USA > Ohio > Richland County > History of Richland County, Ohio, from 1808 to 1908, Vol. I > Part 3
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PETERSBURG LAKES.
The Petersburg lakes are situate eight miles east of Mansfield, within the original limits of Richland county. The lakes are three in number, forming a chain from north to south, a short distance east of the Blackfork river. The upper lake is the smallest, having an area of only about ten acres and is locally called Mud lake. The middle lake is called Bell lake, and has an area of about thirty acres. The lower lake is locally called "Culler's," and has an area of about sixty acres, and is a half mile or more in length. There is a surface connection between the lakes, and it is supposed there is also a subterranean connection. There is an outlet from the lower lake into the Blackfork, which sluggishly courses along a short distance to the west. The lower lake has a depth of from fifty to one hundred feet. The lakes
FLEMING'S FALLS
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
are fed subterraneously from the Mifflin hill on the east, and the waters are clear and cold. The lakes are noted for their abundance of fish and the locality for its myriads of mosquitoes.
Interlaken, Switzerland, is not a large town, it is said, "unless you count the mountains," and Mifflin is a small village unless you count the lakes that lie between the town and the Blackfork. The lakes are evidently counted-figuratively-and have aided in making Mifflin the noted village it is today.
These Petersburg lakes are in the valley which might be termed an oblong basin, and the greater part of their environments are uncleared, marshy grounds, too wet for cultivation. The big lake is a clear, beautiful sheet of water, but the forest surroundings impart a feeling of loneliness, that causes one to exclaim :
"O, solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?"
However, with suitable buildings and other improvements, the lakes might be made a desirable summer resort. In this Blackfork region there may yet be developed a more lucrative industry than a summer resort. Ore mines may be opened there. When General Hedges made a survey of that locality in 1807, he was embarrassed over the variations of his compass. In order to attest the accuracy of the survey the lines were re-run, but still the varia- tions existed. The General then thought the chaining might be imperfect, and had the lines surveyed for the third time, with the same results. In 1808, Jonathan Cox, when surveying in that locality found similar condi- tions there, and the consensus of opinion was that magnetic ores in the earth influenced the needle.
But the only ore as yet discovered in that locality is "bog ore," in the vicinity of the lakes. Bog iron ore is a mineral of variable composition and is found in alluvial soils, in bogs and lakes. There may, however, be other ore in that locality which, if unearthed. would add another page to that storied valley and material wealth to its people.
The little village that was founded on the hillside about a mile east of the lakes was during the 'earlier part of its existence called Petersburg. but for a number of years it has been called Mifflin. The names, however, are used interchangeably and the same is true of the names of the lake.
MORAVIANS PASSED THROUGH MANSFIELD ..
The march of the Moravian missionaries and their converts through Richland county in 1781, in their exodus from Gnadenhutten to the San- dusky country, deserves more than a passing mention. The exodus started from Gnadenhutten on September 10. 1781, and proceeded down the Tus- carawas river to Coshocton, thence up the Walhonding and the Blackfork to Richland county. Upon leaving the Blackfork near its junction with the Rockyfork, the party came up the latter stream to the "'Big Spring." famous in history, where Mansfield now stands. From Mansfield the party proceeded
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across to the head waters of the Sandusky river and to the Wyandot country beyond.
The trip is described in part by Mary Heckelwelder, as follows: "Our journey was exceedingly tedious and dangerous; some of the canoes sunk when on the river and those who were in them lost all their provisions and everything they had saved. Those who went by land drove the cattle-a pretty large herd. The savages drove us along, the missionaries and their families usually in the midst, surrounded by their Indian converts. The roads were exceedingly bad, leading through a continuation of swamps. We went by land through Coshocton to the Walhonding, and then partly by water and partly by land until the end of the journey."
To understand the cause of that Moravian exodus from the fertile valley of the Tuscarawas to the Sandusky plains requires a knowledge of the ante- cedent history of that peculiar people. The Moravian denomination had its origin in Europe and antedates the Reformation by about sixty years. They call themselves neither Calvinites nor Arminians. They profess to adhere to the Augsburg confession of faith, which was the occasion of a separation between Martin Luther and the party who called themselves the Evangelical Reform church. The Moravians have always been imbued with a missionary spirit, which caused them to send missionaries to all parts of the earth. Their first attempt at missionary work in America, was made in Georgia in 1732, and after seven years labor there, they succeeded in making themselves so obnoxious to the people that they were driven out of the state. They next located in Pennsylvania and in several places in New York and Connecticut, where their work was confined principally among the Indians, among whom they made some alleged "converts" to the Christian faith. But they were soon accused of numerous offenses and a number of them were arrested, some of whom were sent to prison. Ministers of different denominations preached loud and long against them. Their villages were burnt and they were driven from place to place.
In 1761, Moravian missionaries began the visionary task of trying to convert the Indians in Ohio. They established three stations in the Tus- carawas valley, in what is now Tuscarawas county. These were named Shoenbrun, Salem and Gnadenhutten. These villages were situated about midway between the white settlements on the upper Ohio river and the war- like Indian tribes on the Sandusky. The work seemed to prosper for a while, but trouble soon came to the Moravians there as it had elsewhere. In the great conflict between civilization and barbarism, the Moravians claimed to be neutral. And in the war of the Revolution, they also wanted to remain neutral, claiming that they declined to take the part of either the colonies or Great Britain. Neutrality has no place in war. The shibboleth of the North during the Civil war was, "He who is not for the Union, is against it." Neutrality was tolerated neither in the North nor in the South during the war of the Rebellion. And it was not countenanced in the Tuscarawas valley with the Moravians.
Forages were frequently made by the Indians among the white settle- ments, extending even to the Ohio river and beyond. and plunder of these
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
raids was found in the cabins of the "converted" Indians. The presence of the stolen property would be explained by the statement that it was brought there by "bad" Indians. This occurred so frequently that there had to be a limit put to the business. Not only theft, but murder was charged against the Moravian converts, which in turn they would try to charge against "bad" Indians. It is not likely that the alleged converts were guilty of all of these charges, and no one would believe for a moment that the crimes committed were sanctioned by the missionaries. The Rev. Frederick Post, Rev. John Heckelwelder, Rev. David Zeisberger and others were men whose devotion to the missionary cause was attested by the hardships they endured and the dangers they encountered, and their Christian characters were above re- proach. But an Indian is of another race, is a savage and can never be civilized. No moral suasion can induce an Indian to honor his treaties, either as a policy or a principle; he regards theft as a legitimate way of acquiring property, and repays friendship with treachery and forbearance with midnight murder. Unlike the people of other races, he spares neither age, sex nor infancy in his cruel warfare, and delights in making horrid tortures the prelude to the death of his prisoners. His seeming patriotism, in fighting for the soil, is merely a selfish consideration for its value as a hunting ground.
The situation was a triangular one, and the so-called converted Indians were between two fires. Finally matters got so strenuous that the missionaries and their Indian followers, were ordered to leave, and made their exodus to the Sandusky country as before stated. The missionaries were taken to Detroit, but the Indians remained upon the Plains, where they fared badly during the winter, which doubtless gave them a keener relish for rapine and robbery upon their return to the Tuscarawas. The latter part of February, 1782, a party of the Moravian Indians were permitted to return to the Gnadenhutten settlement to gather the corn they had left standing in the fields the previous autumn. They had been back at Gnadenhutten only a short time until a series of outrages-of plunder and murder-again oc- curred, as had been the case before their exodus. A white woman and her child were murdered at the outskirts of the Gnadenhutten settlement. and when the white settlers viewed the mangled remains, their fury knew no bounds. The atrocities were again charged by the Moravian Indians against their unconverted brethren, who in turn charged the crimes upon the "converts." In referring to this people the so-called Indian converts are called Moravians in history. The settlers considered that the ties of con- sanguinity naturally caused even the so-called converted Indians to incline their neutrality towards their red kinsmen. The settlers accused them of having stolen property from the people of the frontier and with having massacred many of the settlers. They were accused of sympathy with the British and of treachery to the Americans. The crisis came at last and a military force under Colonel Williamson was sent out against the Moravian villages, and the atrocious tragedy of March 8, 1813, followed.
The fact that the Moravians were compelled to remove twenty-five times
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
before and seven times after the Gnadenhutten tragedy is evidence that they were undesirable residents or sojourners in at least thirty-three localities.
The burning of Colonel Crawford three months later has been attributed by some to the Gnadenhutten massacre. But those who seek to thus explain the Indians' motive for the burning of Colonel Crawford evidently failed to recall the facts that the burning of white men at the stake had been a favorite pastime with the Indians for more than a century at least before the Gnadenhutten tragedy.
FIRST WHITE PEOPLE IN RICHAND COUNTY.
Tradition states that James Smith was the first white man to "set foot" our the land now embraced in Richland county. That was in the year 1755, a short time before General Braddock's defeat. Smith was taken prisoner by the Indians at his home near Bedford, Pa. He was brought to Ohio, to the Indian village of Tullihas, which was situated on the Mohican river about twenty miles above Coshocton, where he was adopted into a tribe. Smith remained with the Indians about four years, and frequently hunted game along the upper branches of the Mohican river. According to his journal, his first trip through what is now Richland county was made in 1755. He hunted game where Mansfield now stands, and bivouacked near the Big spring.
Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers passed through what is now Richland county in 1760.
The next white men who came this way were Moravian missionaries, who frequently passed through here as they journeyed to and fro between Gnadenhutten and the Wyandot country, their route passing through Hell- town, but after its evacuation in 1782, the route was changed via Green- town. The route was known as the Sandusky trail. and passed through Mansfield.
The first white woman to pass through the county was Mary Heckel- welder, supposed to be the first white female child born in Ohio. She was a daughter of Heckelwelder, the missionary of Gnadenhutten.
Thomas Green, a white man for whom Greentown was named, came to Helltown, below Newville, soon after the Wyoming massacre (1778), in which he had taken a bloody part. This renegade was the founder of Green- town, and it is supposed he was buried in the old Indian cemetery there. For thirty years Greentown was an important Indian village on the Pitts- burg-Sandusky trail, and during that period many white captives were brought through Greentown, and halting there for the night and coming this way-where Mansfield now stands-when the journey to the Sandusky country was resumed.
Christian Fast, when a boy of 16, was captured by the Delawares and adopted into their tribe. Fast was at Tymochtee when Colonel Crawford was burned, in 1782, and was within hearing of his cries. During his cap- tivity, Fast passed through what is now Richland and Ashland counties, in going from the Wyandot to the Mohican and became so favorably impressed
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
with the country that years after his escape from the Indians, he left his Pennsylvania home and came back to Ohio and settled in Ashland county in 1815, where he passed the remainder of his life.
The notorious Girty and other white renegades were frequently through this part of Ohio, and often sojourned at Helltown and Greentown.
After the Greenville treaty (1795) comparative peace prevailed, but no settlement was made here until after the county had been surveyed and the land put on the market. But in the interim, white men frequently visited these parts on hunting and trapping expeditions, and a number of those transient persons afterwards became permanent settlers here.
Briefly, the land upon which Mansfield stands was frequently trod- den by the feet of white men before a permanent settlement was made within our borders.
IN THE LONG AGO.
In the early settlement of the county the first work of a newcomer was to select a location, then to cut poles or logs suitable to build a cabin for his family. The dimensions of the structure were according to the number in his family. The windows of the cabin were made by sawing out two or three feet of the logs and putting in upright pieces as window checks or frames, and to these were pasted oiled paper, as window glass could not then be obtained. This paper would admit considerable light and resisted rain toler- ably well.
After the house was completed, the next thing in order was to clear off a piece of ground for a corn and potato patch. New ground was usually plowed with a shovel-plow, on account of roots, and the harness for the horses was often made, in part, of leather-wood bark. Corn was ground on a hand mill or pounded in a mortar or hominy block. It was then sieved, and the meal or finer portion was used for bread and the coarser for hominy. The meat used by the pioneers was of venison, bear and wild turkey, as it was difficult to raise hogs or sheep on account of the wolves and bears. Wolf scalps were worth four to six dollars apiece, which made wolf hunting a profitable business.
Many incidents might be enumerated to show that the paths of the pioneers were not strewn with roses, and that many of the comforts which they enjoyed later in life were obtained by persevering exertions, industry, and economy on their part, and the people of today can form but an imperfect idea of the privations and hardships endured by the pioneers of Richland county. A neighbor at a distance of ten miles in those days was considered near enough for all social purposes.
The pioneers were a generous, warm-hearted and benevolent people. . Although they did not want to see the game driven away by a too rapid set- tlement of the country, yet when a new settler came they extended him a cor- dial welcome. There was social equality then-distinction in society came later.
People went miles to assist in house and barn raisings and in log-roll- ings, while the men were doing this work the women were doing quilting
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
or sewing bountiful meals were served at these gatherings, chicken pot-pie being the principal part of the bill of fare. These pot-pies were usually cooked in big iron kettles out of doors. After the day's work was done, the evening was passed in social amusement-dancing being quite popular. If they had no fiddler, music was furnished by some one singing or whistling "dancing tunes."
Weddings were the great occasions of those days and brought old and young together, the festivities lasting two days. The wedding ceremony took place at the home of the bride, and the second day was the "infair" at the home of the groom.
Although there were many dangers and great privations in pioneer life, there was happiness, also. In later years, the early settlers often referred to that period as "happy days of primtive simplicity."
The pioneers would take hickory bark torches and go miles to call upon a neighbor and enjoy a winter evening in cracking nuts and telling stories, ending with refreshments being served in the form of a hot supper. Cooking utensils were few, and a pot or kettle often had to be used for several pur- poses in the preparation of a meal.
In olden times the rich and the poor dressed much alike, the men gen- erally wore hunting skirts and buckskin pants; the women wore dresses made of linen and flannel goods, spun and woven by their own hands.
The school houses were in keeping with the cabins and the times, and the pedagogues who instructed the youths in the mysteries of the three R's- "readin', 'ritin' an' 'rithmetic," as the London Alderman put it, was called "master." The scholar whose "ciphering" included the "rule of three" was considered well advanced.
There were "puncheon" bench seats and wooden pins were put in the logs at the side of the room, and upon these a board was placed for writing desks and the preparatory course in writing was to make "pot-hooks" and "hangers." There were no classes except in 'spelling, as there was no uni- formity in the books used. They pronounced syllables then, and when they had learned to read, could read anything.
The scholars, old and young, went bare-footed in warm weather, and so did the teacher. The school-master carried a long hickory rod as an insignia of his position with which he often enforced his authority, for the pio- neer did not believe in spoiling the child by sparing the rod.
While the old-time schools may be looked back to as inferior to those of today, yet they were the schools in which our Calhouns, our Clays, and our Websters were educated.
Times change and we change with them, but the fount of childhood is perennially fresh, and there are little sunburnt, rosy-cheeked boys and girls who now fill our better appointed school rooms, as the children of the past did in their day and generation.
Religious services were frequently held at the homes of the settlers, even after houses for public worship had been erected. In the summer time the "threshing floors" of barns were often used as "meeting houses" for Sun- day preaching. Camp meetings were also features of that period. The most
THE BAUGHMAN CABIN
BEAM'S MILLS, WHERE FIRST SETTLEMENT WAS MADE
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
noted camp ground, perhaps, in the county, was near the Easterly church, in Worthington township, on the road leading from Bellville to Newville. The camp meetings were usually held by the Albrights and the United Brethren.
The Christians, or Disciples, also held camp meetings, one of the first and largest of which was at the big spring, near the old site of the Bartley mill on the road leading from Mansfield to Washington village, one of the fruits which is the Ceserea congregation. Elder McVay was the principal preacher at that convocation.
Religious services were often held at the homes of the pioneers, as there were but few church buildings at that time. Meetings at the home of my parents are remembered, one of which is particularly recalled. The service began by those congregated singing that matchless lyric :
"Jesus, lover of my soul. Let me to Thy bosom fly."
I remember sitting between my parents, and hearing my mother's sweet soprano voice and my father's sympathetic tenor as they joined in the sing- ing. In the simplicity of my childhood, in the fullness of my youthful faith, the service made a deep impression upon my mind and is, now a hallowed memory.
Another hymn which was a general favorite in those days-and the last hymn my sainted mother sang-was
"Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Jesus love ; The fellowship of Christian minds Is like to that above."
This hymn expressed the Christian fellowship which then existed among the pioneers. "For they were members one of another."
INCIDENTS OF PIONEER TIMES.
Abraham Baughman, pioneer of the Blackfork valley. bought a calf of an Indian, paying the price the savage asked. A year later an additional sum of money was demanded by the Indian because the calf had grown larger, which amount was paid to avoid trouble, but the next year another supplemental sum was demanded, and was paid under protest. To prevent the heifer from still getting bigger, it was slaughtered for beef, as the owner did not want to pay for its growth every year.
One evening when Pioneer Baughman and wife were at a neighbor's. . two Indians called at the Baughman cabin and finding the boys-Jacob and George-in bed, ordered them to get up and give them something to eat. After they had partaken of a luncheon, the Indians ordered Jacob. the older boy, to go to the "still house" (as distilleries were then called) and get them whisky, and they held George as a hostage, threatening to scalp him if Jacob delayed or gave the alarm. For the want of a more suitable vessel. Jacob
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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
took his mother's tea canister to carry the whisky in and made the trip to the still house and return as expeditiously as possible. Upon Jacob's return, the Indians cautiously smelled of the whisky and detecting a peculiar odor-the odor of the tea-suspicioned that the whisky was poisoned. Acting upon this suspicion, the Indians became enraged and flourished their tomahawks and scalping knives about the boys' heads in a lively manner. They then made the boys drink of it and waited to see the "poison" take effect. But as no bad symptoms were noticed; the Indians accepted the tea explanation and proceeded to drink the whisky themselves, and were howling drunk when Baughman and his wife returned.
In 1811, Sylvester Fisher entered a tract of land in Green township, later known as the Carey farm. Fisher and wife had a large family of children Fisher was a kind husband and father and was industrious in his way, but could not make ends meet financially. He could not make the twenty dollars annual payment on the school land he had entered, and concluded he would rather give it up than to be thrown out. He therefore took the first offer which was made and sold out to William Taylor for one hundred pounds of iron, but when he came to sell the iron he could get only ten cents a pound for it. The money came good, but soon dwindled away, and the wife took in spinning to help make a living. They finally traded their feather bed for a cow, that the children might have milk. But the cow died within a week, and when Fisher went to take off the hide, he found a wolf making a meal on the carcass. He shot the wolf and got four dollars cash for its scalp, so luck came out of misfortune and good luck it seemed to be, for he was more prosperous thereafter.
Jesse Maring, of Shiloh, in a recent interview, gave the following inci- dents of the time when he was a boy :
Of late a number of persons of middle age have asked me if I ever saw a real Indian with his Indian dress on-the buckskin pants, moccasins and hunting skirt. This to me seems strange, for all this was so real to me, for the time was when I saw many of them to one white person. It was a daily occurrence for the Indians to pass through the woods, singly and in droves, and at other times all ages and sizes of them, some on foot and some on ponies. They were friendly and harmless, and I will relate one of my earli- est recollections. It was in the spring of 1824, just at the last of sugar making. A large sugar tree stood close to father's cabin, which had been tapped, and father took his ax to chop that tree down. I followed him out and stood as close as he would allow, and when the tree started to fall he took my hand and led me back out of danger. Just as the tree fell an Indian came out of the wood from the direction that the tree fell with a deer carcass on his back. He laid the carcass on the newly cut stump and wanted to trade it for cornmeal. Father shook his head "no" and said it cost too much to get corn meal. He had just packed a sack of corn on his horse to Bellville to get it ground and packed it back home, as they used to say. The Indian kept bantering to make the trade, and finally offered to take two double handsful of corn meal for the deer carcass.
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