USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 25
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they remained there, but it is recorded that two children were born while their mothers were in the fort.
AN ANCIENT MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED.
An unexplained discovery was made during the fifties when the present Big Four railway was being built through the southeastern corner of the township, which is concerned with the Indian occupancy of this section of the state. Just west of Catawba, in the northwestern corner of section 24, the right-of-way led through a gravel pit, or what proved to be such, and in cutting through the hill more than one hundred human skeletons were exhumed. They were carefully examined by Professor Moses, of Urbana University, who declared that they were the skeletons of whites. How they came there and how long they had been in the gravel pit are questions which have never been satisfactorily answered. It is presumed that a body of whites, and presumably Frenchmen, got down this far south from Canada and were set upon and killed by the Indians. While this theory has been advanced to explain the presence of the skeletons, yet it does not seem that the Indians would have taken the trouble to bury one hundred white men whom they had taken the trouble to kill. The fact remains, however, that the skeletons of these men were found. This explanation offers as sat- isfactory a solution as any which has been proposed.
There are a number of Indian mounds scattered over the township, but none of considerable size. Upon being opened they have been found to con- tain the usual bones and implements of war which are found in the mounds all over the state. The Indians gradually left the townhip and by the middle of the twenties, "Lo, the poor Indian," had packed his wigwam and departed with his squaw and papoose for regions farther to the west.
EARLY INDUSTRIES.
The presence of streams with ample water flow for milling purposes was the means of providing the early settlers with a number of grist- and saw- mills. The date of the opening of the first mill in the township is lost in the pages of history, although Daniel Roberts is reported to have had a mill along Buck creek in 1821. Of course, it was a water mill, as were all of the early mills of the township. The most interesting mill from the standpoint of successive changes of ownership is the one known as the North Branch mill. This mill in 1831 was the property of James McLain and was trans-
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ferred along with a tract of fourteen acres to its second owner in 1839. This same fourteen-acre tract, mill and all, was either a very desirable piece of property, or very undesirable. At least the deed record shows changes of ownership in the following years: 1855 (two times), 1861, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1882, 1888, 1893, 1906, 1907 and 1916, the last owner being Lewis W. Young. This mill in the center of section 31 was known for years as the Baldwin & Crain mill. Another mill along the creek, about a half mile further down, in the northwest corner of section 36, was known as the Woodward mill. Still further down Buck creek, in the extreme southwest- ern part of section 36, was to be found a third mill, at one time owned by James L. Crain. Shortly after the Civil War a steam saw-mill was started near Mutual and was for many years in charge of Runyon & Price. Burton Minturn opened the first distillery in the township and it seems that it was also the last : at least, there is no record of any other being started in the township.
Among the early blacksmiths were Jacob Conklin, who came to the township in 1838, and divided his attention between the blacksmithing and farming for a quarter of a century. He died on February 8, 1880. Another blacksmith was Leonard W. Deyo, who opened a blacksmith shop on Janu- ary 18, 1874, at Catawba, and remained there several years. Other early blacksmiths were T. M. Stone, G. M. Smith and C. Roberts.
Jesse C. Phillips, one of the oldest settlers of the township, was the township tanner for upwards of forty years. He was located in the north- western corner of the township and had his tannery going from about 1827 until 1865. He was a member of the lower house of the Legislature in 1837 and was re-elected in 1839. He served as justice of the peace for twenty-one years. At his death he was probably the oldest Mason in point of continuous membership of any in the state. He had come to the county in 1813 and to the township after his marriage in 1827.
The first mayor of Mutual, Fred H. Snyder, elected to the office in 1870, was one of the largest stock buyers the county has ever had. He handled as many as two thousand hogs and five hundred steers in one season.
A BUSY CIDER-PRESS.
There was one other industry in the northwestern part of Union town- ship which should be recorded. This was the cider-press which was estab- lished by Solomon Linville in the seventies. It stood about a mile east of the Long Pond school house, or to identify it with the township, it stood
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about half a mile from the Goshen township line and a mile from the Wayne township line. The cider-press during the heyday of its career was the busiest industrial plant in Champaign county. Apples were brought to it from a distance of fifteen to twenty miles and oftentimes the mill was going until midnight. It was operated by horse power, and when it came a farmer's turn to get his apples ground, he unhitched his team and hitched it up to the mill. Two farmers usually worked together, one taking charge of the team and the other shoveling the apples in the hopper and taking care of the juice. This institution was in existence for at least a decade and was oper- ated by Linville during its whole career.
Curtis M. Bay operated a cider-press near the Union-Goshen township line and a short distance from the Urbana-Mutual highway. It was running from the latter eighties until about 1905.
POLLOCK TOWN.
In the days of the Civil War there was a thriving little trading center in the northeastern part of the township in survey No. 1386. At a point where the Urbana-Milford pike crossed Treacles creek was a cluster of houses, a store and a blacksmith shop-the place being known as Pollock Town. In December, 1839, James Pollock bought one hundred and seventy- eight acres of survey No. 1386 and the name of the little cluster of houses was applied because of his ownership of all the surrounding land. The place was also known as Bridgeport from the fact that there were a couple of bridges just east of the place. It is not known who started the first store or when it made its appearance, but it was running at the time of the Civil War and as late as the middle eighties. The Runyon brothers, James, Hugh and Richard, conducted a store there for several years, sometimes in partnership, and at other times one of the brothers conducted it alone. Still later Benja- min Cage had charge of the store. There has been a blacksmith at Pollock Town as long as the oldest inhabitant can remember. There are now four houses scattered along the road in what was once known as Pollock Town, but very few of the present generation even know of the existence of the name as once applied to this quartette of dwellings.
OTHER COUNTRY STORES.
About half a mile down the road from Pollock Town, in the direction of Woodstock, Lemuel Ayres had a combined grocery and drug store in the
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days gone by. He conducted it for years and then turned it over to his son, who finally closed it up. It was still in existence as late as the middle eighties. Another noted institution of former days, in the northeastern cor- ner of Union township, was the store and huckster wagon of Thomas Meier- stein, who had a store in the northwestern part of the township along the road which had so many houses scattered along it that it was locally known as Stringtown. His store was in one room of his house and he seems to have done a flourishing business for a number of years. He always ran a huckster wagon in the summer and it is said that he would buy anything on which he thought he could make any profit. He not only bought butter, eggs and farm produce, but he also took rags, old iron, bones, or anything else that he could haul away.
MUTUAL.
The village of Mutual was laid out as Texas by John Arrowsmith, county surveyor, for John Kean, proprietor and owner of military survey No. 3450. Although the survey was made October 2, 1840, it was not recorded until April 13, 1844. Subsequent additions have been made as follow : Sarah Lafferty, nine lots, September 7, 1847; Sarah Lafferty, alteration to addi- tion, February 12, 1850.
The village was incorporated in 1869 in response to a petition signed by thirty-two freeholders living within the proposed incorporation. The petition was accompanied by a plat of the village which set forth that it contained seventy-eight and one-half acres and eleven poles. The thirty-two freeholders were William H. McFarland, N. Adams, C. A. Brandon, William Sullivan, S. McCoughey, A. J. Lessinger, Warren Freeman, J. W. Fay, Joseph Rob- erts, F. H. Snyder, P. Gardner, J. Baily, Samuel Roberts, Granville Smith, O. T. Moody. John Applegate, H. Sullivan, H. Vanosdol, O. B. Fay, Will- iam Reinsmith, Calvin Roberts, Henry Fay, F. M. McAdams, W. V. Wil- son, Isaac Lafferty, C. W. Read, Enos Guyton, George W. Brigham, James Guyton, W. H. Vermillion, George Conrad and Philip Conrad.
A hearing on the petition for the incorporation was held on July 19, 1869, and the commissioners on that date authorized the incorporation. The petitioners had asked that the name of the town be changed from Texas to Mutual and this change of name was granted and made a part of the com- missioners' record on the day the corporation was formally made a matter of record. There was no remonstrance to the incorporation filed.
The first election of town officers in 1869 resulted as follows: Mayor,
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F. H. Snyder; clerk, S. M. Harper; treasurer, T. M. Stone; councilmen, P. Gardner, W. H. McFarland, W. R Applegate, Samuel McCaughey, James Downey and John W. Walker.
HOW THE TOWN GOT ITS NAME.
The origin of the name of the village as originally applied is said to have come about through the announced determination of William Lafferty to leave the township for the state of Texas. When it was found that instead of going to that state he had located on the present site of Mutual in a little log cabin, his neighbors proceeded to dub the place "Texas." The name thus applied to the little village which grew up around the cross roads con- tinued in use and under this name the first plat was recorded. It was changed to Mutual at the time the village was incorporated in 1869.
David Conklin erected the first house on the site of the village and John Sargent followed with the second house, both being built about 1840. Two or three years later, Stephen Runyon opened a tavern and after a number of years of usefulness it became a wagon shop. The first resident, David Conk- lin, was a wagon-maker, and his wife added to the living of the family by taking care of such travelers as might stop over night. Another early tavern keeper, in addition to Conklin and Runyon, was Jacob Lands.
The first blacksmith was John Sargeant, and since he located in the village, there has not been a year that the village has been without a knight of the anvil and forge. Michael Huston opened the first store and there have been mercantile establishments in the village continuously since that time. Other early merchants included Francis A. Morrison, also the first postmaster, Isaac W. Spencer, S. B. Baily, Jacob Baily, R. N. Alexander, F. M. McAdams, E. B. Cheney and John Lafferty. All of these merchants acted at one time or another as the village postmaster John Lafferty assumed the office July 17, 1871, and continued in charge for many years.
The township hall is located in the village. It was built in 1879 at a cost of twenty-two hundred dollars. It is a two-story brick building, the first floor being used for township purposes and also as a store room, while the second floor is used as a public hall.
THE VILLAGE IN 1917.
Mutual is about midway between Urbana and Mechanicsburg and is in the midst of a rich farming district. It has never had the advantage of
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railroad connection with the outside world and this has kept it from becom- ing much more than a mere trading center. It supplies the community of which it is the center with the usual commodities handled in rural stores, but it makes no pretentions toward being more than a mere village. Its present business and professional life may be summed up as follows: W. R. Apple- gate, blacksmith; Bell Telephone Company, Carl B. Jennings, manager; Dr. John H. Bunn, physician; Greenleaf Gardner, blacksmith; John W. Harden, barber ; R. B. Heineman, general store; William E. King, cigars and pool; Henry S. Preston, dry goods, groceries and hardware; Henry A. Sceva, carpenter, and David A. Shaw, painter.
The appearance of the village today is decidedly pleasing. A glance down Main street shows cement sidewalks, and cement guttering the full length of the village from east to west. The houses are neat, painted, and present an attractive appearance. There are two churches, Presbyterian and Methodist, both of which have been in existence for many years. The new consolidated school building erected in 1917 is as fine a building as any village in the state may boast. All in all, Mutual is such a village as the county may be proud to have in its midst. It fulfills the mission of the ideal village -no more and no less.
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CATAWBA.
There was an attempt made several years ago to establish a town in the northwestern corner of section 24 on the Big Four railroad, but it was not a success. The railroad company provided a switch, a telegraph station, depot and water tank while private parties erected an elevator. This was prac- tically the extent of the village which was known on the map as Catawba.
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CHAPTER XII.
URBANA TOWNSHIP.
Urbana township is one of the townships of the county the date of whose organiation has not been definitely established. The present township was definitely established with its present limits some time between 1811 and 1814. A record in the commissioners' minutes for 1814 defines its limits as they are today : That is, all of township 5 in range 11, and the northern tier of sections in range 10. The township thus contains forty-two sections or a total of 26,880 acres. It is the same size as Mad River township, which adjoins on the west, Salem being to the north, Union to the east and Clark county on the south.
DRAINAGE AND TOPOGRAPHY.
The township lies in the valley of the Mad river, but the river cuts the township only slightly on the western side. A small stream named in honor of one of the earliest pioneers of the township, Pierre Dugan, runs through the city of Urbana and empties into Mad river about two miles southwest of the city. Other streams in the county are known as Bogle's run, Moore run and Buck creek, while numerous smaller streams do not rise to the dignity of a name. Many of these have been tiled within the past two years and have entirely disappeared from the face of the earth. An examination of old maps of Urbana township reveals an interesting feature in one respect. Scattered over the eastern and southern portions of the township, as it appears in an atlas issued in 1872, were no fewer than twenty-three bodies of water which are labeled "stock ponds," three of which were of sufficient size to be designated as lakes. The largest lake is Dugan, located a mile and a half east of Urbana. This does not include a so-called "factory pond" within the corporation limits of Urbana, nor, of course, the modern artificial bodies of water to be found west of the city along the Pennsylvania railroad tracks. Taken as a whole, the township is decidedly rolling in the northern part, but the southern part is level to the degree that it has been known as "Pretty Prairie" since the earliest history of the county.
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That part of the township west of the Urbana-Springfield road lies in the broad valley of Mad river and is comparatively level. The highest point recorded in the township by the United States geological survey is twelve hundred and seventy-two feet, the average for the entire township being about ten hundred feet above the sea level.
The general fertility of the soil of the township will measure with that of any other township in the county. No better farming land is to be found in the world than in the Mad river valley, while the Pretty Prairie section of the county is not far behind the river valley in productiveness. With modern methods of drainage and tillage much of the land which had former- ly become depleted in plant food has been restored in a large measure to its pristine degree of fertility.
ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIP.
The best evidence points to the organization of Urbana township by the county commissioners in the fall of 1811. The absence of the commission- ers' records for the years prior to 1819 compels the historian to fall back upon the records of the old pioneers themselves as expressed in their pub- lished writings. Undoubtedly the best local authority on this subject was the late William Patrick, who located in Urbana in 1811 and resided there until his death in 1891. He always referred to the township as beginning its political existence the same year he arrived here. J. W. Ogden, another local historian, makes the statement that "The election of Urbana township given as the first election held in the township, was held in Urbana, October 8, 1811." From another source ("History of Champaign and Logan Coun- ties," 1872, p. 269) has been taken the complete record of this first election. It follows :
POLL HOOK OF URBANA TOWNSHIP, OCTOBER 8, 1811.
Poll Book of the township of Urbana, In the county of Champaign, on the eighth day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eleven. Zephaniah Luce, William Stevens and William Glenn. Judges, and Joseph Hedges and Daniel Helmick, Clerks, of this election. were severally sworn. as the law directs, previ- ous to their entering on the duties of their respective offices.
NAMES OF ELECTORA.
Lawrence White, Joseph Gordon, William H. Fyffe, Samuel McCord, George Hunter. James Robinson, Benjamin Doolittle, Nathaniel Pinkard, Daniel Helmick. George Fithian, Joseph Hedges, Zephaniah Luce. William Glenn, Nathaniel Morrow, John Rigdon, John Huston. Alexander Allen, Joseph Ford, John Williams, Britton Lovett,
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James Askin, James McGill, Jacob Arney, Hugh Gibbs, James Dallas. Samuel Hoge. Jobn Gilmore, John McCord, William Stevens, Anthony Patrick, Henry Bacon, Simon Kenton, David W. Parkison, Nathan Fitch. Frederick Ambrose. William Powell, Jacob Slagal, James Fithian, David Moody, Daniel Harr. Isanc Robinson, Edward W. Pierce. John Thompson, John Thomas. Jobn Schryock. James Wilkinson, Enos Thomas, Ianne Shockey, William Bridge, John Reynolds, John A. Ward, Jobn Trewett. William Lar- gent. William Rhodes, Joseph Ayrex, Sr .. Allen Oliver, Thomas West. Nicholas Car- penter, John White. John Glenn. John Largent, Daniel Largent. Jacob Pence, Curtis M. Thompson. Andrew Richards, Job Clemons, Timothy Giffert, Sanford Edmonds, Thomas Moore, John Rhodes, Alexander MeCumpsey, Robert Noe, John Ford, Francis Stevenson, Robert Taber, John Frazel, Tolson Ford, Job Gard. James Davidson. Samuel (lifton. John Stewart, Thomas Trewett, Benjamin Nichols, John Fitcher, Joseph Pence. Nelson Iargent.
This shows a total of eighty-seven voters in the township of Urbana. The officers elected at the first election were as follow : Trustees, Zephaniah Luce, William Glenn and William Stevens; overseers of the poor, John Rey- nolds and Charles Stewart; fence viewers, William Bridge and William Powell ; supervisors, William Rhodes and William Parkison; house apprais- ers and listers, David Vance and Daniel Helmick : treasurer, Joseph Hedges. Although the name of Daniel Helmick does not appear as clerk in 1811, nor is there a record of any clerk being elected that year, yet he appears as the first incumbent of the office. John Rhodes succeeded Helmick as clerk in 1815, but Helmick returned to office in 1816 and served until William Patrick took the office in 1820. The honor of holding a township office longer than any other man in the county is probably due William Patrick. Beginning in 1820 he was elected year after year until 1852, making a con- tinuous service of thirty-two years.
COUNTY SEAT'S SEPARATE CIVIC CAREER.
The city of Urbana began its separate political career in 1816 and since that time the history of the township has been largely the history of the city. Most of the incidents which have been preserved concerning the early pioneers of the township are connected with the early settlers of the county seat. Very early in the history of the county the county seat had a larger population than the township in which it is located and in 1910 the county seat was credited with a population of seventy-seven hundred and thirty- nine, the township being credited with eleven hundred and ninety-four.
The part played by the inhabitants of the village and township in Urbana during the Indian troubles and in the War of 1812 is related in the military chapter elsewhere in this volume. It may be stated in this connection, how-
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ever, that General Hull camped in the village of Urbana in the summer of 1812 and that the village was a rendezvous for the troops which were to be sent north to Detroit and other points around the Great Lakes. The county of Champaign, and particularly Urbana, played no inconspicuous part in the military affairs of the West from 1812 to 1815. Judge Patrick recalled that a block house stood on the northeast corner of South Main and East Market streets, across from the present interurban station.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
It is difficult to determine who was the first permanent settler within the present limits of Urbana township. Certainly there was a number of settlers in the township before Urbana was laid out as the county seat in the fall of 1805. Thomas Pearce had a log cabin on East Market street, just north of the site of the later market house, and he was living in it as early as 1803. There is no doubt but that he was the first man to settle on the site of the present city of Urbana. He was the father of Harvey Pearce, who lived to a ripe old age in the township.
Pierre Dugan is sometimes credited to Urbana township, but this old pioneer, often given the honor of being the first settler in the county, never lived within the present limits of Urbana township. His cabin was in the southeastern corner of Salem township. about two miles northeast of the city of Urbana, where the Pennsylvania railroad crosses the highway. Such information as has been preserved concerning Dugan may be seen in the discussion of Salem township.
In 1871 William Patrick and Col. Douglas Luce, the latter a resident of Urbana since 1807, made an attempt to list all of the settlers of Urbana and Urbana township up to the time of the war of 1812. This list is given as it appears in the "History of Champaign and Logan Counties" (p. 70), and it will be noticed that it comprises practically the same names shown on the poll-book of the township in 1811. There are several settlers whose names do not appear either on the poll-book or the Patrick-Luce list. The latter list follows: Samuel Powell. Abra- ham Wiley, John Fitzpatrick, Joseph Knox. James Largent, John Thomas, Joseph Pence, Jacob Pence, William Rhoads, Joseph Ford, Ezekiel Thomas, John Trewitt, George Sanders, Jesse Johnson, Ben- jamin Nichols, William Cummings, John White. Robert Noe, Robert Barr, Alexander McBeth, Isaac Shockey, Major Thomas Moore, Thomas M. Pendleton, Elisha Tabor, Bennett Tabor, Fabian Engle, Job Clevenger,
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James Dallas, John Winn, S. T. Hedges, Jonas Hedges, Rev. James Dunlap, John Pearce, John Dawson, Charles Stuart, Christopher Kenaga, Minney Voorhees, Jacob Arney, John G. Caldwell, Robert Caldwell, Richard D. George, Thomas Donlin, Isaac Turman, William McRoberts, Andrew Rich- ards, Thomas Watt and two men by the name of Logan and Wise, respect- ively, the latter living near the pond which bore his name.
As has been stated, the history of Urbana township is largely the history of the city of Urbana. There are no towns outside of the county seat, unless an incipient urban center called Bowlusville in the southeastern corner of the township, and Powhattan, be considered as such. On the site of Bowlus- ville, as far as Champaign county is concerned, there is one of the best- looking cornfields the historian has even seen. This quondam village of one hundred and fifty-seven lots makes a nice appearance on paper, but it never advanced beyond the paper stage.
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