History of Stark County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 74

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? ed
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1060

USA > Ohio > Stark County > History of Stark County, with an outline sketch of Ohio > Part 74

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the election of Gen. Harrison, ceased to exist. fapt. Allen and Gen. Harrison were warm per- sonal friends, and could the President have lived. be would have remembered his earnest friend of many years, whose trenchant pen had vindicated his claims to the presidency against Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, in the palmy days of that well-remembered paper. Ile did get a clerkship at Washington, but had to surrender that when things there became Tyler- ized, and he came back to Ohio.

In ISI6, when the Mexican war broke out and troops were called for, Allen enlisted and was elected Captain of Co. A. of the First Ohio Regiment, Col. Samuel R. Curtis, after- ward Major General of Volunteers in the war of the rebellion, and Member of Congress from lowa. As the then Ohio regiments were only intended for one year's service. when the year was up the troops were mustered out, and Capt. Allen came home, after having done camp duty a year at Matamoras ; he went to his old home at Canton, was elected a Justice of the Peace, and was appointed a Deputy Clerk of the Common Pleas Court of the County. In 1819, on the discovery of gold in California, C'apt. Allen determined, like the Argonauts who sailed in search of the Golden Fleece, to sail for California as soon as circum- stances would permit him to do so, having a brother-in-law at Marysville, Hon. O. P. Stid- ger, a Judge of one of the courts, who had gone there in 1849. He left Canton for the Golden State in 1853, and arrived there after a two or three months' journey. He, soon after arriving there, was offered and accepted the position of editor of the Marysville Herald. where he remained for some time. Leaving there, he visited various portions of the State, and finally brought up again at Washoe, Nevada. and, in 1863, was editor of Washoe C'ity Times, a daily. How long he remained there is not known. In 1865, as nearly as can be ascer- tained, he died suddenly. somewhere in the Sierras ; and a truer man, in all that constitutes genuine manhood. than James Allen never lived. Under other circumstances, his name would have been peerless in the list of Ameri- can writers.

From 1813 to 1818, it is exceedingly difficult to keep track of the changes in the newspaper press in Massillon. At one time, during those few years. the late E. P. Grant had charge of a

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IHISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.

paper. Also, the late Dr. William Bowen. There was the Massillon News, in 1847. by Messrs. Keith & Miller.

The following, furnished by Joseph K. Merwin, Esq., a practical printer residing in the city, may be regarded as giving a correet account of the newspaper press of Massillon since 1848 .

"The Herald of Freedom and Wilmot Proriso was printed in the summer and fall of 1848 as a Free-Soil campaign paper, by E. Burke Fish- er, than whom there were few more spirited writers. That year, the Massillon Telegraph was published by Painter & Wilson, and was a Whig paper. It ceased to exist in 1849, and the materials belonging to the office were pur- chased by a Mr. Hanna, from Circleville. He had a fondness for the name he gave his paper, the Herald, having been connected with the Circleville Herald. The late Hon. William C. Earle and James S. Underhill, Esq., now in Illinois, purchased the material and revived the Massillon News. Mr. Earle soon purchased Mr. Underhill's interest, and edited the paper sev- eral years with marked ability and success, when he sold out to Messrs. Logan & Fletcher, who held the paper something over a year, when they sold out to Charles A. Hugus. James E. Wharton bought Hugus out, and continued the publication of the paper until 1857, and then stopped. In 1858, in the early spring, Joseph K. Merwin and David W. Huntsman purchased the material of the News office, and commeneed the publication of a paper called the Journal of the Times. After publishing a paper neutral in politics for fifteen months, Mr. Merwin pur- chased Mr. Iluntsman's interest, and continued the paper as a Republican paper until the spring of 1861, when he sold out the good-will and subscription list to Josiah Hartzell, of the Stark County Republican. Soon after, the ma- terial composing the office was purchased by Robert & Alexander Harkins, who revived the old Massillon Gazette, and continued it un- til May, 1862.

After the Harkins Brothers ceased to publish a paper, John Frost, of New Lisbon, the veter- an printer of this Congressional District, and Peter Welker, Esq., of the city of Massillon, purchased and commenced the publishing of the Massillon Independent. They were sue- ceeded by Charles E. Taylor, Esq., who continues to publish it. In the meantime. J. W. Garri-

son removed to Massillon from Alliance, bring- ing with him a general assortment of printing material, and commenced the publication of the Massillon American November 10, 1869. He was succeeded by Messrs. MeCurdy & Geesaman, in August, 1870, and they in turn were succeeded by Messrs. S. & J. J. Hoover, in December, 1870, who have continued the publication of the paper to this time." During all this period other papers have started and gone " where the woodbine twineth." In 1851, the ubiquitous Joseph Wilkinson White started the Wheat City Mercury, which lasted about three months. Dr. Bowen, an enthusiast on the subject of education, at one time published The Free School Clarion, and in 1841, The Genious of Temperance lived as long as the friends of temperance would sustain it. When they ceased its support, it sickened and died, as did more than one hundred temperance papers that sprang into existence that year all over the land under the dispensations of Washingtonian temperance.

That part of Massillon now known as the Fourth Ward, originally as Kendal, was always famous for its celebrities. In its early days, it had its Poet Laureate or Laureates, for they were many, one of whom seemed especially favored.

In 1822, while Thomas Roteh was proprietor of the Kendal Woolen Factory, he had in his employ an Irish weaver, who was in many re- spects a genius, by the name of Moses MeCam- mon, who, in addition to his being a weaver and at the head of his profession in the hand- ling of the warps and woof's of a piece of cloth, often essaved to scale the rugged heights of Parnassus. His Pegasus used to carry him to the mountain top.

One of his flights brought forth the following. His employer, Thomas Rotch. having sent to Sally MeCammon, Moses' wife, a small package of tea, Moses thus acknowledges it in a note to his employer :

Disappointments of view and the courses of fate Press down on our bosoms with wonderful weight. But all the annoyance that tends us through life Is nothing at all to the frowns of a wife.

I have one. who as long as her teapot's supplied. I seldom have known her to scold or to chide. But when it is empty. no mortal, I'm sure, Could bear the abuse I am forced to endure.

Since ever she got what you sent her, she's been As great in her mind as a Duchess or Queen ; Like a kitten, she skips thro' her honse full of glee, And I am as happy as happy ean be.

Elisha Testers

LEXINGTON TOWNSHIP.

421

She vows and declares, to the end of her days While her tongue it can wag she will sound forth your praise. And she'll work like a Trojan thro' roll and thro' heat.

And endeavor to make all her endings to meet.

Let speckled faced topers, so jolly and frisky. Keep roaring the praises of brandy and whisky . They may roar till they split, it is nothing to me: I'll sing while I'm able the virtues of tea.

Tea makes an old woman that's withered and gray As blithe and as blooming as daisies in May. And I know very well that it quiets the strife Which often arises 'twixt husband and wife.

Here, now. I conchide, and as long as the spring Entices the bushes gay verdure to bring. Or as long as great Erie produces a salmon. So long, I'm your Well wisher,

KENDALL, February 22. 1829. MOSES MOCAMMON.

CHAPTER XVI ..

LEXINGTON TOWNSHIP -- THE EARLY HISTORY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES - SETTLEMENT BY THE WHITES-PIONEER INDUSTRIES-EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES CHURCH HISTORY, ETC.

T THE chronological increase of agricultural products, wealth, population of the town- ship, etc., are garnered matters of record, open to research and examination, now as in the future. But the ardnous labors, interesting hunting exploits, depredations, heroic fortitude, reminiscences of the Indians, etc., of the pioneers of the township. have their record only in the fading memories which gleam dimly on the incidents of early life. It is the design to incorporate as much of this class of material in the subsequent chapters as has been or as can be reliably obtained.

The facts herein written were obtained some twenty years ago from the first settlers of 1806-08 ; since then, the last of these. Shadrach Feltz. has passed the threshold of that home, which fast bolts its treasury of early remem- brances from the prying scrutiny of inquiring posterity. There are many who sleep in the small, neglected and almost forgotten grave- yards of the townships, whose heirloom was heroism, but whose wager of life was hard. They battled with interminable forests, wikl. beasts and wilder men, and to-day they sleep forgotten. Their hard-earned patrimony is in the fertile fields, early life, happy homes clus- tering with peace and comfort a realized legacy to-day. For these bequeathments we will read and write their names anew.

Settlement in Lexington Township was made in 1805-06. by families attached to the Quaker faith, among the first of whom were Amos Hollo- way, Zaccheus Stanton, Nathan Gaskill, John Grant, David Berry and JJesse Feltz. Amos Hol- >Contributed by Dr L L. Lamborn.

loway emigrated from Loudoun County, Vir- ginia and entered the land that was chosen for the site of the village of Lexington, and, in conjunc- tion with Nathan Gaskill, was the proprietor. The first roads laid out in this township were the ones leading from Deerfield to Canton, diag- onally across the township, and the other was from Salem, intersecting the first at the village of Lexington. The first post office was on the first of these routes. located in 1811, three- quarters of a mile west of the town, at the house of the pioneer. Jesse Feltz. The farm is still occupied by his son, Shadrach Feltz, who had the control of the office near twelve years. A weekly mail arrived at this station. It was first carried on horseback by Judeth Farnam. It was considered an extraordinary trip to reach Canton from Deerfield in one day. The same post office was kept till it was laid down in Lexington, by Mr. William Kingsbury. a volunteer soldier in the last war with England, and who was in the reception of a pension from the Government for over thirty years. In an engagement with the British on our northern frontier, he was struck with an ounce lead ball in the occipital region of the head, which deep- ly embedded itself and was not dislodged by surgical skill until some weeks after the acci- dent. The old man kept the ball and his bloody shirt till his death. which occurred in 1835, as trophies of the danger he encountered through his youthful patriotism. His son, Guy Kingsbury (deceased) represented the county from this township in the lower branch of the Legislature in the year 1833. Mr. Guy Kings- bury was the only resident of the township

422

HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.

that ever represented the county in the Legis- lature, except the Ten. Humphrey Hoover ido- ceased) who was elected in 1860, and re-elected in 1862. Since then R. G. Williams and E. Martshorn have served in that capacity. John Kingsbury, a resident of this city. was a brother to Guy Kingsbury. The Ohio Repository, which was published in t'auton for more than fifty consecutive years, by the respected pioneer editor. John Saxton was the first paper received at the first office and read by the first settlers of Lexington Town- ship. The first child born in the township was a daughter to Timothy and Alice Growell. The first marriage was a daughter of Abraham and Tabitha Wileman to William Boeder. of New Garden. The second marriage was a daughter of William and Mary Peunock, to Matthew Vaughn. of Virginia.

It seems singular to the third generi ion that the prospecting settlers of Stark County shoukl prefer to pitch their tents on the thin. cold, elay soil. common to the immediate steinity of Lexington, when much more fortile locali- ties lay in close proximity. The barrens or that section surrounding Can on. now grown. except where cultivated. with small oaks, was considered. in 1806. to be very worthle: , land. Time has proven it to be the richest land in the county, and peculiarly adapted to the call- tivation of wheat But there are many indu ences at work controlling the judgment of lo- eating pioneers ; soil and timber kindred to the kind from whence they came is not the least potential. The Mahoning, at this date was a mighty river often sweeping to the brow of its secondary embankments, its tributarios vielding it their ever constant supplies, drawn from the humid soil. evaporation shut out hy dense, over-arching forests. It is now shorn of its majesty, and dry seasons see it dwarfed to a rivulet. Then the white-barked cottonwood trees. a few of which romain along its course. though prostrated. had no power to damm its waters or stay its course : they were swept as feathers from its channel. The early settlers were of the opinion that the Mahoning was navigable and would be the highway of com- merce from the Ohio River to Lexington. This opinion had much to do with the first settlers locating upon its banks and calling that loca- tion Lexington in 1805. This stream, which once was deservedly dignified by the title

"river. ' enters the township on the southern third of its castern border. runs a circuitous direction and passes out at its northeastern corner. At the time of the first settlement. it was well stocked with fine fish ; from its waters. the pioneers and Indians drew a supply of food of this kind, equal to all their wants. Notwithstanding its present diminished volume and interrupted waters, many good-sized fish (bass) are yet annually caught. The bank of this stream in this township for sixty eight consecutive years has had its continuons Ine of Daniel Waltons, Cotemporary with the set- tlement mente in Lexington Township, one was made a kendal, now a northern word of the city of Massillon. It gives the mind a better conception of the wild and chaotic condition of things in that territory six miles so para known as Lexington Township. at the tien of its first setthe mon, viz. 180%, to know that the county of Stark was not organized tor four years after this date (1809). The first house 'i the town of Lexington. and the first with a shingle roof in the township, was built in 1508 by Amos Hollow: y In this buil ling the first store was opened by Gideon Hughes. The heaviest of any of' article, as well as the one in which most ( pital was invested. was carthen ware. This mercantile enterprise proving anti Mer tive, was soon abandoned. and this shingle roofed St. Paul's of Lexington was used as the first house for the assemblage of public wor- ship by the Society of Friends, and in the interim of its religions ocenpation. was 1. 44- lowed to the noble use of " teaching the young idea how to shoot." The first podarogne in this school was Daniel Votaw. This was : subscription school and conducted in harmony with the views of Friends.

The land of Lexington Township was entered at 82 per acre, and payable in three instoll- ments at the land office in Steubenville. In the reduction of the price of Government land to $1.25 por nere. there was a clause permitting all who had forfeited their land, by not paying the second and third installments. to re-enter Gov- ermment land at the rate of $1.25 per acre. t , the amount of the money they had paid on their forfeited estates. From the scareity of post- routes, and consequent difficulty of disseminat- ing a knowledge of enacted laws, as well as other news. in these times, the early settlers were generally ignorant of this providing clause

LEXINGTON TOWNSHI'

in the new land law, and thought they had lost all under the provisions of the old law. A few men, or rascals, acquainted with the facts in the case, purchased the entry papers of numerous defaulting carly settlers, for a few dollars, and paid the balance dae or entered new lands to the amount that bad been paid upon what bad herr deemed fortsted patents. The Beginning of some of the largest for mes in this se tion were ball by dealing in these papers. The upon which the posterity of a dofranch I aides fry may sperate. Areales copa for well kjown in this section of Ohio, of Ched a h : Inning in this way, and died for years ale wor $1.500.000.

In the war between England and Antii in 1-12 the British Government sight inch swag -. numerous in the W :. and it troplar the adaming the of Circula te.

I'm tethis period. de lalay- off ls 150 Towe-bip were prons

Wwwwww .ad liger where gam al mis best lere wer . alive with _ tit :

- while ment crthe town-hip @hot wo

Warvas pacific. it Got kil. This. . .

" he were disciples of Wil and com and ale

4 .. Ir . infediting the town .. if.

Purrel It sprig out of : hors man. In it's trippel y me dy the M. lo si _. Beech Che ad Deer Creek all har_ r sipris Men moms. but They had no permcien somech Đt enship.

the Indian - to lexington Town- plusile - de a umdance of game, was the kaze. compact er vis of sugar frees premier is the festclip from which the y obtained a serpy of the sac ( maine clement. Some of thetrees vet show the Scarifications and wirdlings adopted in linh to obtain the water. It was also the for ut is- lief among the people of the township. cvon as late as 1-40, that the holians obtain d ther

supply of lot from It onsite was At the time of findest vlo settore a Indians possessed lots of ferom on mens incident to frontier civibration. 1- guns, hatchets, axes. kettles. ole encemoment of the tribe Barn in this on- ship wes four noks sodhof Ne Philadanbis. i wa we then Coshocton County it was then came for Intial 1 1: 3 0 th

:1. : 1

would size a los that would week of it. died peande, in there fore pas - and run divert

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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.

with it to the forest. If the hog was too large for them to manage in this manner, they would jump on it, guiding it with their fore feet, and stimulating it by gnawing its neck, thus ride it to the woods and destroy it. A large speci- men of the bruin species, engaged in this equestrian exercise, was shot by Shadrach Feltz, (a pioneer living about one mile west of Lexington, on the road to Limaville). Its weight was two hundred pounds. The Bu- cephalus of its choice was a large hog be- longing to Mr. Feltz. Bears attack swine by . gnawing the tops of their heads and shoulders. | A hog belonging to Nathan Gaskill had stayed away in search of mast; it returned with its eyes out and its skull bone exposed. This hog, though scalped and blinded by bruin, lived and was fattened by Gaskill. The last bear seen in the township was in 1830. A large tract of land that is low and level, con- sisting of ten or fifteen feet of turfy vegetable deposit, resting on a body of water about three feet deep, upon which East Alliance is now built, was known to the earliest settlement of the township as the " Bear Swamp." This wet or swamp land was covered with a dense growth of akler bushes. ten or fifteen feet high. which formed an excellent rendezvous for bears. From its being their covert. it received the name of " Bear Swamp." But there are no alder bushes or swamp or bears there now, and the title is fast losing its significance.

Isaac Teeters-who don't know Isaac ? He has been for years an essential feature of the P .. Ft. W. & C. R. R. at this point. Isaac and Peter Chance each lost an arm by the prema- ture discharge of an old cast cannon, with which they were trying to give character to a national birthday in Williamsport, over thirty years ago. Isaac well remembers his father, Jonathan, going to this swamp to hunt deer, always returning to his home laden with bear, deer or otter. Deer. in 1806-07, in Lex- ington Township. were as abundant as sheep are now, and continued abundant until the great snow storm of 1817, which thawed a little, then froze, thus forming a crust which incapacitated them from traveling ; hundreds of them starved to death. This protracted snow starved many other varieties of game. The great snow of 1817 is yet ominously referred to by old people now, but young and vigorous at that date, and battling bravely with the

vicissitudes and obstacles of frontier life. The snow averaged a depth of four feet, and con- tinued on the ground near four months. Deer could illy travel on the frozen crust of the snow, and if they broke through, they could not extricate themselves, and consequently perished by the score. Wolves were numerous and the wary and common enemy of the sheep the settlers were trying to introduce, which could only be preserved by penning them up through the night and guarding them through the day. Turkeys, between the years of 1806 and 1820, were seen in great flocks, often numbering hundreds. Porcupines were very thick ; they are strictly vegetarian in their habits. living on bark, roots, buds and wild fruits. There are none now in this section. A price is paid to see them in traveling me- nageries. Rabbits and quails were very scarce in early times. These and some other animals are a link between domestic and absolutely wild or untamable animals ; they flourish bet- ter under the shadow of a sparse population. There are more of them to-day in the township than there were fifty years ago. From 1805 to 1820, deer skins were worth 75 cents ; raccoon skins, 25 cents ; otter skins, $4, and bear skins. $1.25. Rattlesnakes, in early times, in Lex- ington Township, were quite common, and very numerous. In 1812, one struck an ox above the eye, which speedily caused his death. The ox was owned by John Grant, father-in-law of R. J. Haines. Grant's first cabin was about twenty feet north of L. L. Lamborn's stable. The debris of the cabin was partially exhumed by the plow last fall. The last rattlesnake seen in the township was caught by the writer in 1850, on the grounds now owned and occupied by the Mt. Union College. It was captured by inducing it to enter a barrel laid on its side, and when in, the barrel was straightened up; it was two feet long and had eight rattles. It was kept and experimented with for four months. It took no nourishment during this long time but a small, green-colored snake, nine inches long. When first captured, this snake was very poisonous ; it struck a quail on the thigh, which cansed its death in five minutes. From con- finement and improper nourishment it gradually lost its poisonous qualities. It is a traditionary practice with hunters traveling grounds in- fested with this reptile to stuff their boots or

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LEXINGTON TOWNSHIP.

shoes with white ash leaves, believing them to be an effectual remedy against the attack of the rattlesnake. So far as this snake was con- cerned. it was found to be but a traditionary practice, for it would dart its head into a bunch of white ash leaves as quickly as it would into a tuft, bush or eller leaves.

Bees were abundant in the township in early times; will honey was an article of export see- ond only to maple sugar. The value of honey from 1806 to 1815 averaged about 12 cents per pound or $1 per gallon. The pioneers were very expert in ferreting out bee-trees. They noticed the direction a bee would take when heavily laden with the sweets of a wild flower, and that direction would be in a straight line to the hollow tree in which the swarm rendezvoused. The tree were also found by the drones of the hive which had been killed by the workers and thrown out and lay dead at the roots of the tree. And in the early warm days of the spring the bees would be drawn out of their winter quarters and make a peculiar buz- zing noise ; these and many other devices were oft resorted to by the sharpened senses of the bee hunter to find this hidden treasure. It is singular how quick the civilized Caucasian beeomes an expert in all the shrewd tactics of the savage, to circumvent and capture all kinds of game ; these capabilities have been supposed to belong exclusively to the Indian race, but frontier life on the continent has developed many white hunters far superior to any red men of whom we have any account. Squirrels were not so plenty at the period of the first settle- ment of the township as they were twenty years after. Black squirrels at first were the only ones seen. About 1820, the gray variety made its appearance, and the few that remain at this date are of this kind. In 1840, the red squirrel made its advent into this section and is now altogether the most numerous species. In 1827, there was a hegira of squirrels ; they were so numerous that they destroyed the farmers' crops. There was a squirrel hunt organized this year; a sum, or purse of money, was raised. the hunters were to receive this money in proportion to the number of squirrels they shot. They were all to hunt on the same day, and meet in Mount Union in the evening. count the scalps and receive their pro rate of the fund. Job Johnson was purse holder. and Nathan Gaskill judge. E. N. Johnson, Sr., shot 55.

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History of Stark County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 74

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? ed Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1060

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? ed
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1060