USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 17
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Signally illustrative of this heredity was a consciousness of a violation of the principle of popular elections in the constitution of 1802, when the reason for the appointive system had ceased in the growth of the population of the state. The constitution of 1851 asserted the complete system of elective officers, changed the judicial system, and in the wisdom of revolutionary sug- gestion enlarged the legislation of the state. The eminence of this adherence to free government gave an unusual sanction to the principles of 1776.
A patriotic jealousy and watchfulness characterized the early founders of our local government, and was aroused in 1824 when the alleged com-
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bination of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay defeated the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency, as an evasion of the spirit of the consti- tution and system of government. As the idol of the people, the hero of the Seminole war, and of the great victory over the British at New Orleans, Jackson's cause was almost universally espoused by the brave men and back- woodsmen of 1815. His after administration was supported by the great body of the people in all the contests involving supposed principles for which the Revolution and the war of 1812 were contested. Partisanism does not seem to have entered into this phase of political history. The then still living pioneers of the country and the second generation united in adherence to what was supposed to be an important principle, and in 1859 there was instituted a yearly celebration of the 8th of January, which has continued for fifty years as an offering to the patriotism and political integrity of our fathers and their attachment to a strict conformity to the republican system. The solitary munificence of this tribute can be appreciated in the thought of the exceptional character of the early guardians of constitutional liberty ! The permanency of this unique celebration is associated with the enduring fame of Washington, and the love of the popular heart for the memory of Lincoln; these three great Presidents-the one achieving independence and the adoption of the constitution, the one destroying British influence in America by the victory at New Orleans, and the incipient rebellion in South Carolina, the one in magnificent prudence and laborious wisdom giving his life for the preservation of the Union! Where is the history of their equals?
The organization of townships as now existing in Wayne county was completed by the year 1825, and their system from the first settlements in 1806 until they had completed township governments was conducted by men of ability, including many immigrants from France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland; and as the older populations passed away, the intervening middle aged and youth carried forward the local government in an uninterrupted succession, a continuous and unbroken intellectual current. From the very beginning of man in masses, the higher history of his great spiritual power has not been given; and it is only in the faith of heredity, reproduction, or occasional eminency of achievement, that we know the inspiration of our predecessors. In occasional family records only may we find the honest and noble township spirit; but, to a moral certainty, their fine patriotic thought has descended to the generation or two that honor the townships of Wayne county. Illustration of this pleasant reminiscence is largely exhibited in the county seat, of the important concerns of life, as religion, politics, law, trade,
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governmental policy ; it is the debating center, it is the Atlas that bears the public world of thought on its shoulders. Should any county be celebrated for carrying forward the thought of its founders, Wayne county is that favored realm. The Larwills, the Joneses, the Quinbys, the Millers, the Wilhelms, the Currys, the Jeffries, the McMonigals, Flattery, Kaukes, Douglas, Anderson Adair, Blackburn, Zimmerman, McSweeney, the Funcks, Barretts, Marchand, Foreman, McClure, Smyser, the Howards, the Frances, Moses Shaffer, Day, the Powers, and a hundred others, all familiar names- in politics, religious sects, government policy, for their respective views, stood like a solid rock of hereditary tenacity. Avoiding the criticism that the idea is commonplace, it may be observed that these American conditions, in the pres- ent height of several thousand years of progress, have no parallel in national life; of other, and all other nationalities, it is a king, and nobility ; a house of lords; a military dictatorship; a suppressed popular movement; some modification of the hypocrisy of Augustus; or the bloody monarchism of Tiberius, Caligula or Nero. The dome of no great capitol but ours is painted with emblems of popular jealousy of an oligarchy or aristocracy of power. The thinking people of the new Northwest are the bulwark of the republic; they wear the mantle of their fathers.
FORTY YEARS OF GOVERNMENT.
Of the intelligence and fine nerve of the first citizens of Wayne county, the systems of bookkeeping, the handwriting and the legal requisites of pub- lic business bear witness. Within the first forty years after the incorporation of Wayne county the character of its institutions was determined, and some of the prominent actors of the people's selection show a capacity for the highest positions.
Benjamin Jones and Cyrus Spink were representatives in Congress ; Edward Avery became a judge of the supreme court of Ohio; Reazin Beall, a major-general; John Sloan, treasurer of the United States; Levi Cox and Ezra Dean, president judges. There were nineteen associate judges, and twenty-three members of the state Legislature. Beall avenue, Bever street, Henry street, are memorials of the early settlers of that name; and Larwill street and the records of Wayne county will, it is hoped, preserve the name of Joseph H. Larwill, one of the most eminent of the pioneers of 1807.
In 1840 there were forty-six Revolutionary soldiers in Wayne county. The eloquence of their wounds, the dignity of their position, were constantly admonishing the people of the sacred trust of maintaining civil and political liberty.
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Of the county, city, town and township officers, the public records con- tain the history; of all these municipal corporations, the officers and leading men were intimately associated in official life.
That the city of Wooster was, at an early period, the centre of popula- tion; that the municipal and township organizers were the source of mutual information; that the early officers selected the foremost in interest for a practical system of home rule, and that these foremost men rose to higher representative positions by popular choice, may be assumed. The fact, in civil and political history, became a magnificent force, that transmuted all other forces into the popular system.
That Wayne county has always had an exceptionally good system of county administration may be readilly observed in the records preserved since 1815. The entire judicial record of the county is marked by the able per- formance of duty. The records at the very earliest period are evidence of consummate skill and complete formality, and are precedents for almost one hundred years; and one is impressed, surprised, at the remarkable accuracy with which the public business was conducted; and as the judicial administra- tion involves the capacity and integrity. of judges, prosecuting attorneys, lawyers, clerks and sheriffs, this reference to them all is intended as an encomium. No judge of Wayne county has ever been impeached; no lawyer disbarred; no prosecuting attorney, no clerk or sheriff ever charged with delinquency in office. The right of trial by jury has never been infringed, and no juryman has ever been charged with any irregularity in the per- formance of his duty. There is not a single known instance of a grand jury being otherwise than conscientious in either returning or failing to return an indictment. The same high. character belongs to the probate court, since it was created by the constitution of 1851, or while the probate business was within the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas under the constitution of 1802. The judges of this court for more than fifty years have been beyond reproach.
The judgments of these courts have been reviewable by the higher courts ever since the formation of the county, and the whole system has been and is a protection to every right, and a relief against every wrong, to prop- erty or person. But few instances have occurred of violation of law being unpunished, and crimes of any magnitude are very rare in the history of the county. Of divorces, of which the judge of the court of common pleas has the sole jurisdiction, but few have been granted not necessary to the pro- tection of the wife, or the honor of the husband. The financial system of
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the county, conducted by a board of commissioners, the auditor and treas- urer, the occasional duties of the prosecuting attorney and probate judge, and involving the safe custody and legal expenditure of the money con- tributed by the people for the support of the county and state government, is about as perfect as human ingenuity could devise. Of personal property enlisted by the assessors, and of real property as appraised, returned to the auditor, duplicates are given to the treasurer, exhibiting the amount to be collected as ascertained by the rate of taxation necessary for public purposes, and upon which the treasurer enters his collections and returns the same to the auditor. Not only the auditor's books, but the examination of the treas- ury by the commissioners and a private committee appointed by the probate judge, are precautions for the safety of the public money. The loaning of the money of the county to the banks at interest, and upon security, is an additional guaranty, to the treasurer's bond, of its safety. Nor are there fewer safeguards around the expenditure of the public money. It cannot be paid out but upon the order of the auditor, nor can he issue an order except according to express provision of law, unless the claim is allowed by the board of commissioners. The claim filed with them must remain five days before allowance, and no order can issue by the auditor until five days after the allowance. The prosecuting attorney may interpose in the expenditure, and the report of the business of the commissioners required to be filed by them in the court of common pleas is examined by a committee, and the ex- penditures reviewed by the court. The further review of the action of these officers is provided for by state inspection. The further view that all the financial officers of the county give bond, that they are governed by strict law, and are responsible to the people at the election, present the system as exceedingly satisfactory to the contributors to the public expense.
As the growth of the thought and experience of one hundred years, the system is a eulogy upon the framers of the government.
As early as 1792 the offices of treasurer-general and county treasurers were created, and the mode of raising money to defray county expenses by the Council of the Territory, and in 1799 the Territorial Legislature created the offices of territorial treasurer and auditor of public accounts and for levying a territorial tax on lands, and to regulate county levies. In 1802 the constitution provided for the appointment by the Legislature of state treas- urer and auditor and other officers were to be appointed as directed by law. Gradually the county system embraced a treasurer and auditor as appointive, then elective, and afterwards developed in the constitution of 1851. But
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prior to 1802 the county treasurer was a collector who reported to the state treasurer and auditor, and progressive legislation has added to the defective systems of the past the fine checks and supervision of the present.
A successful administration of the finances of Wayne county is apparent from the records. Complications some thirty or forty years ago, in connection with the temporary use of county money by the banks, and from the good nature and accommodating spirit of the elective system, arose and produced a disturbance in the treasurer's office; but, in view of the large amount of money safely received and disbursed in the history of the county, a further notice of the trouble is not deemed of importance. The writer does not regard it inappropriate to say that the virtues of generosity were more predominant in the single case or two of financial embarrassment in the treasurer's office, than any inherent vice in the officer.
Surveys underlying conveyances, the office of county surveyor and recorder may be considered in this relation. Records, maps, plats in these offices would tend to give them the name of the Wayne County Museum; more than relics, different from mere calculations or journal entries, associated with what seem the hieroglyphics of the surveyor, and the time-worn and time-stained canvas upon which human and departed genius has impressed the studious manifestation of scientific thought, they seem the interesting memorials of a superior race.
To transfer the record evidence of the government land offices, to per- petuate the legal right of every section of land in Wayne county, of every plat of every town, their lots and streets and alleys, additions, vacations and dedications, their boundaries and the ranges and sections and divisions of sections, their purchase, sale, transfer deeds, mortgages, leases and releases, commencing a hundred years ago, these records attest the truth of history, without which truth the ownership of property would be a chaos. Not only the magnitude of work, but the accuracy of it, attest the good fortune of the people that, as early as 1813, had William Larwill as the first and Levi Cox as the second recorder, and that, as early as 1814, had Joseph H. Larwill as the first, and Cyrus Spink as the second surveyor of Wayne county, and that they laid the foundations for the system of records that led on to the immense volumes of these offices and to the scientific methods of surveying. That there were so many distinguished men early and later that formed and continued the methods of county administration, is a remarkable fact in the history of Wayne county ; perhaps not as remarkable in any other county in the Northwest.
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Of the participation of the residents of the towns and townships in county administration, a cursory observation of the records produces the impression that after the active energies of the first generation were employed, for twenty-five years, in county administration, it was conducted largely by offi- cers of the townships, and almost wholly so in the respect of county commis- sioners. Of the associate judges, senators and representatives in the General Assembly, treasurers, auditors, recorders and surveyors, a majority came from the townships; at this present writing, every officer of the county ad- ministration, except the prosecuting attorney, is either from the townships directly or recently after removal to the county seat. The significance of this fact leads to a very brief consideration of the conditions out of which it arises. The townships being organized in 1825 were rapidly settled, of the same character of population as the county seat; many of them were educated men and, township government demanding justices of the peace, trustees and other officers both in the townships and towns, they became familiar with modes not only of self-government, but county administration, and many of them were conspicuous for their intelligence and ability .: Doubt- less acquainted with the laws and official procedure of the older states, they were competent to make and administer laws that were necessary to the growth of a great state. The great principle of unity was the well authenti- cated fact of the integrity and patriotism of the people and their conscious responsibility of a sacred duty.
In addition to some local legislation for the construction of public build- ings, and to enable the city of Wooster to obtain the Baltimore & Ohio rail- way, an important elective principle was established by the supreme court in the case of Lehman vs. McBride, by which the former was elected probate judge, in holding that soldiers of the Civil war in service in or out of the state were entitled to vote and have the same returned to the county of their residence.
In forty years, a period that embraced the constitution of 1851, and a much shorter period than that in which any government of which history speaks was perfected, the people of Wayne county, and it is true of the whole state, in one single classification, were the distinguished authors of their county administration.
WAYNE COUNTY AS THE SOURCE OF NORTHWESTERN GOVERNMENT.
Wayne county having been organized as a separate political body in 1812, an election was held to elect county officers in April of that year, as provided in the constitution of 1802. The county, within the state lines, was
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laid out in the year 1808, but incorporated with diminished territory in 1812. By changes in forming new counties, it seems to have been re-incor- porated in 1817, and not defined in its present form until 1846, a portion of its territory having been taken in 1824 to form Holmes county, and a por- tion to form Ashland county in 1846. Of the Northwest, the rapidly increas- ing population, the formation of new counties, and the immigration from Wayne county to the yet farther west, decreased its population from thirty- six thousand in 1840 to thirty-two thousand in 1850, and carrying with it the advanced methods of civil and political life, of their first homes in the new country. Of government as a necessity, such methods travel with rapid- ity and reflect their origin in institutions and practical life, at advanced dis- tances of civilization. Of this transmission of population and experience in promoting order and obedience to law, Wayne county has been the continuous source from a very early day to the present time.
INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE.
The individual and social life of the pioneers has been scarcely men- tioned, and demands a consideration in this article.
The elevation of man by the consciousness of freedom, and by the doc- trine of equal rights, is manifested in the high development of the sensibilities. Liberty is the progenitor of love. The Constitution of the United States created family emotion. It created the neighbor, the neighborhood, the peace and pleasure of proximity ; it is the father of family history and reunions. Wayne county is celebrated for the yearly reunions of widely scattered de- scendants. The reproductions and reminiscences of home are incentives to good government. That holy veneration for ancestors is distinguished in Wayne county. In memory of the immigrants of the Northwest,-the fathers and mothers,-yearly pioneer celebrations are regularly held by the aged living and participated in by every age. In August, 1896, by civic proces- sions, addresses, pyrotechnic displays, the people of Wayne county gave a week of conspicuous sensibility to the memory of the pioneers.
The great character of these early architects of government is the logical theme of progress and is among the first solicitudes of studious thought.
Requested to deliver the centennial address at the great centennial cele- bration then held in Wooster, the writer gave this subject a study that he does not disturb; and feels that to give this address a permanent place in the new history of Wayne county would be pleasing to the people and pertinent to the subject, and it is here inserted and dedicated to our great ancestors :
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GREAT PRINCIPLES OF THE PIONEER FATHERS AND MOTHERS.
[Address delivered by Hon. Lyman R. Critchfield at the Pioneer Day Centennial cele- bration of Wayne county, August 15, 1896.]
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
As a matter of philosophical curiosity I have often thought that moral reflection assumed the aspect of capillary attraction-the ascension of succes- sive moral ideas; that our daily business thought was characterized by ex- pansion and our immoral processes of mind by gravitation, our highest trains of thought are religious and are the most ennobling and refining. The sensi- bilities constitute the highest class of human faculty, and hence in the ethics of religion, which display the grace of good manners, politeness, taste, beau - tiful expression, luminosity, a higher conception of personal art, of skill and harmony, and reverence for the good, we climb to the height of an exalted century. This is civilization! The rhetoric of the flags, the great orations of the human face, the mutual enthusiasm of reverence for the pioneers, are playing upon our hearts like the sunbeams on the singing statue of Memnon.
Civilization is only about a hundred years old! Liberty is only about a hundred years old! The republicanism of the heart is only about a hundred years old! History contains no such beautiful picture as the pioneer and his wife, as they stand in the umbrageous setting, with their faces all glow- ing with the splendor of the century ahead !
Amidst the thronging reminiscences of a hundred years, we meet in com- memoration of the legal incorporation of our great county, and with grateful hearts we honor the pioneers. Our century is perfected on a day of beauty, in a time of gorgeous apparel, in an illumination of many fixed stars of progress. Centuries come and centuries go, and man goes on forever, but the world has never witnessed such noble sensibilities intoning the harmony of any civilization. August 15, 1796; August 15, 1896! We gaze upon a century of virtue and love and liberty. And it commenced a hundred years ago! Noble footsteps, sweet voices, are echoing along the corridors of time. Flowers of every hue and every fragrance are blossoming in the dust. Rosy- fingered Aurora, as she stands tiptoe upon the misty mountain-top, gives her first morning kiss to the green hillocks, and the clustering flowers, beneath which repose the divine imagery of the pioneers ; and the sun, in all his course, illumines no more sacred mould than that which was wont to ennoble life within the little circle of our woodland heroes. The heroic man! Aye, and the heroic woman, the early American woman of more than historic virtue, of more than historic courage.
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With what inspiration may I conceive, or with what rhetoric or elo- quence may I paint the physical and moral picture of the pioneers; how in the fullness of the providence of God they glowed with the revelation of the lib- erty and power of the people in government, of faith in a personal God, and in immortality, and how they divinely fixed the purity of domestic life and social order, and the dignity of woman, and endured and loved through the great martyrdom of founding the greatest institutions of the world. They were the philosophers of free institutions. They were the greatest of their race. Plume ourselves, as self-love may dictate, upon our higher nerve and less muscle, less conflict and more judicial reflection, we are less brave and less pure than those whose voluntary dedication took the vanguard on the forest lines of progress. And it was an age of greatest peoples throughout the world, and of greatest institutions of any previous, or of all the centuries. Excelling as did the pioneers of a hundred years ago, our philosophy traverses the prior ages for the great formative causes of the illustrious Americans, who are our fathers and mothers. To acknowledge the eternal sovereignty of hereditary influences is an imperative premise, in the logic of American character. And we may recur to the broken annals of centuries. We may scan the absorption of Greek civilization by the Romans, the downfall of the Roman empire, and the mixed populations of Roman, Goth and Vandal, and Anglo-Saxon, and Hun, and Celt, and Dane, with all their diversity of customs, laws and religion, and the storms of violence, and dissolution of states, and warring cities, and independent principalities, without union or magistracy, all bleeding on foreheads debased by an iron crown, dismembering into a thousand fragments, and forming and reforming for a thousand years and more, over all the European states, and see the temper of populations toward the order, constitutional government and liberty which inspired the American pioneer with the great principles of government.
Students of history, as all Americans were, they seem to have had the birthright perception of the grandeur of the great hereditary thought and impulse which a century ago presided over the political, moral and social life of the great pioneers. For twelve centuries the struggle went on of arrogant baron. and city, without an umpire; then an elective one, then an elective monarchy, then an hereditary one; then the struggle for constitutional limi- tations of regal authority and all authority. As long practice and skill in sculpture worked out the divine beauty of the Greek woman, or reflection and example in a thousand tests of color and proportion fixed Pilate to future ages uttering his "ecce homo" as he delivered Jesus to be crucified, so we
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