History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 2

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 2
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 2

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fortune, and most likely was the same as what now is known as Galveston. Here he became a captive of the Indians for five years, when he made his escape and began a pilgrimage, which lasted more than twenty months. He and his com- panions passed through Texas as far north as to the Canadian river, thence west- ward to the Rocky Mountains in New Mexico. With a fortitude that was proof against hunger, cold, and weariness, amidst perils from beasts and perils from savages, the brave voyagers journeyed from one Indian town to another in New Mexico, and finally crossing the mountains, entered Arizona, and, on a day in May, 1536, drew near to the Pacific ocean, at the village of San Miguel, in Sonora.

In the city of Mexico the story was published which an Indian slave had told of the wonders of the seven cities of Cibola, the Land of Buffaloes, that lay at the north, and abounded in silver and gold. Francisco Vasquez Coronado, the governor of New Galacia, burning with a desire to subdue those vaunted provinces, resolved to head an expedition formed for this purpose. In 1540 the army of three hundred Spaniards, part of whom were mounted, having sworn on a missal containing the gospels to maintain implicit obedience and never abandon their chief, who, in taking command of the hazardous enterprise, had parted from a lovely young wife and vast possessions, began their march from Compostella with flying colors and boundless expectations. The result of this expedition was the dis- covery of the Colorado of the west, and its exploration for nearly a hundred miles north of the present southern boundary of the United States; its discovery at a much higher point, where the river has hollowed out for its channel a gulf so deep that the party who first stood upon its bank and looked down the sides of the interminable cliff described the precipice as being loftier than the highest moun- tain ; the proof that Lower California is not an island; the exploration of portions of the territory of New Mexico, Texas, the Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colo- rado; and that the golden cities of Cibola were a few scattered and feeble villages of the rudest sort, inhabited by a small number of poor Indians, who sought friendship by presents of skins, cotton, and maize.

While these events were occurring, an expedition of six hundred men, led by, Ferdinand de Soto, a brave soldier and a daring adventurer, but blinded by avarice and the love of power, had landed in Florida, and in quest of gold had explored the territory of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. These bold adventurers reached the Mississippi river not more than two hundred miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and crossed it at about the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude. In June of 1541 they ascend the mighty river as far north as to the present site of St. Louis; they traverse from east to west nearly the whole of the State of Missouri; they pass to the south and visit the Saline Springs of Arkansas, and, after long and wearisome marches, reach the gulf with no more than one-half of their original number. Thus did the Spanish nation, to which America is indebted for its discovery, in less than fifty years make known to history nearly one-half of the present territory of the United States.

In 1534, James Cartier, a bold mariner of St. Malo, discovered the great river of Canada, and in the succeeding year explored it as far as to Montreal ; and, as the spring of 1536 approached, erected a cross bearing a shield with the lilies of France, and an inscription declaring Francis I. to be the rightful king of this new-found realm, to which he gave the name of New France. For the next fifty or sixty years the French nation accomplished but little toward extending its dominion in the New World. In 1603, however, Samuel Champlain, who came to be known as the father of the French settlements in Canada, and the able and

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

patriotic De Monts began their wonderful exploits on the soil of the western con- tinent. Acadia and Nova Scotia spring into being; the territory of New York is visited; and the country far to the northwest is penetrated. Then follow the marvelous explorations of the Jesuits. The great west is traversed to the head-waters of the Mississippi; that great river is explored to its very mouth. In a few years the claims of France to North American territory exceed those of any other European power. At the time of the accession of William, Prince of Orange, to the throne of England, in 1689, France's sovereignty in America embraced Newfoundland, Acadia, Nova Scotia, Hudson's bay, all the Canadas, more than half of Maine, Vermont, and New York, the whole valley of the Mis- sissippi, including its tributaries, the great chain of lakes at the north and Texas at the south, as far as to the Rio Bravo del Norte. The waters of every gushing fountain and bubbling spring and babbling brook west of the Alleghanies were claimed for the French nation.

England's dominions in America lay along the Atlantic seaboard. The thirteen original colonies skirting the Atlantic from Florida to the verge of Nova Scotia were the planting of the English people, and constituted that nation's possessions up to the. time of the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. By virtue of this treaty England obtained large concessions of territory from France. The entire posses- sions of the Bay of Hudson and its borders; of Newfoundland, subject to the rights of France in its fisheries ; and all of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, according to its ancient boundaries, passed from the dominion of France to that of England. And now the strife in America for the possession of colonial monopolies and territorial sovereignty was confined to these two great powers. France still main- tained her claim to much the larger extent of territory, but her population, scat- tered over this immense area, numbered only eleven thousand two hundred and forty-nine persons in 1688, while that of the English colonies in the same year exceeded two hundred thousand. A contest of fifty years' duration between these two great powers for territorial acquisition in America followed, resulting in the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, by virtue of which France lost and England gained the whole country between the Alleghany mountains and the Father of Waters, except a small tract lying at the mouth of the great river. The valley of the Ohio, for whose special conquest a seven years' war had been begun, thus passed to the possession of Britain. Strangely enough, for the success of this undertaking the English nation was mainly indebted to the very hero who, a few years later, as commander-in-chief of the American armies, was engaged in wresting it in common with the territory of the whole country from British rule, in order to transfer it to the free people who should make for humanity a new existence in America. In less than a decade the dominions which England took from France were in turn taken from her, and the United States of America obtained a place among the nations of the world, and undertook the glorious work of filling a territorial continent with commonwealths.

Thus it was that the soil of Ohio, of which Lake and Geauga counties form a part, was in the first instance, waiving the rights of the red man, the property of the French, in the next instance that of England, then of the United States. These counties constitute a part of what is known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, a short account of which we will give in the succeeding chapter.

CHAPTER II .*

THE CONNECTICUT WESTERN RESERVE.

THE Western Reserve of Connecticut lies between the parallels of 41º and 42° 2' of north latitude, commencing with the western boundary line of Penn- sylvania, and extending thence one hundred and twenty miles westward. The entire tract embraces an area of seven thousand four hundred and forty square miles, nearly one-third of which is water. If the whole were land, there would be four million seven hundred and sixty-one thousand six hundred acres. It is composed of the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Portage, Geauga, Lake, Cuy- ahoga, Medina, Lorain, Huron, Erie, Summit (except the townships of Franklin and Green), the two northern tiers of townships in Mahoning, the townships of Sullivan, Troy, and Ruggles, in Ashland, and several islands lying north of Sandusky, including Kelly's and Put-in Bay. This is the land portion of the Reserve. The portion consisting of water lies between the southern shore of Lake Erie and the forty-second degree of north latitude, and is bounded on the east and west by the same parallels of longitude that form the east and west boundaries of the land portion.

There have been numerous claimants to the soil of the Reserve. In addition to the red man's title, France, England, the United States, Virginia, Massachu- setts, New York, and Connecticut have all, at one time or another, asserted ownership. The claim of France arose by reason of its being a portion of the territory which she possessed by right of discovery. England laid claim to all territory adjoining those districts lying along the Atlantic seaboard, whose soil she possessed by right of occupancy, asserting ownership from sea to sea. The greatest ignorance, however, prevailed in early times as to the inland extent of the American continent. During the reign of James I., Sir Francis Drake reported that, from the top of the mountains on the Isthmus of Panama, he had seen both oceans. This led to the belief that the continent from east to west was of no considerable extent, and that the South Sea, by which appellation the Pacific was then known, did not lie very far removed from the Atlantic. As late as 1740 the Duke of Newcastle addressed his letters to the "Island of New England." This ignorance of the inland extent of America gave rise, as we shall see, to conflicting claims of western territory. England's valid title to the great west was obtained through conquest, compelling France, in 1713 and 1763, to surrender nearly the whole of her American possessions. The United States succeeded Great Britain in her rights of ownership in American soil, and thus came to have a claim to the lands of the Reserve. The claims of Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut were obtained by virtue of charters granted to English subjects by English sovereigns. The tract of country em- braced in the London Company's charter, granted by James I. in 1609, whence arose Virginia's claim, commenced its boundaries at Old Point Comfort, on the Atlantic, and extended two hundred miles south and two hundred north from this point. From the southernmost point a line drawn due west to the Pacific formed the southern boundary ; from the northernmost point a line run- ning diagonally northwesterly through Pennsylvania and Western New York, across the eastern portion of Lake Erie, and terminating finally in the Arctic ocean, formed the northwestern boundary ; and the Pacific ocean, or what was then called the South Sea, the western boundary. The vast empire lying within these four lines included over one-half of the North American continent, and embraced all of what was afterwards known as the Northwestern Territory, in- cluding of course the lands of the Reserve.

The claim of Massachusetts rested for its validity upon the charter of 1620, granted by James I. to the Council of Plymouth, and embraced all the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth de- grees of north latitude. This grant comprised an area of more than a million square miles, and included all of the present inhabited British possessions to the north of the United States, all of what is now New England, New York, one- half of New Jersey, very nearly all of Pennsylvania, more than the northern half of Ohio, and all the country to the west of these States. In 1630 the Earl of Warwick obtained a grant to a part of the same territory, and in the following year assigned a portion of his claim to Lord Brooke and Viscounts Say and Seal.

In 1664, Charles II. ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, and afterwards King James II. of England, the country from Delaware bay to the river St. Croix, and afterwards it was insisted that the granted territory extended westward to the Pacific. This constituted New York's claim to western territory of which the lands of the Reserve were a portion. In 1662 the same monarch granted to nineteen patentees an ample charter, from which Connecticut derived her claim to a territory bounded by Massachusetts on the north, the sea on the south, Narra- gansett bay on the east, and the Pacific on the west. This grant embraced a strip of land sixty-two miles wide, extending from Narragansett bay on the east to the Pacific ocean on the west, and the northern and southern boundaries of this tract were the same as those which now form the boundaries at the north and south of the Reserve.

Thus arose conflicting claims. The extent of territory to which Virginia insisted that she was rightful owner was the largest, and included all the other claims. That of Massachusetts was next in size, and included the whole region claimed for Connecticut, as did the territory embraced in New York's claim.

The United States did not appear as a contestant until the time of the Revo- lutionary war, when she, with good reason, insisted that these disputed lands belonged of right to Great Britain's conqueror ; that a vacant territory, wrested from a common enemy by the united arms and at the joint expense and sacrifice of all the States, should be considered as the property of the conquering nation, and held in trust for the common benefit of the people of all the States. To show how groundless were the claims of these contesting States, it was pointed out that the charters upon which their titles were founded had in some instances been abrogated by judicial proceedings, and the companies to which they had been given dissolved; that the charters were given at a time when much of the territory to which ownership was claimed under them was in the actual possession

. We are largely indebted for the facts given in this chapter to an " Historical Address" delivered by W. W. Boynton, July 4, 1876, at Elyria, Ohio.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

and occupancy of another power; that all the various grants were made in the grossest ignorance of the inland extent of the American continent ; and that George III. had either repudiated the charters of his royal predecessors, or denied to them the right of sovereignty over territory of so vast extent, by issuing a proclamation forbidding all persons from intruding upon lands in the valley of the Ohio.

Popular feeling ran high. Contentions between conflicting claimants frequently resulted in bloodshed. The prospects of the American Union were darkened; the ratification of the Articles of Confederation was retarded; the difficulty and embarrassments in prosecuting the war for independence were greatly augmented. Maryland would not become a member of the Union unless the States claiming western territory would relinquish to Congress their title. In the midst of these gloomy and foreboding events, in which disaster to the common cause was more to be feared at the hands of its friends than of its enemies, Congress made a strong appeal to the claiming States to avert the approaching danger by a cessa- tion of contentious discord among themselves, and by making liberal cessions of western territory for the common benefit. New York was the first to respond, and in 1780 ceded to the United States the lands she claimed lying west of a line running south from the western bend of Lake Ontario, reserving an area of nine- teen thousand square miles. Virginia, in 1784, relinquished in favor of Congress her title to lands lying northwest of the Ohio, reserving a district of land in Ohio lying between the Scioto and Little Miami, which came to be known as the Virginia Military District, which reservation was made in order to enable Virginia to fulfill pledges to her soldiers in the Revolutionary war of bounties payable in western lands. In 1785 Massachusetts ceded the western territory to which she had been a claimant, reserving the same nineteen thousand. square miles reserved by New York, which disputed territory was afterwards divided equally between these two States. Connecticut was the most reluctant and tardy of all the con- testing States in sacrificing State pretensions for the common benefit. However, on the 14th day of September, 1786, her authorized delegates in Congress relinquished all the right, title, interest, jurisdiction, and claim that she possessed to land within her chartered limits lying west of a line one hundred and twenty miles west of and parallel with the western boundary line of the State of Penn- sylvania. The tract of land and water lying west of Pennsylvania for one hundred and twenty miles, and between latitudes 41° and 42º 2' north, was not conveyed, -hence reserved by Connecticut, and hence was called the Western Reserve of Connecticut.

As Connecticut's claim included nearly the whole of the northern half of the present State of Pennsylvania, it infringed upon the rights of the people of the latter State or colony, who alleged ownership by virtue of the charter to William Penn, granted by James II. of England, in 1681. Both States strove for the occupancy of the disputed soil, and Connecticut sold to certain individuals seven- teen townships, situated on or near the Susquehanna river, organized the tract into a civil township, called it Westmoreland, and attached it to the probate dis- trict and county of Litchfield, in Connecticut. Westmoreland representatives occupied seats in the Connecticut legislature. Pennsylvania protested, and, when the Revolutionary contest closed, sent an armed force to drive the intruders from the lands. The shedding of blood resulted. The controversy was finally sub- mitted to a court of commissioners, appointed by Congress, upon the petition of Pennsylvania, as provided in the ninth article of the Confederation, which gave to Congress the power to establish a court for the settlement of disputed boundaries.

This court sat at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1787, when the case was tried, and decided against Connecticut. The title to lands lying west of Pennsylvania was not involved in this adjudication, and Connecticut still insisted upon the validity of her claim to lands not ceded by her to the United States.

At a session of the Connecticut legislature, held at New Haven, in 1786 and in 1787, it was resolved to offer for sale that part of the Reserve lying east of the Cuyahoga, the Portage path, and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, and a committee of three persons was appointed to cause a survey to be made and to negotiate a sale. Nothing, however, was immediately done. On the 10th of February, 1788, however, certain lands lying within the limits of the Reserve were sold to General Samuel H. Parsons, then of Middletown, Connecticut. This was afterwards known as the Salt Spring tract. No survey had been made, but in the description of the land conveyed the numbers of the ranges and townships were designated as if actually defined. General Parsons had explored the country, and had found the location of a salt spring near the Mahoning. He selected his tract so as it should include this spring, from which he expected to manufacture salt and to make his fortune. The entire number of acres thus sold and conveyed to Mr. Parsons, as afterwards determined by the survey made by the Connecticut Land Company, was twenty-five thousand four hundred and fifty. The descrip- tion in the deed is as follows: " Beginning at the northeast corner of the first

township, in the third range of townships; thence running northwardly on the west line of the second range of said lands to forty-one degrees and twelve min- utes of north latitude; thence west three miles; thence southwardly parallel to the west line of Pennsylvania two miles and one-half; thence west three miles to the west line of said third range; thence southwardly parallel to the west line of Pennsylvania to the north line of the first township, in the third range; thence east to the first bound."

In 1795 Connecticut sold all the Reserve, except the " Sufferers' Lands" and the Salt Spring tract, to a number of men who came to be known as the Con- necticut Land Company. The "Sufferers' Lands" comprise a tract of five hun- dred thousand acres, taken from the western end of the Reserve, and set apart by the legislature of the State on the 10th of May, 1792, and donated to the suffering inhabitants of the towns of Greenwich, Norwalk, Fairfield, Danbury, New and East Haven, New London, Richfield, and Groton, who had sustained severe losses during the Revolution. Upwards of two thousand persons were rendered homeless from the incursions of the British, aided by Benedict Arnold, and their villages pillaged and burned. To compensate them for this great calamity this donation was made to them. The lands thus given are-bounded on the north by Lake Erie, south by the base-line of the Reserve, west by its western line, and east by a line parallel with the western line, and at such a distance from it as to embrace one-half million of acres. The counties of Huron and Erie and the township of Ruggles, in Ashland, comprise these lands. An account of each sufferer's loss was taken in pounds, shillings, and pence, and a price placed upon the lands, and each of the sufferers received lands proportioned to the amount of his loss. These lands finally took the name of " Fire Lands," from the fact that the greater part of the losses resulted from fire.

The resolution authorizing the sale of the remainder of the Reserve, adopted at a session of the General Assembly, held at Hartford, in May, 1795, is as follows:

" Resolved, By this Assembly, that a committee be appointed to receive any pro- posals that may be made, by any person or persons, whether inhabitants of the United States or others, for the purchase of the lands belonging to this State lying west of the west line of Pennsylvania as claimed by that State, and the said committee are hereby fully authorized and empowered, in the name and behalf of this State, to negotiate with any such person or persons on the subject of any such proposals. And also to form and complete any contract or contracts for the sale of said lands, and to make and execute, under their hands and seals, to the purchaser or purchasers, a deed or deeds duly authenticated, quitting, in behalf of this State, all right, title, and interest, juridicial and territorial, in and to the said lands, to him or them, and to his or their heirs, forever. That before the executing of said deed or deeds, the purchaser or purchaser shall give their note or bond, payable to the treasurer of this State, for the purchase-money, carrying an interest of six per centum, payable annually, to commence from the date thereof, or from such future period, not exceeding two years from the date, as circumstances, in the opinion of the committee, may require, and as may be agreed on between them and the said purchaser or purchasers, with good and sufficient sureties, inhabitants of this State, or with a sufficient deposit of bank or other stock of the United States, or of the particular States, which note or bond shall be taken payable at a period not more remote than five years from the date, or if by annual installments, so that the last installment be payable within ten years from the date, either in specie or in six per cent., three per cent., or deferred stock of the United States, at the discretion of the committee. That if the committee shall find that it will be most beneficial to the State, or its citizens, to form several contracts for the sale of said lands, they shall not consummate any of the said contracts apart by themselves while the others lie in a train of negotiation only, but all the contracts which taken together shall comprise the whole quantity of the said lands shall be consummated together, and the purchasers shall hold their respective parts or proportions as tenants in common of the whole tract or terri- tory, and not in severalty. That said committee, in whatever manner they shall find it best to sell the lands, whether by an entire contract or by several contracts, shall in no case be at liberty to sell the whole quantity for a principal sum less than one million of dollars in specie, or if the day of payment be given, for a sum of less value than one million of dollars in specie, with interest at six per cent. per annum from the time of such sale."

The following were appointed a committee to negotiate the sale : John Tread- well, James Wadsworth, Marvin Wait, William Edmonds, Thomas Grosvenor, Aaron Austin, Elijah Hubbard, and Sylvester Gilbert. These eight persons were selected, one from cach of the eight counties of the State. They effected a sale in separate contracts with forty-eight different individuals, realizing for the State the sum of one million two hundred thousand dollars. Most of the pur- chasers made their bargains each separately from the others, although in some instances several associated together and took their deeds jointly. The contracts made were as follows: with

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 2

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443