USA > Ohio > Portage County > History of Portage County, Ohio > Part 56
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492
HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
Mr. Pike, the oldest man in the township, now ninety-one years, was in the war of 1812. Capt. Mills commanded a company at the battle of Mackinaw under Col. Croghatt. He was the first militia Captain, also.
The township was organized in September, 1817, and named Nelson. The first Justices of the Peace elected were Daniel Stow and Elisha Taylor, Jr., the latter declining to serve. One of the first cases was Delaun Mills vs. James Knowlton, action to recover the price of a bear. Mills had a bear trap, Knowlton baited it, caught a bear and took it home. Mills claimed the bear, as it was caught in his trap. Judgment, 25 cents, awarded Mills for the use of trap; plaintiff and defendant to divide costs.
Before the township was regularly organized, and while Benjamin Stow was Magistrate, Thomas Kennedy and Wareham Loomis got into a fight, and the one who was whipped had the other arrested. When the case came up for trial, the prosecuting witness, defendant and spectators were all greatly sur- prised at the decision of the Judge. He fined both parties $5 apiece, and made each pay half the costs. Being remonstrated with by a friend of the prosecuting witness at the apparent irregularity of the proceeding -- that it was not law-he replied, "I am Chief Justice of this domain, and am here to deal ont justice; I don't care a fig for the law."
Another case, showing that in those early times justice, rather than the strict technicalities of the law, prevailed, occurred during the time Capt. Mills had his tavern. The accommodating Captain, as has been stated, sold whisky, but he forgot to get out a license. He was arraigned before the Trumbull County Court for selling liquor without a license, and plead guilty to the charge. Judge Kirtland, who had often been refreshed at the hostelry of Mills, remarked to Judge Pease that he did not think the defendant guilty within the meaning of the statute, whereupon Pease asked Mills if he could not change his plea .; " May it please the Court, your Honor, I am not guilty," promptly replied the accommodating Captain, and he was as promptly dis- charged.
Many stories have not only been told orally, but have found their way into print, about Capt. Delaun Mills and the Indians; they have been added to from time to time so abundantly that one would be led to believe that the exclusive business of the redoubtable Captain was to hunt and kill Indians. According to some authorities he would shoot a couple of redskins and throw them on his burning log-pile, just as he would perform any other ordinary work; then he pursues a party of them into a swamp and dispatches half a dozen or so, before breakfast; again, he would kill one, put him under the upturned root of a tree, cut the top of the tree off, and let the balance fly back and thus effectually bury the brave; or again, he would stick the carcass of one of his wily foes into a spring, and ram and jam it down with his rifle. There is no doubt about the extraordinary bravery of this pioneer, no doubt about his skill with the rifle, and no doubt about his hatred of the red sav- ages, but he was a humane man, with a loving wife and a number of children at his fireside, which prevented his being an Indian-slayer by profession, as a man of his good common sense would know that such careers are short. Notwithstanding the many accounts of his deeds of blood, the only really authentic one is that written by his son Urial, of Salem, Ill., who in a letter dated August 22, 1879, states: " About 1803 an Indian got mad at my father and said he would kill him. Father was in the habit of hunting through the fall. One day in crossing the trail made in the snow the day before, he found the track of an Indian following him; this put him on his guard. He soon saw the Indian. They both sheltered themselves behind trees. Father put
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his hat on his gun stock and stuck it out so that the Indian could see it. The Indian shot a hole through the hat, and when it fell he ran toward father with his tomahawk in his hand; father stepped from behind the tree, shot him and buried him. He told my mother and she told me. About the same time the Indians were in camp near the cranberry-marsh, afterward owned by Benjamin Stow, Asahel Mills was hunting cattle and came past their camp; an Indian snapped a gun at him, but the Indian's squaw took the gun away from him. Asahel came home badly scared and told his story. We soon saw ten Indians coming painted for war. They came into the house; all shook hands with father but the last, who uttered an oath and seized him by the throat. Father caught him by the shoulders, jerked him off the floor, and swung him around. The calves of his legs hit the sharp leg of a heavy table; he then dragged him out doors, took him by the hair and pounded his head on a big rock and left him. The Indians scarified the bruised parts by cutting the skin into strips about one inch wide; they then tied a blanket around him, put a pole through the blanket, took the pole on their shoulders and carried him to camp. They said that if he died they would kill father. While he was con- fined they shot Diver of Deerfield. This created quite an excitement, and the Indians all left for Sandusky, leaving the crippled one in camp. Some time after, when father was away, he came to the house in the dusk of the evening and asked if he could stay. Mother told him he could. She did not sleep any that night, believing he had come to kill us. In the morning he got up, built a fire and cooked his breakfast of bear's meat; he then went out and soon returned with the hind-quarters of a fine bear which he gave to mother, then bade her good-by and left. She was as glad to see him go as any visi- tor she ever had." He was appointed Captain of the Big Hunt in 1818. Capt. Mills was bitten by a rattlesnake in the summer of 1812, and it very nearly ended his career. Soon after being bitten the blood began to flow from his nose and eyes, and he became partially paralyzed. The usual remedy, filling the patient with whisky, saved him, but he always felt the effects of the terrible virus. He died April 20, 1824.
The township is strictly agricultural, and cheese making is one of the principal industries. The country is rolling throughout its whole extent, but the land is excellent. Considerable fine stock is raised and handled, and some sheep and their product marketed. Originally the entire face of the country was covered with a heavy growth of the finest timber, and game being plenti- ful it was really one of the best hunting-grounds for the Indians, and some of the well-known chiefs often hunted here. Big Cayuga, Snip Nose Cay- uga, both of whom Capt. Mills is said to have killed, Seneca, Nickshaw and John Mohawk, who shot Diver, were among the more noted. White hunters, also, more skilled with the rifle than the Indians, stalked those old woods, and many an adventure with bears and wolves is told of the grandfathers and fathers of the present inhabitants.
A beautiful monument stands in the square at the Center, erected to the memory of the brave boys who so nobly laid their lives down on the altar of their country, and it is an honor to the patriotic citizens who thus remem- ber the martyrs who died that they might enjoy the benefits and glory of an undivided country. It cost $1,225, and was made at Ravenna. Nelson fur- nished 109 soldiers; twenty died and eight were disabled.
The township is well watered with several small streams, and an excellent market and shipping point is afforded in Garrettsville.
There are eight good schoolhouses in the township, besides a fine academy at the Center; also one Congregational Church, Rev. Fowler, pastor; one
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. E. B. Wilson, pastor, and a small church in southeast corner of township.
Three cheese factories are nearly all the time in operation. There are two general stores, one blacksmith shop and postoffice at the Center, S. M. Alger, Postmaster.
Township Officers .- Trustees, A. J. Paine, A. F. Hannah, Edwin Taylor; Clerk, W. W. McCall; Treasurer, William J. Fuller; Assessor, Charles Allen; Constables, Leon Bancroft, Benjamin Paine; Justices of the Peace, L. S. Nicholson, Benjamin Knowlton.
The "Ledges," as they are called, in the northern part of the township, have always been a noted place of resort for pleasure-seekers and curiosity- hunters, and there is a good hotel at one of the principal points of interest for their accommodation. This singular freak of nature is attributed to vari- ous causes, but there is no doubt of their being the result of some terrific internal upheaval, when the fierce volcanic fires burst forth, and possibly shot out through the crevices that now appear in all directions, but which through the lapse of unnumbered ages have been mostly filled with rock and lava debris, pulverized in after ages to ordinary soil and sand. Curious upheavals of this character are to be found all over the world, but they generally occur on mount- ain tops, and are called in two or three localities "the devil's back bone." The Nelson Ledges are well worth a visit.
The general statistics of this township for 1884 are: Acres of wheat, 607, bushels, 8,802; bushels of rye, 88 from 7 acres; of buckwheat, 32 from 3 acres; of oats, 20,155 from 603 acres; of corn, 7,603 from 605 acres; of meadow, 3,237 tons of hay from 2,050 acres; of clover hay, 209 tons and 23 bushels of seed from 127 acres; of flax, 61 bushels of seed from 5 acres; of potatoes, 11,035 from 85 acres; of butter, 67,855 pounds home-made; of cheese, 131,710 pounds; of maple sugar, 32,222 pounds, and 7,361 gallons of syrup from 34,402 trees; of honey, 2,115 pounds from 69 hives; of eggs, 23,862 dozens; of apples, 10,605 bushels; peaches, 995 bushels; pears, 44 bushels; cherries, 6 bushels from 370 acres of orchard; pounds of wool, 11,074; milch cows, 781; stallions, 1; dogs, 111; animals died of disease, 100 sheep, 11 cattle and 2 horses; acres cultivated, 4,228; pasture, 7,339; woodland, 2,621; waste, 108; total, 14,296 acres. Population in 1850 was 1,383, including 561 youth; in 1870, 1,355; in 1880, 890; in 1884 (estimated), 950.
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PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
THE VANGUARD-PIONEER DANIELS-CAPT. BALDWIN, TRUMAN GILBERT, ARTE- MUS RUGGLES-THE GREAT TRAIL-A NOTED CHARACTER-PIONEER DEN- TISTRY-A FAMOUS TRAPPER-AN IRATE F. F. V .- " MOSES JABE" GIL- BERT, THE CONTRACTOR - NUMEROUS FIRST EVENTS - PREACHER AND CHURCHES-SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS-ORGANIZATION-PALMYRA CENTER- DIAMOND -- COAL BANKS-BUSINESS, SOCIETIES AND STATISTICS.
P ALMYRA is one of the townships that received its first settler in June, 1799, there being three others, Ravenna, Aurora and Atwater, with Deerfield following in July. It was known in the original surveys simply as Town 2, Range 6, and in the general drawing of the shares of the Connecticut Land Company fell to the lot of Elijah, Homer, and David E. Boardman, Elijah Wadsworth, Jonathan Giddings, Zephaniah Briggs, Stanley Griswold and Roderick Wolcott. The Boardmans were brothers, Elijah being the princi- pal owner of the township. He was one of the surveying party that came to the township in 1797 with Amzi Atwater and Wareham Shepherd.
David Daniels, the leader in the vanguard of the little band of soldiers of civilization who settled and helped make habitable this fine township of Pal- myra, arrived on the scene of action June 4, 1799, and settling on Lot 21, one mile and a half south of the Center. This hardy pioneer was born in Grat- ton, Conn., and as a reward for his daring and determination in venturing into a country that had hardly felt the tread of a white man, and when everything was as wild as nature had originally formed it, was given 100 acres of land by the proprietors. Soon after he had made a small clearing and thrown together a rude cabin, he put out an acre and a half of wheat, which he cut the following season, and carried one bushel of the grain on his back to Poland, thirty miles distant, had it ground and brought it back. His wife was Lucinda Meigs, cousin of Gov. Meigs, of Ohio. Daniels died July 13, 1813, highly respected by all, and much honored as the first Justice of the Peace of the township. He had also been a gallant soldier of the Revo- lutionary Army. His widow survived him till 1849, having lived to the advanced age of eighty-three years. They had six children: Electa, Frederick, Horace, Orville, Harvey W. and Almira. The first two were born in Connecticut, the third in Mahoning County, and the last three in Palmyra.
Shortly after Daniels made his clearing, in the fall of the same year, Ethelbert Baker came in and settled about half a mile south of the Center, on the west side of the road, but after a few years sold out to John Tuttle, who came in 1805. The next spring, 1800, William Bacon came in and set- tled one mile and a quarter south of the Center. In 1802 Baker and Bacon brought out their families, and at the same time came E. Cutler, who had married a daughter of Nehemiah Bacon, and located two miles south of the Center. In 1803 Baker cleared a piece of land on the southeast corner at the Center, which was the first improvement in that locality.
In 1804 James McKelvey came from Pennsylvania. Amasa Preston and several others came during this year. Amasa Preston was a great snake
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
hunter, and it seemed to be a hereditary ambition, as his mother, it is said, even after she got too old to see them, used to hunt the "varmints " down on all occasions. There was an immense den of yellow " rattlers" at the " Ledge," in the western part of the township, and much sport was had and a great deal of satisfaction afforded in getting rid of the dangerous reptiles.
In 1805 many immigrants from Connecticut arrived, among whom were several families who became prominent in after years, and whose descendants are to-day the leading people of the township. David Waller, Silas Waller, Asa- hel Waller and John Tuttle, Jr., came in. The Wallers began making improve- ments on the southeast corner at the Center, and put up a log-house there. The same year they cleared a piece of land half a mile north of the Center. David Waller brought a number of fruit trees from Deerfield on his back and set them out, which was the starting of the old orchard that afterward afforded such fine fruit. He afterward cleared and lived on one or two other places, but finally lost all his property by having too much confidence in depraved human nature. He could never refuse going upon the bond or note of friends, and so lost all by their ungratefulness or inability to pay. He died in 1840. Asa- hel Waller lived only seven years after he settled here, dying in the great epidemic that prevailed in 1812. This visitation was in the form of a very malignant fever, and was so virulent as to baffle the skill of the physicians in nearly every case. Silas Waller died in Poland.
In this year, 1805, also came Capt. John T. Baldwin from Warren, Litch- field Co., Conn., bringing his wife and three sons, Alva, John and Tibbals. They arrived July 7, and their wagon was the second that came through by the " Old Palmyra Road, " there being at the time not a single house between Canfield and Campbellsport. They camped at what is now the Square at the Center, along side of a post that had been erected to designate where the Cen- ter was. They then moved into a small log-house that had been built by Ba- ker, where they lived two months, when they moved to the farm where his son, Squire Alva Baldwin, now lives. Two years afterward the Captain opened a tavern, and in 1825 moved to Toledo, where he died. He and David Waller brought the first load of salt from Cleveland, the trip occupying five days, but the salt was worth $20 per barrel, which paid them a handsome profit, having cost them about $12. The old gentleman was a kind and generous man, and had a fund of wit and humor that always made his tavern a great place of resort. Many stories are told of his playful jokes, one of which is how he shaved a vain young fellow who had no beard, with the back of a razor, having lathered him carefully, and the primitive "dude" never knew any better. His son Alva still occupies the old homestead, and is as hearty and genial an old gentleman, apparently, as his father. He is now eighty-nine years of age, hav- ing been born in 1795. He was in the war of 1812-14, although only seven- teen or eighteen years of age. His father, the Captain, served with Gen. Har- rison in the position of Commissary, which gave him his title. There is a rose bush in the front yard of Squire Alva Baldwin's residence that was planted by his mother in 1805, and it still blooms. Capt. Baldwin was one of the first Commissioners of the county. John Baldwin was for many years a steamboat Captain on the lakes. John McArthur, a brother of the wife of Capt. Bald- win, came in at the time the Baldwins did, and settled on a piece of land in the southwest portion of the township. He was a Justice of the Peace, and died in 1818.
In 1806 there arrived from Litchfield, Conn., Truman Gilbert, Sr., his wife, seven sons and one daughter: Charles, Truman, Jr., Lyman, Mar- vin, Dr. Ezra, Walter, Champion and Rebecca, the latter being now the
Henry Boszor
Sarah N Borger
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PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
widow of Ebenezer Buckley, and is eighty-five years of age, remarkably well preserved in mind and health, and as genial, social, kind-hearted and even jolly, as, possibly, she was half a century ago. Her husband was in the war of 1812, and the old lady, some years ago, had a pension almost forced upon her. She retains a vivid recollection of the past, and can tell as good a snake story as any of her neighbors, for she lives not far from the "Ledge," and has seen many of the old-time yellow reptiles. Charles Gilbert, the eldest son, had a family of nine, and forty-five years elapsed before a single death occurred among them, a remarkable instance, and a fact tolerably discouraging to any undertaker to settle among such undying families. There is an apple tree on the place of Warner Gilbert that was planted in 1806. When Truman Gilbert was raising his house in 1806, and was being assisted by the neighbors, as usual, and some Indians, an eclipse of the sun occurred, which badly frightened the latter. They left the work, got out their bows and arrows and began firing their arrows up into the heavens in the direction of the slowly darkening sun, to scare off the evil spirit.
In this year, 1806, also came Noah Smith, from Connecticut, who brought with him a colored girl, but the following year the Legislature of the State passed a law making it a penal offence to bring a negro into the State, where- upon the vigilant Trustees of the township had the audacious Smith arrested, and after due trial, fined; but Smith appealed his case to the Common Pleas Court, which reversed the decision of the eminent Judges of the lower tribu- nal, the court holding that laws in general, and this law in particular, under the circumstances, were not retroacting.
The great Indian trail from Fort McIntosh on the Ohio to Sandusky passed through this township, and it was along this trail, just north of the Center, that the Indians and their pursuers went after the shooting of Diver, in Deer- field. Brady, of "Leap" notoriety, also took this trail in his excursions against the savages. Nickshaw's cabin was on this trail, in this township, not far from Baldwin's and near a spring.
The year 1807 brought in quite a number of settlers to different parts of the township, but there was one man who was, possibly, more of an acquisi- tion in a utilitarian sense, than any who had preceded him. This was Artemus Ruggles, a native of Connecticut, and a large-hearted, sturdy, honest, coura- geous and ready-witted man, whose services in a new country were just exactly what were needed and desired. He was a blacksmith by trade, and as the say- ing goes, could make almost anything out of iron, besides being handy in many other ways. He made all the traps for all this section of country, includ- ing two or three townships, and literally every "bull plow" that the settlers used for years. In addition to his many other useful qualities, he combined that of dentistry in a primitive way. Mr. Alva Baldwin says it seemed to do Ruggles good to get an opportunity to extract a tooth. He would take hold of a fine large molar with his "turnikey," as he called it, give the instrument a "yank," and sit down and laugh at the suffering patient, holding . up at the same time the captured tooth. He was a noted trapper, and he and his sons caught numbers of wolves, bears and small game. Being a strong, compact and active man, with the endurance of an Indian, very few could throw, or "out-do" him, and very few ventured to try it. He died in 1854.
This same year, 1807, came in David Gano, a Virginian, from Hampshire County, and settled two and a half miles north of the Center. He was in character somewhat like Ruggles, sturdy and honest and as hardy as he was brave. He was anything but a quarrelsome man, and his motto was, "Never give an insult nor take one." He was a great wolf killer and bear hunter,
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
and held his native State in profound reverence. To such extent was he sen- sitive on this latter point that he whipped half a dozen men from "Jarsey " who had dared to speak lightly of the Old Dominion. He lived to a ripe old age, highly respected for his many good qualities.
The first improvements on the southwest corner of the Center were made by James Briggs, who came in 1807. In 1808 James Boles, from Beaver County, Penn., came in and made a settlement where he lived till 1813, when he moved to Trumbull County. His daughter Kate is said to have killed a bear in a fair and square fight with an ax, the wives of Ben and Gib McDaniels acting as umpires. In 1814 Dr. Ezra Chaffee settled in the township, and kept a tavern at the Center, where he lived till 1830, then moved to Paris. In 1811 came Jemima Palmer, and her two sons, Jesse and Samuel. One of the daughters of Samuel died of fright. As she and her father and others were going to church, some young cattle jumped suddenly out from the bushes, when the girl fell to the ground, dead. Zuhariac Fisher came also in this year from Pennsylvania. He was a large, muscular man, of great strength of character. He died in 1834, leaving a large family.
Jabez Gilbert, a man who was noted not only for his iron will and unflinching determination, but for his seemingly unlimited resources in accomplishing anything he undertook, came in 1811. He was a bridge builder as well as mail contractor and general teamster. He built nearly all the early bridges of the township, and hauled all the steam boilers and machinery for steamboats from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. No one else could be obtained who had the courage to undertake jobs of the character that Jabez considered only ordinary hauling. It must be remembered that in that early time roads were in terribly poor condition, where they existed at all, and to undertake to haul by ox-team one of those immerse boilers was no child's play. He was also engaged to carry the mail once a week in a two-horse coach from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. The contract was afterward raised to twice a week in a four-horse coach, then to three times a week, and finally a daily line. He was known as "Moses Jabe," from the fact that he swore "by Moses," and there being two other Jabes among the Gilberts. No obstacles could stop this old contractor from delivering his mail according to specifica- tions, and when streams were swollen he would take the mail on his back, with an ax in hand, and go through "or die in the attempt," as he would say. His contract was finally transferred to the hands of others, and he left the township.
The first white child born in the township was Emeline, a daughter to E. Cutler, born in 1802. The first marriage took place in 1805, and Benjamin McDaniels and Betsey Stevens joined their fortunes with the assistance of Squire Lewis Day, of Deerfield. In this year occurred the first two deaths. A son of John Tuttle, Sr., went down into a well to recover a cup that had fallen in, when he was overpowered by carbonic acid gas, and died before he could be brought to the surface. David Waller lost a child in August. E. Cutler was the first blacksmith, and opened shop in 1802 two miles south of the Center. The
first frame house was built in 1807 by David Daniels; in the same year the first tavern was opened by Capt. Baldwin at the Center, and the first postoffice established, with David Waller as Postmaster. The first distillery was started in 1808 by John Tuttle, and William McKibbey, a brother of James, officiated as distiller, and here they turned out a fine brand of primitive "tangle-foot." The first tannery was established in 1810 by Parrott Hadley, a short distance sonth of the Center. The first physician, Dr. Ezra Chaffee, came in 1810. The first stock of goods opened in the township was brought by Walker Can- field and David Waller, who occupied a building on the southeast corner of
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