USA > Ohio > Richland County > History of Richland County, Ohio, from 1808 to 1908, Vol. I > Part 41
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Winter set in early in the fall of 1812, and the soldiers at Camp Council, not being properly clothed, suffered severely with the cold.
Prior to the halt on the Whetstone, General Beall's army camped for a short time at Hayesville, then called Hayes' Cross Roads, and while there al amusing incident occurred. On a dark, rainy night the soldiers were awak- ened by the firing of pickets at one of the outposts, and, in obedience to the command to "fall in," the soldiers soon formed into line to meet the foe, as it was supposed the Indians were coming to attack the camp. The pickets reported that the enemy was advancing in solid colunms and the ground seemed to tremble with the tread of the foes. It was the army's first experi- ence in war's alarms, but the troops acted as veterans and as bravely opened fire upon their unseen enemy. The musketry firing, the charging of cavalry combined to make the night awfully grand with the pomp and reality of war.
Soon, however, the tramping and bellowing of stampeding cattle ex- plained the "attack"-that the stock had broken out of the corral, and advancing toward the camp had been mistaken by the piekets for Indians. The incident, however, showed the vigilance of the sentinels and the bravery of the troops, and that the army was ever ready to meet surprises, midnight . attacks and other emergencies.
General Beall had previously served as an officer under General Harmar, in the campaign against the Indians in 1790, and possessed many of the characteristics of a commander, as was shown in leading his troops success- fully through the wilderness in this 1812 campaign against both a savage and an invading foe.
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This cattle stampede at Hayesville has been likened in its humorous aspect to the "Battle of the Kegs," in the war of the Revolution, and which was made the subject of a mock heroic poem, by Francis Hopkinson, from which the following lines are taken :
'Twas early day, as the poets say, Just when the sun was rising, A soldier stood on a log of wood And saw a thing surprising. As in amaze he stood to gaze, The truth can't be denied, sir;
He spied a score of kegs or more
Come floating down the tide, sir.
The British supposed that each keg contained a Colonial soldier, who was coming to destroy, in some inexplicable manner, the shipping at Phila- delphia.
EAST CRESTLINE.
East Crestline is in Sandusky township and, while it can hardly be classed as a town by itself, being only the east part of Crestline proper, it is a part of Richland county, and, therefore, deserves a place upon the pages of its history. In fact, the entire plat of Crestline was in Richland before a four-mile strip was taken off its west side and given to Crawford county. Therefore this chapter may treat of that territory as though it were still a part and parcel of "Old Richland," with which it is so closely allied in history.
The Sandusky river has its source about two miles north of Ontario, and, in its northwest course to Lake Erie, passes through a country which was so thickly timbered and abundant in game that the pioneers were at first reluctant to undertake the hard, difficult task of clearing the land and despoiling such prolific hunting grounds. But, in the westward march of civilization, even this thickly-wooded tract on the upper waters of the Sandusky had to be supplanted in part by an enterprising town through which trunk lines of railroads pass, whose trains carry much of the inter- state traffic of the north.
The Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati railroad-now known as the Big Four-was chartered in 1836, but its construction was delayed for a number of years. Even after the work was begun it progressed so slowly that the road was not opened to traffic until 1851. There was no town at that time between Shelby and Galion-a distance of thirteen miles. For the con- venience of the people it was thought there should be a station between these towns, and the crossing of the Leesville road was selected as the proper place for its location. The station was established and called Vernon. Its loca- tion was where Main street crosses the Big Four, which is nearly a half-mile north of the present station or junction of the Big Four and the Pennsyl- vania lines. Soon after the erection of the station a town was founded there called Livingston, after its founder-Rensselaer Livingston.
Rensselaer Livingston settled in 1800 near the county line, where he
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built a fine residence which is in fair condition today. Livingston was of the noted Livingston family of New York. Being wealthy, educated and cultured, Livingston and his family were the aristocrats of that neighbor- hood. Mr. Livingston died in 1852.
A postoffice called Livingston was opened, with Mr. Livingston as post- master. He resigned soon after his appointment and was succeeded by Thomas Hall, whose brother, A. Hall, is still a resident of the place.
But Livingston as a town had but a brief existence, for within a few years it became a suburb of Crestline, and finally lost its identity and became absorbed by its former rival.
The Pennsylvania road-then called the Ohio & Pennsylvania-did not cross the 3Cs where the station had been established, but for reasons not necessary to be given in this chapter, the line was changed and located south of the original survey, leaving Livingston north of the crossing. This change gave an opening for another town to be founded, which was doubtless the intention of the men who made the change from the first survey.
The farm of Harvey Aschbaugh had been purchased by a party con- sisting of Judge Thomas W. Bartley, John and Joseph Larwill and Jesse R. Stranghan, and through this land the new line was run and upon it the town of Crestline was founded. Mr. Stranghan was the chief engineer of the Pennsylvania road. The land was then supposed to be on the crest of the "divide," and the town was named Crestline.
In 1845 Wyandot county was created largely from the west part of Crawford county, and, to compensate Crawford for the territory taken from it, a part of Richland-four miles wide and nineteen miles long-was given to Crawford. This four-mile strip extends in width from Crestline to Lees- ville, a portion of country fraught with historic events.
It was in this strip, ceded from old Richland to Crawford county, that Colonel Crawford was captured by the Indians, as shown from the following abridgment from Dr. Knight's journal. Leaving Spring Mills on the morn- ing of June 2 (1782), Crawford's army reached the Leesville locality about noon, where a halt was made for an hour; then followed the Sandusky river for some distance and encamped for the night near the eastern edge of the plains. Omitting the events which transpired-the marches, the battles and disasters that resulted within the three days, the 3d and 7th-the army in disorder retreated after the battle of Olentangy, reached the Sandusky on Friday evening, June 7, and encamped for the night at the place where it had halted upon its outward march, six days before. The pursuing enemy encamped within two miles of Colonel Crawford's army. The retreat and pursuit were continued the next day, and Colonel Crawford. Dr. Knight and two others were captured about a mile west of Leesville. Therefore, the capture of Colonel Crawford was made within the original borders of Rich- land county.
On August 3, 1877, the Pioneer Association of Wyandot county erected a marble shaft to the memory of Colonel Crawford. It is situated as near the site of his torture and death as could be determined by Dr. Knight's
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statement. and C. W. Butterfield's History of Colonel Crawford. It is on the banks of the Tymochett in Crawford township, Wyandot county.
This brief resume of the capture of Colonel Crawford gives but one of the many historical events that occurred in old Richland, and for which the county is so noted in history.
Both Richland and Crawford claim the honor of having been, each in its time, the home of the late Hon. Ross Locke, a political satirist, better known to the reading world as "Petroleum V. Nasby." In 1855-6 Mr. Locke was associated with General R. Brinkerhoff in the publication of the Mans- field Herald. Upon his retirement from the Herald, Mr. Locke went to Plymouth and became one of the publishers of the Advertiser. Later he went to Bucyrus, where he was connected with the Journal for several years. During the early part of the Civil War Mr. Locke began his Nasby letters, which soon attracted much attention and were widely read in the North. His first letters were (the date-heading indicated) written from Wingert's Corners, in Crawford county, but that was only feigned. Many of the cir- cumstances and incidents narrated in the Nasby letters, although given with partisan coloring, actually transpired, and the principal characters were taken from fancied resemblances to individuals living at the Corners at that time. As the Nasby letters became more generally read Mr. Locke changed their headings from these Corners to the "Confederit X Roads, which is in the state of Kentucky."
Toledo Junction is seven miles west of Mansfield, where the Toledo division leaves the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad. A few buildings are clustered around in that vicinity, but the place is a railroad junction, not a town.
VERNON JUNCTION.
Vernon Junction is in Sharon township, at the crossing of the Toledo, Walhonding Valley & Ohio, the Toledo division of the Pennsylvania, and the "Big Four" railroads. The crossing takes its name from Vernon town- ship, Crawford county. It was first called Junction City, then changed to Vernon Junction, in accordance with Goethe, that "Change amuses the mind." But there may have been more potent reasons in this case.
Vernon Junction was founded in 1872, upon the building of the "Cold- water" railroad, and a fine hotel was erected there and was kept by a Mr. Sager, who had previously been a popular landlord at Shelby. A number of business rooms and dwelling houses were also erected, and whatever the little village lacks in size is fully compensated for in appearance. Fifty years ago a railroad junction was thought to be a big thing because there were so few of them in Ohio at that time, but they are so numerous now that their value and importance have diminished.
The country about Vernon Junction is generally level, and in its primi- tive state was covered with a dense growth of hardwood timber. There were swamps in places along the Blackford, east of Vernon.
An Indian trail passed through Sharon township, from the northeast, to Pipestown or Wingenund's on the Sandusky river near Leesville. There
S.S.T. Co. Rufis June 10
RUINS OF SHELBY STEEL TUBE COMPANY
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was an Indian hunting camp near to the present site of Vernon Junction for many years after the war of 1812. It is stated that about a dozen Indians under the lead of Johnnycake maintained a camp there until 1828. Civili- zation has blotted out all external evidences of Indian occupation, but here and there Indian relics are often plowed up. Many of these relics may be of a prehistoric instead of an Indian period.
After a greater number of the Indians had gone to other hunting grounds, a small party of redskins called at the cabin of a settler with whom they were acquainted and upon invitation gave an exhibition of one of their war-dances. They chose one of their number, named Buckwheat, to personate a white man. Buckwheat was placed in the center of the room, and the other Indians then began to dance around him. Hideous as the Indians were themselves, they added to their repulsiveness, contortions of face and body. They jumped and whooped and yelled furiously, and finally threw Buckwheat roughly upon the floor. Then one of the "braves" placed his foot upon Buckwheat's neck and went through the pantomimic action of scalping him, while other "braves" acted the part of plunging their knives into the body of their victim. Buckwheat also played his part so well that the scene was horribly realistic and made a lasting impression upon those who witnessed the performance, and recalled vividly the atrocities perpetrated in certain localities but a few years before.
The pioneers endured many privations, especially during the period prior to the year 1820. The flouring mills were but few, and from five to twenty miles distant from some of the settlements. Whenever trips to mills could not be made, grain was pounded in a mortar with a wooden pestle. The mortar was made out of a log, hollowed out by burning a hole sufficiently large to hold about a half-bushel of grain. At the close of the "pounding," the next process was sifting with sieves of different meshes until the grade of flour or meal desired was obtained. The finest flour was made into bread. The coarser grades were made into batter and baked into pancakes or boiled into porridge. Corn-meal was made into pones, Johnny-cakes or mush. Sometimes both flour and meal chests were empty, but the pioneer women were always resourceful, and when that condition existed in the fall season the children were sent to the cornfields to get cars of corn which the good women would grate into meal and prepare into food. If the corn-meal was mixed and baked in a Dutch oven it was called "pone"; if baked on a board in front of the fire it was called "Johnny-cake," and if made into balls and baked in the oven, the cakes were called "dodgers." Another way to use meal was to boil it in water, and this was called "mush." But if bread was scarce at times, game and honey abounded in great quantities.
As far as possible the pioneers chose the uplands, but many of them built their cabins upon land that rose up, island-like, out of swamps and marshes. They did not seem to care for the ague and malarial fevers, espe- cially incident to the low wet lands. With no hope of ever seeing the land tiled and drained, they went to work to clear farms and let the sun in to dry up the stagnant water.
As there were but few roads in the county in the pioneer times, paths
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were "blazed" through the forests, and as they were often indistinct in places, people sometimes got lost. A case of this kind occurred in Worthington township as late as 1851. A farmer living in Slater's valley had occasion to go to Independence, and took a "near-cut" through a half-mile stretch of woods and got lost. He wandered through the woods for some time and finally got to the edge of the timber and saw a beautiful valley spread out before him. At the far side of the valley stood a large brick house, and the man said to himself, "What a lovely farm, what a fine residence; I wonder who lives there." He crossed the fields, went up to the house and asked the way to Independence of a woman who was standing upon the porch. The woman was his wife, the house and farm were his own, but in his confused and bewildered condition he had failed to recognize them, as he was so thor- oughly "turned around" that he thought north was south, and that east was west, but when his wife spoke the points of the compass were right to him, and he then realized that he had been lost within call of his home. Children were frequently lost, a few of whom were never found. A little girl some miles southwest of Vernon Junction disappeared from a sugar-camp where her mother was boiling sap, and was never heard of. A number of strange Indians had been seen in the neighborhood, and it was supposed they had stolen her.
OLIVESBURG.
Olivesburg is in Weller township and was laid out by Benjamin Mont- gomery in 1816, and was named for his daughter, Olive. By 1821 business in its several lines of those days was represented there. Benjamin Mont- gomery kept a tavern, Abel Montgomery, a blacksmith shop; John Gun, a tailor shop; Thomas Beach, a cabinet shop, and Joseph Burget, a tannery. The town is on the left bank of the Whetstone creek, about two miles north of its junction with the Blackfork of the Mohican.
The first road in the Whetstone country was cut through the forests by General Beall's troops in September, 1812, and the road is still often called "Beall's Trail." The first roads were called "trails" and "paths." There was the "Great Trail" from Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) to Detroit. Then there were Muskingum and Wyandot trails, the Portage path and others. Not only were the Indian trails used largely by the pioneers, opening the way to a distribution of population over the new country, but they became the course of the first roads. In those days nearly all the roads passed along ridges, having been located along buffalo trails, later widened by the Indians and the pioneers. The first towns as well as the first roads were upon ridges and hills. But in time the need of motive power furnished by the streams led to the building of mills in the valleys, and about the mills sprang up settle- ments and towns. The coming of the railroads was the doom of many vil- lages, and the shrill scream of the locomotive sounded the passing of many towns, not only on the hill-tops, but also in the valleys. The Beall trail in time became the Wooster road to the Northwest. And since the trail was cut through, the village of Olivesburg has been built, and, instead of the wild forest that surrounded Camp Whetstone, where General Beall's army en- camped, fields of waving grain are now kissed and ripened by the summer sun.
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To one of an imaginative turn of mind, who is interested in history, the old century comes back at times in retrospection. In a panorama-like view, border armies can be seen marching by in militia garb or in the uniform of Continental soldiers. The pioneers may also be seen, the lines upon their faces telling of the hardships and work which made the present civilization possible. And in each scene the story may be read of the century now passed away.
The mission of Beall's army was to keep between the settlements upon the south of the trail and the British troops and their allies-the Indians- upon the north. After remaining in camp a few days at Olivesburg General Beall moved forward and founded Camp Council, in Blooming Grove town- ship.
The first schoolhouse in Olivesburg was built in 1824. It was a log building, twenty feet square, and Joseph Ward was the first teacher. The Presbyterians built a church in 1827 and the Methodists erected one in 1847. People say "the railroad killed Olivesburg," meaning the Erie road. A more correct expression would be that railroads-the railroad age-prevented Olives- burg from becoming anything more or greater than a little village. It has a pretty location and nestles in a quiet valley with charming surroundings.
In 1857-8 the Rev. J. R. Burgett was the pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mansfield. His pastorate, though brief, was successful. He was called to Mobile, Alabama, and was on board the vessel with Mason and Slidell when they were captured while enroute to England as emissaries of the rebellion. When a boy, Olivesburg was the Rev. Burgett's home.
The sawmill a short distance below Olivesburg was operated for a number of years by Mr. Tinkey, the father-in-law of Mr. Willis, of East Fourth street, Mansfield. William Houston came to Ohio from the state of Delaware in 1815, and was a resident of Olivesburg for many years. Jonathan Mont- gomery, then a resident of Olivesburg, was a county commissioner in 1850. Dr. Hubbs, of Butler, passed his boyhood years in Olivesburg. The late David Berry was a wagonmaker in Olivesburg for a number of years. John T. Crabbs, of Mansfield, formerly lived in Olivesburg.
Perhaps incidents are of more interest to the general reader than are personal mention. A story is told of a justice of the peace in the long ago but as the same story has been located in different places the exact location can not be vouched for. A certain man who had just been elected a justice of the peace, upon returning home told his wife that he had been elected a " 'Squire," as such magistrates are usually called. The next day the children were calling each other " 'Squire." Their mother ordered them to "shut up." saying, "There is nobody 'Squire here but your daddy and me."
When David Tod was running for governor as a democrat before the war, Joc Geiger made a campaign song out of the foregoing incident, changing it to suit the politics of the time. One stanza of the doggerel runs as follows:
"Be silent, each little young sappy.
Or I'll tickle your back with a rod ;
There's none but myself and pappy
Shall ever be Governor Tod."
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An old resident, speaking of muster days, says: "We boys had fine times during the general musters. Then we got gingerbread, which to our taste was next to ambrosia, the food of the gods. Whisky, too, was plenty-the good kind that Tom Corwin called the leveler of modern society.
Of the schools. another states that, "The early school teachers were paid for their services by subscription. There being but few schoolhouses, teachers often got permission to hold school in settlers' cabins. The children learned to 'read, write and cipher,' the latter as far as the rule of three, which was considered sufficient for ordinary business purposes."
East of Olivesburg, in Ashland county, "sick wheat" was often produced in the early settlement of the country. This condition could not be accounted for. The grain would look as plump and perfect as the best quality ever grown and the flour made from the same would be as white and nice as any ever bolted, and when made into bread would be palatable, except that the bread would have a sweetish taste. But whenever eaten by man of beast a distressing sickness would follow. Neither the weevil, rust nor smut then affected the grain and the cause of "sick wheat" was never ascertained.
Elijah Charles came from Beaver county, Pennsylvania, in 1814, and built a sawmill on the Blackfork, about one and a half miles south of Olives- burg. His son, Isaac Charles, succeeded to the property, to which he added a grist mill in 1835. In 1868 he removed to Bluffton, Allen county, where he died some years later. His son, Isaac, was charged with murdering his father, and was convicted and sentenced to the state prison for life.
When Rogers' rangers passed through the northeastern part of what is now Richland county, in 1761, the Blackfork was called "Moskongam Creek."
The writer was in Olivesburg the night of the great frost-June 4, 1859. Sunday morning, June 5, the sun rose on a scene of artistic beauty, but, alas, it was only a crystalline veneering of destruction. As the warm rays of the sun shone upon the ice-incrusted vegetation, the scene of beauty was soon changed to one of desolation, as all plant life wilted and withered, some having been frozen to the roots. Ice was formed a half-inch in thickness. Garden as well as field crops were ruined. While some vegetation revived, a season of scarcity followed, and breadstuff advanced to prices never reached before. This frost devastation passed over a considerable area of country and was particularly severe in northern Ohio. There were frosts every month in the year of 1859. In 1838 there were destructive frosts between the 15th and 18th of May.
But these are only incidents. Seedtime continues to come and harvests have never entirely failed.
DARLINGTON.
Darlingtown was originally called Hagerstown-named for Christopher Hager, the first settler on the town site. For postoffice reasons the name was changed to Darlington.
Darlington is the only town in Perry township. Perry is six miles long from north to south, and three miles wide from east to west, and contains eighteen sections. The location of Darlington is a little southwest of the center of the township.
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The first store in the little village was opened as a branch of a Johnsville concern. Later there were stores there which were owned and conducted by residents of the village.
William James was the first blacksmith of the village. A dry goods store, a grocery, wagon, blacksmith and other shops constituted the business of the place thirty-five years ago, and the town being simply a country village, has changed but little in the years that are past.
The first settlement in Perry township was made in 1809 by John Fred- erick Herring on the east side of section 11, Richland county, and represent, in the main, families of prominence and probity, and many of them were pioneers and helped clear the county and change the forest lands into farms.
A formidable amount of work confronted the pioneers-the building of homes and barns, clearing and fencing the land. Then came planting and sowing and the cultivating and harvesting the crops. The first buildings were log cabins. Logs of a suitable size were cut to the length required, hauled to the cabin site, and neighbors invited to the "raising." An axeman went to each corner to notch and fit the logs and put them in place. The cabins were covered with clapboards, which were held in place by "weight-poles." Floors and doors were made of "puncheons." After the advent of the saw- mills, boards superseded puncheons.
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