History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 46

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302

USA > Ohio > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 46

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The first meeting of the new trustees was held on April 26, 1845, and among the business transacted was "the sale of James Sutton, a town pauper. He was taken by Jacob Stein- baugh for one year for $100, clothing and doctor bills excepted." Other business trans- acted was the levying of a tax of two mills on the dollar for poor purposes and three quarters of a mile for township purposes.

Prior to the formation of the new township, elections had been held at the house of John Fate, a mile southwest of the present town of Crestline. This election booth was now in the new township of Jackson, and on Sept 6, 1845, the trustees met and appointed the place for holding elections at the school house in the village of Galion. Only two of the trustees

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were present-Asa Hosford and Bartholomew Reed.

Among the first settlers in Polk township were Benjamin Leveridge and his two sons James and Nathaniel; Disberry Johnson, Sam- uel Johnson, Edward Cooper and John Sturges in 1817; Benjamin Sharrock, Nathaniel and Nehemiah Story, John Williamson, John Kit- tridge, David Gill, and George Wood in 1818; Asa and Horace Hosford and John Hibner in 1819; Samuel Brown and his two sons, John and Michael, William Hosford, John and Al- pheus Atwood, John Bashford, Samuel Dany, David Reid, James Dickerson, John Dun- meier, Daniel Miller and Jacob Pletcher in 1820.

Benjamin Leveridge, and his two sons, James and Nathaniel, were the first settlers, and all three built their cabins on land that is now a part of the city of Galion. The cabin of Benjamin Leveridge was southwest of the present public square, between Atwood and Cherry streets, and near him his son James built his cabin, while Nathaniel erected his on the high ground which is now the public square. The first two had splendid water from the springs in that neighborhood, but Nathaniel was compelled to dig a well, and in 1880, when the Public Square was being improved, re- mains of this old well were discovered.

The next year, 1818, the pioneers were as- sisting in raising a cabin for John Williamson, and John Leveridge was killed by a falling log. Work was immediately suspended, and the cabin remained for some time without a roof, just as it was when Mr. Leveridge was killed.

Later the same year, Nehemiah Story and his son Nathaniel and John Kitteridge came from Maine. They stopped for a short time in the Williamson settlement, east of Galion. They took possession of the unfinished cabin where Leveridge was killed, and having com- pleted it, here they spent the winter, and the next spring moved into a cabin that had been built by John Sturges, on the hill north of the Galion road west of the Olentangy, where they remained for four years. Nathaniel Story was a hunter and trapper, and Kitteridge lodged with him; he was known throughout that sec- tion as "Father" Kitteridge, and also devoted much of his time to hunting. Nehemiah Story was a Baptist, and the first minister's

name on the court records in Marion county was when Rev. Nehemiah Story was author- ized to solemnize marriages Nov. 13, 1826.

Disberry Johnson came in 1817, locating on the northwest quarter of section 26, two miles west of Galion. He was born in Virginia in 1764, married there and came to Ohio with six children. His first wife died, and his sec- ond wife was a widow named Cooper with six children. And by this union there were six children. So when Johnson decided to come to Crawford county, he brought with him his wife and seventeen children, one daughter be- ing married and remaining in Ross county. Probably all of the five Johnson children who came with him were of age, and probably some of his step-children, the Coopers. Mr. John- son was early appointed one of the justices of the peace, a position he held for many years. Johnson lived to be 104, and died in 1868 at the home of J. Throckmorton, a grandchild. He was buried in the Galion graveyard.

The Browns settled on section 27 west of the Johnson family. Jacob Pletcher lived for a short time near Galion and then entered his land along the Olentangy in section 34, the land now owned by David Tracht. Just north of him was David Reed, a part of his land be- ing that now owned by Isaac C. Guinther; he also entered land across the line in Whetstone township.

John Hibner settled on the land just east of Galion now owned by Christian Burgner. It was in the midst of a forest filled with wild animals, and before the bears had left that section. One day while Mr. Hibner was ab- sent, his wife while at her household duties in the little log cabin heard a noise near the chimney, and looking in that direction was horrified to see that the chimney stones had been displaced, and the great black paw of a bear had been thrust through the opening to seize the baby which she had placed near the fire place. She hurriedly grabbed the baby, and removed it to a place of safety, but before she could get the axe or some other weapon, the bear withdrew his paw and returned to the woods.

At another time James Neil arose before daylight, and started on foot with a sack of corn to have it ground at the Beam mills south of Mansfield, hoping to return before dark. It

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was before he even had a door to his cabin, might get lost in the immediate vicinity of his skins being hung over the one entrance. He was delayed and night had set in when he reached his cabin, where he was astonished to find everything quiet. On entering the house he found his wife sitting on a stool facing the doorway, with a determined look on her face and the axe in her hand. Just as evening came on a gaunt and hungry wolf had entered the cabin, and Mrs. Nail grabbed the axe, and the snarling animal beat a hasty retreat, and she was now on the look-out for a second call.

The township gained a useful citizen in 1819, by the arrival of Asa Hosford, who with his brother, Horace, trudged in on foot, on Saturday, Sept. 19th, and was given shelter over Sunday at the home of Benjamin Lev- eridge. He was a man of great tact and ability and from the time of his arrival was the rec- ognized leader of all the important matters of the township. His native place was Richfield, Mass., but in his youth he accompanied his father's family to New York. When twenty- one years old he left New York with his brother Horace and set out for the Great West. They arrived at Cleveland on the steamer, Walk-in-the-Water, the first steam vessel ever on Lake Erie. They set out on foot for the interior, arriving at Galion, Saturday evening, Sept. 19, 1819. They returned to Huron county where they passed the winter, and in the spring again came to Crawford, where later they were met by their father and the other members of the family. After arriving at the corners the father, William Hosford, erected a double log cabin, where he often entertained travelers who could not find accommodations elsewhere. In the meanwhile Asa Hosford worked at anything he could find to do, while his brother Horace opened a blacksmith's shop near the father's dwelling. It took the former several years to save $100 with which to buy a piece of land. Finally the elder Hosford sold his property to his son-in-law, from whom it was purchased by Asa, who, in 1824, opened a tavern there. Not as yet being married, his sister acted as landlady. About a year later, however, he married Miss Alta Kent of Bucy- rus. For eight years he carried on a prosperous business at the tavern, at the end of which time he sold out to John Ruhl.

To illustrate the ease with which a settler

own clearing, the story is handed down that Samuel Dany went into the woods to shoot a deer and, having lost his sense of direction, wandered round and round until he was per- fectly confused and knew not which way he was going. At last he came to a clearing and saw a cabin, in the door of which a woman was standing. Going up to the fence, he called to her and asked her if she could tell him where Samuel Dany lived. She laughed and told him he might come in and see, when he discovered that it was his own home and that he had been speaking to his own wife.

John Hibner erected the first mill in the township; it was east of the present town of Galion, where the Erie road crosses the Olen- tangy, on what is now the Christian Burgner farm.

Benjamin Sharrock was born in 1779. His father James Sharrock came to America as a British soldier, but joined the American cause and fought under Washington and LaFayette. Benjamin was in the War of 1812, in the New York militia. After that war he married Constantine Williams in Guernsey county, and in 1818 with his family came to Polk town- ship, where he had a small cabin for his fam- ily on the banks of the Olentangy just west of Galion. Here they lived, while he walked daily to his land two miles south where he erected a cabin on the bank of the river; later he had a saw and grist mill. He was a man of great physical strength, strongly religious, and preached to the pioneers in the early days. He was known to all the settlers as "Uncle Ben."

James Nail was born in Somerset county, Pa. During the War of 1812 he was residing with his father's family in Richland county, Ohio. In 1819 he left home and came to what is now Jefferson township purchasing 160 acres of "Congress" land, two miles north of Galion. In 1821 he married a daughter of Samuel Brown, walking to Delaware to secure the license, and settled on his land, having previously resided with his brother-in-law, Lewis Leiberger. The latter in 1822 removed from the neighborhood. Having ascertained that the Indians were in the habit of taking large quantities of cranberries into Richland county, where they disposed of them for meal and other produce, Mr. Nail, with his father-

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in-law, Samuel Brown, his brother-in-law Michael Brown and Daniel Miller, set out in 1820, to discover where they procured them, with the view of profiting by the knowledge. They went west for several miles along the Pennsylvania army road, and then turned north, keeping on until they struck the San- dusky river, east of Bucyrus. Here they found Daniel McMichael, who gave them information in regard to the Indian trail that led to the cranberry marsh. As night came on they saw the camp-fires of the Indians, who, however, did not molest them. They camped out all night and in the morning loaded their horses with as many cranberries as they could carry and reached home that same evening. In many places the weeds were as high as their horses' heads. Aside from the Indians, the only man they saw during the trip was Mr. McMichael, on the Sandusky river, just east of Bucyrus. Mr. Nail and his brother-in-law also went on a search for bee trees, of which they found a number and collected nearly two barrels of honey, which at that time was selling in Jef- ferson county, to which they shipped it, for $I a gallon. In 1822 Mr. Nail sold his land to Daniel Miller and bought 80 acres on a branch of the Whetstone, or Olentangy, south- west of Galion. About this time Mr. Nail de- cided to build a mill and let the contract to Alexander McGrew, of Tuscarawas county. A dam was made and the frame and running- gear put together in six weeks' time. In the fall he sold the mill and farm to John Hauck, who was looking for a site for a carding ma- chine and fulling mill. Owing to the small- ness of the population, however, Mr. Hauck's project proved a failure. In making the agree- ment with Mr. Hauck, Mr. Nail had reserved the right to live in the cabin and also to use the mill for one year, which he accordingly did, furnishing lumber to the settlers. In 1822 he moved to another location, about half a mile below his saw-mill, and in 1824 erected a grist- mill. In 1825 Mr. Nail added a distillery to his grist mill, and followed the combined occu- pations of grinding and distilling until 1835, in which year he sold both the mill and distil- lery to a man named Parks, from Beaver county, Pa.

Mr. Nail's name appears on the first will that was ever recorded in Marion county,

Crawford being at that time a part of Marion, for legal purposes. The will was made by Samuel Ferrel, and was admitted to probate May 29, 1826. Ferrel left all his property to his mother, Martha Ferrel, and no executor being named she was appointed as administra- trix. Benjamin Jeffrey and Jonathan Smith were the witnesses, and James Nail and Wil- liam Moore were the sureties for the admin- istratrix.

Daniel Miller bought 160 acres of timber- land from James Nail in the spring of 1822, the land being a little over two miles north of Galion. He married Lydia, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Ruhl) Hershner. They had seven daughters, the fifth of whom, Lydia Tabitha, married Col. Robert Cowden. At the time of Miller's arrival in the county the settlers were few and far between. Their nearest flouring mill was on the Clear Fork of the Mohican, twelve or fourteen miles south- east of Galion. A blazed trail through an un- broken forest marked the road, and there were no bridges over any of the streams. A set- tler would start with a sack or two of his own corn, and some for his neighbors, and would go and wait at the mills until it was ground, which sometimes took several days. Col. Cowden writes that one time his father-in- law, Daniel Miller, had made the trip, taking provisions for himself and food for the horse. It was the fall of the year, and the nights were chilly. He arrived at the mill late, and slept in his wagon. Arising early the next morning, 4 o'clock, he took a brisk walk to warm up, and met Mr. Hisky, the miller, going to the mill to start it up for the day. Mr. Hisky in- quired his name, and he told him it was Daniel Miller. "Daniel Miller !" was the reply. "Where do you come from?" "York county, Pennsylvania," replied Miller. Mr. Hisky looked at him in astonishment, and said : "Daniel Miller? From York county, Penn- sylvania? That is strange! My wife's name was Miller, she is from York county, Penn- sylvania and I have often heard her speak of her little brother, Daniel." Mr. Miller was now interested, and the two men went back to the house, and sure enough the woman was his sister, and Miller had slept out in the cold in the dooryard of his sister's house, and never knew it. The explanation is simple. Eve Mil-

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ler was the oldest of fourteen children and Daniel was the youngest. He was but a small boy when she married and left her Pennsyl- vania home. She married a man named George Bidleman, who became too lazy and shiftless to work and degenerated into a robber, fol- lowing the line of travel to the west, and as- saulting the unsuspecting traveler, taking from him the money he was bringing west for the

purchase of land. All efforts to reform the husband were unavailing. Discouraged and feeling the disgrace, she wrote home but sel- dom, and finally ceased to write altogether. During one of his attempted robberies he was killed, and the sister was left a widow in the wilderness. Later she met and married Mr. Hisky and with her name changed all trace of her was lost, until the accidental discovery re- united the brother and sister. Daniel Miller's farm was in the track of the Windfall. When he saw the storm coming, the children took refuge in the big chimney; there were but two daughters at the time, Laura and Elizabeth, and while the roof of the log cabin was blown away, no one was hurt. All around them the trees, large and small, were blown down, and piled criss-cross in every direction. Much of the stock was killed outright, and the settlers were busy for days chopping away the trees to get at their cattle and other stock, which had been penned up by the fallen trees, and were still alive.

Other early settlers in Polk township were John Cracraft and Jacob Miller in 1821; John Eysman, John Hauck, John Jeffrey, William Murray, Alexander McGrew, James Nail, Rev. John Rhinehart, and Rev. James Dunlap in 1822; Owen Tuttle and Phares Jackson in 1823; James Auten and Nathan Merriman in 1824; William Neal, James Reaves, George Row and John Shawber in 1825; John Ash- croft, Jonathan Ayres, Andrew Poe, Thomas Harding, and John Sedous in 1826; Francis Clymer and Rev. John Smith in 1828; Samuel Gerbrecht, and Christopher Beltz, wife and seven children, in 1829; Jonathan Fellows, and John, Michael, Jacob, Levi, Henry, and Peter Ruhl, in 1830; Benjamin Grove, Joseph Rech, Jacob Cronenwett, Rev. John Stough, Jacob Seif, and William Hise in 1831; Solomon Nave in 1832; John Morriso, John Kraft, Daniel, Benjamin, John, Joseph, and Randolph

Hoover, John and Adam Klopfenstein, and Samuel and Joseph Lee in 1833.

In 1822 Rev. James Dunlap came to Polk township from what is now, Ohio county, West Va. In an article in the Forum published in December, 1874, he thus describes the condi- tion of this section at that time:

"About 1822 my uncle, William Murray, Major Benjamin Jeffrey and myself, rigged up an old one-horse wagon with a pole for. two horses. We gathered up our traps, con- sisting of a rifle gun, some amunition, a cross- cut saw, two axes, several old quilts, and some kitchen furniture, covering the whole with a linen cover. We then bid our friends farewell and started for the "Far West," as it was then called. We crossed the Ohio at Short Creek, a few miles above Wheeling, came through Mt. Pleasant to Cadiz, down the Stillwater to New Philadelphia, through Wooster to Mans- field, a town then of some note, having three stores, two taverns and a blacksmith shop; continued west to 'Goshen,' 'Moccasin,' or 'Spangtown,' as it was then called, but now Galion. We found five families between Mans- field and Galion-Judge Patterson, Alfred At- wood's mother, a widow; old John Edginton, John Marshall and John Hibner.

"All was woods until we came to what is now the public square, Galion, where we found two log cabins occupied by a man named Lev- eredge. Just at the foot of the hill where Mrs. J. W. Gill now lives was another cabin occupied by a man named Frederick Dickerson. A little further west, where J. R. Clymer's brick house now is, there was a double log cabin hotel, which was kept by old Uncle Wil- liam Hosford, father of Asa Hosford. Horace Hosford lived and had a blacksmith's shop at Reisinger's Corners. Old Grandfather Kit- teridge lived on the other corner and followed trapping wild game for fur. Thence we went southwest to Benjamin Sharrock's house, ar- riving safely and having made a trip of 150 miles in twelve days through mud, water, ice and snow, sometimes up to our wagon-bed.

"Next day we went to our land and found a camp of twelve or fourteen Indians upon it, who had had a big drunk the day before. One of them had been stabbed through the left side with a large butcher or scalping-knife. But he recovered and afterward bragged that he was

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a 'berry stout Injin-stick big knife through- no kill-whoop!' They were a Wyandot tribe, very friendly with the whites; ever ready to help us at our log-rollings and cabin raisings, which were very common in those days. We got old Mother Sharrock to bake us some bread and started for the woods. Pitching our tent by the side of an old log, we built it into a half- faced shanty, chincked it with moss and piled in with some straw for bedding. One of our party went upon a ridge and killed a very fine deer, so we had plenty meat. We cooked our venison and lived sumptuously and deli- ciously. At night we would crawl into our nice bed-chamber to rest. Then would come the howling of wolves to lull us to sleep. Sometimes they would venture so near that we could hear them gnawing the bones of our venison behind the fire. Sometimes we would shoot at them in the dark to scare them away. They would then scatter with a howling that made music indeed. We continued there three weeks cutting logs, and raised a cabin. We prepared it fit for use and then returned home for the family."

The principal food of the pioneers consisted of bear's meat, venison, turkey, corn-meal, potatoes and hominy. The hominy was pre- pared in what was known as a hominy block, which was hollowed out something like a drug- gist's mortar, the hominy being cracked with a sort of pole or long pestle, armed with an iron wedge. Their clothing was generally buckskin and linsey-woolsey, a kind of linen also being made from nettles. The children went bareheaded and barefooted during the greater part of the year. Adventures with wolves and other wild animals were common.

In 1825 the first distillery in the township was erected by Nathan Merriman, who had arrived in the year previous. It was located at the springs, not far from the home of the Leveridges. Besides the Hibner grist-mill, north of Galion was a saw-mill, while Hos- ford's and Park's grist-mills and Sharrocks' grist and saw-mill were all located on the banks of the stream south of Galion and with- in a few miles of each other. Modern "im- provements" have made a great change in this stream, and it has long since lost the picturesque aspect it once possessed. Many of the springs which once fed it have become

dry and except in the spring, or immediately after heavy rains, it consists of a mere suc- cession of pools imperfectly drained by a small rivulet, the waters turbid with the rinsings and refuse of gas-works, dye-houses and other debris from the drainage of a city.

All these mills along the Whetstone were run by water-power and to secure sufficient fall to run the water wheels, mill races were dug, in the case of Horsford's and Nail's mills, those water courses being nearly, if not, a quarter of a mile in length. At the Sharrock mill the fall of water in the stream was heavier and here the mill race was much shorter. All these mills passed out of existence except the Hosford mill, which has continued to this day. It was built in 1832 by Asa Hosford, and the old mill race was long since abandoned and the mill run by steam. It is a three-story frame structure, and is today the oldest mill in the county; on the beams in the second story, can still be seen carved in rude letters the words "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," one of the rallying cries of the campaign of 1840. The crude millstones of the early days have been long since replaced by the more modern machinery, and one of these early stones finds a last resting place as a curiosity of the pioneer days at the home of R. V. Sears in Bucyrus. Still another of these ancient mill stones was brought to Bucyrus by Oscar Sharrock, and is now in his yard, his grandfather, nearly a century ago, having used similar mill-stones at his mill.

The first road built through the township was the Portland road surveyed by James Kil- bourne. It was from Columbus to Sandusky and was called the Portland road from the fact that up until about 1824, what is now the city of Sandusky was known as Portland. The next road was the one from Galion to Bucyrus. Over this latter road about 1830 a line of stages were running to Bucyrus three times a week, going east from Galion to Mans- field and Wooster and on to Pittsburg. This road is now Main street in Galion, but prior to 1830 it branched to the north, east of the present square, and followed the Whetstone until it again joined the old road east of Ga- lion and then continued to Mansfield. The most important point between Galion and Mansfield on this old State road was Riblet's

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Corner. Here Christian Riblet had settled two miles east of the Crawford county line and his son Daniel kept the Riblet House at the Corners, the best known tavern between Bucyrus and Mansfield. Daniel Riblet after- ward was justice of the peace of the township (Sandusky) for 18 years, and from 1839 to 1841 represented Richland county in the Leg- islature. A post office was established at Rib- let's Corners and after Galion became more prominent as a settlement the Riblets came to the new town and became among the most active citizens.

A line of stages never passed over the Col- umbus and Portland road. At the time it was surveyed the route from Columbus to San- dusky was east of this road through Mansfield and Norwalk, and later the road was surveyed from Columbus to Sandusky through Dela- ware, Marion and Bucyrus, and these roads became the routes for stages and for mails, but the Portland road was one of the most prominent in the State, being used by the farmers in carrying their produce to the mar- kets on the lake, coming sometimes from Del- aware and other points further south. A majority of these farmers carried their provi- sions with them, and also feed for the horses, and slept in their wagons, as owing to the low price of produce, wheat being seldom more than fifty cents per bushel, they had to be very economical. Two farmers made the trip from this county to Sandusky, disposed of their wheat and other grain and returned after being gone six days and their entire ex- pense was six cents, and this they state was spent for two drinks of whiskey, which in those days was regarded as a necessity and required cash, the same as it does even to this day. Some, however, put up for the night at one of the many taverns which lined the road. The expense for the night's lodging being only a sixpence. The number of these houses of entertainment was much increased in the early thirties by the wild mania which set in for land speculation, bringing people here who desired to enter land. The panic of 1837 exploded the bubble of speculation and was the ruin of many, besides leaving much of the farming business paralyzed for the want of money. In order to relieve the financial stringency relief measures were taken by the

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History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 46

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850- Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1302

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302