USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 30
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The first church in the township was erected in section I in 1821 on the site later occupied by a school house. This church was a union building, erected through the joint efforts of the Lutherans and the German Reformed church, the official title of the new congregation being known as the "Salem Lutheran and Reformed Union Church.". This was a log building and was used for religious purposes until 1842 when a frame church was built, again
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by the joint congegations. The second church was moved to the forks of the road in the southwestern part of section I, on the site later occupied by a school building. About a year or two later the two congregations finally decided to part their ways. The result was that the Reformed branch had to leave and were compelled to erect a new building. The congregation maintained its organization until 1865 when it ceased its activities and joined in establishing another congregation in St. Paris. At the present time there are only two churches outside of St. Paris, with six churches in that city, and two in Millerstown.
MILLERSTOWN.
The village of Millerstown, located in the center of section 2, along the eastern side of Johnson township, was surveyed by John Arrowsmith for John and Charles C. Miller, cousins and proprietors. The original plat contained thirty-two lots and was recorded on April 14, 1837. Five successive addi- tions have been made to the original plat : Two lots on December 2, 1837, by C. C. Miller; six out-lots on November 10, 1846; by Abraham S. Stuck ; one lot on March 1, 1848, by Jacob Miller; two lots on April 8, 1853, by Jacob Miller and Jacob Ammon, and one lot on September 9, 1856, by Jacob Miller.
The little village has never aspired to be more than a mere village; a few houses, a few stores, a shop or two, a church or two, a school house --- these constitute all that the village has ever been or ever hopes to be. The first storekeeper was Charles Miller, one of the proprietors, the owner of the first house in the village and the first to open a store and tavern. The village is not as prosperous today as it was years ago, when it contained as many as three general stores, two blacksmith shops, two shoe shops, a saw-mill, a hotel, two regular churches and more than two hundred inhab- itants.
Just eighty years have elapsed since the Millers launched their town and these four-score years have seen more than a score of merchants come and go. The names of only a few of these have been preserved, although some of them used that commodity of commerce which is well known for its preserving qualities.
As early as 1868 John C. Norman and Isaac Comer formed a partner- ship for merchandising and continued together until in the eighties. Peter Berry opened his saw-mill for operation in 1858 and for many years had the only mill in the eastern part of the township. J. W. Weller was associ-
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
ated with Berry in business in the seventies. In 1878 G. M. Minnich started a general store which he conducted for a number of years. In June, 1880, S. D. Harmon opened the first drug store in the village and did a flourish- ing business for several years. J. M. Abbott began blacksmithing in 1871 and usually had a partner associated with him in the business. Abbott also sold agricultural implements in addition to carrying on his regular trade. D. J. Comer and D. M. Whitmer were the physicians during the seventies and eighties.
There are two stores in Millerstown in 1917. One is operated by C. N. Pence & Company and the other by Morton Moore. The Zerkle saw-mill was in operation for a number of years, but it has been closed down for several years.
CHAPTER XVII.
RUSH TOWNSHIP.
Rush township is in the extreme northeastern corner of the county and was set off from Wayne township with its present boundaries in 1828. It was originally a part of Salem township, but when Wayne township was organized in 1811 it was included within the limits defined for that town- ship. In fact, the history of the early settlement of what is now included within Rush township falls within the history of Wayne, since it was a part of that township for seventeen years, 1811 to 1828. In the chapter relating to Wayne township reference is made to a large number of settlers who were identified with the early history of Rush township, many of whom were connected with both townships.
Rush township falls entirely within the lands of the Virginia Mili- tary Survey, and consequently all of its lands are surveyed by the metes- and-bounds system. An examination of the original records in the recorder's office shows that there are thirty-eight military surveys in the township which are included wholly or in part within its limits. It will be noticed that many of the surveys of Wayne, Rush, Union and Goshen townships overlap. The largest survey in the township, No. 1118, is that of George Weeden and contains two thousand acres, while the smallest, No. 5863, contains only fifty-three acres, and was entered by Thomas M. Bayley. The list of original proprietors is interesting only in the matter of tracing land titles, since none of them came to the county themselves and located on the land which they entered. Most of these proprietors were merely assignees of the old soldiers whose services had made possible the land grant. The com- plete list of original proprietors, together with their respective survey num- bers and total acreage is set forth in the following table :
Survey No. Acres.
Original Proprietor.
4658. 4678
500
D. Boisseau
Walter Dunn 7772
83
12081. 12744
82 Walter Dunn & G. W. Clark
2833
1,000
Peter Manifold
2669
1,000
Peter Manifold
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102
740
Henry Whiting
Thomas Browder 4666 1,000
4814
1,100
L. Jones
8422
Gross Scruggs
500 Benjamin Forsythe 9724
750 John Askew 3476
5559
200
B. Grimes
5808
200
John Baird
W. Dunn & N. Haines 8565 500
1,000 Benamin Biggs 1147
888 John Baird 5583
12613
212
Joseph Spencer
7822
Anthony Walker & A. Jones
7323
310
James Galloway
1118
2,000
George Weedon
4602, 4741
666 2/3.
Thomas Sears
9002
200
R. Means & D. Mason
10537
400
E. Langham
5279
235
D. Bradford
4753
560
H. Woodson
4568
100
Edward Stokes
7491
1,500
Thomas Moore
7311
1,955
James Galloway
13503
1,600
Lucas Sullivant
7913
200
John A. Fulton
7143
100
William Townsley
5863
53
Thomas M. Bayley
7905
150
J. Galloway & J. Crawford
9014
220
Richard Kennon
William Washington 5596 830
DRAINAGE AND TOPOGRAPHY.
Rush township is about four and one-half miles from east to west and eight miles from north to south, having approximately thirty-six square miles of surface. The old settlers who suggested the name of "Rush" to
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1
I 1
I
1
1
1
1
I
William Heath
5753
73
A. Bowman
5716. 5748, 5754
242
Ladd & Norville
5300, 5976, 5304
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
the county commissioners in 1828 must have been vividly impressed with the rushes which grew in profusion along the many streams in the township. At least, this explanation for the origin of the name of the township has all the earmarks of botanical veracity.
Rush township is in sharp contrast to its sister township to the west as far as the configuration of its surface is concerned. Wayne is probably the most broken township in the county, while Rush is probably the most level of any of the twelve townships. The rolling character of the township is sufficiently marked to facilitate drainage and thus is an effective adjunct to its drainage system. Darby creek cuts across the northeastern corner of the township and receives as tributaries a number of small streams which find their way into the creek, either within the limits of Rush township itself or in Union county, which adjoins the township on the east. The general slope of the whole township is toward the east, each stream flowing toward the east in its channel across the county.
The fertility of the soil of the township has made it one of the best farming regions of the county. The southern part was originally covered with a heavy growth of wild grass, with sporadic patches of rushes and sedges and other aquatic forms of vegetation common to swampy regions in this latitude. It was this profusion of rushes which probably led the petitioners for the organization of the township to suggest the name which was applied to the new township. Naturally, this southern section of the township had to be drained before it could be farmed, but it yielded readily to drainage and for years has been producing abundantly all of the crops peculiar to this climate. The northern part of the township was formerly heavily forested with all varieties of walnut, oak, hickory, sugar, maple and elm trees. Here was also found the ash, linden, leatherwood, ironwood, dogwood, hackberry, water beech and a score of other less common tree forms. Practically, the only tree found in the swampy section of the township was the oak, although a hickory was occasionally found.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
The northern part of the township was the earliest settled for the reason that the southern portion was too swampy to attract the early settlers. Wood- stock and its immediate vicinity was not settled until the twenties, while some hundreds of settlers were located in the northern part of the township by that time. The first village in the township was North Lewisburg and it lies in the northwestern corner next to the Logan county line. It is connected
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
with the county seat by a railroad, as is Woodstock, the only other village in the township. Electric lines have been projected to pass through the town- ship, but none have materialized thus far.
Two years after the township was organized, that is, in 1830, the Ohio Gazetteer set forth a very concise history of Rush township. This history, with its characteristic brevity, is reproduced verbatim: "Rush; a post town- ship in the northeast quarter of Champaign county, in which the towns of North Lewisburg and Woodstock are situated, the first having a postoffice of the same name. It was constituted in 1828 and at the census of 1830 contained 750 inhabitants. Taxable land 18,610 acres."
FIRST GRIST-MILL IN TOWNSHIP.
While the territory within Rush township was still a part of Franklin county a few squatters drifted into the vicinity of North Lewisburg. By the time Champaign county was organized in 1805 there were a number of settlers scattered over the northern half of the township, but most of these seemed to have been located here only temporarily. The names of John Rogers, William Martin, James Merryfield, Emanuel Merryfield, William Pickerill, Robert Bay, James Stover and Francis Owen are recorded as early settlers. but John Rogers and William Pickerill seem to have been the only ones to remain. These men were only squatters and could not have entered land if they had wanted to, since it was not yet open to entry when most of them came to the county in 1800. Pickerill built the first grist-mill in the township in 1803 and it was one of the first in the county. It was located on the stream running out of Brush lake, about three miles due west of the present village of Woodstock. The mill boasted of a single run of buhrs and the meal was unbolted, being turned over to the settlers as not much more than cracked corn. He sold his mill about 1813 to John Richardson, who continued it for a number of years.
"THE CROSSING."
Since none of these dozen settlers mentioned entered land it is impos- sible to determine with accuracy just where they lived, but it is fair to pre- sume that it was somewhere near the present line between Wayne and Rush townships and between Brush lake and Lewisburg. The first group of permanent settlers came into the township the year the county was organized; that is, the year 1805-the year in which tens of thousands of settlers from
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
the Atlantic seaboard crossed the Alleghanies to seek new homes in the North- west Territory. The news of the organization of Champaign county had undoubtedly reached Virginia. When it is considered that all of the land in Rush township was actually given to Virginians it is easy to understand why so many of the early settlers were from that state. As has been stated the services of thirty-eight old soldiers were paid with the land which is now within Rush township: or, to be exact, the land allotted them for their services in the Revolutionary War included all that is now within the township, as well as considerable land in adjoining townships in this and Logan and Union counties.
There is no record of any of these old soldiers themselves locating on the land which their services brought them. Most of them assigned their claims to others, and unfortunately in many cases the lands fell into the hands of speculators. However, as late as the forties, there was land sell- ing in the township for ten dollars an acre. Most of the land which passed into the hands of the assignees of the old soldiers was sold for from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars and a half an acre. The records show several hundred-acre farms selling for one hundred and twenty-five dollars -and these same farms in 1917 could not be bought for that much an acre.
COMING OF THE VIRGINIANS.
The year 1805 saw the coming of a group of Virginia settlers to the newly organized Champaign county, most of them from Dinwiddie county. These men, with their respective families, were connected by family ties as is evident from their names. The leader of the expedition, of it may so be called, which set forth from Virginia in the spring of 1805, was Hezekiah Spain. In his intrepid band of pioneers were J. P. Spain, Sr., Jordan Reams. Hubert ( Hubbard) Crowder, William Spain. Daniel Spain, J. P. Spain, Jr., Thomas Spain and John Crowder. Hezekiah Spain proceeded to buy one thousand and sixty-three acres of land as soon as he came to the county. This was all of survey No. 4666, the entire survey being the original entry of Thomas Browder. Most of this extensive tract is in the present township of Rush although it extends into Wayne on the west and into Logan county on the north. The chapter on the history of Wayne township tells of this group of Virginia settlers, part of whom settled in one township and part in the other. It must be remembered that all the territory which is now included in both townships was included within Wayne township until 1828.
In 1805 a number of other settlers arrived in the township, but William
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
Johnson and Jonathan Cheney were the only ones who permanently located there. In 1807 two more members of the Spain family, Daniel and Edwin, and Joshua Stephens and Thomas Goode came from Virginia and about the same time James De Vore came from Pennsylvania. The year 1810 brought Peter Black and his father. Samuel, to the township and they located in the vicinity of North Lewisburg. The records show a number of others locat- ing in the township before the War of 1812, but they seemed to have disap- peared very early in the history of the township. At least no subsequent record is found concerning them.
LIST OF EARLY VOTERS.
It was stated in the history of Wayne township that the election of 1811 brought thirty-one voters to the polls. How many of these lived within the present limits of Rush and how many in Wayne it is impossible to state. But it is fair to presume that a majority of them lived in what is now Rush. The complete list of the thirty-one voters of 1811 follows: Reuben Paxton, Abraham Hughes, William Tharp. William Fagan, Joshua Jones, John Black, John Richardson, John Ballinger. John Barret, John Paxton, John Sutton, John Thomas, John Bowlman, Daniel Reed, Isaac Hughes, John De Vore, Abner Tharp. Henry Williams. Gray Gary, Nathan Norton. William Will- iams. Basil Noel, Wesley Hughes, Nathan Tharp, Andrew Grubbs, Otho Johnson, Benjamin Lee, Solomon Tharp, James Paxton and William Pickerill. It will be noticed that the most numerous family of the township was not represented at the polls on this October 8, 1811, but it is impossible to explain why none of the Spains was present. All of the elections up to 1828 in what is now Rush township are recorded as a part of the Wayne township records.
TOWNSHIP OFFICIALS.
It is not profitable to follow through the long list of township officials who have served in various capacities since the township held its first elec- tion in 1829, but a list of the various officials-trustees, treasurers, clerks, and justices of the peace-up to the time of the Civil War may be interest- ing in showing some of the prominent citizens of the township in ante- bellum days. The trustees served in the following order: Jordan Reams, Thomas Irwin, Christopher Cranston, Nathaniel Kidder, Samuel Reed, George Gideon, Jerry Colwell. Thomas Spain, Henry Fairchild, Isaac W. Marsh, William Audas, John N. Williams, Sylvanus Smith, William Milli-
316
CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
gan, Stephen Spain, Elba Burnham, William Milligan, David H. Hall, William Audas, William Snuffin, Melvin Sprague, John B. Cranston, Edwin Spain, H. Hall, Jacob Elsworth, Christopher Cranston, Harvey Cushman, Joseph Johnson, Joseph P. Smith, Elba Burnham, Trueman M. Kimball, Oris Fairchild, William Audas, Elias Smith, William Taylor, William Hois- ington, R. T. Burnham, Robert Elliott, A. N. Howard, C. P. Morse, Elias Smith, Charles Lincoln, C. S. Hyde, Truman M. Kimball, Jesse Smith, John Hunter, R. Jennings, Philo Burnham, Henry Winder, Henry Jackson, J. D. Cranston, Levi Kirk, and Frank Pearl. The trustees in 1861 when the Civil War opened were J. D. Cranston, Levi Kirk and Frank Pearl.
The clerks of the township from 1828 to 1861 served in the following order: Elba Burnham, 1828-30; Harvey Cushman, 1831; Isaac Morse, 1832; Samuel Williams, 1833: Christopher Cranston. 1834; Oziel Lapham, 1835-36: Isaac W. Morse, 1837-39; Amos Stephens, 1840-43; Henry H. Kelsey. 1844-47: Jennison Hall, 1848-49; H. Smith, 1850-51; S. G. Smith, 1852-55; C. W. Smith, 1856; B. S. Bennett, 1857; Azro Smith, 1858-59; B. S. Bennett, 1860: Azro Smith, 1861.
The treasurer of the township during this same period (1829-1861) served in the following order: Anson Howard, 1829-33; Bela Kimball, 1834-37: Sylvanus Smith. 1838-61. Smith served longer than any of the officials of the township, his service closing in 1861 as treasurer, after hav- nig been in the office for twenty-three years. Previous to entering the treasurer's office in 1838 he had served as justice of the peace for a number of years.
TWO SOCIAL CENTERS.
The life of the township during the past one hundred years has centered around two villages, North Lewisburg and Woodstock, and the history of these two villages, presented elsewhere, sets forth in a large measure the history of practically half of the township's population, most of its industrial development and also its educational and religious side. While the earliest group of settlers were Virginians and located in the northern and western portions of the township, centering around North Lewisburg, the later group were from New England, particularly from Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and located in the central part, with their chief settlement in the vicinity of Woodstock.
The leaders among the North Lewisburg group have already been men- tioned. The Woodstock leaders were Thomas Irwin, Anson and Pearl
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
Howard, Sylvanus, Samuel, Lester and Dexter Smith, Stephen and Ephraim Cranston, Henry, Jacob and Reuben Fairchild, Erastus Burnham, William Gifford, Benjamin D. Sibley, Levi Churchill and David Holt. This group of settlers was increased in 1820 and 1821 by Harvey Cushman, James Webb, Hezekiah Ripley. Joshua Meachem, John McDonald and an Irishman by the name of James Parkhill. The Corbets, Lanes, Wrights and Irwins were also added to the rapidly growing settlement in the early twenties. The history of this group of pioneers is set forth in detail in the discussion of Woodstock in another chapter.
There is still a third element in the population of Rush township which remains to be considered. This is the group of settlers which located in the southern portion of the township in the swampy section. These settlers were distinct from the North Lewisburg and Woodstock groups, although they were from Virginia and Kentucky largely. They were later arrivals and did not belong to the same stratum of society as the Virginians who had come in the first two decades of the township's history. Most of them remained in the county only a short time and then went on farther west, large numbers of then going to Indiana and subsequently to Illinois.
The general character of this early group of settlers in the extreme southern part of the township was graphically set forth a number of years ago by one of the local historians in the following language: "A wild. reckless people, joyous and free-hearted, who loved to drink alcoholic stimu- lants, and have a good time generally ; were fond of dancing and games which frequently encroached upon the church, and when such became too frequent whole squads were brought up before the church for trial, and after promis- ing to do better with blessings following them if they would go and sin no more. They were not in any sense quarrelsome, but a good fight would occasionally occur, but on the following day all was forgotten, and the belligerents would meet at a barn- or cabin-raising and be as social and friendly as ever."
DIFFICULTIES OF IMMIGRATION.
To the present generation it is a source of wonder how the early settlers reached this county. In the case of the Woodstock group, when they came here in 1815 there was not a single white person living on the site of or near Woodstock. The leader of the expedition, John Cranston, led a body of twenty-four people from Rice City, Rhode Island, straight to Rush town- ship, Champaign county. Ohio. It would be interesting to have a day-by-day
318.
CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
account of this trip, but since none is preserved it is left to the imagination of the chronicler to furnish the details of the trip. Most of them were natives of Connecticut and it is easy to imagine that the twenty-four people gathered together in their homes in New England and discussed the long trip to their proposed new home. They appointed Rice City as a rendezvous and on the appointed day they gathered there with their big wagons and started for the Far West. They were on the road six long weeks; over the mountains, through the valleys, around the swamps and over the prairies they gradually drew nearer the "Promised Land." When they came to Big Belly creek, near Columbus, Ohio, they found that it was impossible to cross it with their wagons. They finally found a man to ferry them and their goods across, but the question of getting their horses and wagons over was not so easily solved. The men then swam the horses across and then made a rope out of the bed cords, tied the rope to the end of the wagon tongue and then pulled the wagons safely across. The story of this trip is typical of scores of similar trips taken by the early settlers coming to Champaign county. The leader of this expedition to the Woodstock vicinity, John Cranston, lived to be seventy years of age. He left six children, and three of them, Stephen, Edward and John B., lived to advanced ages. The Crans- tons have been largely identified with the history of the township for a cen- tury and have always stood for the better things in life.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS.
The building of the railroads through Rush township is an interesting part of its history. It is probable that the complete story will never be told of the Pennsylvania railroad and its right-of-way between Columbus and Urbana. To one who looks on the map of the state and sees the wide detour that the railroad makes in going from Columbus to Urbana it seems strange that such should be the case. It would seem that the railroad should have gone through Mechanicsburg, which. in the fifties, was a larger village than Woodstock. The reason why the railroad finally missed Mechanicsburg and hit Woodstock is largely because the latter village had a man by the name of Erastus Martin. This story, however, is given later in the chapter relating to Woodstock. The Erie railroad cuts across the northeastern corner of the township and passes North Lewisburg. These two roads have been important factors in making the township what it is today.
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CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.
EARLY MILLS.
Spains Creek seems to have furnished the water power for all of the early industries in this section of the county. At one time there were five mills located on this stream within the limits of this township. Perhaps the first mill on this stream was located two miles east of North Lewisburg and was owned by Andrew Beltz and brothers, who came from Pennsylvania. The same water wheel furnished the power for a grist-mill, a distillery and a saw-mill. There was also a blacksmith shop and a cooper shop near by. Another saw-mill, owned and operated by William Audas, was located near the eastern edge of the corporation and during the later years of its existence was owned by John Spain. At first these mills were run by an overshot wheel, but several years later a turbine was installed. This mill seems to have disappeared about 1865.
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