History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1196

USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 9

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Springfield-Containing the fifth original surveyed township and ninth range; on the north by Moorefield township; on the west by Boston township; on the south by Greene county ; and on the east by Harmony township. [Clark].

Harmony-On the west by Springfield township; on the south by Greene and Madison counties; on the east by Madison county; and on the north by Pleasant township, [Clark].

Pleasant-Beginning at the northwest corner of Township 5, range 10; thence south to the southwest corner of said township; thence east to Madison county including a fractional township of military land; thence north six miles with the county line; thence west to place of beginning. [Clark].

Moorefield-Containing all the fifth original survey township in the tenth range; bounded on east by Pleasant ; on south by Springfield; on the west by German; and on the north by Urbana township. [Clark].

German-Contains to-wit: All the fourth original survey township in the tenth range and bounded on the east by Moorefield township; on the south by Boston; on the west by Bethel and Mad River; and on the north by Mad River township. [Clark].

Mad River-Is bounded on the east by Urbana township; on the north by the north boundary of the eleventh range; on the west by Miami county; on the south by Bethel and German townships; and adjoining the north half of the west boundary of German township. [Champaign].

Urbana-Contains the following boundaries: All the fifth original survey township in eleventh range and bounded on the west by the west boundary of the aforesaid fifth township; on the south by south boundary of the eleventh range; on the east by east boundary of the fifth township; and on the north by the north boundary of eleventh range. [Champaign].

Union-Beginning at the southeast corner of the fifth township in the eleventh range, and running north seven miles; thence enst to the county line; thence south seven miles until it strikes the north boundary of Pleasant township; thence west to place of beginning. [Champaign].

Wayne Beginning at the northwest corner of Union township; thence east with said line to the county line; thence north six miles; thence due west until it would intersect a line running due north from the place of beginning; thence south to the beginning corner. [Champaign].

Salem-Beginning at the northeast corner of the fifth township on the eleventh range; thence north six miles; thence west to the northwest corner of the fifth town- ship in the twelfth range; thence south with sald township line six miles or to the southwest corner of the said corner; thence east to the place of beginning. [Champaign].

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.

Concord-Beginning at the southeast corner of the fourth township in the twelfth range, running north to the northeast corner of the same; thence west to the county line; thence with said line to the south boundary of sald range; thence east to the place of beginning. [Champaign].

Lake-Beginning at the southwest corner of the fifth township in the thirteenth range, and running enst to the northwest corner of the township of Wayne; thence east with said townhip line three miles; thence north six milles; thence west to the north- west corner of the aforesaid fifth township; thence south to the place of beginning. [Logan].

Jefferson-Beginning at the northeast corner of Miami township; thence south to the north boundary of the thirteenth range; thence east with said line to the north- east corner of Lake township; thence with said boundary to place of beginning. [Logan].

Harrison-Is contained in the following: The fourth township and thirteenth range, bounded on the south by Concord; on the east by Lake; on the north by Jefferson and Miami; and on the west by Miami township. [At some subsequent date, not indi- ented, the commissioners] "ordered that one mile off the north side of Concord town- ship be attached to Harrison." [Champaign and Logan].

Miami-Beginning at the southwest corner of the fourth township and thirteenth range: running north six miles; thence east to the northeast corner of section twenty- four in said township; thence with said boundary to Miami county line; thence south with said line to the north boundary of the thirteenth range; thence east to place of beginning. [Logan.]

Zane-Beginning at the southeast corner of Jefferson township; thence north to the Indian boundary ; thence with said boundary to the Delaware county line; thence south with said line to Wayne township; thence west to the place of beginning. [ Logan.]

Adams-Beginning at the southeast corner of section 6 in township 3, of range 12; thence north to Logan county line; thence west with the county line to Shelby county line: thence south with sald line to the southwest corner of Section 36, Township 3, Range 12 to beginning. [At a subsequent date, not indicated on the records, the fol- lowing notation is attached to the aforesnid description of the township]: "The com- missioners ordered that one mile be taken off the north side of Johnson and attached to Adams township." [Champaign.]

ERECTION OF RUSH TOWNSHIP.

Rush-There seems to have been considerable difficulty in getting Rush township properly defined. In connection with the descriptions of the several townships of the county as set forth in the record from which the foregoing descriptions have been taken the following statement is made concerning Rush township: "Rush township was surveyed by Edward L. Morgan and the plat of the same returned to the commissioners of Champaign county at their December session in 1828, at which time the commissioners erected said town- ship and ordered it to be recorded and the plat placed on file-also a small part taken off Salem township and attached to Wayne which can be seen by referance to said plat."

Further light on the organization of Rush township is furnished by the

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, OHIO.

commissioners' record (Book 4, p. 20). On June 5, 1828, the commissioners discussed the creation of Rush township and after due deliberation decided that Wayne township as it then existed should be divided into two equal parts, one of which was to retain the old name of Wayne and the other to be known as Rush. The exact words of the record follows: "Ordered by the commissioners that Wayne township be divided into two townships by a line running north and south through said township about the middle, or as near as practicable, so as each may have a constitutional bounds, and that the west end retains the present name of said township and also the record; and the east end is to be called Rush township; and all monies that may be collected for township and school taxes for 1828 in the name of Wayne township shall be equally divided between Wayne and Rush townships agree- able to the valuation of property in each; and any debts that may be owing by said Wayne shall be paid by each agreeable to the amount of tax received by them-June 5, 1828."

Immediately following the above entry is a second entry which, from the style of chirography and color of ink, was evidently written by another hand and at another time. This second entry states that "A small part taken off Salem township and attached to Wayne." There is nothing to indi- cate the size of this "small part."

FIRST STEPS IN ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY.

An attempt has been made in the preceding pages to follow the organi- zation of the county and its subsequent division into townships from the passage of the act organizing it until it was given its present territorial limits. There was a definite method of proceeding with the organization of each county in the early history of the state. It will be recalled that when the Legislature decided to organize the county it was necessary to set off arbitrarily a certain tract of territory and, in the case of this county, Greene and Franklin contributed of their territory to its making. Champaign, in later years, shared her territory with two other counties.

To begin with the first steps in the organization of Champaign county is to note the provision of the act organizing it. The act stated that the temporary county seat should be at Springfield and that the first courts should be held at the house of George Fithian. The first Legislature of the state in 1803 provided that when a county was organized the General Assem- bly should appoint three commissioners to ascertain the best location for holding the first court to organize a county. These commissioners are not to

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be confused with county commissioners. They were not to be residents of the proposed county, neither could they be the owner of any land in it, and furthermore they were to be at least twenty-five years of age. They were not only to select the first meeting-place for the court, but also to select a site for the county seat.

The three men appointed by the Legislature for Champaign county were Ichabod B. Halsey and George Harland, of Warren county, and William McClelland, of Butler county. The commissioners met sixty days after their appointment in order to give twenty days' notice to the people of their intention to locate the county seat on a certain specified date. On this date it was presumed that any delegations of citizens with a prospective county- seat site would lay their proposition before these commissioners. No record has been preserved of this meeting, but reports have been handed down which enable the historian to tell with reasonable accuracy what they did.

THE INFLUENCE OF WILLIAM WARD.

The commissioners appointed to organize the county met in Spring- field, the only town in the county which had been platted; but the law directed them to select the most central site possible for the county seat, taking into consideration the configuration of the land, the probable future density of population and, finally, any financial inducements which might be offered by any prospective donor of a site. The law further provided that in case there was no townsite already laid out that they should select a site to the best of their ability and report their action to the common pleas court, while the court, in turn, was to appoint a director to buy the site, plat it, and take charge of the sale of lots.

Since there was no town laid out in Champaign county except Spring- field, and it was a mile from the southern boundary, it devolved upon the locat- ing commissioners to select another site. It will never be known how William Ward ingratiated himself into the good graces of these three commissioners. Ward was a shrewd Yankee, an uncommonly good business man, with suffi- cient capital to finance the location of a county seat and its subsequent laying out into lots. Whatever happened-and no record exists to show what passed between Ward and the commissioners-Ward induced the commis- sioners to let him select the site, with the understanding that he would lay out one hundred and sixty acres into lots, streets and alleys and donate to the county one-half of the lots which might be laid out on the quarter sec- tion. There was no land at all entered in the central part of the county in

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1805 and Thomas Pearce, an old Revolutionary soldier, and a squatter, was the only one living on the site of the present county seat. It can be imagined that Ward had some site in view when he made his proposition and it is recorded that his first choice was on the site of the present county farm. He probably figured that Bogles creek would furnish sufficient water for mill power and this fact, together with the altitude of the tract, made it appear a suitable site for the proposed county seat. If it had been known at the time that the county would have been eventually decreased as it was it might have been located at this place, but even in 1805 it was felt that it was far to the south, too near Springfield. To one who looks at the map of the county as it stands today, it would seem that the best location for the county seat would have been on Kings creek on the upland from the Mad river valley, but for reasons which will never be known Ward picked out one hun- dred and sixty acres of the present site of Urbana. The plat of the original town site may be seen in the chapter on Urbana.

The agreement which was finally entered into between Ward and the county would indicate that the commissioners appointed by the state approved the site chosen by Ward. The law, as before stated, provided that the com- mon pleas court should appoint an official to take charge of the sale of lots in case a town had to be laid out. For this responsible position Joseph C. Vance was chosen and a wiser choice could not have been made. Vance had served in the same capacity in Greene county in 1803 and was well acquainted with the method of procedure in handling such a problem.

COPY OF THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT.

At this point it seems appropriate to introduce the original agreement between Ward and the county relative.to the location of the county seat. The most searching investigation has failed to identify the partner of William Ward and it is probable that John Humphreys, who signed the agreement with Ward, was a silent partner in the transaction and may not necessarily have been a resident of the county or even of the state. This agreement is reproduced verbatim, with its excessive capitalization and lack of punctua- tion, poor spelling and awkward grammar. The original copy of this agreement may be seen in Record G, page 486, in the recorder's office. The agreement follows :

KNOW all men by these presents that we Willlam Ward and John Humphreys all of the County of Champaign and State of Ohio are held and firmly bound unto Joseph C. Vance of the County and State aforesaid in the penal Sum of ten thousand dollars.

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To which payment well and truly to be made unto said Vance his successors or assigns we do bind ourselves heirs executors and administrators firmly by these Presents. Sealed with our Seals and dated this 26th of September-1805.

The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas the commissioners appointed to choose a place for the Seat of Justice In the County of Champaign hath reported that a part of section No. 23 Township 5 & Range 11 between the Miamies is the most proper place for the use aforesaid and the land being the property of the aforesaid Ward. he hath agreed that the Seat of Justice with a Town annexed thereto may be laid off thereon on the following terms. First the Town is to contain one hundred and sixty acres to be laid off in the section aforesaid, by beginning forty poles East of the Northwest corner and to lye South and East from that point, the town be laid off into In and Out lots with convenient streets and allies and one acre for the use of public buildings and when so laid off the County bath the right to one equal half of all the In and Out lots and snid Ward retains the Right of the other half, which they are to devide by loting for first cholce and so take lot about until the whole Town Is gone through with, and the Said Ward doth by these presents oblige himself to make a good and sufficient title in fee simple to all and every of the lots that by the Divide as aforesaid will belong to the County elther to the above named Vance who is appointed as Director by the Court to bargain with me or any other person he may sell lots to. So soon as I obtain a grant myself for said land and that I may obtain the same I do oblige myself to make the payments required by the law under which I have purchased the aforesaid land, and when every part of the aforesaid condition are fulfilled then the above obligation to be void- otherwise to remain in full force and virtue in law- In witness whereof we have herennto Set our hands and affixed our Seals the date above.

Witness present Griffith Foos John Humphreys (Seal)

William Ward (Seal)

Received the foregoing bond for record June 12th. 1827-and recorded the same July 13th 1827. David Vance, R. C. C.

With the formal location and platting of the county seat Director Vance took charge of the sale of the lots belonging to the county and the money so derived was used to build the court house and jail and provide a sufficient amount of money to keep the county running until the first installment of taxes would be ready. The further history of Urbana may be followed in the chapter devoted to the county seat.

COUNTY FINANCES.

If the farmers of 1805 and 1806 had to pay as high a tax rate as the farmers of 1917 there would have been more of them before the board of equalization than there are in 1917. Living was of the simplest kind one hundred years ago and if an associate judge or clerk of the court or any county official had been paid as much as the janitor of the court house receives in 1917 there would have been a tax payers' league organized within a very short time. It is a long step from the day when corn sold for ten cents

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a bushel to the year 1917, when it is bringing two dollars a bushel. And there is about equal disparity between the taxes paid in 1810 and those of 1917.

In 1810 there were seven townships in the county and the total amount of taxes levied for that year was $1.767.85; $925.85, county tax and $792.20, state tax. It must be remembered that this tax was collected from a stretch of territory which included all the present county of Champaign and con- siderably more than half of both Clark and Logan counties. All taxes up to 1818 included this wide expanse of territory ; that is, it included the taxes of three county seats of today, Urbana, Springfield and Bellefontaine. In 1810 there were two hundred and eighty-seven voters in the county, the whole county having a population of 6,303. In 1811 Samuel McCord, the collector-treasurer, as he is now called-collected $1,727.75. In 1880 the county collected taxes to the amount of $236,033.92. It is not necessary to enter into a discussion of the taxes collected at the present time. The tax of $533,715.24 collected in 1916 does not really represent as much of a burden upon the taxpayers as the amount paid a hundred years ago. Many things are taxed today which were not on the duplicate of years ago and, con- versely, there are hundreds of outlets for the county's money which were unknown by our grandfathers. It would be hard to imagine the commissioners of the thirties appropriating fifty dollars to put a few shrubs and vines around the court house, as the commissioners did in the spring of 1917. And the commissioners of that early decade would have had nervous prostration if the county officials had asked them to put an electric fan in the court house. The one mile of road built across Mad river valley, crossing the river near Steinberger's old mill, cost the county between ten thousand and twelve thou- sand dollars in 1915, and that was more money than the county raised for the first several years of its existence. That much money was not expended on the roads of the county for at least ten years following its organization.

"H. C. I .. " OF THE PRESENT GENERATION.

People have more money today than ever before and they spend it. They talk about the high cost of living and the expression has been reiterated so much during the past few years that the newspapers have quit referring to it in this lengthy manner and use only the expression H. C. of L. Every- body in the United States knows what the three letters mean. The same man who berates everybody and everything because of the high cost of liv- ing buys an automobile, a victrola, and countless other luxuries. Even the

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man with less of this world's goods spends more money in the moving pic- ture shows than it took his grandfather to supply clothing for the whole family for the year.

A county is a living, breathing organism and Champaign county is now composed of twenty-five thousand smaller living, breathing organisms. Just as individuals are spending more money today than ever, so is the county spending more than ever before. Therefore, must the jail be stuccoed, a laundry be established in the Children's Home and a mile of road be built to cost about three dollars a foot. The county is but a reflex of the people of which it is composed and no one complains if it spends money. There would be a protest if it did not. If a man was worth about fifty million-Champaign county does not have such a citizen-he could afford to stucco his house and build a laundry, etc. Such a sum is Champaign county's worth; it has the right to spend money like a millionaire.

PRESENT ERA OF PROSPERITY.

The prosperity of the county may be indicated in a number of ways. In a county the size of Champaign, with the county seat the size of Urbana, and with few of the conditions which confront counties and cities of larger size, the county bears little or no indication of poverty and destitution. Every- one seems to be prosperous and even the high prices of 1917 have not affected the general prosperity of the people of the county. It is true that nearly every commodity costs more in 1917 than it ever has before. But on the other hand better wages are being paid than ever before. Hundreds of workmen in Urbana in June, 1917, were receiving from seventy-five dollars to one hundred dollars a month. Farmers are getting more than double the amount for wheat and corn, hogs and cattle, potatoes and onions, and a number of other commodities that they did five years ago. There is no reason why farmers should not be prosperous, and with good crops in 1917 there will be more mortgages paid off within the next year than in any other year in the whole history of the county.

The county recorder keeps a large and pretentious looking volume on the counter which gives the day-by-day transactions of his office. Here may be seen the record of the mortgages filed and cancelled day by day throughout the year, transfers of property, deeds filed for record, and a number of other things, all of which are concerned with property changes. Here, for instance, may be seen an indication of the amount that people saved last year: Can- cellation of 341 city mortgages to the amount of $232,552.32 and of 219 farm

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mortgages covering 14,327 acres in the amount of $455,239.71, making a total of $687,792.03. This means that during the year closing June 30, 1916, the people of Champaign county paid off debts in the form of mort- gages amounting to nearly $700,000. On the other hand during the same period new mortgages considerably in excess of this amount were filed for record. Villages reported 127 mortgages, totaling $65,218.82; the city of Urbana, 213 mortgages, totalling $669,365.92; farms, 250 mortgages, cov- ering $18,890 acres, totalling $674,011.34-total village, city and farm mort- gages, filed during the year ending June 30, 1916, $1,418,596.18. This seems like the county was heavily mortgaged but the figures, when the figures are taken in comparison with the wealth of the county-about $50,000,000- show that the mortgage debt of the county is very small. Again, the figures show that while there were about $675,000 worth of mortgages placed on farms, yet the value of the 10,250 acres of land sold during the same time amounted to $933,669.23. This indicates that the farmers paid out nearly $300,000 in cash on the farms they purchased, placing mortgages for the remainder of the purchase price. In order to place these figures in another light for comparison they are appended in tabular form:

SUMMARY OF REPORT OF TRANSACTIONS OF RECORDER. (Year ending June 30, 1916.)

The report of the recorder is divided into three general headings: Mortgages filed, mortgages cancelled and deeds filed. During the year end- ing June 30, 1916, there was one mortgage of $450,000 filed, this being by the Northwestern Ohio Light Company, a company operating a chain of electric-light plants. The company is compelled by law to file this mort- gage in each county in which it operates. In Champaign county this mort- gage is included in the city of Urbana. The complete report follows :

New Mortgages

Cancelled Mortgages

Deeds

No.

Amount

No.

Amount

No.

Amount

Village

127

$ 65.218.82

184

$ 140,018.46

Cuts

213

680,365.92

341

$232.552.32

102

178,136.75

Farm

250

674,011.34

219

455.239.71

194

933.669.23

500

$1,408,596.08

560

$0$7,792.03

480

$1,200,824.44

The above table shows a total of only 480 deeds filed but there were 235 deeds (99 farms and 136 village or city ) filed in which no consideration was stated and they come under the head of "dollar" considerations, the dol-

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lar covering the cost of the transfer. It will be seen that practically one- third of the deeds filed in the county do not state the consideration involved in the transfer and it is becoming the custom with real-estate men and many other purchasers of property to make no record of the consideration. This is done for various reasons, but principally for the reason that the purchaser does not desire the public at large to know what he paid for the property.

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History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1196