USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne county, Ohio, from the days of the pioneers and the first settlers to the present time > Part 14
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A shallow grave was scooped upon the point before described, and here the sixteen Indians were rolled together and earthed over, their spirits having been unceremoniously delivered to the keeper of the happy hunting grounds, where the visionary Marra- ton beheld his departed Yaratilda and two children, and where all seems as it is not, and which is shadow and apparition.
Of Captain Fulkes * we know but little, aside from his repu- tation as a bold borderer and Indian fighter. He was a native of Pennsylvania, removing to Columbiana county, Ohio, and thence to Richland county, Ohio, where, we believe, he died.
POWDER EXPLOSION CAUSED BY INDIANS.
A singular incident is recorded by Howe, in his "Collect- ions," as having occurred in a small building, an appurtenance of the mill of Joseph Stibbs, built in 1809, and then owned by him. It had been erected and fitted up for a store, in which was kept a variety of goods, such as would be in requisition by the Indians and first settlers, and was managed by Michael Switzer, who was sent hither by Mr. Stibbs. Describing the incident, Mr. Howe says: "In the store was William Smith, Hugh Moore, Jesse Richards, J. H. Larwill, and five or six Indians. Switzer was in the act of weighing out some powder from an eighteen- pound keg, while the Indians were quietly smoking their pipes, filled with a mixture of tobacco, sumach leaves and kinnikinnick,
* James Crawford, father of Hon. Michael Totten's first wife, was with Capt. Fulkes on this raid, and from Mr. Totten we have principally gathered our facts concerning it.
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or yellow willow bark, when a puff of wind coming in at the win- dow, blew a spark from one of their pipes into the powder. A terrific explosion ensued. The roof of the building was blown into four parts and carried some distance, the sides fell out, the joists came to the floor, and the floor and chimney alone were left of the structure. Switzer died in a few minutes; Smith was blown through the partition into the mill and badly injured; Richards and the Indians were also hurt and all somewhat burned. Larwill, who happened to be standing against the chimney, escaped with very little harm, except having, like the rest, his face well black- ened, and being knocked down by the shock.
"The Indians, fearful that they might be accused of doing it intentionally, some days after called a council of citizens for an investigation, which was held on the bottom, on Christmas run, west of the town."
A predatory, languid, wandering, lazy race, they have be- queathed no evidences of inventive genius, productive energy, enterprise or thrift. A houseless, habitationless, self-barbarizing people, the Bedouins and vagabonds of the waste wilderness, careering from the Kennebec to the sand-pillars of the Great Des- erts and beyond the bald scalps of the Sierras, they made us devi- sees of bloody lands, uncultivated and unimproved. Vestiges of their presence or former existence in the county are well nigh oblit- erated. Their axes, hatchets, mauls and wampum belts are sel- dom seen, unless in the public cabinet or on the secluded shelf of the antiquary. Even the old flint, or "Indian dart," as it is called, that was annually thrown to the surface by the plow of the farmer, has become a sort of novelty in discovery. The fortifica- tions, earthworks and mounds that we find distributed throughout the country, some of which are found in Wayne county, are no longer regarded as products of the Indian, constructed for pur- poses of war, or intended as cenotaphs of departed valor.
The proof that the Indian tribes of North America, which we have been used to consider the aboriginal race, were the successors
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of a pre-historic people far in advance of them in civilization is unquestioned, unmistakable and plenary. This more civilized race has left a system of earthworks, designed for defense, worship and sepulture, intricate, extended and manifold .* What has been the destiny of this people, who have vanished from
"The smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call earth,"
is submitted to conjecture. History, "mournful traveler in the track of man," is silent concerning them, and in the remot- est caverns of hoariest tradition there burn no lights by which to read their story.
"This much we know, that they long since separated into two great classes-that of the 'elect angels,' and of angels that kept not their first estate." t
ORIGIN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.
Of the origin of the Indian, which, by our hypothesis, is the successor of this pre-historic, forgotten and unannaled race, scien- tists and ethnologists may predicate and theorize ; but the subject is hard and rebellious, and refuses to succumb to investigation, be it ever so acute, incisive and philosophical. The knot of the mighty secret remains untied, and, like the one in the harness of the Phrygian King, who opens it shall be greater than a master in Asia. "The question, like that satellite ever attendant upon our planet, which presents both its sides to the sun, but invariably the same side to the earth, hides one of its faces from man, and turns it but to the eye from which all light emanates."
Hon. John P. Jeffries, of Wooster, Ohio, who has thoughtfully and ably explored this subject, and who has written, collected and condensed much valuable history concerning the North American Indians, says in his recent work :
* See chapter on Archeology.
t Hugh Miller.
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"The Indianst themselves have only a vague idea of their origin or from whence they came. Some of the tribes say they are de- scendants of ancestors who came from the north; others say from the north-west; others again say their ancestors came from the east ; and others again claim theirs came from the regions of the air. They have no annals except among the Mexicans, and no reliable traditions. All they seem to know is of the present gener- ation, except that some nations have preserved some important event in characters recorded upon skins, but they are altogether unreliable as records, and give no light as regards the origin of the race, or its advent upon the American continent.
"They are considered by some ethnologists to be the descend- ants of the Magogites, the ancestors of the Scythians; and the Scythians the ancestors of the Tartars, Mongols and Siberians. It is worthy of note that nearly all the northern regions of Asia were colonized by the Scythians, from which a basis, at least, was laid, upon which to predicate a conjecture that they or their descend- ants, the Mongols, passed the straits of Behring to America. Strong evidence exists in favor of this theory by the nations of this type of people being found inhabiting regions along the route they would naturally travel, and on either side of the Straits.
"Some authors have gone to a vast amount of trouble to prove that the American Indians are the descendants of the Hebrews, and directly from the lost tribes of Israel. The proof for such theory is so meagre as to make it wholly improbable. No one as yet has been able to discover any relationship between the Jews and American Indians. But to the proof of the theory. The ten lost tribes, it is claimed, emigrated to Scythia, and there, by amal- algamation, became part of that great family. There was, in point of fact, but little difference between the Jews and Scythians; their complexion being about the same, as also their general features. "The Israelites, who were carried away by Salmanasar to the
"The term Indian was first applied to the aborigines of America by Americus Vespucius under the mistaken idea that he had landed on the southern coast of India.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
land of Assyria, went in a northerly direction to the land of Arsa- rath, as is evident from the book of Esdras. The author of that record was not apprised of the existence of the western continent, and hence would not undertake its description. The Arsarath of Esdras, it may safely be affirmed, was not America. The Israel- ites left Syria about one hundred years after they were carried thither, and were a year and a half in their journey to Arsarath. The route they must have taken, had the point of destination been this continent, would have been over high mountains, deep rivers, through a cold, dreary wilderness region, the distance of over six thousand miles to the straits of Behring, and in addition, their way must have been blocked by impenetrable snows.
"The Arsarath of Esdras was, in all probability, Norway. It is described as a 'land where no man can dwell.' Norway was as little known to the ancients as America.
"The ten tribes were not lost as has been generally supposed ; their descendants are found at the present day in Persia, Media, Iran, Touran, Hindoostan and China.
"Had they come to America, the arts and sciences would have been preserved, as they were advanced in refined civilization when they left Assyria, and in all the above countries where they have been scattered, as supposed, the arts and sciences have been preserved. Not so with the aborigines of America. They were, with few exceptions, savages when it was first visited by Europeans."
Notwithstanding the manifold and irreconcilable theories and views of the most distinguished ethnologists, Mr. Jeffries is of opin- ion that " the customs of some of the eastern peoples of Asia and the adjacent islands, are so similar to those of some of the tribes of the American Indians as to induce the belief that they are of the same family of mankind." His deductions demand gravity of belief, as they are the result of years of diligent inquiry, and are corroborated by McIntosh, Pickering, Volney, Pouchet, Drake, Schoolcraft, Carl Newman, etc.
It must be admitted that, however subtle and erudite the spec-
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ulations are, and the conclusions attained, the origin of the North American Indians is still clouded with extreme uncertainty. Nor is our indefinite and unsatisfactory knowledge relative to them any more astonishing or extraordinary than the almost absolute absence of knowledge concerning them in the Old World.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST FOUR SETTLEMENTS IN THE COUNTY.
First Settlement .- The first white man of whom we have knowl- edge that came to what is known as Wayne county now for the purpose of permanent settlement was William Larwill, a native of Kent, England, whose advent in the wilderness dates as far back as 1806. He was a brother of Joseph and John Larwill, who came out the ensuing year (1807), the former in the employment of John Bever, United States Surveyor, who was then engaged in running off the county in sections for the United States govern- ment. And here, on the present site of Wooster, was made the first settlement of the county.
Second Settlement .- James Morgan, a native of old Virginia, but of Welsh ancestry, settled in Franklin township early in the spring of 1808. He removed to Ohio, and squatted on the Mohi- can, in 1806, but removed to Franklin township in the year just mentioned, entering the lands composing the farm owned at this time by Thomas Doty. Thomas Butler, born in the Old Do- minion, also, emigrated to this township in 1808, and married Rebecca, daughter of James Morgan, April 12, 1809.
Third Settlement .- James Goudy, father of John Goudy, at present living in Dalton, Sugarcreek township, removed from Jef- ferson county, Ohio, and settled two miles south-west of Dalton, in the fall of 1809. James Goudy was in St. Clair's defeat, No- vember 4, 1791, was wounded in the thigh with a bullet, which for many years he carried in his body, and which ultimately caused his death.
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
Fourth Settlement .- Oliver Day,* in 1809-10, removed to East Union township, not far from "Cross Keys," and settled on the farm now owned by Jonas Huntsberger. He was a native of the State of Vermont, as were his companions, Ezekiel Wells, M. D., old Jonathan Mansfield and Vestey Frary, who accompanied him. t "'Squire Day," as he was called, was keeping a place of entertain- ment at what was long afterwads known as "Carr's tavern" when General Beall's army passed; and the first transfer of real estate on the public records of the Recorder's office of Wayne county was made by Oliver Day.
* Hon. John Larwill was of the opinion that the Day colony came in 1809. t First introduction of New England element.
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
CHAPTER XI.
EARLY SETTLERS.
Broad-shouldered, strong and lithe of limb ; Keen-eyed and swift of heart and hand, Full-bearded, tawny-faced and grim With watch and toil in hostile land.
But light of heart and quick to fling The thoughts of hardship to the breeze ;
Whose hopes, like eagles on the wing, Dipped never lower than the trees.
-Kate M. Sherwood.
Where late the savage, hid in ambush, lay, Or roamed the uncultured valleys for his prey, Her hardy gifts rough industry extends, The groves bow down, the lofty forest bends ; And see the spires of towns and cities rise, And domes and cities swell unto the skies. -Meigs.
THE earliest inhabitants of the county were from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and a light component from the New England States. The predominant element was composed of emigrants from Pennsylvania in the first occupancy of the ter- ritory embraced within the present limits of the county, which ele- ment, combined with the foreign Dutch, constitutes three-fourths of its population to-day.
The first settlers were men of intelligence, enlightened judg- ments, iron nerve and indomitable perseverance. They had sev- ered themselves from the attachments of home, kindred and friends, and dared to invade the wilderness, with its perils of storm,
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of flood, of savage Indian and ambuscade, of possible starvation, sickness and death.
Undaunted and unyielding before these obstacles, the hardy, stalwart pioneer, buoyant with expectation and exalted hopes of the future, stripped for the stupendous conflict between the pow- ers of the will and arm and the Titan children of the woods. With the benediction of God upon him, and a complete consecra- tion to his self-imposed adventure, he stood, with ax in hand, in the midst of his wilderness home, prepared to level to the earth the stout monarchs of the forests, and open up an abode for his future comfort and happiness, and thereby establish upon a new and virgin soil the securities and blessings of a civilization from which he had been voluntarily divorced. With him the enter- prise had not been without its anxieties and fears. He estimated the hardships of the adventure, and the many perils that awaited him in the great "arsenal of chance." But when the web of his experience was unraveling, he discovered how inadequate had been his conceptions of the hazards of his adventure. Turn whither he would, privation and suffering attended him. On this, it was Scylla, on the other side, it was Charybdis. There was no escape from either.
But the pioneer of that day was not of that pliant plastic com- position that surrendered to disaster, or trembled before uncalcu- lated misfortune. His manhood was brought to the test, but it withstood it. His adversities but made him strong, as the tree that wrestles with the gale is the stronger for it.
" Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew Himself or his own virtue."
When memory caused the eye to weep, when almost driven "to censure Fate and pious Hope forego"-when the flood in- terposed-when the ravine stayed his progress-when the bluff and mountain overshadowed him-then it was that the pioneer for- got father, mother, home, childhood and all that is vivid and loved in retrospection; then it was that his moral stature developed into
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HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO.
giant outline, and his soul swelled into an ecstacy of delight with the sublime prospect of what he had resolved to attain. His ax was his trusty claymore; his devoted wife his assurance of tri- umph and well-poised personal confidence-these constituted his oriflamme to encourage him in the heat of battle; and his cause was the cause of religion, civilization and man. Intent on such a purpose, invested with such an armor, with a belief in himself, and a sound faith in the God whose " unambiguous footsteps " he traced in the silent galleries of the woods, he had to but endure and wait, and press forward to the sure reward. With such equipments of warfare and panoplied in such a manner, did the brave frontiers- man grapple with the stubborn oak and towering beech till they were overcome, and waving fields of yellow grain, like rills of cool- ing water in the desert's waste, repaid his toil and cheered his heart with the smiles of a plentiful prosperity.
How persistently he struggled, how heroically he suffered, how faithfully he toiled, we who succeed him and who have "lived to see what he foresaw," and whose privilege it is to honor and ven- erate him, most tenderly remember and sensitively know. We advance no precarious proposition when we assert that the pioneers and first settlers, not simply of this county, but of all eastern and south-eastern Ohio, were as noble, chivalrous, patriotic, intelligent and Christian a body of men and women as ever reflected lustre up- on civilization, or under its standard threaded the confines of an un- known wilderness. They had unshaken religious faith in their mis- sion and the benign and comprehensive results that were to flow from it.
Washington might well say of the colony that was settled upon the Muskingum : "None in America were occupied under such favorable auspices. Information, property and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were better men calculated to promote the welfare of such a community."
It was not their sole motive to establish government, but to make it the protector and hand-maid of religion ; for, said they : |
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EARLY SETTLERS.
"Religion and government commenced in those parts of the globe where the sun first rose in his effulgent majesty. They have followed after him in his brilliant course; nor will they cease till they shall have accomplished in this Western World the consumma- tion of all things."
So may it be recorded of our pioneers. While it may be partly true that many of them were actuated by a desire to improve their situation, to augment their riches and possess innumerable acres, they were inhabited by a nobler ambition, and had loftier incite- ments than
"The dread Omnipotence of Gold."
In their pursuit of lands and wealth and happiness, they sought protection in the establishment of good government-government which should guarantee liberty to all alike in civic affairs, and uni- formity of rights in matters of religion, upon the logical premise that the general equality of sects is found to abate religious ani- mosity without relaxing zeal. While they were seeking to pro- mote their own welfare and discharge their duties to themselves and their government, they were not forgetful of their higher Christian duties. In many instances, with the smoke that curled in currents from the chimneys of their cabins ascended the incense of prayer. The rude, primeval hut, instead of being the abode of the little family cluster alone, became a temple of worship, and the gray old woods resounded with the simple but pathetic and eloquent expostulations of pious men.
Manfully they faced "the sombre necessity of living ; " valor- ously they held the field, and came off more than conquerors. Their dazzling visions have been realized, their bright dreams have been fulfilled, and their fields and fruited trees have become our golden prophecies. Their parts were performed well, and nature, who has transmitted the promise to us, was kind and gracious to them. Many, indeed, never realized their hopes; others of them lived to witness the consummation of their hopes, and testify their gratitude ; to see cities and villages rise upon the ashes of their battle-grounds, and observe a mighty billow of intellectual and
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physical activity roll over the scene of their first exploits to enrich, ornament and populate the almost limitless domain of their tri- umphs. Verily unto them has the old Greek fable of Pallas Ethena been verified in these latter days, by the sudden rise of a county from the empire of silence and chaos to a population of 40, 000.
What a contrast is presented, what a picture is that of seventy years ago, and what a picture is this of 1878! We pause to con- template the ruin Time hath wrought! But then,
" It will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before."
Seventy years! The three score and ten allotted by the Psalm- ist as the life of man ! But what more of the pioneers of all these years ago? They were emphatically the lone dwellers of the forest. Their daily and ever-recurring necessities and wants were as numerous and multiplied as the inhabitants of older communi- ties. Necessarily they were so situated as to make it impossible for all of them to be gratified. Schools, or school edifices, or churches there were none. The intellectual as well as the moral training of their children devolved upon themselves to a great extent. The child was the pupil, while the parents were the edu- cators. If they were fortunate enough to have a minister among their number, all the better ; if not, their spiritual recreations con- sisted in the prayer meeting and the private, but equally orthodox method of interchange of Christian views and religious experiences.
Streams were unbridged, roads were uncut, cabins were to be built, but the saw mill lived only in imagination, and the profes- sional tradesman was missing, unless, peradventure, he was an integral of the company. A market would have been superfluous, as there was little either for sale or exchange.
With the exception of mere patches by the larger streams, or on the lowlands, the surface was overgrown, or tree-covered. The bear, wolf, catamount and deer held sway, with no one here- tofore to contest their rule. Even that vile product of blithe and innocent Eden-the first tempter-the successful and slimy strate- gist, in whose firm coils was woven the historic Eve-the inevi-
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table and fatal serpent, shared arrogantly in the dominion of the soil.
There was labor sufficient for all to do, but the avenues were yet unopened through which were to flow the conveniences of life and the assurance of their enjoyment. They could consume what other soils had produced, but could not, for the time, produce what they consumed. And the hardships they endured upon their arrival were not the total of their sufferings.
The passage from their homes to the wilderness was attended with discomfort, privation, sacrifice and peril. Their journeyings and pilgrimages were sorrowful and painfully tedious. They were not made then in the Pullman palace car. A footman was no prodigy of the road in those plain, tough days. To bestride the horse, mount the wagon, or help draw the cart, was no disgrace then to male or female, as it would be considered by the polished parlor inanities of to-day. They were true men and women, who had made covenant in a common cause. Weeks and months were occupied in their journeyings westward, which were completed without the luxuries of the modern hotel, their lowly bed being laid in the wagon or spread beneath a tent. Here husband, wife and babe sank to rest, serenaded by the wild winds, watched by the moon, and under the approval of the liberal stars.
Here the unfailing flint-lock and the faithful dog were in readi- ness to repel invasion-the chief resources of safety and protection to the gallant pioneer. The scarcity of money and the absence of all bases of supply compelled every exercise of genius and device of economy.
They were not an association of coach trimmers, gilders, carv- ers, peruke-makers and friseurs, but a thrifty, iron-armed, metal- fisted legion of laborers ; a brain-born, irresistible army of thinkers and workers; a sweeping, slashing myriad of forest-breakers and cord-wood artisans, modeling out of the rude elements the thou- sand-aisled temple of civilization, consecrating its pillars to indus- try and beautifying its domes and spires with the best creations of the inventive and ingenious mind. By sheer compulsion they
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became a community of manufacturers and creators. They made their own farm utensils, and the apparel they wore. Wild turkeys and deer were in abundance, so that they were supplied with meats ; and, in the absence of oolong and hyson, they imbibed the sassafras and spice-wood.
And we doubt not that in those rough, unpretending cabins there was to be found "the moral harmony of life ; " that domestic joy was enthroned and happiness was a constant guest. Content- ment was there, and if not accompanied with riches, was not cursed with a desire of them.
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