USA > Ohio > Van Wert County > History of Van Wert County, Ohio and Representative Citizens > Part 17
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There was a walnut tree on the Gilliland farm that measured 25 feet around, two feet above the ground. Wirt cut the tree. It made
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five logs, each 12 feet long to the first limb . and a good log above that; and a log two feet thick out of the first limb. After trying in every way he could to haul it to the sawmill, as a last resort he split it into quarters with powder.
AN IRISHMAN SCARES AWAY A WOLF.
A wolf had run down a large buck and the deer made for Peter Will's house for protec- tion; the deer would run around the house and the family within could hear it srike its horns against the house in the night. In the morning Mrs. Wills slipped out and went to her brother, J. G. Gilliland, for him to come and shoot the wolf. An Irishman happened to be at Gilli- land's and he was told to stay at the house or he would scare the wolf. Just as the wolf was seen by Mr. Gilliland, the Irishman "hollered," "There he is, shoot the baste." That was warning enough for the wolf, which immedi- ately left for tall timber, leaving behind a very angry man (Gilliland) and a disappointed Irishman.
A WILD CAT HUNT.
Bill Parent, Sam Engleright and half a dozen Van Wert men went out to the cat swamp on the McMillen and McCoy farms, where they started several wild cats, which would run the length of the thicket, then cross the road into the other and go the whole length of that and then cross over. After the hunters had run one until the hounds were getting tired, they went to McCoy's home and asked McCoy if he would hold his bulldog in the road and when the cat crossed the road have the dog catch it and hold it until the hounds came up. They would then take the bull dog off and let the hounds and the cat fight. When the wild cat came out of the brush, it started through the clearing with the dog after it. They came to a large log which both jumped at the same time.
The dog then turned around, stood with his fore feet on the log and looked at the men, who upon their arrival 30 seconds later found that the cat was dead. The bull dog had caught it back of the shoulder as it went over the log and crushed it. They told McCoy to take his dog home, as he was spoiling the fun. Later in the day one of the hounds and a wild cat met in McCoy's back yard. The cat and hound both reared up, clinched and rolled on the ground together and the hound would have soon been torn to pieces had not two other hounds come to his relief. As it was he was in a sorry plight. Four wild cats killed was the result of the day's hunt.
EARLY ELECTIONS.
The following is a copy of the first election poll book in Ridge township :
Poll book of an election held in Ridge township, Van Wert County, Ohio, on the 24th day of June, 1837. John Hill, James G. Gilliland, and Adam Gilliland, judges; and William Nuttle and Robert Gilliland, clerks of said election.
Names and Number of Electors.
No. 1 Smith Hill. No. 6 John G. Fortney.
2 William Priddy. :
7 Thomas Gilliland.
3 Abraham Hires.
8 Henry Harrod.
4 John Hill.
« 9 Oliver Stacy.
= 5 James Young.
This is to certify that the number of electors at this election amounts to nine (9).
John Hill had 9 votes for trustee.
James G. Gilliland had 9 votes for trustee.
David McCoy had 9 votes for trustee.
James Young had 9 votes for supervisor. William Burright had 9 votes for supervisor.
Robert Gilliland had 7 votes for township clerk.
Oliver Stacy had 5 votes for fence viewer.
Nathan Davis had I vote for fence viewer. Smith Hill had 5 votes for overseer of the poor.
ROBERT GILLILAND, - Clerks.
WILLIAM NUTTLE,
JOHN HILL, JAMES G. GILLILAND, Judges.
ADAM GILLILAND,
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It seems that of the judges and clerks, only John Hill voted at this election.
At an election held on the 10th day of Octo- ber, 1837, Thomas Gilliland was elected justice of the peace. His commission was dated Octo- ber 21, 1837.
The next election was held on the 2nd day of April, 1838; David King, William Priddy and John Hill served as judges, and Robert Gilliland and Oliver Stacy as clerks. Nathan Davis and David McCoy were elected trustees, Oliver Stacy, clerk, and Robert Gilliland, treas- urer.
AN INDIAN TRAGEDY.
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About the time of the first settling of the county, a party of Indians were camped on the bank of Dog Creek, east of where the County Infirmary now is, and were sitting around their camp-fires, when all at once two young Indians sprang to their feet and plunged their knives into each other's hearts, both falling dead at the same time. The trouble was about their sweetheart. There is another version to this story, which is given elsewhere. They were buried side by side in the same grave; a pen of small poles was built over it and covered in the same manner, and a small hole about over their hearts was made between two poles by cutting a little notch in each pole. This as long as the Wyandots were here was every year stained red with pokeberry juice. As long as William Martin owned the farm, he respected their resting place, and would not allow it to be farmed over; but since then all trace of the grave has been obliterated.
INDIAN METHOD OF WRITING.
Mr. Gilliland was coming home from town when he saw an Indian standing by a beech tree looking with very much interest at a picture
of a deer,that had been lately cut in the bark. He explained to Mr. Gilliland what the picture meant. He said that a number of Indians were hunting on Prairie Creek, that they had killed a certain number of deer and that deer were very plenty. He pointed to the different parts of the picture as he explained what each meant.
EXPERIENCES WITH INDIANS.
Once, while the Wyandot Indians were still here Elmyra Gilliland (now Mrs. M. H. Me- Coy) and her cousin, Elizabeth Gilliland, were hunting the cows about a mile from home, when they came across an Indian camp and saw smoke coming out of one of the huts. Eliza- beth became so frightened that she ran away in terror, lost her bonnet and would not stop to pick it up. Elmyra, who was more inquisitive, went up and threw down one of the slabs of which the huts were constructed, looked in and then drove her cows home. They were not aware that there were any Indians near until then.
Many of the Indians were very friendly and would frequently stay all night at the writer's father's house, and would talk quite freely if there were none but the family pres- ent, but if any strangers were about it was diffi- cult to get them to say a word. Of one In- dian in particular, whose name was Half John, the writer was quite fond. His hair was so long that it reached down to the seat on which he sat, and the writer used to slip up, pull his hair and then run away. He used to say that he wanted his venison cooked so that when he was eating it the blood would run out of each side of his mouth.
John Lake and Spike Buck were also well- known Indians at that time. In visiting the old Mission Church at Upper Sandusky in August last (1905), the writer noticed a tomb-
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stone at the grave of one of the sons of Spike Buck; also of several of the Solomons, the American name for Tawohesackwaugh. An Indian of this name was tried for murder at Van Wert in 1840.
In 1839 Samuel S. Brown moved his fam- ily into Ridge township, settling on the prop- erty now known as the Snodgrass farm. He was away from home much of the time, carry- ing the mail between Greenville to Van Wert. One evening three drunken Indians came to the cabin and ordered Mrs. Brown to get them supper, which she did. After eating their supper, they danced and yelled and then left without doing any harm. After that, if Indians were seen approaching, the latch string was pulled in, which was then the method of lock- ing the doors.
At one time two drunken Indians rode up to the Gilliland home, one being so drunk that he fell off his pony. They came to the door, but the men being away they were not admitted. They then went to the window and tried to trade a cake of sugar weighing five or six pounds for their breakfast. They would take bites from it to show that it was not poison. Finding they could not make the trade, they got on their ponies, after several falls, and rode out of the lane as fast as the ponies could run.
One day in 1839 Sarah Gilliland was teach- ing school in the McCoy and Beard neighbor- hood, when a drunken Indian, by the name of Snakehead, came in and scared the teacher and scholars very badly. About half the scholars were red-headed, and the Indians never liked red-headed people. Snakehead would pat Daniel Norman on the head and say "Nice Papoose," then he would take M. H. McCoy by the hair and pull him around, give a big whoop and run his knife around and say, "Indian scalp him." Mrs. Beard saw that there was was something wrong and arming herself with
a handspike drove Snakehead away. He went off muttering "Brave squaw. Brave squaw." He then went to David McCoy's, where he was told that if he would give up his knife and tomahawk he might stay all night. He curled down on the hearth and slept until morning. In the morning he was duly sober and sorry for what he had done. He said, "All Cook whisky." Daniel Cook sold whisky to who- ever had money to pay for it, although it was against the law to sell whisky to Indians.
INDIAN REMAINS.
The following information was contributed by L. D. Moore, of Ridge township. "Some- time in the fall of 1897, as late I think as No- vember, while digging for sand to be used in building our County Infirmary, the laborers struck with their spades what upon examination proved to be a human skull. All fell at once to carefully exhuming the remains, which were rather in a decayed condition, having had prac- tically no protection save the soil and earth sur- rounding it. The skull held intact, however, for some time, and was a matter of curiosity to hundreds of people. Several physicians made examinations and all seemed to agree that it was the remains of a white man. as the cavity in the jaw had neatly shrunk where the molars had been extracted.
"No other evidence could be found other than two small arrow-heads, possibly in the pockets at the time of burial. The skeleton seemed to occupy rather a sitting or cramped position and was not deeper than two feet be- low the surface. It was on a plot of ground that had possibly been cleared for three quarters of a century and in continuous cultivation. The location is in Ridge township on the south side of the Ridge road and but three rods southeast of the site formerly occupied by the first Meth-
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odist church ever erected in Van Wert County, on land now occupied by L. D. Moore. The general verdict at that time was that of murder or at least death and burial under mysterious circumstances.
"To my personal knowledge the skeletons of three Indians have been unearthed in this vicinity within recent years. One was found while grading for piking on the line between Ridge and Washington townships, a stone's throw south of the residence of B. F. John- son; and the other two on the land formerly owned by an old pioneer, William Martin, the old nurseryman. Tradition has it that those two lost their lives in a duel fought over a squaw as a love affair, the parties lashing their left wrists together and fighting to the death with the dirk. The exact location of the graves of these two chiefs was well known to many of the older residents of the neighborhood, and the time was when the spot was surrounded by a rude pole fence, but as time can smooth the wrinkled brow of care, so possibly the last re- maining vestige of the evidence of that noble race has been blotted from the present limits of cur county.
"On a bright Sabbath morning the com- munity awakened to the fact that those graves had given up their dead. Some ghoul in hu- man form had stolen the remains from among us and had left as a token only a few teeth, some Indian trinkets and a pipe."
"JOHNNY APPLESEED.
John Chapman, or as he was better known "Johnny Appleseed," was an eccentric char- acter who came originally from New England. He had imbibed the idea that he could do the most for his fellow-men by planting and rear- ing apple trees from the seed. He was first heard of in Ohio, when he left Western Penn-
sylvania and descended the Ohio River in his canoe, which was well laden with bags of apple seed. He always kept on the outskirts of civ- ilization. He would enter a new settlement, clear and fence a small piece of ground, plant it in apple seed and then pass on to the next settlement and would not be seen again until the trees were ready to transplant, when he would notify the settlers to come and get their trees. He would sell them for anything the settlers had to give in exchange. If any were too poor to buy, they got their trees all the same. An old hat, coat, pair of pants, shirt or pair of shoes was current with him and the love of humanity, his religion.
In 1839 he came to the home of Alexander McCoy, then just moved into Ridge township, and asked for a piece of ground in which to plant apple seed. McCoy told him that he had no ground cleared that he could fence to pro- tect the trees, but informed Johnny that Daniel M. Beard, who lived about a mile farther south, had been in the locality longer than he and had more cleared land. He stood near the fire, where they were burning brush, and seemed to hate to leave the warmth. He was thinly clothed, his pantaloons were much too short and he wore an old pair of shoes without stockings. He went on to Beard's where he was furnished a piece of ground, properly fenced with a good log and brush fence. He planted the seed carefully and went on to the next place. He never came back to Beard's to look after his trees. Mr. Beard grafted many of them and supplied many of the neighbors with the first trees for their. orchards.
The orchard on the Samuel S. Brown farm was started from "Johnny Appelseed's" nurs- ery, and many of the apples were equal to the best grafted fruit. He planted a nursery on the farm known as the Evers farm, west of Van Wert. He also furnished apple trees for
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William Johns to plant. The writer believes he was an uncle to Mrs. Johns. He asked Mrs. Gilliland to raise her oldest girl ( later Mrs. M. H. McCoy) for him for a wife, and seemed to be in real earnest. She told him that he ought to get a wife nearer his own age. He said, "No, she might have loved some one else first." Continuing, he said, "Won't you raise her for. for me." Mrs. Gilliland replied that he ought not to have asked such a thing. He seemed to take it to heart and never came to the house afterward.
When giving out his trees to the settlers, he seemed to derive the greatest satisfaction from it. He delighted in it as the passion of his life.
His personal appearance was as singular as his character. He was quick and restless in his motions and conversation. His beard and hair were long and dark and his eyes black and sparkling. He lived the roughest of lives and often slept in the woods. His clothing was mostly old cast-off articles given to him in ex- change for apple trees. He went barefoot in the summer and often until late in the fall. In doctrine he was a follower of Swedenborg and led a moral, blameless life, likening himself to the primitive Christians, literally taking no thought for the morrow. Wherever he went, he circulated Swedenborgian literature, and if short of them he would tear a book in two and give each part to different persons. He was careful not to injure any person and thought hunting was morally wrong. He would not eat meat, as it was necessary to kill one of God's creatures to obtain it. He was everywhere welcome among the settlers and was treated with great kindness by the Indians.
It is said that one cool night, while lying by his campfire in the woods, he noticed that the mosquitoes flew into the fire and were burned. Johhny, who wore on his head a tin utensil, which answered both as a cap and a mush-pot,
filled it with water and quenched the fire. After- ward he remarked, "God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures."
At another time he built a fire at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night, but finding it occupied by a she-bear and her cubs, he removed the fire to the other end of the tree and slept on the snow in the open air rather than disturb the bear. He was one morning mowing on a prairie when a rattle- snake bit him. Sometime afterward a friend asked him about the circumstance. He drew a long sigh and replied, "Poor fellow, he only. just touched me, when I in an ungodly passion put the heel of my scythe on his head and went home. Sometime afterward I went there for my scythe and there the poor fellow lay dead." He bought a coffee sack, cut a hole in the bot- tom, through which he thrust his head, and wore the sack as a cloak, saying that it was as good as anything.
An itinerant preacher was holding forth in the Public Square at Mansfield and exclaimed, "Where is the barefooted Christian traveling to Heaven." Johnny, who was lying on his back on some timber, taking the question in its literal sense, raised his bare feet in the air and said, "Here he is."
John Chapman was born near Springfield, Massachusetts, in the year 1775, and came to Ohio in 1801 with his half brother. Soon after, Johnny located in Pennsylvania near Pitts- burgh, and began the nursery business, which he continued on West. In 1839, after calling on his old friends in the eastern part of the State, he resolved to go farther West. Villages were spring- ing up, statge coaches were laden with passengers, schools were everywhere, and frame and brick houses were taking the place of the cabins that had extended a welcome shelter in
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the early days. Johnny went around among his friends to bid them farewell. The young people that had welcomed him in the early days were now heads of families. His work was done and he rejoiced in the fruits of his labor, but was not ready to rest from his labor. There was still work on the frontier, and thither he di- rected his footsteps. He died March 11, 1845, in Saint Joseph township, Allen County, Indi- ana, at the house of William Worth, and was buried two and a half miles north of Fort Wayne.
His bruised and bleeding feet now walk the golden paved streets of the New Jerusalem. A life full of labor, pain and unselfishness, humble unto self-abnegation; his memory glowing in the hearts of his friends; while his deeds live anew every springtime in the fragrance of the apple blossoms he loved so well.
The following bit of a poem, from the pen of Mrs. F. S. Dill, of Wyoming, Hamilton county, Ohio, is worth recording here :
Grandpa stopped and from the grass at our feet Picked up an apple, large, juicy, and sweet. Then took out his jackknife and, cutting a slice, Said, as he ate it, "Isn't it nice To have such apples to eat and enjoy. Well, there weren't very many when I was a boy, For the country was new, e'en food was scant, We had hardly enought to keep us from want. And this good man as he went around, Oft eating and sleeping upon the ground, Always carried and planted apple seeds. Not for himself but for other's needs. The apple seeds grew and we to-day Eat of the fruit planted by the way. While Johnny, bless him, is under the sod. His body is-ah! he is with God. For child, though it seemed a trifling deed, For a man just to plant an apple seed, The apple-trees' shade, the flowers, the fruit, Have proved a blessing to man and to brute. Look at the orchards throughout the land, All of them planted by old Johnny's hand. He will forever remembered be- I wish to have all so think of me."
SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THE GILLILAND FAM- ILY AND EARLY DAY ANECDOTES.
(Given by T. S. Gilliland at the family reunion on the 27th of October, 1904).
The Gilliland family came from County Down, in the North of Ireland. They were Scotch-Irish. There were seven sons and four daughters, their names as follows: James, Thomas, Hugh, Adam, Andrew, Robert and John; Jane, Mary, Sarah and Catherine. The family came up to the Roosevelt idea, as most of the Gilliland families do. Three of the brothers came to America in advance of the rest of the family.
When the mother and father came, as they were about to sail, one of the daughters, Cath- erine, left the vessel and married, contrary to the wishes of the family, and it is said her name was never mentioned in the family there- after. It is said that when the mother met the three boys she was much shocked at the color of their teeth-they had learned to chew tobacco.
Jinnie Jordan, an old Irish woman, used to say that every Sabbath the father and mother first, then the two oldest children, then the next two, and so on to the youngest, would go to church, and that was kept up after the older ones were men and women. They were Pres- byterians.
The family settled in Maryland, near Ha- gerstown. John Gilliland, or Jack as he was familiarly called, and one of his brothers went up in the Northwestern part of Pennsylvaina and took up a "tomahawk right" claim; that is, they blazed around a piece of land which gave them a title to it. On their return, the Indians pursued them for 30 miles, until within sight of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg. They were seldom out of sight of the Indians, for as they would ascend one hill they would see the In- dians coming over the one behind. John Gilli-
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land killed a fine mare in the race and was so disgusted that he gave his claim to one of his brothers, who improved it. There is now a large settlement of the Gillilands in that part of the State, many of them wealthy farmers. Two of the brothers settled in Greenbrier county, Virginia, and later went to Eastern Tennessee. They married rich planters' daughters and be- come slaveholders. It was a source of regret to their mother that her boys held slaves. It is said of one of the boys that when quite a lad he hired out to neighboring farmers to drive a cart. It was noticed that when he met a neigh- boring squire in his carriage that he would drive out of the road and take off his hat till the squire passed. Someone asking him what he did that for, he said, "Don't you have to do do that when you meet a squire?" They told him that a squire in this country was no better than any one else. The lad thought it over and concluded that he would make the squire give the road the next time. It so happened that the next time they met it was on a narrow piece of road with a deep mire at the side. The lad stopped his cart and the squire his carriage. They eyed each other and finally the squire told the lad to drive out of the road. "No," said the lad, "you give the road this time," and enforced his command by pulling a stake out of his cart and swinging it in front of the squire and tell- ing him to drive on. This the squire did, and mired down, while the lad mounted his cart and drove on, feeling that he had asserted his rights as an American citizen, much to the amusement of the bystanders, who were watch- ing the performance. Two brothers moved to Virginia, and finally to Eastern Tennessee, as stated above; two to Northwestern Pennsyl- vania; and two to Eastern Ohio, west of Pitts- burg. The other brother, John, remained in Maryland. He married Jane Briggs and raised a large family as his father before him had
done, the children being named as follows : James Gordon (mamed for Lord Gordon, of Ireland), John, Nancy (Mrs. Peter Wills), Thomas, Adam, Sarah (Mrs. George Guy), Robert, Jane (Mrs. Theophilus King), Hugh and William. The last named died when quite young. John Gilliland served in the Continental Army, and was at the battle of Yorktown and at the surrender of Lord Corn- wallis. He died in 1826 from injuries received in an explosion. James G. Gilliland was then 22 years old and on him depended the rearing of the family as John, the next younger, had married and moved away. The other boys were quite young. In 1833 James G. Gilliland_ and a Mr. Wise came West, walking from Gettysburg to Fort Wayne and back. In 1834 Peter Wills moved to near Tiffin and the rest of the Gilliland family moved to Bucyrus and re- mained there during the summer of 1835, rais- ing a crop on the farm of a Mr. Shaffner.
The Gilliland family moved to Ridge town- ship in 1835, where James G. Gilliland entered 240 acres of land in section 9, 80 acres where the Infirmary is and 80 acres just east of the In- firmary, where John Johnson lives. This last mentioned tract he gave to his brothers for keep- ing their mother her lifetime. This they sold the same fall to the Parmleys for $1,000 and each of them was able to enter land for himself. When the family was at Bucyrus, two of the brothers went ont hunting and got lost. An old Indian piloted them out of the woods and then told them he could tell them how they could go hunting and never get lost. They told him they wished he would. He said, "Go out all around the field and keep looking at the fence." At another time two of them were out hunting and were very hungry. when they came to an Indian wigwam. There was no one at home. They went in and found some jerked meat and were eating it when an Indian came
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