History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 76

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104

USA > Ohio > Summit County > History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio > Part 76

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old. They left for my use a small loaf of bread, an old rifle that carried an ounce ball and some powder and bullets, that I might kill squirrels for meat. They thought they would be back in three weeks. It was a try- ing time for me. I could get along very well through the day, but when night came, I was lonesome indeed. I would build a big fire and roll myself up in my blankets so that I could not hear anything, and there remain until morning. I managed so about two weeks. My loaf began to get very small, and I had to make my allowance still smaller to make it hold out. Three weeks expired and nobody came. The fourth passed; my bread was gone and squirrels furnished my only food. The fifth passed, and found me with- ont bread or bullets. I managed to kill some squirrels with gravel-stones, but the most of those I shot at escaped without serious injury. I stayed there until the sixth week began to drag its slow length along, when one afternoon in the cabin, to avoid a heavy thunder shower, I fell asleep, and awoke to find it growing dark. The fire had gone out, and everything was so saturated with the rain that I could not relight. While tinkering with the fire, I was startled by the howl of the wolves in the near vicinity. I seized my gun loaded with stone, and, wrapping my blankets about me, sat down to defend myself against the wolves. I sat there until morning without a visit from the wolves, and then I left the shanty to care for itself, and went over to where Harry O'Brien lived, about three miles distant, and remained until our family came back, which was not long." Others came from time to time to gladden the hearts and share the bur- dens of the little frontier community. It is not possible, at this time, to learn all the particulars of their coming, or even of their names. Among those who came during the first fifteen years of the colony were David Hudson, 1799; Thaddeus Lacey, 1799; R. H. Blin, 1799; Will- iam Mckinley, 1799; David Kellogg, 1799; Jo- seph Darrow, 1799; Jonah Meacham, 1799; Jesse Lindley, 1799; Samuel Bishop, 1800; David Bishop, 1800; Joseph Bishop, 1800; Lu- man Bishop, 1800; George Darrow, 1800; Allen Gaylord, 1800; Joel Gaylord, 1801; Heman Oviatt, 1801; Stephen Thompson, Sr., 1801;

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Abraham Thompson, 1801; Stephen Thomp- son, Jr., 1801; Dr. Moses Thompson, 1801; John Bridge, 1801; James Newton, 1801; George Pease, 1801; Eben Pease, 1801; Will- iam Leach, 1801; George Kilbourne, 1801; Bradford Kellogg, 1801; Amos Lusk, 1801; John Oviatt, 1801; Eliada Lindley, 1801; Will- iam Bonghton, 1801; Ezra Wyatt, 1801; Aaron Norton, 1801; Robert Walker, 1801; John Walker, 1801; James Walker, 1801; Robert Walker, Jr., 1801; George Walker, 1801; Elisha Norton, 1802; George Holcomb, 1802; Nathaniel Farrand, 1803; Robert O'Brien, 1803; John O'Brien, 1803; Charles Miles, 1804; Rev. David Bacon, 1804; Henry Post. 1804; Zina Post, 1804; Jonathan Williams, 1804; Christian Cackler, Sr., 1804; Owen Brown, 1805; Benjamin Whedon, 1805; Marmaduke Deacon, 1805; Daniel Johnson, 1809; William Chamberlain, 1809; William Chamberlain, Jr., 1809; Nathaniel Stone, 1810; Samuel Hollenbeck, 1810; Gad Hol- lenbeck, 1810; Joseph Kingsbury, 1810; Elisha Ellsworth, 1810; Dr. Jonathan Met- calf, 1812; Augustus Baldwin, 1812; Frede- rick Baldwin, 1812; Dudley Humphrey, 1812; Ariel Cobb, 1813; Gideon Mills, 1814; Chauncey Case, 1814; Harvey Baldwin, 1814; Rev. John Seward, 1814. Most of these per- sons came from Litchfield County, Connec- ticut, or Ontario County in the State of New York. The larger proportion were married, and some brought into the country large fami- lies, that intermarried, so that few of the earli- est families remained unrelated in this way. " David Hudson brought in a family of six children-Samuel, Ira, William, Timothy, Milo and Abigail. Ira Hudson married Hul- dah Oviatt; William married Phobe Hutch- inson; Milo married Hannah Rogers; Abigail married Birdseye Oviatt. Samuel Bishop had a family of five sons and four daughters: Timothy married Rebecca Craig; David mar- ried Miss Kennedy; Luman married Rachel Gaylord; Reuben died single; Joseph married Miss Hollenbeck; one of the girls married Stephen Perkins; one, Elijah Nobles: one, Samuel Vaile: and one, Gad Hollenbeck. Joel Gaylord brought with him three sons and four daughters: John, Daniel, Harvey, Sally, Olive and Betsey; Sally Gaylord married William

Leach; and afterward a John Ford; Olive married George Darrow; Betsey married Will- iam Mckinley; and Nancy married William Chamberlain." *

The little settlement thus dropped in the woods, like a pebble in the ocean, seemed lost in the vast expanse of wilderness that stretched, with interminable proportions, from the front- iers of Western New York along the lakes to the great West. By the treaty 1785 with the savages, the Cuyahoga River was made a part of the dividing line between the territories of the contracting parties. Eight miles to the east of this national boundary, separated from the civilized world by hundreds of miles of wearisome, hazardous journey on land or sea, were a little handful of resolute men, with their wives and children, while on its western bank clustered the strongholds of the merciless sav- age, whose barbarous warfare had written the history of the Northwest in letters of fire and blood. None felt the seriousness of the situa- tion, and the crushing weight of responsibility which it brought, more keenly than the heroic founder of this colony. He knew the jealous watchfulness with which the natives marked the coming of each accession to the white colony; the sentiment of reckless indifference to the rights of others which possessed that class of hunters and trappers which hang about the outskirts of advanced settlements, and, to prevent the contact of these antagonistic ele- ments, and to smooth the natural, inevitable as- perities of the situation, was his constant care from the beginning. He was constantly en- gaged in Indian conferences, entertaining them at his house and giving them presents, and to his upright dealings and judicious manage- ment may be credited the harmonious relations and commanding influence of the community with the natives. The Seneca, Chippewa and Ottawa tribes had villages in the vicinity of the Hudson colony, and were frequently found among the whites on trading or begging expe- ditions. Stigwanish, the chief of the Seneca vil- lage, was on intimate terms with his new neigh- bors, and was a frequent and welcome visitor at Mr. Hudson's cabin. He was a large. mus- cular man, standing straight as an arrow, nearly six feet in height, with a stern expres-

*Reminiscences by Christian Cackler.

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HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY.

sion of countenance and a keen black eye. He is represented, by all who knew him here, as well disposed toward his white neighbors, and upright in his dealings, strongly discoun- tenancing anything in his followers which was likely to provoke trouble. His people had corn-fields on the river bottoms near where the village of Cuyahoga Falls now stands, which they cultivated for years. On one occasion, having reason to fear an attack from another tribe, he requested his white friends to build him a fort near the falls of the river, which they did, though, happily, it was never needed for the purpose of defense. Heman Oviatt, with a shrewd eye to business, early estab- lished a trading-point at his cabin, about a mile south of the site of the village. This was a place of great attraction to the Indians, who gathered here in considerable numbers, ex- changing the furs they secured by trapping and hunting for trinkets of various kinds, powder, lead and whisky. The latter was in the greatest demand, and a scale of prices, according to Christian Cackler's account, was established, as follows: Coon-skins, a half-pint of whisky; buck-skins, one pint: bear-skins' four quarts. Mrs. Oviatt soon acquired their language' and gained quite an ascendancy over their "untutored minds." Before giving them any considerable amount of whisky, she was in the habit of demanding their guns, tomahawks and knives, which they surrendered to her until they got sober, as they invariably got "kok kusi." One of these orgies, as de- scribed by Cackler, was as follows: "They were of the Ottawa tribe, and there were about fifteen or eighteen of them. They were pro- vided with a deer-skin suit, like a little boy's suit, all whole, but open before, and supplied with openings for legs and arms. When put on, it was tied in front. It was ornamented around the arms and legs with fringe some three inches three inches in length, to which was attached a variety of animal claws, such as those of the turkey, coon, deer, bear, etc. One would put on this suit, and jump, hop, and kick about in a sort of Indian 'Highland fling,' while two others furnished the inspira- tion by patting and humming. The success of the performer seemed to depend upon his ability to get the greatest possible amount of

clatter ont of the claws attached to the fringe. When tired, he would doff the garment, take a drink of the whisky provided, and give place to another Terpsichorean artist. In this way, each one would try his agility, and gradually get beastly intoxicated. This they kept up two days. Before the proceedings began, however, they placed all their weapons in the hands of their squaws, who were quiet specta- tors of the scene. At the end of two days, all save two of the squaws who were assigned to the charge of the papooses, got drunk, and exhibited all the worst phases of this degrad- ing revel." It was hardly to be expected that the free use of whisky in this way should always result so harmlessly to the general interests of the community at large. The women and children could never learn to look upon the savages with any degree of eqnanim- ity, and the natives were not slow to perceive this. Occasionally, an ill-disposed fellow, inflamed by whisky, would frighten a woman if he found her unprotected in an isolated cabin. On one occasion, a party of Indians came to the cabin of Marmaduke Deacon, situ- ated where his son now resides, and, finding his wife alone with her children, approached her in a threatening manner, making some demand in their own langnage. Not able to understand their utterances, she provided them with a gen- erons supply of provisions. They still main- tained their menacing attitude, when she secured and gave them every cent of money there was in the cabin, and, finding them still unsatisfied, she left her children and pro- ceeded, through the snow, to the cabin of O'Brien, who lived some distance away, for more to satisfy their demands. She reached her destination, but the fright, added to the exposure, was too much for her feeble strength, and she never left alive, dying of quick con- sumption in a few weeks. This circumstance aroused the revengeful disposition of a certain class of the whites, who, known as "Indian haters," became Indian slayers whenever occa- sion offered the chance of escaping the penalty of their acts. Jonathan Williams, who came in with Christian Cackler, Sr., in 1804, was one of this class. "George Wilson," a son of Stigwanish, was a quarrelsome fellow when under the influence of liquor, and had several

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serious misunderstandings with the whites. One time, when feeling particularly surly, he happened at the cabin of "Old Mother New- ell," on Paines' road, near the town line. She was alone, and, noticing his approach, she took the precaution to bar the door. Denied admittance to the cabin, which had but one door, he put his gun-barrel through the open- ing between the logs, and satisfied his ugly disposition by forcing her, with threats, to dance in the middle of the floor till, tired of the sport, he went away. He had scarcely left before Mrs. Newell, on the watch for some passer-by, saw Williams coming along the trail with his gun on his shoulder, as usual. She called him, and related the circumstances. Williams waited only to hear the story, and pushed on after the Indian. Williams' char- acter was not unknown to the natives, and, finding him on his trail, Wilson left the road and struck through the woods hoping to avoid an encounter. Williams gained upon him slowly but surely, and, when in vicinity of a piece of "honey-comb swamp," taking advantage of a moment when the Indian was off his guard, he shot and killed him. Drawing his body into this piece of swamp, he thrust it out of sight, send- ing, also, the Indian's rifle down with him. The mysterious disappearance of Wilson created a great commotion among the Senecas, and great effort was made to discover the whereabouts of his remains and the cause of his final taking- off. The Indians suspected what the whites did not learn until years afterward, and Will- iams was obliged ever afterward to be con- stantly on his guard against surprise. It is said, on another occasion while hunting while there was a light coating of snow on the ground, he lost for awhile his bearings, and found himself following his own track in a circle. He observed, in coming upon his own trail, the track also of a moccasined foot, and, with a hunter's instinct, recognizing his pur- sner, he took to a tree and shot him as he came again following the trail.

By the treaty of 1805, the Indians were removed from the near neighborhood of the whites, who were rapidly pouring into this country, but they still continued to come back in squads to their old haunts, to trade or hunt. In21806, Stigwanish, with his sons, Jolın Big- |

son, John Amur, his sons-in-law, Nickshaw and Wobmung, and others of their family, came to their old camps in Deerfield. During their stay, Nickshaw traded his pony with a settler by the name of John Diver. The In- dian felt aggrieved, and complained to some of the leading settlers, and endeavored to trade back with Diver, without success. Nickshaw felt that he had been cheated, and agreed, with Mohawk, to shoot Diver. Until this horse trade, there had been the kindliest relations existing between the parties, and no fears were entertained that the disagreement would cause a rupture. The young men called at Daniel Diver's cabin soon afterward, and sought to get his brother within their grasp by strategem, but failed. A little later in the same evening, Daniel, in going out to placate the Indians, was shot so as to blind him-a wound which did not prove mortal-and fled, supposing he had killed the one with whom they had had the difficulty. A party of set- tlers at once started in pursuit. Their camp, some three miles distant, was found deserted, but, following their trail along the great Indian road from the Ohio River to Sandusky, they crossed the Cuyahoga River, where Kent now stands, and the center road of Hudson, about a mile south of the village, thence across the Cuyahoga again near the site of Peninsula, in Boston Township. The trail entered Hud- son on Lot No. 10, and passed within sixty rods of Cackler's cabin, and the pursuers, under the lead of Maj. H. Rogers, reached this cabin about 1 o'clock in the morning. It was a clear, cold night in the latter part of Decem- ber of 1806: the moon was shining with pecu- liar brightness upon the earth, lightly covered with snow, giving the pursuers every facility. When they arrived here, however, some of the party were nearly frozen, and a number of them went no further Rogers got Christian Cackler, Sr., his oldest son and Jonathan Will- iams, to accompany him in continuing the pursuit. "They went to Hudson, got a new recruit, and followed on to near the west part of Richfield. Here the Indians had stopped, built a fire, stacked their arms, tied their ponies, and lain down with their feet to the fire. Most of them had pulled off their moc- casins. When Rogers and his men saw the

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fire, they scattered and surrounded the Indians, some of whom were in a doze, and some asleep. As they were closing up, Nickshaw and Mohawk sprang up and ran off bare- footed. They closed in on the rest, and, it beginning to be light, Rogers wanted some- body to go after Nickshaw, and George Dar- row, of Hudson, and Jonathan Williams, vol- unteered to go. The Indians' feet began to bleed before they got a mile, when they sat down on a log, tied pieces of blanket on their feet, and then separated. Darrow and Will- iams followed one of them, who proved to be Nickshaw, and whom they overtook in about three miles. He looked back, and, seeing them, gave a whoop and increased his speed, and they after him like hounds after a fox. In about a mile they overtook him, and asked him to come back, but he would not. Dar- rows said he thought he would clinch him; but, when he made the attempt, Nickshaw would put his hand under his blanket as though he had a knife. Darrow thought he would get a club and knock him down, but Mr. Indian could get a club and use it too. They got out of patience, and Williams fired his gun over Nickshaw's head, to let him know what was coming if he did not yield. This did not make the desired impression, and Will- iams loaded his gun and killed him by a sec- ond shot. They placed him under a log, cov- ered him with brush and old chunks, and came back to Hudson."* The whites returned with Bigson and his two sons, who were com- mitted, by the Justice of Deerfield, to the jail at Warren. A squaw belonging to them was allowed to escape, and, it is said, perished in the snow. The killing of Nickshaw, however, it was thought was unwarrantable, and, fearing the consequences of such an act if allowed to pass unnoticed, David Hudson, Heman Oviatt and Owen Brown mounted their horses and brought in the body of the dead Indian. The matter was brought before the proper legal authorities, but the investigation came to a lame conclusion, and finally ended in a "hoe- down," where whisky was plenty, and a collec- tion of $5 for Williams as a reward for the deed. Bigson was finally set at liberty, and remained near the settlements for years.

The affair occasioned no further trouble, although it occasioned considerable uneasiness amongst the settlers for a time. The Indians either acquiescing in the judgment of the whites, or realizing their inability to success- fully cope with the settlers, made a virtue of necessity and passed it by without notice.

The year 1806 was a marked one in other respects, to both the whites and Indians. A full eclipse of the sun occurred on 17th of June, much to the terror of the untutored sav- age, and greatly to the injury of the crops of the whites. The Indians were greatly fright- ened by the event, and, though it had been in some cases foretold by some of the squaws (how they learned of the fact has never been ascertained), it was not believed, and the women were executed as witches. When the event occurred, therefore, they were greatly frightened, and, forming in a circle, and marching around in regular order, each one fired at the evil spirit that was threatening the destruction of the world. Happily for one " brave," he discharged his gun just as the shadow began to move off, and he was created a chief on the spot for his bravery and the great service he had performed for the natives. The whites, though less affected by the phe- nomenon, were hardly less seriously affected by its effects, if the reminiscences of Mr. Cackler are to be relied upon. He says: " The day of the great eclipse was a beautiful, warm day; we were hoeing corn the second time, with only shirts and pants on, but, after the eclipse was off, the weather was so much colder that we had to put on our vests and coats to work in. There were frosts every month that summer; no corn got ripe, and the next spring we had to send to the Ohio River for seed-corn to plant. The next summer was the hardest time I ever saw. There was no grain in the country. My father and Adam Nigh- man went to Georgetown, on the Ohio River, for flour; they had no money, but took a rifie and pledged it for flour, and I guess they never redeemed it."

A good rifle was a valuable piece of prop- erty to the first settlers. Next to his ax and plow, he depended upon it for support in sub- duing the wild land in which he reared his cabin home. The vast forests abounded with

*Cackler's Reminiscences.

AL langer

HUDSON TOWNSHIP.

425

game, which at first was his principal depend- ence for sustenance, and later his greatest an- noyance and damage. Elk, the common deer, bears, wolves, panthers, with otters, beavers and raccoons infested the country and preyed on the crops and stock of the early community with comparative impunity. Bears came right into the settlement, and, seizing a hog, carried it, struggling and squealing, to the woods, and destroyed it before the aroused settlers could

prevent. Wolves attacked stock, killing calves and yearlings, and frequently assailed travel- ers, though generally with no serious results. Squirrels, raccoons and blackbirds, in their attack upon the grain-fields, were hardly less troublesome, and all the available children of the community were pressed into the service of protecting the growing crops from their depredations. As the settlement became less dependent upon game for food, the disadvan- tages of this abundance became more appar- ent, and organizations were made, much against the wishes of the professional hunter, to drive it out of the country. The township of Streetsboro, on the east of Hudson, was not settled for years after its neighbors, and offered a secure retreat for the animals that played such havoc upon the stock of the pio- neer settlements. The communities which suf- fered most from this state of affairs deter- mined, in 1819, to rid themselves of these unpleasant neighbors. A committee was ap- pointed, which marked off thirty or forty acres a little south of the center, into which the game was to be driven. The settlers of Hud- son came in on the west, of Franklin on the east, and of Aurora on the north. In describ-

ing the hunt, Cackler, who was an old hunter, says: " When the ring closed up, there was the greatest sight I ever saw. There were over a hundred deer, and a large number of bears and wolves. As they ran around the ring, the guns cracked like a battle. The deer came in great herds, forming a splendid sight with their large antlers, and, as they came toward the ranks, the hunters made wide gaps and let them out, closing in again to keep the bears and wolves. When we thought all dead, a wounded wolf came limping along a few rods from the line, calling out a perfect shower of bullets. A Hudson man, with another of the band, standing near each other, fired at the wolf when he fell dead. Both claimed the scalp, which then was worth $7, not a small sum for that time, and began a struggle for it that ended in a bout of fisticuffs. When finally the Hudson man was conquered, the wolf's scalp was gone. The proceeds of this hunt, when brought together, comprised over sixty deer, seven bears and five wolves. A large number of the wolves escaped, and many of the slaughtered animals were picked up and carried off by those who had not joined in the hunt, but enjoyed the game. The larger game grew rapidly scarce after this. The hunters of Hudson frequently went to the region of San- dusky Bay, the swamps of the Huron and Portage Rivers, and secured furs and plenty of game, but the lawlessness of the people who congregated at these points, and the dangers of lake travel, made it a hazardous undertak- ing, that scarcely remunerated the hunter for his risks and hardships.

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HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY.

CHAPTER XIV .*

HUDSON TOWNSHIP-CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COMMUNITY-ORGANIZATION-PIONEER INDUS- TRIES-VILLAGE OF HUDSON-ITS INCORPORATION AND GROWTHI-

FOUNDING OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL.

" Non ignara nalı, miseris succurrere disco."

T' THE early community of Hudson was patri- archal in its characteristics. It originated in the self-sacrificing devotion of its founder ; its first steps were directed by his judgment, and in its maturer years it bears his name and the impress of his character. It is difficult to imagine the early prosperity of this settlement without the material and moral support of Mr. Hudson. He is the central figure in all its early history, and remained so until his death. Coming with ample resources for the prosecu- tion of his enterprise, he allowed no desire for private ends to swerve him from his chosen course. He sought to establish a center of civilizing influence ; his was the mission of a public benefactor, and the records of that time bear ample evidence of his faithfulness. The sick and unfortunate found in him a helpful friend ; public enterprises were placed beyond the danger of failure by his efforts ; struggling merit never failed for lack of material aid when solicited of him, while his old account books, bearing the names of every member of the set- tlement in those early days, tell many a tale of his devotion to his people. In the building-up of the influence he sought, Mr. Hudson exer- cised his power without the aid of compulsion. He laid no restrictions upon the freedom of thought or action in the sale of his land. The support of church and school was voluntary on the part of each one, but his personal in- fluence-not an unimportant factor in the issne -he put without reserve in favor of these in- stitutions, and in the end he wrought success, where more exacting methods reaped failure. There were two clements here from the first, antagonistic to each other in both politics and religion, but Mr. Hudson, commanding the re- spect of his cotemporaries in years, and the reverence of the young, on the principle of the resolution of forces, though his influence united

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History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 76

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104