History of Seneca County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns, villages, school, churches, industries, etc., portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of the Northwest territory; history of Ohio; statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc, Part 21

Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Chicago : Warner, Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1088

USA > Ohio > Seneca County > History of Seneca County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns, villages, school, churches, industries, etc., portraits of early settlers and prominent men; biographies; history of the Northwest territory; history of Ohio; statistical and miscellaneous matter, etc., etc > Part 21

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Wells and Springs .- Wells for domestic use are generally obtained in the loose gravel within the drift, or in that sheet of gravel and sand which very often is the lowest part of the drift. As in Ottawa County such wells are often artesian, and show the source of their water in the mineral impurities it con- tains. The waters of the mineral spring at Green Spring and of the spring in Section 7, Adams Township, issue from the rock, which, although exposed at no point within six miles, is probably the Niagara limestone. Wells, also, which do not reach the bottom of the drift, are sometimes supplied by slow seepage from the hardpan, or by penetrating some of the sand or gravel beds contained within the drift. Wells from such higher beds of gravel are common outside the area of the Black Swamp. Within that tract such beds of gravel are more rarely met with, above that lying on the rocky conformations. The medic- inal qualities of the water at Green Spring are so marked as to induce the in- vestment of considerable capital in a Water Cure establishment. The analy- sis made by O. N. Stoddard, of Miami University. Ohio, is published by the proprietors.

The analysis of one gallon of Green Spring water shows the following con- stituents:

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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.

GRAINS.

Sulphate of Lime,. 105.41 Bromide of Potassa, 16.76

Sulphate of Magnesia, 36.14

Chloride of Potassa, 2.48

Sulphate of Iron 6.53

Silica, . 6.10

Carbonate of Iron,. 19.70

Alumina, .98

Carbonate of Magnesia,. 22.39

Car. Acid Gas, 96.48 cub. in.

Density, 1.0258. Temperature, (summer and winter same) 50° Fahrenheit.

The Big Spring, in the southwestern part of the county, was known in early days as the Lime Spring. Unlike the northern waters (Adams) the waters of Big Spring do not show even a particle of sulphur.

Gas Wells .- Gas wells in Ohio, exhaustless fountains of carburetted hy- drogen gas, have come into prominence only within the last fifteen years, al- though evidences of inexhaustible supply were manifest from the beginning of settlement. It was known that the Chinese had for centuries utilized natural gas in their workshops and homes, but not until about a half century ago was this knowledge applied in the United States, when a Fredonia, N. Y., enterprise introduced it. Since that time many localities in Pennsylvania and Ohio have searched for and found this great light and heat giver, and in 1884-85 local enterprise at Findlay, Fostoria, Bowling Green and other places has brought this hidden wealth to the doors of Seneca County, leaving little doubt of its extension throughout the county with a few years.

Prof. Edward Orton, in his paper on oil wells in Ohio, says: "The wells begin in the Niagara limestone, or in the waterlime. The drill goes through 300 to 400 feet of nearly unbroken sheets of solid rock. Below this the red shales of the Medina group come in, ranging from fifty to 200 feet in thickness. The Hudson River group, next below, consists of about 400 feet of calcareous shales, gray or blue, and highly fossiliferous. The fossils are found distinct enough for identification in the drillings. The brown or black Utica shale follows next in order. It is 250 to 300 feet thick. It has but few fossils, but these few are

characteristic. The gas 'sand' or 'oil sand' of the driller comes next. The Pennsylvania driller knows no rock but a sand-stone as an oil or gas pro- ducer, and so this source of gas goes by the name of sand-stone. Analyses of four samples of the rock from Findlay, Fostoria, Lima and Bowling Green, all agree in proving the rock to be an impure limestone, of a different type from any in the Ohio scale. It is clearly the Trenton limestone of the Eastern States and of Canada. It has been drilled into for 400 feet in several wells, but the gas all comes from its upper surface. No gain has been made by go- ing deeper in any case yet, though several thousand dollars have been spent in this way in different localities. Torpedoes have been used with good effect in several wells. The gas comes to the surface with fair pressure when released, but with little of the explosive violence of the great wells of Pennsylvania. These latter are at least twenty times as strong as the strongest of the Findlay wells. The relations of the gas territory to the Cincinnati arch are a matter of interest. Newberry located the arch too far to the eastward, as it now ap- pears. He thought the islands of Lake Erie were carried on top of the arch, but this is thirty or forty miles out of the way. No determination was possi- ble until these drillings were made, and the number is far too small to allow any accurate and final determination. The facts so far obtained show Findlay to be on the highest part of the arch. Taking the gas-bearing rock as our guide, we find it at the following named places and depth below the ocean level: Findlay, 310; Bowling Green, 387; Lima, 446; Fostoria, 471; Fre- mont, 696. The fact that the two points where gas is most abundant are found on the highest portions of the lower limestone will be noticed. The axis seems to be bearing about north and must pass near Toledo, instead of through

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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.

the islands. The effect of the arch is, however, problematical. Even two swallows do not make a summer. Gas may be found away from the arch in some of the wells now going down, in which case the deductions drawn from the first facts would immediately lose their value. Drilling is sure to go forward rapidly in the State, and by means of it we shall learn very much in regard to the structure of the arch that we could not otherwise know. After a little ge- ology can begin to predict. Already one conclusion of much economic value seems fairly well established. It is this: When the Trenton limestone is reached and penetrated twenty or thirty feet, if no reward is found, the drill- ing would best be abandoned. Oil is found at Lima and at Findlay. The oil is of the usual type of limestone oils, viz .: Thirty-six degrees gravity, black, rather low in lubricating quality and somewhat offensive in odor. It is . be twixt and between,' being neither well adapted to refining nor to lubricating purposes, but, if found in quantity, may prove a source of value. As to the quantity, no conclusions are as yet fairly deducible. About 200 barrels are re- ported from the Lima well. The geological facts as to the occurrence of the oil and gas are very interesting and important. Our supplies elsewhere through the State nearly all come from the Berea Grit, but the new horizon lies 2,500 feet below, and, moreover, is a limestone. Its supplies must there- fore be derived from animal life, while the supplies of the Berea Grit are de- rived from the vegetable matters of the black shale. It appears that gas and oil both are rendered characteristic by the source from which they come."

The well drilled at South Fostoria, to a depth of 1,775 feet, was not a suc- cess. The history of this enterprise is given in the history of Fostoria. The proposed well at Tiffin is only a matter of history so far as the projectors of the enterprise are concerned.

Zoology. - There was a time when deer were killed by the first settlers of Tiffin and Fort Ball, within the limits of their villages. The bear, wild hog, wolverine and wolf, were all here; while the reptile species claimed many and venomous representatives. Indeed blue-racers may still be found in this part of Ohio, while garter-snakes are still numerous. In July, 1883, four or five blue-racers had been killed in the northern part of Jackson Township, San- dusky County. The county was at one time a favorite camping ground for sea- hawks and eagles. It is related that some years before the Senecas left the county, a hawk carried off a pappoose that was left by its Indian mother in a grove which then stood on the south bank of the river, near Washington Street bridge. In June, 1882, Daniel Misner, living on the Aikens farm, five miles southwest of Tiffin, shot a bald eagle which measured seven feet from tip to tip, killing it with a charge of number six shot, at a distance of fifty yards. In February, 1885, Philip R. Fox, living three and one-half miles southeast of Fostoria, detected a large bald eagle in the act of carrying away a good sized lamb. He procured his gun and shot the eagle at a distance of fifty feet in the air, and brought him down, together with his mutton.

In the Indian times, the rivers and streams of the county were teeming with fish. As settlement advanced, the finny tribe decreased, and ultimately faded away in the general ruin which fell upon animals of the woods and waters of the wilderness. New species have, however, taken the place of the fish of pioneer times, and now inhabit the rivers and streams. In Pleasant Town- ship, the breeding of German carp may be classed among the industries.

Botany .- It is as unnecessary as it is difficult to name the trees, shrubs, grasses, herbs and flora of this county. Every plant and flower known in this latitude flourishes throughout the length and breadth of Seneca County, while many exotics may be brought, and are brought, to perfection in the homes of the

16. 0 Skinner

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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.

people. Many wild flowers, known only to the pioneers, have disappeared for ever, hundreds of new ones having usurped their place even within the pioneer period.

Horticulture is well represented, the orchards and vineyards of the county being among the first in the northern part of Ohio. In 1824 the first orchard of the county was set out in Clinton Township by John Keller; but prior to this many wild trees offered abundance of fruit to the Indians and pioneers.

Climatology .- It has been stated by very many old settlers of Ohio, that the winter of 1884-85, and indeed the summer of 1885, reached the very limit of the lowest temperature of the respective seasons. History, however, does not bear out the statement; for about the beginning of the pioneer period of the county, the wild animals were frozen in their tracks, and vegetation killed. Since that time the climate of this latitude has not varied very much in the case of Seneca. Atmospheric phenomena were rare indeed, and those appalling out- bursts of nature which have devastated towns, villages and farm houses in other counties, are unheard of here.

The frost of May 15, 1834, destroyed all the fruit crop and potato crop, to- gether with more than one-half the wheat crop. Later that year, flour, in the Tiffin market, was quoted at $14 per barrel.

The drought of 1838 resulted in destroying the grain crop, and reducing the corn crop to the amount of seed sown. A great hail storm swept over the county in May, 1839. This part of Ohio may be said to have escaped the frost of September, 1885.

Archaology .-- The archæologist must be forever a speculator; for, notwith- standing the researches of the ethnologists of the world, and particularly of our own searchers, the origin of the vase, mound, stone hatchets, flint arrow- heads, and all the rude adjuncts of prehistoric life, remains unsettled. While some of the mounds are doubtless very ancient, others, similar in character and equally interesting, have certainly been built up since the advent of Europeans. A string of sleigh bells much corroded, but still capable of tinkling, was found among the flint and bone implements in a mound in Tennessee, whilst in Mis- sissippi, at the point where De Soto is supposed to have tarried. a Spanish coat of arms in silver, one blade of a pair of scissors, and other articles of European manufacture were found in positions which indicated that they were buried by the original builders of the mounds. In a Georgia mound two copper plates were found, upon which were stamped figures resembling the sculptures upon the Central American ruins. The workmanship is vastly superior to that dis- played on the articles of pottery, stone and bone found in the mounds, and their origin and purpose are not yet explainable. Aside from these plates nothing has been found to indicate a connection between the Mound-Builders and the Aztecs or the Pueblos, while on the other hand, there appears many reasons for not going beyond the Cherokees, and their fellow red men of the Ohio and Mis- sissippi Valley, to find the origin of these curious erections. The purpose of the mounds still remains in some cases a mystery, but in others they are known to have been made sometimes for burial places, and sometimes as foundations for Indian villages secure from the floods to which the low lands were period- ically subjected.

The old fortifications on Honey Creek, in Eden Township, near the Mo- hawk Road, embrace an area of about two acres. They are attributed to the military genius of the Fishermen, or Eries, in their war with the Iroquois in- vaders; but there is nothing in history or archeology to warrant a statement that the Eries were the builders. That the position was defended since the introduction of the shot-gun or rifle is told by the fact that leaden bullets of

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every size have been found in the vicinity. Joseph Swigart, passing through Honey Creek in 1819, stopped at the spring about a mile northwest of the present village of Bloomville, and, while there, noticed two circular stone works, each about 100 yards south from the spring. A well-beaten path led from the spring to the entrance of each work. The spring and each work formed a corner of a perfect triangle. Stone hammers, flints, etc., have been found there. There were remains of the walls as late as 1830, when they were re- moved, and burned for lime.

In 1850 a few of the ancient mounds in Pleasant Township were opened; although for years prior to this date several small mounds were plowed over, and bones, pottery, and other relics of a past age. brought to light. The explorations of 1850 resulted in the discovery of a number of burned sand-clay pitchers, pipes, a stone pitcher, and other curios, many of which are still to be seen in the county. Among the collections of fossils, rocks, boulders and curios in the county, that of the editor of the Fostoria Democrat is considered the best. The fossil remains found in connection with the rocks of this county, and particularly with the limestone conformation, comprise the Lithostrotion mammullare, the L.longiconicum the Cyathophyllum, fungites, and the Syringo- pore, all belonging to the Polypi class. The only evidence of the Echinodermata is furnished by the remains of the common species. The Bryozoa class is repre- sented in the limestone by no less than seven species; the Brachiopoda by eighteen species; the Lamellibranchiata by six species; the Trilobites by two very distinct species, showing the tails. The remains of fish and reptiles are very common. Human remains are uncommon in the strata, though in other parts they have been found mysteriously commingled with some of the first formations. In all the townships east of the Sandusky there are hillocks visi- ble, none of which have been explored systematically, if at all. Throughout the county, relics of the aborigines have been found; stone and clay pipes, volcanic glass spear-heads, arrow heads, and in some instances copper articles have been brought to light, all in evidence of the fact that a people dwelt here long before the immigration of the Indians, who inhabited the Sandusky country when the first settlers arrived.

CHAPTER II.

SENECA'S RED PIONEERS.

TN the introduction to the Military History of the county, references are made to the occupation of Pleasant Township by the English soldiery under the Irish Tory, Butler, in 1782, its subsequent occupation by Gen. Harrison's troops in 1813, and the occupation of Clinton Township by Col. Ball's cavalry, the same year. All those movements, expensive, and sometimes costing valua- ble citizen lives, were not called for directly by Indian aggression. The pres- ence of a trans-Atlantic enemy, and the spirit which that enemy's lies and largesses fostered in the Indian mind were the first causes. The arch-enemy being driven away and punished, Hull's treachery was remedied, and peace was restored.

The Shawnees .- The Eries, a tribe of fishermen and hunters, inhabited the country along Lake Erie, and hunted through the country southward until

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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.

1655, when their villages were destroyed, their women and children slain, and their warriors driven to flight or to the grave. The wild chase of those blood- thirsty Iroquois after human blood. led them away from this portion of the wilderness in search of other tribes to murder, and in their place came the Shawnees, who fled hither from the Iroquois, who had just evacuated this country. This was in 1672. In 1728 they migrated to the Scioto country; and thirty-five years after assumed ownership of the upper Miami country, with their principal villages at the Mac-a-chack towns. This tribe produced Tecumseh, the savage, who checked up Proctor's fiendish cruelty to the Americans. Their reservations and latter-day villages at Wapakoneta, and near Lima, Allen County, are well described in the history of Ohio, so also their dealings with the British. This tribe was removed, in 1831, to Kansas, where they are Reservation Indians.

The Wyandots are undoubtedly a branch of the great Algonquin race. The history of their persecution by the Iroquois, who drove them from the Simcoe country in Western Canada to the islands of the St. Mary's River, and thence into the country of the Sauks in the lower peninsula of Michigan, is one long. long tale of cruelty and rapine on one hand; death, disease and poverty on the other. They located on the west side of Lake St. Clair in 1690, and dur- ing the following century spread out over the Miami and Sandusky country, where they were known until 1842, or over a century and a half. Pomoacan, their great chief, had his wigwam at what is now called Brownstown, below Detroit. He is known in history as the Half-King. In 1781 he moved to Sandusky, making the cabin of the nefarious Billy Wyandot his abode. Here he received the infamous Elliot, and the no less guilty Simon Girty, both officers in the service of the British. This was the Half-King, who, contrary to the new practices and laws of his tribe, permitted the Delawares to carry out Elliott's sentence against Col. Crawford. At the time of Crawford's defeat, Zhaus-sho-toh was their war-chief, and this fellow had no less than 400 warriors out of a total Wyandot population of over 1, 700. Catherine Walker, of Seneca Township, was a woman of this nation.

In 1800 the Wyandot nation numbered 2,200 souls. Under the influence of Christian example and teachings, the whole tribe decreased to 800 in 1842. In 1843 only 664 members of the tribe moved beyond the Mississippi, of whom only 585 were on the New Reserve in 1844, and forty years later, only a bare representation can be seen.

The Delawares inhabited the territory known as the State of Delaware up to the time when the tide of European settlement set in. Before this tide they moved westward, and continued to follow the sun until 1724, when they located on the Muskingum, then a wilderness hitherto uninhabited and unknown.

In 1780 the greater number of the Delaware devils returned from the Mus- kingum, and took up their residence with the Senecas, Shawnees and Wyan- dots on the Sandusky; those who remained at the middle village on the Mus- kingum were cut down by Williamson's command. Remembering this mas- sacre they allied themselves with the British in 1781-82. and were among the most diabolical enemies of the United States. Their villages extended along each bank of the Tymochtee, just south of Seneca Township, one and one- half mile north of Crawfordsville, and eleven miles below the old Wyandot town, and eight miles below the new town of Upper Sandusky. Winge- mund was the war-chief, and had his wigwam twenty-five miles east of the old town of Sandusky, while the notorious Capt. Pipe, or Kogieschquanoheel, commanded at the Tymochtee villages the Wolf Tribe. He always was in the minority when the question of peace with the Long Knives was brought up in

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council, yet he was one of the most fiendish enemies of Crawford. He died in August, 1794.

The Senecas of Sandusky .- This was a miscellaneous tribe-a number of remnants of inter-tribal wars grouped under one name, who claimed Logan as one of their nation. The Cayugas formed the leading band, then the Mohawks, and a few Oneidas, Onondagas, Tuscarawas, and mixed breed Wyandots; a few Mingoes, relics, as it were, of Logan's tribe, were among the Cayugas, of which tribe the Mingoes were a branch. Their names still live in New York State, where wealthy white communities have sprung up on the old hunting grounds of those tribes: flying before the incoming tide of immigration, they located in the Scioto and Olentangy Valleys a hundred years after the war of 1682, and during the first decade of this century moved to the west bank of the Sandusky, in this county, where they resided until placed on their reserva- tion in 1817-19. Here they lived in peace until 1831, when civilization again forced them to resume their westward movement, and placed them in the Neosha country. In 1831 the Senecas numbered 510, of whom twenty-eight died before they left the Mississippi Valley. Death and disease have reduced this number now to about 100. The Mohawks in 1831 numbered twenty-five lodges.

Indian Christianity and Early Preachers .- The early preachers of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. known at the Wyandot Mission, all of whom were also visitors to the settlements of Seneca County, were John Stewart (colored). James Montgomery, Moses Henkle, Sr., James B. Finley (1821), Harriet Stubbs, George Riley, Charles Elliott, Jacob Hooper, John C. Brooke, Between-the- logs, James Gilruth (1827). Gilruth was succeeded by Messrs. Thompson, Shaw, Allen, Wheeler and Squire Grey Eyes. Rev. Mr. Badger, of Lower Sandusky, introduced Presbyterian doctrine, while the Delawares were inclined to Moravianism, if to any branch of Christianity. The Indians looked upon their new Christian teachers as something to be tolerated for convenience sake. Plenty of money poured into the district for their conversion, and, with this money, they purchased new pleasures, which ruined them physically, and low- ered the standard of their savage code of morals. A reference to statistics, showing their numbers to have decreased in forty-three years from 2. 200 to 664, reveals the effect of the Christian education they received within that time.

Tiro Early Treaties .- The treaty of Fort McIntosh, negotiated January 21, 1785, established a boundary line between the United States and the new country of the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas and Otchipwes. This line ex- tended from the mouth of the Cayuga to the portage between that river and the Tuscarawas, feeder of the Muskingum; thence down the feeder to Fort Laurens. and westward to the portage of the Big Miami; thence along this portage to the Maumee, and along the south bank of this river to its mouth; thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cayuga River.

A few special reservations were made, six miles square, at the mouth of the Maumee, one township on the portage of the Big Miami, one on Lake San- dusky, and two sections on each side of the Lower Sandusky rapids.

The treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795, negotiated by Gen. Wayne, pro- vided for the reduction of Indian territory on the east. Again, the treaty of 1805. at Fort Industry, provided that the boundary line of the "Thirteen Fires" - the United States-should be a line drawn north and south on the meridian, 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania line to the intersection of the northern boundary of United States territory, and to that of the south line established by the treaty of Greenville. The treaty of Detroit, November 17, 1807. ceded a large area of Michigan and a portion of Ohio to the United States, while the

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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.

treaty of Brownstown, negotiated November 25, 1808, provided for free travel and the construction of roads, one 120 feet wide from Lower Sandusky to the boundary line named in the treaty of Greenville.

Indian Treaties Affecting Seneca County .- The treaty of the Maumee Rapids, negotiated by Lewis Cass and D. McArthur at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, September 29, 1817, with the Indians commonly called Senecas (Cay- ugas, Mingoes, Mohawks, Onondagas, Tuscarawas, Wyandots and Oneidas), and the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Pottawattomies, Ottawas and Ot- chipwes, was the first which affected the district now known as Seneca County. Takaw-ma-do-aw, Josef, Tawg-you, Running-about, Coffee-house, Wiping- stick, Capt. Harris, Capt. Smith, Is-ahow-ma-saw, chiefs of the several bands, were the signers. Under this treaty a tract of 30,000 acres was set off along the eastern bank of the Sandusky River for the exclusive use of the Senecas, to which 10,000 acres were added by the treaty of St. Mary's, September 17, 1818. This large tract comprised, in Seneca County, the territory within the following boundaries: From a point eighty rods south of the south line of Section 7, in Clinton Township, east on the line running parallel with the south section line of Section 7 to Section 13, Clinton: thence to a point south of Sec- tion 10, Scipio Township; thence north, through Scipio and Adams Townships, to the north boundary line of county, west on that line to the Sandusky River, and south along the river to the point of beginning, in Clinton Township.

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Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.) Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Chicago : Warner, Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1088

Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Chicago : Warner, Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1088