USA > Ohio > Seneca County > History of Seneca County, from the close of the revolutionary war to July, 1880 > Part 12
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During the continuance of the festival, the hospitality of the Indians was unbounded. In the council house and at the residence of the Tall Chief were a number of large, fat bucks, and fat hogs, hanging up and neatly dressed. Bread. also, of both corn and wheat, in great abundance.
Large kettles of soup, ready prepared. in which maple sugar, profusely added, made a prominent ingredient, thus forming a very agreeable saccha- rine coalescence. All were invited, and all were made welcome: indeed. a refusal to partake of their bounty was deemed disrespectful. if not unfriendly.
I left them in the afternoon enjoying themselves to the fullest extent: aud so far as I could perceive. their pleasure was withont alloy. They were eating and drinking-but on this occasion no ardent spirits were permitted -dancing and rejoicing, caring, and probably thinking not of, to-morrow.
The word Sandusky, that has given names to so many towns and other places, and especially to this river, seems to be buried in obscurity. as to its origin. Authors differ materially, and their researches seem to have led them into mists where it is easy to become associated with error. In fact, it requires a good, strong light in every direction of inquiry to discriminate between truth and error. History is not exempt from the rule. Even in the popular sciences of the day, one thinker refutes and attacks the assertions and the theories of another: and heretics, critics and free-thinkers seem to think that they can find
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SOW-DOWS-KY.
errors in the preaching of the glorious gospel of our holy religion, and the administration of the church of God on earth. So it is. Men will differ on almost everything. To avoid being denounced as a critic. the views of the several authors on the origin of the word Sandusky are recorded here without comment, except one instance, and this only.
Says Mr. Butterfield, p. 74: "As to the origin of the name of this river, there are two opinions. By some it is believed to be a word of French extraction, given to the bay and river by the Indians, in honor of the first French trader who visited the country. In Champaign county, Illinois, there is now living a man of this name, who claims that one of his ancestors, settling at an early period upon the Sandusky, and becoming a great favorite among the Indians, they, as a mark of respect, gave his name (Sow-dows-ky) to the river and bay."
Nobody will deny the fact that the Butterfields are a little prejudiced in favor of the French, and they have a right to be; but nobody will believe that "Sow-dows-ky" is a French name. If the origin in that direction had been traced to a Russian or a Pole, it would have been more excusable. The French have no w in their alphabet, nor in their names.
Of the old Indian tradition given by the warriors to Gen. Harrison, the following is the origin: After the naval fight between the Wyandots and Senecas, heretofore mentioned, the conquering band, having landed at Maumee, followed the lake shore towards the east, passing and giving names to bays, creeks and rivers, until they arrived at Cold creek, where it enters the Sandusky bay. Being charmed with the springs of clear, cold water in this vicinity, they pitched their tents and engaged in hunting and fishing. By them (the Wyandots) the bay and river were called Sandusky, meaning, in their language, "at the cold water."
Mr. John H. James, an old veteran pioneer of Urbana, Ohio, in a note to the American Pioneer, mentions a part of a conversation he had with William Walker, at Columbus, in 1835-6, when he was the principal chief of the Wyandots at Upper Sandusky, and says: "I asked of him the meaning of the word 'Sandusky.' He said it meant 'at the cold water,' and said it should be pronounced 'San-doos-tee.' He ' said it carried with it the force of a preposition." The Upper Cold Water and the Lower Cold Water, then, were descriptive Indian names, given long before the presence of the trader, Sow-dows-ky.
In the vocabulary of Wyandot words given by John Johnson, Esq., formerly Indian agent in Ohio, printed in Archeologia Americana, vol.
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I, p. 295, the word "water" is given "Sa-un-dus-tee," or, "water within water pools."
The historians of Ohio seem to be satisfied with the meaning of the word as "at the cold water;" but Mr. Butterfield, in his Crawford, p. 147, says that Sandusky is the old "San-dus-quet" of the old French traders and voyagers; "Sah-un-dus-kee," "clear water," or, "San-doos- tee," "at the cold water." * *
* Or, it may have been derived from "Sa-un-dus-tee," "water within water pools."
They will stick in the Frenchman, any way. But no matter about the origin. It is not very likely that any better light will ever be thrown upon the origin of the word.
While on this subject, it should also be remembered that the terms, "Miami of the Lake," or "Miami of Lake Erie," wherever they occur, should not be confounded with the "Great" and "Little Miami," which are tributaries of the Ohio. The former terms simply mean and signify the Maumee river. "Mad Spirit" is the Indian signification of "Erie."
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CHAPTER VI.
EARLY SETTLERS-STATEMENT OF MRS. STANLEY-THE HARRIS FAMILY- ROBBERY OF SPICER - THE BRUSH-DAM-PETER PORK-JACOB KNISELY AND CROW-GOING TO MILL-KILLING WITCHES-WOLVES-THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.
STATEMENT OF MRS. STANLEV.
TI O WH. LANG, EsQ .- Being one of the oldest settlers of Seneca county now living, and remembering a great many incidents connected with the early settlement of the county along the Sandusky river, I will comply with your invitation and hereby send you a short statement, which you may use. if found appropriate. Respectfully.
TABITHA STANLEY.
"My grand-father came from England. a young man, and single. Ilis name was Samnel Harris. My grand-mother's name was Betsey Boner, and she was a native of Ireland. They were married in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, long before the revolutionary war, and settled in Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, where my father, William Harris, was born in 1760.
After the war he married Mary Mead, whose father came from Wales. My father enlisted as a soldier in the revolutionary war when he was but a mere boy, only fourteen years old, as a private, and served during the war to the close. He never received a pension for his services in the war until after he moved to Seneca county, when Mr. Abel Rawson, one of the pioneer lawyers of Tiffin, procured it for him.
My parents raised ten children. Betsey. my oldest sister. was married to David Roberts : Hettie was married to Moses Hunt ; brother Augustus was married to Aurelia Clark ; Naney was married to Chambers Mead : Polly married James Eaton; brother Samuel died in what is now Townsend town- ship in Sandusky county, Ohio, in 1826, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. and unmarried ; John married Betsey Hays : Minerva married Benjamin Barney; Tabitha, (myself,) married Benjamin Culver in 1828; and Jane, the youngest of our children, married Anson Gray. Minerva, Jane and myself were married in this county and were amongst the few first white girls that were married here at that time. Barney. Culver and Gray were amongst the few first settlers that located here.
My father moved from Harrisburgh into Livingston county. in the state of New York, where we lived until the year 1818, and in that year we moved back to Pennsylvania and settled near Meadville, in Crawford county. Here my sister Nancy was married to Chambers Mead. She died at Meadville. When we left Livingston county, New York, to move to Pennsylvania, some of my brothers and sisters were married, and stayed there. Father and
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mother, with the rest of us children that were not married-Nancy. Samuel. John. Minerva, Tabitha, Jane. and Marshal Harris-started together. When we got to Olean Point my father bought a boat, called a scow. On this he put our goods, wagon and all. John and myself took three horses and two cows. and drove them overland for Lawrenceburgh. On the way there a man overtook us, and at his request we let him ride one of the horses, and the rascal ran away with the horse. There was at that time no road dowu the valley of the Allegheny. When we all met at Lawrenceburgh we left the scow, and hitched the horses to the, wagon and traveled together to Meadville. where we settled. Here we stayed about two years : then my brother Samuel and a young man by the name of John Eaton, from the state of New York. started for Ohio on foot. for the purpose of prospecting and exploring the country. They came to the valley of the Sandusky, and wrote back to us to pack up and come out here : that they had found an excellent comutry, etc.
The following winter my father and brother John started for Ohio to meet the boys here, leaving the rest of us at Meadville. My father was a gun- smith by trade. and brought his tools with him. He put up a shop on the north east part of a piece of land that afterwards became the property of my husband, Benjamin Culver, and known as the Culver farm, near Fort Seneca.
In the following spring father and John came back to Meadville, and then we all started for the Sandusky valley, except my sister Nancy, who was then married. When we got here we found the country a dense wilderness. We put up with Barney's folks, and moved into the same cabin they occu- pied, which had been built by William Spicer, who then had moved upon his section in the Seneca reservation, east of the river. Spicer was an Indian captive, and had a family of half Indian children. Their names were John. James. Small Cloud, Little Town, and one daughter, who was married to another white captive by the name of Crow. Spieer was a great help to the new comers. for he had cattle, horses and hogs in large numbers. He used to let his land out on shares, and often furnished horses and oxen to farm with. He sold a great deal of corn to the immigrants : also cattle and hogs. and often let cows out for pay. He was a good neighbor, ever ready and willing to help the needy. People often borrowed his horses aud oxen to go to the mill. We had to go to Monroeville or to Cold Creek Mills, to get our grinding done-some thirty miles away, through forest and swamps, without any bridges across the streams, and no road or any other way to guide the traveler Inuit blazed trees.
The Barney family consisted of West. who was the oldest, and Benjamin. both single. a widowed sister, Mrs. Polly Orr, who afterwards married John Eaton, who came out here with my brother Samuel in 1519. as already stated. and Ann, the youngest sister, who was afterwards married to David Rice. in the fall of 1820. Benjamin Barney married my sister Minerva in the win- ter of 1520. David Smith of Fort Ball, who was then a JJustice of the Peace. solemnized the marriage, and played the violin that night at the wedding dance. Mr. Erastus Bowe came with Mr. Smith to the wedding. Mr. Bowe was the first settler in Fort Ball.
The wedding was a rural affair, indeed. The dancing was done on a pau- geou floor. A pungeon is a plank about six inches thick, split out of a solid
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STATEMENT OF MRS. STANIEY.
log. and then hewed on one side and " spotted " on the other so as to fit even on the sleepers. This made a very solid and substantial floor to dance on. Boards were very scarce and hard to get, on account of the great want of saw mills. We came here in the summer of 1820. That fall we all took sick, and became so reduced in strength that one was not able to help the other. There was no doctor nearer than Huron county, where doctor Steph- enson lived. He came sometimes, and stayed a day or two to supply us with medicine. We were all fortunate enough to get well.
The following year my brother Augustus came. Soon after his arrival his wife took sick and died, leaving him with two children, both small.
We were all well and hearty the next year. except my mother, who was then very sick. but recovered. Benjamin Barney moved to Fort Seneca. close to the old fort built by General Harrison in 1812, and then occupied by Mr. James Montgomery. a Methodist preacher and agent for the Seneca Indians. He. (Mr. Montgomery.) was also afterwards elected Justice of the Peace, and solemnized the marriage ceremony when Mr. Culver and I were married. Mr. Montgomery was considered a very good man, and was highly respected. One of his sons died. I was the only white girl outside of the family who attended the funeral.
Mr. Benjamin Barney and Mr. Anson Gray both moved with their families to the state of Illinois, and both became wealthy. Gray and his wife are both dead. Barney's wife is also dead. but Barney is still living and is now about eighty-four years old. One year ago, when he was here on a visit. I saw him at Mr. Rice's, in Townsend township. Sandusky county. when he was very hearty and active.
Very few white people lived here when we came. Mr. Bowe. Mr. Risdon. Mr. David Smith and Mr. Levi Crissey lived in Fort Ball: Abner Pike. Ezra Sprague. Willard Sprague. Francis Sprague, widow Shippey. Nathan Ship- pey. Robert and Lorenzo Abbott. Dorcas and Polly Shippey. Joel Chapin. Mr. MeNntt, who had two sous-Alexander and Daniel-Caleb Rice and Daniel Rice. Pardon Wilson, Phineas Frary. Sidney Barney-a cousin of Benjamin Barney-Samuel, Silas. Hiram. Asel and Phineas Pike. Lonisa Emmerson, who taught school. Eliphalet Rogers, Henry Rogers, Ebenezer Mills. Daniel Mills, Jeremiah Chapman, Hannah Jackson, the Rollins fam- ily, and the Dumond. Duke and Montgomery families, constituted about all the white people that lived within ten miles of the fort. except the captives on the reservation.
They used to have their military trainings on the Culver farm, then known as the Spicer place. At one of these trainings I first saw Mr. Hugh Welsh. I think he was the tifer for the Company. Caleb Rice was Captain, my brother Samuel was Lieutenant, John Eaton was Orderly, and West Barney- was Ensign. They used to meet there every year. The general mmister was held near the stockade of the fort.
The reservation extended from a point opposite Baker's mill to a point op- posite the month of Wolf Creek. in Sandusky county. The Mohawks lived on the farmns now owned by the Frys. Flummerfelts and Claggetts. The Senecas lived opposite the old fort and below. Some of them lived near Green Springs, and up to what is now Watson's Station on the C. S. & C. R.
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HISTORY OF SENECA COUNTY.
R. Crow lived further.up. opposite my father's, joining the Spicer section on the northi.
In 1821 a log cabin stood at a place near what is now Sandusky street in Tiffin, and where Captain Bagby built a very nice residence opposite the old residence of Luther A. Hall. Esq. This residence is now occupied by a family named Lewis. Into this cabin a gentleman from Auburn, New York, moved in that year. His name was Mr. Childs. There was but him- self and his wife. They were well dressed, and both very handsome. Mr. Childs had been in the mercantile business in the state of New York. He was then about twenty-five years old, when he took sick and died in the cabin. Soon after his death Mrs. Childs was delivered of a child, and the neighbors took her and the babe to Judge Ingraham's, who then lived near neighbor to Mr. Bowe, where, after suffering about nine days, she also died. The widow Orr, a sister of the Barneys, took the child to raise and kept it one year, when a sister of Mrs. Childs came out here, and took it back to Auburn with her. Somebody had named the child Nancy. Childs and his wife were both buried in the old grave yard. near the B. & O. depot."
So far Mrs. Stanley. This William Spicer, who played so conspic- nous a part in the history of the Seneca Indians while living in this valley, was a native of Pennsylvania, and was captured by the Indians when he was very young. When the white settlers first came into this valley Spicer had been on the Sandusky forty years, and during the revolutionary war. There is but little known of his history. The Wy- andots took him to the banks of the Ohio, and used him as a decoy to bring boatmen to the shore. They tied him to a tree near the bank of the river and compelled him to call on the boatmen for help, and while the savages lay in ambush any person approaching Spicer became an casy prey. Many were thus made to suffer the cruelty of the Wyan- dots, but it is to be presumed that Spicer played his part merely by compulsion.
Mr. Mark A. Harris, whose observations were as close as his recol- lections are fresh and minnte, says :
I came to Seneca county with my grandfather, William Harris, with whom I had always lived. and up to the time when my aunt Tabitha married Mr. Culver : then I lived with them. This was in 1828. My uncle, Benjamin Culver. bought eight hundred and four acres of land at the sales. His homestead consisted of three hundred aeres. The Flammerfelt and Abbott farms are also parts of Cuiver's purchase. He also owned the land where the " Cronise saw-mill " used to be, in Liberty township. These lands he bought at the sales, in Delaware. Horton Howard was receiver, and Platt Brush was register of the land office. Mr. Brush lived near and south of Fremont. He married for his second wife a widow Green, from Mary- land, formerly: - the mother of the Honorable Frederick W. Green. who was Anditor of Seneca county for a long time, and afterwards represented this congressional district in Washington. This was during the ever memorable
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THE HARRIS FAMILY.
trouble occasioned by the repeal of the eighth section of the " Missouri Compromise." After serving a term in Congress, Mr. Green was appointed Clerk of the U. S. District Court for the northern district of Ohio, when he moved to Cleveland, where he lived up to the time of his death, which oc- curred in the spring of 1879.
The Barneys came here from Massachusetts in 1818, and settled near the old fort. It seems that nearly all the settlers in that vicinity preferred to be near the fort, so as to have the benefit of its protection in time of danger. There were three brothers of these Barneys-West. Benjamin and Marshal: and two sisters-Polly Orr, whose husband and one child had died here, and Ann Barney, the youngest sister. Marshal also died here, and he, Mr. Orr and his child were buried at the Spicer place. Am married Daniel Rice. who was afterwards elected justice of the peace-the first one in the town- ship. His widow is still living in Sandusky county, north of Clyde.
Benjamin Barney was a very resolute and honorable man, and a great friend to William Spicer ; and when Spicer was robbed Benjamin took great interest in having the robbers brought to justice, and securing the money. This was probably the first robbery in Seneca county, and it occurred in this wise. viz :- Spicer was well off, and took in a great deal of money from the sale of hogs, cattle, horses and corn. His money was all in gold and silver. Spicer lived on the top of the hill on the west bank of the river, opposite the north point of the island in the river, and about four miles south of the fort. One afternoon when Spicer was alone in his cabin, a man by the name of Rollins came in and demanded Spicer's money and the key of his chest. Spicer refused to deliver over, and Rollins struck him with a club on the head. which stunned him, and he fell. While in this condition he heard Rollins laugh, and also heard some others come in, but could not tell who they were. When Spicer recovered his consciousness, the men and his money were gone.
Spicer was a small man, and had no education : he could not count much. and did not know exactly how much money he did have, but it was generally believed that he had between six and seven thousand dollars.
This Rollins was a carpenter by trade, and at the time of this occurrence was employed to help a certain Pant D. Butler in building a saw mill on the left bank of the river, where Lafayette street, in Tiffin, comes down to the river. Some of the timbers of this mill were afterwards used by Mr. Josiah Hedges in the building of the saw mill standing on the left bank of the river, opposite Reuben Kedler's mill, so-called.
As soon as the news of the robbery became known, the neighbors turned ont to assist the constable in the chase after the thieves and the recovery of the money. A man by the name of Downing lived on the top of the hill back and south of Baker's mill. some three miles north of Tiffin, in a cabin near the river. The constable, Mr. Papineau, in company with Benjamin Barney. came to Downing's house and sat down to talk awhile, when a little girl of the family said to these men. " My papa put something nice under there :" pointing to the hearth-stone. They arrested Downing, and raising the læearth-stone, found over five hundred dollars in silver midler it. After- wards some six hundred dollars more were found in the spring at the foot of the hill close by the cabin. These six hundred dollars were supposed to
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have been put into the spring by this William Rollins who struck Spicer. and who was also arrested soon after. Downing got away from the con- stable, and was never heard of afterwards. Judge Fitch, who lived near the river. below Elder Kating's, also found some money supposed to be Spicer's. in a ravine that runs across the north west corner of the Culver place, {as then known.) This sum was also over five hundred dollars. All this money was promptly restored to Spicer.
Butler, Case, and quite a number of others were arrested, and were all taken to Norwalk, in Huron county, for trial. Caleb Rice also assisted in making these arrests. Some of the prisoners escaped before trial; C'ase, Butler and some others were acquitted. Rollins was the only one that was convicted of the robbery, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of eleven years. He was pardoned out before his term expired. Spicer himself signing the petition.
The saw mill near the old Fort Ball I spoke of, was a very rickety affair. and so was the dam that supplied the water. The dam was made of brush laid across the river with the points up stream. On the top of each layer of brush other brush were laid cross-wise, and then another layer on top of these like the first layer, and so on. The whole string of brush was held down by boulders and dirt put on top of the brush. The dam reached to the right bank of the river at a point where doctor MeFarland's stable now stands. Mr. Jesse Spencer owning the saw mill and the land on that side of the river. and Mr. Josiah Hedges the land on this side, somehow, trouble arose between these men about the dam. It is possible that the water in the river was set back, and overflowed some of Mr. Hedges' land.
One night. however. Mr. Hedges procured a number of men with picks and shovels, and had a ditch dug in a half moon shape around the east end of the dam, and on the next morning the water of the river flowed through the ditch. leaving dam and saw mill high and dry.
This Jiftige Fitch, above mentioned, was a tall, slender man, very intelli- gent and communicative, and in every way an excellent citizen. Elisha Smith kept tavern where the Holt honse, so-called, now stands on Sandusky street in Tiffin. That tavern used to be the place for July celebrations. On these occasions it was enstomary for Judge Fitch to come up and treat all the young men. Then he would say to them that before long they would have to take care of the government. etc. One time we had a Fourth of July dance there when fifteen couples attended, which took nearly all the people that were here.
Abner Pike lived on the Ezra Baker farm, near the old house on the hill. He came here with his family from New Jersey. His wife was a sister to this Butler that built Spencer's saw mill. Pike was a man of medium size, stont and compactly built, had dark hair and dark eyes, and a dull look : he was not very cleanly in his person. and as lazy as he was ignorant, but other- wise a harmless sort of a man.
Mr. Erastus Bowe had a tavern at the old Fort Ball. It was a double log house, one story high. It was built of rough logs, and had two rooms. Mr. Bowe was a pleasant. sociable gentleman, and highly esteemed.
My grandfather was a gunsmith by trade, and wherever he lived, in Pen- sylvania, New York or Ohio, had Indians for customers, and in this way he
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THE HARRIS FAMILY.
became acquainted with the languages of several tribes. He had no ditti- enity to talk the Seneca when we came here. He carried on his gun shop until he died. in 1834.
Samuel and John Wright. in later years, became the owners of the farm that from thence bore their name. They were from Rochester, New York. John Wright and Daniel Bissell, also from New York. put up a distillery near the springs on the banks of the river, on this farm. I worked in, and conducted, the distillery for a long time. The business was done in the firm name of " Bissell & Wright." When the farmers brought their corn to be distilled on shares or to be exchanged, we gave them five quarts, and when the corn was cheap and plenty. we gave them six quarts of whisky for one Imushel of corn.
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