USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 24
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PROGRESS OF VILLAGE OPERATIONS.
In 1867 the town was still on a boom. In fact, there was probably more building done in the first three years of its history than any succeeding three years. E. C. Williams built a residence for himself in 1867 and gave a housewarming party on June 4, 1867. H. P. Raymond built a store room on lot 3 in that summer, the building which was later owned by F. M. McAdams, J. B. Brinton erected a dwelling house in 1867 and Frank Pearl built the Mitchell property about the same time.
The following two years, 1868 and 1869, saw a falling off in building operations. The school house was built in 1868 on an out-lot and the Meth- odist church in 1869 on lot 15. The Baptist and Methodist churches were both built by the carpenter firm of Williams & Marks. As the years have gone by new houses and other buildings have made their appearance. But the village has remained essentially a small trading center. It is not possible to follow the various changes in the ownership of the many stores which have come and gone. In the seventies William J. Sullivan and W. S. Runkle were the practicing physicians. Runkle studied medicine under Sullivan and in the spring of 1873 bought the practice of his former preceptor, having graduated that spring from Miami Medical College. At the time Runkle was the only physician in the village, and he was the only one for several
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years. Dr. Will Unkefer and Dr. A. M. Zeigler followed Runkle. The first drug store in the village was opened by Patrick A. Callahan in Decem- ber, 1879. He kept a varied assortment of liquors, drugs, medicines and sundries.
EARLY MERCHANTS OF MINGO.
F. M. McAdams came from Mutual to Mingo in December, 1870, and bought the store and property of H. T. Raymond on lot 3. McAdams was a justice of the peace, school teacher, storekeeper and newspaper writer by turn-sort of a jack of all trades. As a result his mercantile business suffered and in 1874 he made an assignment. He then gave all of his attention to other vocations. Other merchants of the seventies and eighties in addition to those mentioned were Lewis C. Guthridge, Aaron Mitchell and Charles H. Hubbell. LeRoy R. Marshall was a harness maker of the eighties and S. B. Weddell was a shoemaker. The blacksmiths in the seventies and eighties were Stout & Searl. James M. Lary. Nathan O. Eleyet and Willard Leonard. Leonard and Eleyet were also wagon-makers. In the eighties James Curl was a dealer in cisterns and pumps and during season operated a sorghum factory. It is interesting to note in this connection that thirty and forty years ago every farmer raised a patch of sorghum, but that in 1916 there was scarcely any grown. It seems that the taste for the succulent cane has disappeared and that people would rather eat Orleans molasses on their morn- ing cakes.
The Mingo Flouring Mills passed into the hands of E. O. Stevenson after the death of E. C. Williams and were in operation until destroyed by fire. During the early days the mill had more than a local reputation. A man by the name of Blackburn was the miller and so satisfactory was his work that people came twenty to twenty-five miles for their flour and grist.
POSTOFFICE.
The village was supplied with a postoffice in 1866, with J. L. Guth- ridge as postmaster. He served in this capacity until about 1880, when he resigned and William Hoppock was appointed. The latter served four years and was followed by D. T. Runkle who was postmaster from 1884 to 1888. William Hoppock was again appointed to the office and was succeeded by P. A. Callahan. He was followed by his daughter Lela Callahan who has occupied the office for several years.
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The business interests of the village are characteristic of the average hamlet and for 1917 include the following: W. G. Lee, Marion Guthridge, and J. R. McElwain, general stores; L. R. Marshall, harness shop; E. C. Help, pool room and soft drinks; O. M. Clark, elevator; Dr. A. M. Zeigler, physician; Russell hotel, Mrs. H. C. Russell; Springfield Pure Milk Cream- ery; B. F. Carter, blacksmith; D. T. Runkle, station agent. Of these busi- ness men Marion Guthridge and D. T. Runkle have been in business longer than any of the others. Runkle became station agent in 1874 and has served in this capacity for the Erie railroad since that year. He bears the distinc- tion of having been in the employ of the railroad longer than any other man.
Nothing is of more vital interest to people than their public school system. Mingo now has a school building that is a model of design and architecture. The building has all of the conveniences and equipment of a city school, including a splendid auditorium seventy-five by forty-eight feet, equipped with a standard motion-picture machine, a fine gymnasium, and laboratories. The building will be ready for occupancy in the fall of 1917 under the direction of Prof. B. A. Aughenbaugh who has taken an active interest in its planning and designing.
MIDDLETOWN.
Middletown is located in Wayne township, a short distance north of the center, and in survey No. 3495. It is about midway between Mingo and Cable, that is, about equidistant from the two railroads running through the township. Its location has been unfavorable for growth because it was not its good fortune to be on either of the two railroads.
There is no question but that the site of the village was determined by the crossing of the Urbana-North Lewisburg and Woodstock-Mingo pikes. Even before a village was planned, a man by the name of Holycross was operating a little store at the crossroads. Its most prosperous career was in the years before the railroads reached the township, since, with their advent, the villages of Mingo to the north and Cable to the south became the trading centers of the township. Middletown was laid out in 1833 for John Miller. The geographical location of the village is no doubt responsible for the name which its proprietor gave it. It has also been called Darty, and this latter name is still frequently used by the older citizens.
So many years have elapsed since Middletown has been what might be called a village that there are few living who can recall when it was in the
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height of its prosperity. A number of storekeepers held sway in former years, among them being Amos Brinton, Benjamin Moffit, R. Simpson, John T. McCartney, Benjamin Dillon, D. and T. M. Gwynne, Holmes & Apple, Austin & White, Rhoades & Ware, Hallowell & Rhoades, Jacob S. Bailey and Kendall & Wells. J. G. Rhoades and Harry White are the proprietors of the two village stores in 1917. There was a postoffice established in the village in 1838 and discontinued in 1872. During this period Brinton, Moffit, Simp- son, McCartney and a few others were postmasters. The office was known as Brinton in honor of the first postmaster, Middletown not being accepted by the postoffice department for a name because there was another office of the same name in the state.
AN ACTIVE SPORTING CENTER.
The building in Middletown now occupied by J. G. Rhodes and used as a general store was originally built for a hotel by a man named Igou. The structure was quite elaborate for those days and contained one of the most pretentious ballrooms in this section of the country. People came here to attend dances from far and near and the mere mention of Middletown brought joy to the hearts of both young and old. But the dance hall was not the only joy-producing feature of the village, as at one time'there were seven saloons in active operation. Sunday horseracing, cock fights, dog fights and fistic combats were regular occurrences.
The four main corners of the village in ante-bellum days were called after the men who erected buildings on them. The northeast corner was known as the Pearce or Igou corner, the southeast as the Walker corner, the southwest as the Frizell corner, the northwest as the Moffit corner. In the years of its affluence the village boasted of a hotel and the wants of man and beast were supplied by a succession of proprietors, among whom were Allison Walker. Robert Frizell, Silas Igou, Isaac Brown, Aaron Pearce, George Bedford and Charles Hill. John P. Williams was a shoemaker, John J. Harlan was a blacksmith and David Smith a wagonmaker in ante- bellum days. Smith died in the army. Doctors Gould Johnson, George W. Crawford and McCann & Forshea practiced in the village before the eighties.
In 1917 Middletown is only the shadow of its former self. The once thriving trading center is reduced to two stores, one owned by J. G. Rhoades and the other by White Brothers; a blacksmith shop and half a dozen dwell-
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ing houses. There was once a Baptist church in the village, but it has long since disappeared. Even the village does not boast of a public-school build- ing, although it formerly had a school house within its limits.
The reason why the village has declined lies in the fact that it was not touched by either of the railroads built through the township. When the Pennsylvania went through the township in 1854 and Cable was at once laid out, Middletown began to decline. When the Erie was built through dur- ing the last year of the Civil War and Mingo came into existence, Middle- town was practically depopulated in favor of one of the other of the two vil- lages on the railroad.
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CHAPTER XI.
UNION TOWNSHIP.
Union township is one of the townships crossed by the Ludlow Line and consequently part of its surveys are very much confused. Its Congress land lies in township 6, sections 24. 30 and 36 being in range 10, and the remain- ing sections of Congress land being in range 11, with the exception of frac- tional section 31 of range 12. All of these sections thus described are west of the Ludlow Line, which enters the township in the southeastern part of section 24 and bears west of north, passing out of the township about the center of section 31, township 6, range 12.
As has been stated, most of the land east of the Ludlow Line, that is, the military land. was not settled by the soldiers to whom it was granted in vary- ing sized tracts. The official records list the military surveys only by num- ber, but in the appended list of surveys it must be understood that only a part of them are included entirely within the present Union township. The sur- vey numbers, the acreage of each survey and the original proprietors are given in the succeeding table.
Survey No.
Acres.
Original Proprietors.
A. Petrie 4185 200
J. Bellefield 4186
700
4181
1,000
Samuel Smith
400 Joseph Swearington 1386
8793
300
William Boniface
8774 and 8841
100 1/3
Ann Garnett
4157
1,000
Samuel Smith
4407
170
John Haines
3450
825
John Kean
4212
2,000
P. R. F. Ler
9027
1,876
Thomas S. Hinde
3428
500
__ Wm. Glendenning & Wm. McClung
4213
2,000
P. R. F. Lee
Robert Means 5145 1,000
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8277
450
John Dawson
Samuel Smith 4182 1,000
13005
200
Allen Lathan
4544
1,200
John Campbell
12382 and 12288 60
830
2,600
Thomas Ruffins
P. R. F. Lee 4211 1,200
8149
6
Benjamin Cheney 5822
20
Theodoric Spain
5572
52
Charles Spencer
9842
75
James Galloway
70 Benjamin Cheney 9654
Benjamin Cheney 1005 28
13149
248 1/3 Duncan McArthur
8767 and 8703
194
Walter Dunn
5820
50
Theodoric Spain
6349
2,000
A. Hobson
8763
330
Walter Dunn
14983
18
George Dawson (Nov. 3, 1846)
Of these thirty-five original owners of land in Union township it is not certain that any one of them ever saw the land given them by the generous state of Virginia. It will be noticed that there was a considerable disparity in the amount of land granted to the soldiers, but this is explained when it is known that they were granted an amount of land in proportion to the amount owed them by their state for services in the Revolutionary War. These tracts were rapidly divided up and an examination of the deed records shows that the early settlers bought many tracts of less than fifty acres of military land. A few large purchases are noted in the early history of the township. For instance John Guthridge bought three hundred acres of the Bellefield tract ( No. 4186) in 1817.
FIRST ELECTION IN TOWNSHIP.
Union township was a part of the Salem township set off by the associate judges on April 20, 1805, and remained a part of that township until 1811. It is not definitely known when the commissioners ordered the establishment of the township, but there is every reason to believe that the election of
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T. Melton & J. Galloway 5596
William Washington 6195
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October 8, 1811, was the first in the township. In this connection it is inter- esting to submit the original poll-book record of this first election. It follows :
POLI. BOOK OF I'XION TOWNSHIP, OCTOBER 8. 1811.
Poll Book of the elections held in the township of L'nion. In the county of Cham- paigu, on the eighth day of October. 1811. John Guthridge. Sr .. Joseph Melain. Jacob Minturn, Benjamin Cheney and John Owen, Clerks of this election, were severally sworn as the law directs, previous to their entering ou the duties of their respective offices.
NAMES OF ELECTORS.
Hiram M. Curry, Wesley Hathaway. Jacob Minturn, John Price, Solomon Scott. John Sayre, John Lafferty, Jonathan Brown, Alexander McCorkle, John Ross, Isaac Tucker. Jesse Guthridge, Joseph Mclain. Jobn Guthridge, Nr .. Moses Gutbridge, James Walker. Paul Huston, Isaac Titsworth, John Kelly, Barton Minturn, Charles Harrison, James McLain. Abner Barritt, Philip Miller. Adam Miller, John Owen, David Marsh, Thomas Pearce, Jr., Obed Ward, James Maryfield, Emanuel Maryfield, Alexander Ross, James Lowry, Stephen Runyon, Allen Minturn, William Valentine, Daniel Jones, Richard Runyon, Daniel Neal, John Neal. Justus Jones, John Elefrits, Henry Vanmeter. William Ray. Ebenezer Cheney, John Clark. Richard Carbus, James Owen, Adam Rhodes, Francis Owen, Jeremiah Tucker, William Cheney, William Kelly, Benjamin Cheney, Israel Marab, Gabriel Briant, David Vance, Abijah Ward. Enoch Sargennt, Joseph Cummons, James Mitchell, David Osburn, Thomas Pearce, Sr., John Runyon, Thomas Snyre, Daniel Baker, Jacob Rees, George Sargeant.
These sixty-eight voters included all of the voters of the present terri- tory included within both Union and Goshen township, since Goshen town- ship was not set off until 1815. There is no way of determining the exact number of voters within the present limits of Union township, but undoubtedly there were more in the eastern half (now Goshen) than in the western half of the township.
DRAINAGE AND TOPOGRAPHY.
Union township falls entirely within the basin of Mad river and prac- tically the whole township is drained through the two branches of Buck creek. Dry run drains the northwestern corner of the township. The gen- eral contour of the township is of a gently rolling nature and very little of the surface of the township is too broken to admit of ready tillage. There are a number of ponds scattered over the township which are counted a valu- able asset to those farms on which they happen to be situated. The soil of the township is uniformly fertile and by a careful system of crop rotation and commercial fertilization the farmers are able to maintain a high standard of soil fertility.
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EARLY SETTLERS.
History will probably never determine who is rightfully entitled to the honor of being the first permanent settler of Union township. Different accounts credit Stephen Runyon and Joseph McLain as the first settlers, but in the absence of documentary proof it can not be asserted that they were really the first. Both were Virginians, neighbors; both were married, and, according to the best account, they came to Champaign county together and located in the eastern part of the township. The county itself was not organ- ized when they reached here in 1801, the land where they settled being in Franklin county. They brought their families with them and being in ignorance of any distinction between military and Congress lands settled east of the Ludlow Line by mistake. Later McLain bought one hundred and seventy-seven acres of land of a man by the name of Lugham and on this farm James A. McLain, the first white child in the township, was born on July 9, 1804. McLain brought two horses with him from his old home in Virginia and both horses lived to a ripe old age.
The third settler to make his home in the township was undoubtedly Barton Minturn, who came from New Jersey and entered a part of section 28 in the spring of 1803. His father, Jacob, came with him and later bought extensively in the military survey and the Minturns gradually became among the largest landowners of the township. At the same time that the Minturn family came from New Jersey in 1803, Donald Baker, John Clark and the three Jones brothers-Donald, Abram and Jesse-came with them. They were all poor men and saw no chance of getting lands in their own state „and it was dissatisfaction with their lot in the East which led them across the Alleghanies and down the Ohio and up to Champaign county. Jacob Minturn served as tax collector for several years and died in 1818. His son, Barton, lived until 1868. A son of Barton, Jacob by name, lived in Urbana to an advanced age. while another son, Edward, remained on the old home farm.
ACTIVE CAREER OF BENJAMIN CHENEY.
Benjamin Cheney came to the county in 1805 with his wife and his three brothers, William, Ebenezer and Jonathan. He and his wife were natives of Virginia and made the long overland trip to this county on horse- back, stopping temporarily in Urbana where Benjamin helped to raise one of the first cabins in the village. He subsequently secured patents for three
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separate tracts of military land in Union township-Nos. 8149, 9654 and 1095-aggregating one hundred and four acres. He paid for his land in part by splitting rails, and later became known as one of the best stock raisers in the county. He became in the course of a few years one of the largest landowners in the county.
During the War of 1812 Cheney was employed by General Hull as a spy and had just received his discharge on the day before the disgraceful surrender of that general. While doing scout duty he became well acquainted with the northern part of the state and his acquaintance at Detroit and the knowledge of the markets there led him to embark in the buying and selling of cattle after the War of 1812. He would buy the cattle within a radius of several miles and drive them overland to Detroit, and it was this business which eventually made him the wealthy man that he became.
Cheney has the honor of having driven the first herd of cattle to market from Champaign county and he kept up his annual cattle drives for several years. At the time of his death in 1834 he owned two thousand acres of land. The circumstances surrounding the death of this pioneer, as well as the death of his wife and one of his sons, were peculiarly distressing. The typhoid fever was raging in the community and his son, Zachariah, a young man of twenty-two years, died on July 23, 1834; the mother followed him to the grave on the 14th of August, while the old pioneer himself died on Sep- tember 1. The three were buried side by side, and at the same time all the other members of the family were down sick with the same disease. How- ever, the remaining five sons survived and grew to manhood. Cheney was a member of the Legislature, and one of his sons, Jonathan, also served in the General Assembly. The family is still numerously represented in the county.
OTHER EARLY SETTLERS.
In 1810 John Lafferty came to the township and settled on military land. About the same time the Bidwells, Cartmells and Wolfes made per- manent settlements. Jesse C. Phillips, a native of Virginia, located first in Salem township in 1813, and then came to Union about 1835. He became a large landowner and took a very prominent part in public affairs. He served the county in the Legislature for two terms and was a justice of the peace for twenty-one consecutive years. Joseph Diltz, a native of New Jersey, came to the township by way of Kentucky, arriving about 1808 and making this his home until his death on June 7, 1824. Diltz and his wife
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had twelve children, ten of whom grew to maturity, Susan, John, Joseph, Sally, Samuel, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Wesley, Cynthia, Jarrard, Wilkinson and Mary. Wesley became a large landowner and the father of nine children, seven of whom lived to maturity.
Another Virginian who cast his lot with Union township was Samuel Harper, who left Virginia with his wife and five children in 1803, and jour- neyed by a six-horse wagon to Fairfield county, Ohio. In 1816 the family located on a farm in Union township near the Pisgah church, purchasing a farm of Samuel Culver.
Jacob Van Meter, born in Virginia in '1784, came to Clark county with his parents when a mere lad and lived there for several years. He then moved to Union township, where he located in section 27 and the adjoining military survey, living in that township until his death, February 22, 1867. Samuel Humes came to the township direct from Virginia in 1826 and located in section 36. One hundred acres of the hundred and eighty which he purchased had already been cleared.
Justice Jones entered the southeast quarter of section 34 in 1812 and Thomas Sayres entered the northeastern quarter of the same section the same year. Peter Sewell entered the northwest quarter of this same section in 1816. It may also be noticed that Solomon Vance entered the east half of section 35, the northeast quarter in 1811 and the southeast quarter in 1816; he also entered all of fractional section 34 in 1811. John Reynolds entered the west half of section 35 in 1814. These two sections are specifically cited in order to show the time of the entry of these lands and also to indicate that the big landowners did not usually live on their own land. At the time Reynolds entered his land he was the village postmaster of Urbana and one of the prosperous citizens of the county seat. He never lived in any other place than Urbana after coming to the county.
David Marsh settled west of Mutual: William Hall had a farm of six hundred and seventy acres adjoining Marsh: to the west of these two farms was the one hundred and sixty acre tract of James Reed and to the south was the farm of "Squire" Jones. In this same vicinity the year 1816 saw Jesse Egnon, Allen Minturn, Samuel Hedges and a number of others scat- tered along the western side of the township. Farther to the north were to be found, living on their own farms, William Dunlap, Nathan Reese and James Hayes, while this same neighborhood included Joseph Rowell, Martin Reynolds and Jacob Reese. Neil Gun was the owner of four hundred acres in the northern part of the township, while near was Solomon Voss with
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six hundred acres and John Taylor with three hundred. Farmers by the names of Pollock, Hayes, Robinson and McAdams were scattered over the northern part of the township.
The heirs of Thomas Ruffin had more than one thousand acres in the northern part of the township. Ruffin had twenty-six hundred acres in sur- vey 6195, but as far as known he never lived in the county. The Cheneys, Pierces, Cartmells and Humeses were in the immediate neighborhood of the Ruffin estate. Other farmers who are known to have been living in the township in 1816 were Andrew Sawyer, John Bridge, Hiram M. Curry, Paul Huston, Judge Runyon, Joseph McLain and Daniel Roberts.
CONFUSION REGARDING ORIGINAL SURVEYS.
There has always been more or less difficulty in determining the bound- aries of the original surveys. This is due to the fact that they were orig- inally run in such an indefinite and uncertain manner that a modern surveyor must be gifted with clairvoyance in order to follow the devious lines set down. In the latter part of the forties all of those owning land which had originally been a part of the surveys belonging to P. R. F. Lee (Nos. 4211, 4212 and 4213), aggregating fifty-two hundred acres, were thrown into a great turmoil of excitement by the report that their titles were faulty. In 1848 an attorney of Columbus, William S. Sullivan, bought of the Lee heirs their full claim to all of the Lee land, and he at once brought action against the landowners, holding that their titles were null and void. The court sus- tained him and, strange as it may seem, all of those who had purchased land on any of these surveys had to pay varying amounts in order to quiet title.
INDIANS IN UNION TOWNSHIP.
When Mclain and Runyon came into the township in 1801 they found many Indians still claiming the township as their home. Some of these Indians were friendly, but others never hesitated to let the whites know that they resented their intrusion. The McLain farm was a favorite camping ground with the Indians, and McLain and his neighbors erected on his place a substantial blockhouse to which all of the settlers could flee in case there was an Indian uprising. Such a threatened uprising came in 1807, but the Indians made no attempt to attack the settlement, although all the people flocked to the friendly shelter of the blockhouse. It is not known how long
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