History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 8

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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On the same day the employees held a meeting, at. which they arranged the order in which they would make their improvements, and transact other busi ness .. The record of their proceedings was also dated at the "City of (leaveland, "and the locality has ever since retained that name, except that the "a" has been discarded.

On the tenth of October, Surveyor Holley notes in his journal that he with his party "left Cleaveland at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, to finish dividing the east part of the township into lots." By the sixteenth the weather began to interfere seriously with their work. On that day Mr. H. metions that they came into camp wet and cold, but after "pushing the bot- tle and getting a fire and some supper, all were as merry as grigs." But Gen. Cleaveland evidently thought that, considering the long journey before them, it was time to be starting homeward. He and the majority of the men appear to have left about the sixteenth, and on the eighteenth Porter, Holley. Pease, Stoddard, Atwater and nine others set out for their distant and much-longed-for homes.

The only white persons left on the Reserve were Job N. Stiles and Tabitha his wife, and Joseph Lan- don. These were supplied with provisions for the winter, and then abandoned to a solitude almost as complete as that of Selkirk on his island. To be sure there were plenty of Indians and squaws, but consid- ering that many of the former had been, not long be- fore, in arms against the United States, and were liable at any moment to break out again, it would seem as if their absence would have been more desir- able than their company.

The object in leaving Mr. and Mrs. Stiles in this isolated Jocality is not certainly known, but it was probably thought that the buildings would be less lia- ble to be destroyed if some one was in charge of them, and if any tools or other property were left behind, it was absolutely necessary that some one should keep watch of them: for the noble red men, though civil enough in their ordinary intercourse with the sur- veyors, would certainly have been unable to resist the

temptation presented by any thing they could con- veniently carry off.

Landon, who had been connected with the survey party, probably intended to trade with the Indians. He soon left, however, his place being taken by Ed- ward Paine, afterwards known as General Pame of Painesville, who boarded with Stiles, and was cer- tainly at that time an Indian-trader. He was the first. resident in the county unconnected with the survey- party. The nearest white neighbors were at a settle- ment made that fall in the present town of Willough- by, Geauga county. Tradition asserts that the first white child born in this county came to light in the cabin of Job and Tabitha Stiles, in the winter of 1996-7, and that a squaw acted as its nurse, but there is no positive evidence.

All the party, except those who remained at. Cleve- land, reached their distant homes without more serions difficulty than was necessitated by a journey of six or seven hundred miles, largely through the wilderness. Neither General Cleaveland nor Mr. Porter ever re- turned to the Reserve, unless possibly the latter may have done so as a casual traveler. General Cleave- land continued to practice his profession in his native town of Canterbury, sometimes representing it in the State legislature, and always occupying a prominent position among his fellow citizens, until his death in 1806. Though, as before stated, he never returned to the Reserve, yet he always manifested a warm in- terest in its welfare, and especially in the village which he had founded and which bore his name. One cannot but regret that he was not spared to see at least the beginning of its greatness as a city.

Augustus Porter soon after settled at Niagara Falls, where he became one of the leading men of western New York. Hle erected extensive mills there, and was also the first man who built a bridge from the mainland to Goat Island. In i808, he was appointed the first presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Niagara county, New York, (of which Buffalo was then the county seat ), a post which he held for thir- teen years. He died at Niagara Falls at a very advanced age. Judge Porter was an elder brother of Peter B. Porter, the distinguished general in the war of 1812, and secretary of war under President J. Q. Adams.

In January, 1797, the members of the Connecticut Land Company held their annual meeting. There was much complaint of the large cost of the work of the past year, but after an investigation by a commit- tee the proceedings of the directors and superintend- ent were entirely approved. Cleaveland's agreement with Brant and the other chiefs at Buffalo was also ratified.

The stockholders were seriously discomposed by another matter. Mr. Porter, having during the sea- son made a traverse of the line of the Reserve along Lake Erie, now reported that the total contents of the original traet were only three million four hun- dred and fifty thousand seven hundred and fifty-

SALE AND SURVEY.

three acres, and that, after deducting the five hundred thousand acres granted to the sufferers by British spoliation, (commonly called the Fire Lands, ) there remained only two million nine hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred and fifty-three acres for the Connectiont Land Company. This was about lifty thousand acres less than they had bought.

Moreover, the "Excess Company, " the members of which had been paying fancy prices for a share in the surplus of the Western Reserve above three million acres, (besides the "Fire Lands") suddenly found that there was no surplus, and many of them became bankrupt on account of the discovery. Fault was found with Porter's survey, but subsequent work showed that the estimated amount was too large rather than too small; a very close computation by Leonard Case making the whole amount in the Re- serve, besides the Fire Lands, two million eight hun- dred and thirty- seven thousand one hundred and nine acres. This great. reduction from the amount estimated before the survey was caused by the fact that, in going west, Lake Erie trended much farther south than had been supposed before exact calcula- tions were made.

In the spring of 1292. the company again made preparations to send a party to finish the surveys. While they were doing so, Mr. Cleaveland received a letter from one Alexander Henry, who had been an Indian trader from Montreal to the upper-lake region ever since the treaty of peace between France and England, in 1263. He claimed that he and others had bought of the Indians a large traet west of the Cuyahoga and north of Wayne's treaty-line, which included all of the Western Reserve west of the river just mentioned. This he offered to sell to the com- pany at one shilling per acre: guaranteeing a confirm- ation of the deed by the Indians. He stated that the deed was in the hands of Alexander Macomb, (father of the general of that name in the war of 1812. ) a great land-speculator of that day and a co-proprietor with Henry. It is quite likely that some of the chiefs of the Delawares or Chippewas had made such a deed but, as the United States had invariably refused to recognize sales made by the Indians to any one but the general government, no attention was paid to Mr. Henry's claim. He afterwards published an account of his adventures among the Indians, which is a valuable authority on the subject of aboriginal history.

In the letter in question Mr. Henry mentioned that. one John Askin, one of the proprietors under the alleged purchase, was then residing with his family "at Cuyahoga," but there is nowhere else any account. of such a person. Among all the numerous state- ments made by surveyors and their friends, it is hardly possible that. Askin would have been passed over if he had lived on or near either bank of the Cuyahoga. Henry may have falsified entirely, or may have mistaken Askin's location, or the latter may have moved away before the surveyors came.

The survey party of 1797 was organized at Schener- tady, New York, by Mr. Seth Pease, who had been selected as principal surveyor for the coming season, and who proceeded to that point during the forepart of April. After the company was formed. Rev. Seth Hart was made the superintendent. Besides the two officials just named, there were no less than eight. surveyors: Richard M. Stoddard. Moses Warren. Amzi Atwater, Joseph Landon. Amos Spafford, War- ham Shepard, Phineas Barker and Nathan Redfield. Dr. Theodore Shepard was again employed as the physician. There were, in addition, fifty-two other employees, to perform the numerous duties necessary in an extensive survey: the most prominent of these being Colonel Ezra Waite and Major William Shep- ard, who seem to have had charge of the others when the latter were not. under the immediate direction of the surveyors. Nathaniel Doan, the blacksmith of 1496, was also a member of the present expedition. There were in all sixty-three members, of whom only twelve had been on the previous expedition; and, of these latter, seven were surveyors. Evidently the work of carrying a chain or wielding an axe in the tangled forest, living on indigestible bread and sleep- ing on the wet ground, had lost all their romantic charms during one year's experience.

The expedition took the usual route to the western world, by way of the Mohawk river, Quedia lake, Oswego river, Lake Ontario, Niagara river and Lake Erie, though a portion went by land, by way of Canan- daigua, under charge of Major William Shepard. After leaving some of the men at work in the eastern part of the Reserve, the head of the main portion of the expedition arrived at. Cleveland on the first day of June. Mr. Pease's journal mentions tinding Mr. and Mrs. Stiles well, and also Mrs. Hun, who, with her husband, had moved from Conneaut that spring, though Mr. Gun was then absent. He says nothing of there being a child in the Stiles family, which it is exceedingly probable he would have done if one had been born during the winter, at least if it had then been living.

Boats belonging to the expedition kept coming for several days afterwards. In the afternoon of June 4th, one of them brought the body of David Eldridge, one of the hands, who had been drowned the same day, in attempting to swim his horse over Grand river. The next morning the north part of lots ninety-seven and ninety-eight, in Cleveland. were selected as a burial ground. There were a few boards in the vicinity, and a strong, rude coffin was quickly made. The body of Eldridge was placed in it, the coffin was fastened with cords to a stout pole, by which means it was supported on the shoulders of the comrades of the deceased, and the procession moved slowly to the burial ground. There the body was solemnly interred: Superintendent Hart reading the burial service. A rough fence was also built around the grave. This was, so far as known, the first funeral in Cuyahoga county.

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

Parties were at once sent out in various directions to recommence the surveys. Mr. Pease mentions the articles furnished to each party, which certainly form a somewhat miscellaneous collection, viz. : Pork, flour, tea, chocolate, sugar, ginger, spirits. vinegar, cheese, pepper, empty bags, fire-steel, punk, candles, a tent, axes, hatchets, pocket compasses, measuring pins, salt, soap and horses. From a previous entry, we learn that the daily rations for a mess of six men were five pounds of pork, a pound of chocolate, a "small porringer" of sugar, a half bottle of tea, a bottle of rum, and flour without limit. The most noticeable difference between these rations and those issned to soldiers and explorers at the present day is the absence of coffee from the former. Modern campers- ont would hardly find tea. chocolate, or even a bottle of rum, a sufficient substitute.

The main headquarters were established at Cleve- land, but on the tenth of June Mr. Pease with a small party went up the Cuyahoga, and soon after estab- lished the " upper headquarters," near Cuyahoga Falls, in the present county of Summit.

On the 11th of June, 1797, James Kingsbury and his family arrived at Cleveland. He was a native of Connectient, but had moved from New Hampshire to Conneaut the previous season. For a short time he lived in a dilapidated house on the west side of the river, which may have been the one occupied by John Askin.

Early this season, also, Lorenzo Carter, of Rutland, Vt., and his brother-in-law, Ezekiel Hawley, came to Cleveland with their families. According to a state- ment made in his lifetime by Alonzo Carter, son of Lorenzo, his father arrived on the 2d of May; having stayed the previous winter in Canada. Carter and Hawley both located in Cleveland. One of the chil- dren of the latter was Fanny B., then five years old. She is still living, at the age of eighty-seven years. being now the venerable widow of Mr. Theodore Miles, of the eighteenth ward of Cleveland, formerly Newburg. She is unquestionably the carliest sur- viving resident of Cuyahoga county, and her memory spans the whole time and all the wonderful changes from the nnbroken forest to the teeming county and the mighty metropolis.

Mr. Carter, afterwards universally known as Major Carter, was well calculated to succeed in a new coun- try; being an extremely active, enterprising man, an expert hunter, and withal peculiarly adroit. in gain- ing an influence over the Indians, who were constant neighbors and frequent visitors. Ile at once began entertaining travelers, and his was the first hotel in Cuyahoga county.

The first marriage followed quickly after the first funeral. Carter's hired girl bore the peenliar name of Chloe Inches. While Mr. Carter was residing in Canada, during the previous winter, she had formed the acquaintance of one William Clement, who speed- ily followed her to Cleveland. They were married by Rev. Mr. Hart, and, as no further mention is made

of Clement in Cleveland annals, we presume he re- turned with his bride to Canada.

In June David Bryant and his son Gilman (the latter being afterwards a well known citizen and one of the latest surviving pioneers) came to Cleveland by boat; being on their way to a grindstone quarry on Vermillion river. They made trips back and forth all that summer, carrying grindstones east, probably into Pennsylvania. Their stopping place was at Car- ter's tavern. Besides those already named, Rudolphus Edwards became a resident of Cleveland during the summer.

Up to this time all that part of the Western Re- serve cast of the Cuyahoga had continued to be a por- tion of the county of Washington, created in 1788, with its county-seat at Marietta. No one in this vicinity paid any attention to its authority, and the directors of the Land Company were very anxious to have a "legal and practicable government." The legislature of Connecticut declined to assume any political authority. On the 29th of June, 1797. Washington county was divided; all the north part, including that portion of Cuyahoga east of the river. being formed by the legislature of the Northwest Ter- ritory into the county of Jefferson, with the seat of justice at Steubenville. The latter place was fifty miles nearer than Marietta, but still no attention was paid to the authorities there by the few inhabitants of the Reserve, nor did those authorities attempt to organize any townships within that district.

The surveyors and their men were soon nearly all engaged in running the lines in the southern part of the Reserve; their headquarters in the field being, as before stated, a short distance below Cuyahoga Falls. A sad but interesting event, the last scene of which was in Cuyahoga county, is narrated by Amzi Atwater, then a youth scarcely twenty-one years old. While he and Warham Shepard were running the sonth part. of the fifth meridian (now the line between Trumbull and Portage counties), in the latter part of July, Minor Bickuell, one of the assistants, was taken violently sick with a fever. There was no medicine and no comforts for the sick, and the only hope of saving the man was to get him to Cleveland or the upper headquarters as soon as possible. Shepard agreed to go on with the survey with one man, while Atwater with one or two others undertook to convey Bieknell to a more desirable location.

Placing one horse far enough behind another to admit of a man's lying lengthwise between them, Atwater and his helpers put two long poles, one on each side of the horses, and fastened them to the pack-saddles with strips of bark. With other pieces of the same material they made a kind of net work between the poles. On this they made a bed of blankets, and laid the sick man upon them. On the 20th day of July they started out, with no guide but Atwater's compass and the marks made along the lines already run. After going a short distance south, they proceeded west along the third parallel. A

SALE AND SURVEY.

man was sent ahead to have a boat ready at the upper headquarters, if there were any there.

Bicknell was delirious a large part of the time, and so serious was the difficulty in advancing through the forest with such an unwieldy carriage, and so great was the necessity of moving the sick man carefully, that the cortege was only able to make about ten miles a day. Proceeding west to the present corner of Stow and Hudson townships, Summit county, Atwater turned sonth to the old Indian trail from the Ohio river to Sandusky. There he met his messenger, who said that the camp at upper headquarters was taken up, and all the boats had gone down the river. The same man was then directed to go to Cleveland and get a boat to come up to the present south line of Independence, where the party would meet it.

Atwater then went north, on the west line of Stow and Hudson, to the northwest corner of the latter township, where he again turned to the west. Plod- ding wearily along the faint track which went straight over hill and through valley, camping where night overtook him, listening to the occasional howl of the wolves in the distance, and burdened all the time with the care of a delirious invalid who was hourly growing worse, the young surveyor found his own nervous and muscular system subjected to a terrible strain, and afterwards, no doubt truly, described this as the most exciting event of his life. At length, in the forenoon of the 25th of July, they reached the Cuyahoga, on the line between Independence and Brecksville, and rested to await the arrival of the boat from Cleveland.

But no aid could come quickly enough to help the smitten man, who died within two hours of his arrival at the river. Soon after noon Joseph Tinker came with the expected boat, having Dr. Shepard on board. The only thing that couldl then be done was to bury the unfortunate Bicknell, and he was accord- ingly interred near the river, close to the south line of Independence. Exhausted as Atwater was by fatigue and anxiety, he was obliged almost immedi- ately to retrace his steps, m order to find Warham Shepard and help him out with the surveys.

Apropos of this last event, it may be remarked that Joseph Tinker, who came up in charge of the boat, seems to have acted as the principal master of trans- portation for the company; sometimes going back to Conneant and other points for supplies, with four or five men and a boat, at other times transporting the needed articles on pack-horses to the various parties of surveyors. He was drowned in the lower part of Lake Erie while returning home the next fall, but his name is preserved in "Tinker's creek," which is the principal stream that flows into the Cuyahoga in

this county: heading in Portage county and running through the townships of Solon, Bedford and Inde- pendence.

The township lines were soon completed, and all the surveyors and their assistants returned to Cleve- land. A few remaining lots of Cleveland township were then run out, and Warrensville and part of Bedford were also divided into lots. Meanwhile the "equalizing committee," composed of the principal surveyors, was hard at work, exploring the townships and settling on the size of the fractions which should be added to other townships, so as to make them all of substantially the same value.

Work progressed slowly, for sickness had become extremely prevalent. Fever and ague was the princi- pal disease, but dysentery and bilious fever were also common. One of the workmen, named William An- drews, died in August, as did also Peleg Washburn, an apprentice to Nathaniel Doan, the blacksmith. On the Sth of August the sick list numbered seven: on the 24th it had arisen to eleven, and on the 12th of September the number who could not work was twelve. The men having almost none of the appli- ances and comforts of civilized life, the ague racked them with extreme violence. The fits often came on every day, and when they passed off it was all the poor, exhausted men could do to crawl from their blanket beds to the spring, and get water enough to last them through the next attack.

On the 12th of September nine siek persons were discharged and sent cast. About the first of October some of those who had acquired claims in Euclid, under the agreement of the year before, made im- provements in accordance with that agreement. But the great anxiety to obtain land on the Reserve had passed away under the influence of hardship and ague, and very few of the original contractors performed their agreements and received their land. In the lat- ter part of October the surveyors and their assistants all left for the cast.

The families left at. Cleveland were those of Carter, Ilawley, Kingsbury and Edwards. These, like the surveyors, had been terribly afflicted by ague, and Mr. Kingsbury determined to seek a healthier location. Ile accordingly removed to the high ridge running from what has since been called " Doan's Corners" to Newburg, at a point, about five miles from the lake, where the present Kinsman street strikes Wood- land Hills avenue, and where his descendants still re- side. There he built him a cabin, which he occupied with his family on the 11th of December; being the first permanent resident in the county away from the immediate shore of the lake.

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

CHAPTER VIIL. THE PERIOD FROM 1798 TO 1800.

The Best Townships -. Annual Meeting of 1798 - New Assessment Report of the Equalizing Committee -Subsequent Career of Seth Pease- - Bounty on Gristmills-Road built to the Pennsylvania Line Escaping the Ague-Carter's Generosity -Settlement of Euclid - An Ague. Smit- ten Family -Description of a Plumping-Mill-Kingsbury's Hand Grist- mill -Lack of Medicine Annual Indian Hunts in Cuyahoga County- Annual Drunks -Carter's Quarrel with Indians His Influence over them -Fishing at Rocky River -The First Gristmill-The Surveyors give up Euclid The First Sawmill -The First School Formation of Trumbull County First Election in it -First Court of Quarter Sessions of Trumbull-First Justices of the Peace from the Present Cuyahoga Organization of Civil Townships Boundaries of Cleveland-First Constables Kirtland's Remonstrance against High Prices.

As before stated, it had been decided by the direc- tors to take some of the most valuable townships as the standard, and bring the others up to that stand- ard by the addition of fractions. Those selected by the committee as the most valuable in the whole Re- serve (outside of those chosen to be sold for the gen- eral benefit), were townships five, six and seven of range eleven, and township eleven of range seven; now, respectively, Middlefield in Summit county, Bedford and Warrensville in Cuyahoga county, and Perry in Lake county.

At their annual meeting on the 23d of January, 1298, the stockholders contirmed the action of the directors, in giving a city lot, a ten-acre lot and a hun- dred-acre lot to Mrs. Stiles, a hundred-acre lot to Mrs. Gun, and a hundred-acre Iot to James Kingsbury: also a city lot to Nathaniel Doan, conditioned on his living on it as a blacksmith. At the same time an- other assessment of twenty dollars a share was ordered: thirty-tive dollars a share having already been raised during the preceding summer.

The question of political jurisdiction was still not quite decided, but the stockholders offered all their po- litical authority, more or less, to Congress; at the same time requesting that the authorities of the Northwest Territory should form a new county, to embrace the Western Reserve. Some small donations of land were also offered to actual settlers. A committee reported in favor of building a road near Lake Erie from the Pennsylvania line to Cleveland, with a branch to the salt springs in the present county of Mahoning. The stockholders voted that the fifteen hundred dollars promised to the Indians, through Brant, should be paid to the United States superintendent of Indian affairs, to be divided among the Six Nations as he should think just.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 8

Author: Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716