry," etc. As early as 1840 it is to be noted that there was a "Great Remedy for Consumption" and, at the same time, this same panacea-Winter's Balsam of Wild Cherry-was a specific for pleurisy, asthma, bronchitis, hemorrhages and all affections of the pulmonary organs. $1.00 per bottle.
An old friend is to be seen here in 1849. Dr. Jayne's Family Medi- cines, still on the market in 1917, were with our grandfathers in 1849. Jayne has six different medicines advertised and there was not a disease to which human flesh is heir that could not be cured by one-or a combi- nation-of these six; so the reader was informed, at least.
Valuable as these foregoing medicines must have been, they were not to be compared with "The Greatest Medicine of the Age", namely Hunt's Liniment. This medicine cured as many diseases as could be printed in a paragraph of ten lines, and for each disease it was "a certain, safe and speedy cure". Here are a few of the common diseases it would cure : Tic doloreux, quinsy, mosquito bites, nervous diseases, rheumatism, corns, bunions, scrofula. hives and paralysis. It takes half a column to set forth appropriately the merits of the wonderful liniment.
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