USA > Ohio > Huron County > History of Huron County, Ohio, Its Progress and Development, Volume I > Part 15
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"In '41 my younger sisters and I were in the primary public schools-Lizzie Higgins our teacher : whose attractive face, drooping curls and gentle manner made her our friend even long after she wedded Hon. J. M. Farr, of the Experi- ment. Further on, Sarah Mason instructed little folks.
"At nine years of age, father and mother wisely placed me in Principal Edward Thomson's large Latin grammar class at the seminary-as a basis of my future discipline in various languages. A small member thereof gained the hearts of teacher and pupils by voluntarily, every morning, filling the wood-box, that the homely, oblong stove might diffuse warmth among us chilly linguists. He was.
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then Dave Gray, now, D. S. Gray, a railroad magnate and philanthropist residing in Columbus, Ohio.
"Norwalk Seminary was by far the most popular academy of Ohio, and many substantial young men and women attended ; among them Rutherford B. Hayes, Bishop William L. Harris, Governor Charles Foster, General McPherson, Judges Gershom M. Barber, Charles E. Pennewell and George E. Seney. The latter three I remember well, also Representative Francis Le Blond, whose personnel and chapel orations impressed me, an infinitesimal student, in a way altogether grand.
"Sarah Gray, Emeline Yocum and Ellen Dunn were intimates. We had a play- house in the seminary yard; of course we played 'school.' Our bell was a rusty tin basin. But I recall with pleasure Thirza, Delilah and David Allen, the Dunn boys, the Heath sisters, Julia, Talitha and Irene Pope, Sophia and Cornelia Steele, Lydia, Althea, Ann and Ambrose Beebe, the Bigelow sisters, McDonough and Cinderella Cary, Mary Jane Hoyt, Huldah Seeley, Mary Tillinghast, Sarah Shaffer, Thomas Cooper, E. P. Jones, Ann and Thomas Smith (what dimples Ann had!) who, with her mother, lived in the present Theodore Wooster house ; Sophia Walker-handsome, with a trace of Indian blood; Jane Cook, who believed in Birney and Third Party-Free Soil, it was then. She died at school, universally mourned : indeed, a long procession seem, now, to pass before me as nameless shadows.
"In a short time promotion brought into Latin reader the four Marys: Mary Watrous, Mary Beardsley, Mary Tuttle. Mary Janes; the fifth member was a bright, genial girl, granddaughter of Platt Benedict-Sarah Gallup-whom I met in after years as the dignified Mrs. Henry Brown.
"Another seminary girl, older than we, was the blue-eyed. fair-haired Sarah Williams, who married Darwin Gardner, of Cleveland.
"It was a cruel fate that deprived us five girls and boys of our father, Rev. John Janes. He was so witty and wise, so kind and mindful. His untimely taking off is even yet a source of greatest grief : for years I could not see with composure a young girl sharing her father's protection and society. Mother mournfully gath- ered us about her-baby Johnny in her lap, brother Frank, three years old and re- covering from severe illness, and us three sisters. Father's death in 1843 began an era for me ; as oldest child I felt a responsibility and aged beyond my years. The first article ever written by me, appearing in print, were lines on father's taking away, carried to The Reflector office by Rev. Edward Thomson in February, 1843. In the next month I passed my eleventh birthday.
"It is interesting to note that The Reflector, aged and honorable, is about to celebrate its seventy-seventh Christmas. The time-honored journal ought to hold a diamond anniversary.
"Before the middle of that decade the dear old academy blossomed into the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, and into Baldwin Institute, Berea, Ohio. A Christmas tribute should here be paid to a very few who gave of their best years to Norwalk Seminary. Edward Thomson, a skeptical young man of Portsea, Eng- land, came to Wooster. Ohio, with his parents, studied medicine in that old town and was converted there. His deep learning, piety and gifts as orator and writer brought him to the head of our leading Methodist institution-from Norwalk to Cincinnati as editor, then president of Ohio Wesleyan. In all these positions he
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was brilliant, capable and beloved. His successors at Norwalk were Rev. and Mrs. A. Nelson, Rev. and Mrs. Holden Dwight ; all of whom nceded only to be known to be forever remembered.
"In April, 1846, Rev. Mr. Dwight became principal of Baldwin Institute, but died in his prime the following November, greatly lamented. Theodore D. Shep- herd, so long postmaster of the Maple City, was a nephew of Holden Dwight.
"Henry Buckingham, Alfred Henry Smith and myself were tutored in Virgil at my home, evenings, by Mr. Curtis, a law student. We lived on Main street; our place being the whole St. Charles Hotel corner plat. Shepherd Patrick had a dry goods store next to us ; Obadiah Jenney kept the Mansion House nearly op- posite ; in a line with that were Theodore Williams' and the Stoutenburghs' stores. Across a narrow street, at the side, was the Presbyterian church. Mother, shrink- ing from the remote and almost inaccessible Methodist meeting-house, placed us in the beloved Sunday school, so near our home. Cortland Latimer was superin- tendent ; John R. Osborn a prominent layman, and Rev. A. Newton, pastor. My Sabbath school teacher was Elizabeth Buckingham-a grand woman. The only two class members whom I can define were Belle Scott and Louise Latimer. A small host of town-girls were delightful friends: Harriet and Sarah Buckingham, Cecelia Jenney, who from her early years was a pronounced church woman, Martha and Ann Eliza Mallory, Emma Brown, Sarah Jane, Louise and Caroline Smith, Jane Rule, Cornelia Boalt, Rebecca and Sara Miller, and Laura Tifft, who married Dr. Seth Beckwith.
"The names of citizens, wide-wake then, are now chisled in marble and granite. Some of them live again in their children: Wickham, Kennan, Gibbs, Carter, Baker, Benedict, Gallup, Colonel James A. Jones and brothers, surely are honored yet in that community.
"I must mention three or four: Rev. Leonard B. Gurley belonged not simply to one church or village ; Huron and Erie counties revered him, for he was orator, artist, poet and brilliant in prose, furnishing most rare contributions to the Fire- lands Pioneer. Who could forget Hon. and Mrs. S. T. Worcester and the Woos- ters? To my childish eyes no mansion, anywhere, seemed so palatial as Richard Vredenburgh's villa in the grove. There was nothing, ever, like those pillars!
"I cannot omit Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Strong. Mr. Strong came in 1873 to see mother dying in my Cleveland home, and bade her good-bye. He used to say that she was the most yesterday, today and forever woman he ever knew.
"Joel Blackman and wife, pioneers of Florence and later residents of Norwalk. were second parents to me in my beginning of life's career.
"It was one of my heart's chief delights, with my little hand in that of Lib Smith, to go out into the country, on the farms of Charles and Caleb Jackson, and the Dounce's not far off. Such apples and nuts, with popcorn, never, before nor since, circulated about a generous hearthstone.
"Right here our mother, Mrs. H. B. Janes, shall have her due. Messrs. Boalt and Worcester assisted her in the settlement of our estate. She read the statutes of Ohio, and becoming administratix, secured the respect and confidence of citizens. Father owned property in Akron, Ohio, and there she chose her 'thirds.' It was the one great mistakes of our lives, to sell that valuable plat in Norwalk, and has ever been to us an inextinguishable sorrow.
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"Before mother was twenty years of age she and her sister founded the First Methodist Episcopal church of Ann Arbor, Mich., and that is how father invited her to share his life and work.
"Mother did all she could for us children before leaving Norwalk. Four of father's nieces-two of whom mother had educated at the seminary, married stirring business men of Sandusky city ; one of them, W. S. Mills, so long editor of the Register. The older of these four gentlemen was Leonard B. Johnson, whose hospitable home in the city and whose island in Sandusky bay, delighted us all.
"She had us know Milan, then in its prime, albeit Thomas A. Edison was not yet its most distinguished child. Lyme, Monroeville and especially Bellevue were dear to her. In person and in memory she was devoted to the Firelands-noble New England woman that she was !
"The fact must not be lost sight of that this is a Christmas article. When father died, mother chose a beautiful knoll under two great forest trees in St. Paul's church-yard, for the repose of her dead. No more charming spot could be outlined even in Mt. Auburn or Greenwood. Of course, 'God's acre' endeared us to St. Paul's-the oldest parish of Norwalk-founded in 1820. The sacred edifice itself, within and without, inspired us with awe, especially on Christmas Eve during 'illumination'-the chief anticipation of the whole year.
"Let us glance into 'the church' during its earliest Christmas carols. The women singers, we will say, were twelve in number ; six of them married, dressed in black with bishop sleeves, white caps and poke bonnets ; six young ladies arrayed in white, all the sweet faces with woman's crowning glory combed smoothly adown the cheek and over the car. In their hands, all in a line, is the anthem prepared for the occasion, printed on fly-sheets :
""Strike the cymbal, Roll the timbrel.' "And again,
"'Hosanna in the highest !'
"No dim religious light pervades the sanctuary, but an illumination from can- delabra of wocd suspended from the ceiling, perforated and holding in pyramidal shape a host of tallow candles. Across the middle of the eight windows, in a wooden frame, are lighted candles. The interior of the building is grand with festoons of groundpine wound by the young men and maidens of the parish. The supreme moment is when, all the people rising, the rector emerges from the vestry, wearing a white surplice and introducing in solemn tones the ritual, with 'Dearly beloved, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness.'
"I love my prayer-book and the old established church which John Wesley never left, and I always loved to go to St. Paul's, expecting to see in the same places, year in and year out, standing to read the service, Mr. and Mrs. John Gardi- ner, Theodore Williams, Judge C. B. Stickney and the Chapin girls.
"The first rector I can recall, is Mr. O'Kill, a bachelor, who, out of the chancel. was a very social man : he paid court to the dashing Louise Burgess.
"A commanding figure, high in church circles, was Rev. S. A. Bronson, D. D., of Sandusky, pastor of Judge Ebenezer Lane there, also, presumably, of Rush
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Sloane, our president ; he was of a most genial personality and a power in the pulpit, who, in 1807, a babe in his mother's arms, came from Waterbury, Conn., to this Western Reserve, a pioneer of the pioneers. He was well known in St. Paul's pulpit, and to the satisfaction of everybody, married the elegant Louise Williams. I remember, also, Rev. Mr. Winthrop and Marion, nor should mention fail of chief vestryman for years-Charles E. Newman.
"Ever dear to me and mine will be that church-yard, in whose earth our family dust is absorbed-even though in glory as a cemetery is departed; in whose en- closure and grass-grown walks only neglect is apparent ; where a horrible silence reigns ; whose acres are untrodden by eager feet and over which no flower-laden hands ever, now, cause the grave to blossom in hope of the final resurrection !"
EXECUTION OF TWO INDIANS AT NORWALK.
In 1819, two Indians were tried and executed at Norwalk, for murder. Their names were Ne-go-sheck and Ne-gon-a-ba, the last of which is said to signify "one who walks far." The circumstances of their crime and execution we take from the Mss. history of the "fire-lands," by the late C. B. Squier, Esq.
In the spring of 1816, John Wood of Venice, and George Bishop of Danbury, were trapping for muskrats on the west side of Danbury, in the vicinity of the "two harbors," so called ; and having collected a few skins, had lain down for the night in their temporary hut. Three straggling Ottawa Indians came, in the course of the night, upon their camp and discovered them sleeping. To obtain their little pit- tance of furs, etc., they were induced to plan their destruction. After completing their arrangements, the two eldest armed themselves with clubs, singled out their victims, and each, with a well-directed blow upon their heads, dispatched them in an instant. They then forced their youngest companion, Negasow, who had been until then merely a spectator, to beat the bodies with a club, that he might be made to feel that he was a participator in the murder, and so refrain from exposing their crime. After securing whatever was then in the camp that they desired. they took up their line of march for the Maumee, avoiding, as far as possible, the Indian settlements on their course.
Wood left a wife to mourn his untimely fate, but Bishop was a single man. Their bodies were found in a day or two by the whites, under such circumstances. that evinced that they had been murdered by Indians, and a pursuit was forth- with commenced. The Indians living about the mouth of Portage river, had seen these straggling Indians passing eastward, now suspected them of the crime, and joined the whites in the pursuit. They were overtaken in the neighborhood of the Maumee river, brought back and examined before a magistrate. They con- fessed their crime and were committed to jail. At the trial the two principals were sentenced to be hung in June, 1819; the younger one was discharged. The county of Huron had at this time no secure jail, and they were closely watched by an armed guard. They nevertheless escaped one dark night. The guard fired and wounded one of them severely in the body, but he continued to run for sev- eral miles, till tired and faint with the loss of blood, he lay down, telling his companion he should die, and urging him to continue on. The wounded man wa- found after the lapse of two or three days, somewhere in Penn township in a
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dangerous condition, but he soon recovered. The other was recaptured near the Maumee by the Indians, and brought to Norwalk, where they were both hanged according to sentence.
In this transaction, the various Indian tribes evinced a commendable willing- ness that the laws of the whites should be carried out. Many of them attended the execution, and only requested that the bodies of their comrades should not be disturbed in their graves.
The larger part of the Indians that settled on the Firelands were tribes of the powerful Iroquois nation.
The Senecas, who were in the habit of passing through the southern part of Huron county, on their way to eastern hunting-grounds, were particularly fierce in appearance, bedecked in their barbaric garb of feathers and skins, but never- theless were friendly.
On these hunting trips they would trade baskets, trinkets and game with the settlers in exchange for bread, meal or flour.
HONOR THE PIONEER MEN AND WOMEN.
FROM T. F. HILDRETH'S ADDRESS NT & MEETING OF THE FIRELANDS PIONEER SOCIETY.
As we recede farther and farther from the days of the pioneers, the lives of those who are still among us have a peculiar interest. These are the last vital lines that bind us to a whole generation that has nearly passed away, and we are left today with but a few of its living representatives.
The pioneer of today stands along the track of our civilization, like a weather- beaten finger-board pointing backward to the days of the far-off years. They are among us like the echo of some grand old hymn with which we used to be familiar. but the notes of which became fainter and more indistinct, as we get farther away from the years in which it was sung.
In the nature of the case the time can be but a little way off when the last one of these heroic men and women will have gone out from us. Indeed, the pioneer proper-those who first felled the forests, and blazed our highway, and transformed the wilderness into fruitful fields, are nearly all gone. Here and there, there is one left, connecting the life of our pushing, cultured generation, with one whose mode of living and deeds of daring-when told to us-seem more like fiction than reality.
If it is beautiful to see childhood holding the wrinkled hand that used to lead it, and steadying the feeble steps that used to guide it, why should not we cherish and honor the memory of those to whose care and economy we owe all we now have.
In the history of our pioneers it is eminently true that these have labored and we have entered into their labors. Nowhere can it be more certainly verified "that one soweth and another reapeth." It is according to the plans of God, that the results of every life shall reach beyond the term of its continuance.
There is danger, even though we have inherited the wealth produced by their care and economy, that we forget or neglect to crown the pioneers with the honors they so well deserve.
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These annual meetings ought to have the dignity and inspiration of a public holiday in which the people unite to keep in perpetual remembrance the names and heroic deeds of those who so well laid the foundations of our civilization.
But few of the brave men and noble women of the pioneer days remain among us. The ring of the woodman's ax echoes no more through the aisles of the forest, and the lurid glare of blazing windows no more light up the night- sky. "for the former things have passed away." The log cabins-those most hospitable homes ever builded anywhere, by hands-have yielded to decay, and are superseded by cottages of beauty and homes of wealth. Here and there the old log-house has been spared by the hands that built it, as God has spared the few hardy pioneers who remain among us.
The men of today may be better educated for business and our women may be deemed more refined, as society estimates culture ; but we shall never have a class of men of more stalwart integrity, nor a womanhood whose characters will shine with greater luster. It is to honor these heroes of the past, whose har- vests of good we are now reaping, that we annually gather to repeat the story of their toils and triumphs, and to keep green the memories of those who have passed from labor to repose.
We began life with the accumulated advantages secured to us by their sacri- fices and economy, and the record of our achievements ought to be more bril- liant than theirs. While personal virtue cannot be received among the values we inherit from our ancestors, the tendencies to integrity may be builded into the very foundation of our being.
We are standing today in the twilight of receding physical and social condi- tions, and in the gloaming of a generation of which we may justly be proud to be its descendants. If the histories of the noble pioneers may not be found in our public libraries, we may reproduce them by the exhibition of their transcendent virtues.
HUNTING IN PIONEER TIMES.
Hunting was an important part of the employment of the early settlers. For some years the woods supplied them with the greater amount of their subsist- ence, and it was no uncommon thing for families to live several months without a mouthful of bread.
It frequently happened that there was no breakfast till it was obtained from the woods. Fur constituted the people's money ; they had nothing else to give in exchange for rifles, salt and iron, on the other side of the mountains.
The fall and early part of the winter was the season for hunting the deer, and the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and fur- skinned animals. It was a customary saying, that fur was good during every month in which the letter "R" occurs.
As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy. accompanied with light snows, these men after acting the part of husbandmen as far as the state of warfare permitted, began to feel that they were now hunt- ers and became uneasy at home, their minds being wholly occupied with the camp and chase.
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Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was noth- ing of skill and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter before he set out in the morning, was informed by the state of the weather where he might reasonably expect to find game, whether on the bottoms, the sides or the tops of the hills.
In stormy weather the deer always sought the most sheltered places, and the leeward side of the hills. In rainy weather, when there is not much wind, they kept in the open woods on high ground. In every situation it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain the course of the wind, so as to get the leeward of the game. As it was necessary, too, to know the cardinal points, he had to observe the trees to know them.
The bark of an aged tree is thicker and much rougher on the north than on the south side ; and the same may be said of the moss. From morning till night the hunter was on the alert to gain the wind of his game, and approach him without being discovered.
If he succeeded in killing a deer he skinned it and hung it up out of the reach of the wolves, and immediately resumed the chase till the close of the evening, when he bent his course towards his camp; when arrived there he kindled up his fire, and together with his fellow hunter, cooked his supper. A place for a camp was selected as near water as convenient, and a fire was kindled by the side of the largest log that could be procured. The ground was preferred to be rather sideling that the hunters might lie with the feet to the fire, and the head up hill.
The common mode of preparing a repast was by sharpening a stick at both ends, and sticking one end in the ground before the fire and the meat on the other end. This stick could be turned round, or the meat on it, as occasion re- quired. Sweeter roast meat than was prepared in this manner no European epicure ever tasted. Bread, when they had flour to make it of, was cither baked under the ashes, or the dough rolled in long rolls, and wound round a stick like that prepared for roasting meat, and managed in this way. Scarce any one who has not tried it, can imagine the sweetness of such a meal, in such a place, at such a time. French mustard, or the various condiments used as a substitute for an appetite, are nothing to it.
Supper finished, the adventures of the day furnished tales for the evening, in which the spike-buck, the two and three pronged buck, and the doe, figured to great advantage.
Many of the sports of the early settlers of this country were imitation of the exercises and stratagems of hunting and war.
One important pastime of the boys-that of imitating the noise of every bird and beast in the wood-was a necessary part of the education on account of its utility under certain circumstances.
HURON COUNTY-THEN AND NOW.
· BY J. H. DON M.DSON.
READ BEFORE THE FARMER'S INSTITUTE AT GREENWICH, OHIO, FEBRUARY, 8, 1906.
Originally Huron county embraced all of the Firelands of five hundred thou- sand acres of land and was organized by an act of the general assembly of the state
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of Ohio, passed February 7, 1809. The county included all of what is now Erie county except the territory taken from Sandusky county when Erie county was formed. The act of the general assembly of the state of Ohio by which the forma- tion of Erie county was authorized was passed March 16, 1838, twenty-nine years following the passage of the act authorizing the formation of Huron county.
The first county seat of Huron county as first organized was Avery, selected by a committee appointed by the legislature on the farm of David Abbott near Milan now within the territory of Erie county.
The location of the county seat was not satisfactory to many of the settlers and an effort to have it removed to some other place was made and the legislature was induced on the 26th day of January, 1818, to appoint a committee to investigate the matter and locate the seat of justice at some other place if in their opinion it was best to change.
The infant village of Norwalk, scarcely two years old, was the place selected by this committee and the county seat was removed to this place. The county in 1811 had its boundaries changed and took in a large part of what is now Lorain county. Ruggles township belonged to the county until it was transferred to Ashland county February 26, 1846, the time when that county was formed, so that after having had slices taken from all its boundaries it now contains only three hundred three thousand, nine hundred and five acres of land instead of five hundred thousand acres and more, if we include the territory transferred to Lorain county, which it had originally.
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