USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne county, Ohio, from the days of the pioneers and the first settlers to the present time > Part 36
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and on the precise spot, until the old corner took the aspect of one of the eternities of trade. Here he toiled, tugged, and served for nearly half a century, wearing off the fire and finish of his manly years, a true friend of the deserving world. and securing a friend- ship parallel with his vast acquaintance.
Beyond the circle of his commercial life, however, Mr. Jones was a valuable and active factor in the community. There was no public enterprise of the utility of which he was convinced but with which he identified himself. In the composition of his nature there were no negative qualities or quantities. That lithe, athletic body of his enshrined a magnet. Whatever he touched grew vital. Enterprises floated in his enthusiasm. He had faith in railroads, and the people of Wayne county know how, with other enterpris- ing citizens, he advocated their construction; how he exerted him- self as solicitor, how earnestly and zealously he spoke in their behalf.
The cause of education had no more earnest defender. With him men were imperfect organisms without it. In the building of the old Ward School-houses he took an active part, and in locat- ing the grounds for the present High School building, all remember the prominent part he enacted.
During the rebellion Mr. Jones was a war Democrat, and the cause of the Union felt the impression of his positive nature.
In public life, to the honors of which he did not aspire, he com- passed the welfare of the whole community. Whether as Mayor of the city of Wooster, as member of the City Council, or Infirm- ary Director, he was ever the same faithful servant. In the capac- ity of Infirmary Director he served for nine years, a position whose compensation was paltry, but which, nevertheless, invol- ved much labor. So faithfully and with so much attentive indus- try, however, did he perform his duties, that it became fashionable among the lawyers of Wooster to refer all legal matters touching that institution to Mr. Jones ; and hence, he became known as the "Infirmary Lawyer."
Mr. Jones was married May 23, 1843, at Bethany, West Vir- ginia, by Alexander Campbell, the distinguished divine, to Miss Susan Gillespie, of Wooster, a lady of marked qualities, who sur- vives him. By this union there resulted six children, four only of whom are living. He died of apoplexy, at his residence, in the city of Wooster, January I, 1878.
As a citizen he was devoted to the common good; as a man his
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relations to his fellow men were pleasant, co-operative and cordial; as a neighbor he was the very soul of accommodation ; as a hus- band and father he was devoted and indulgent, the home circle being hedged by a mutual confidence and affection. His nature was decidedly social and genial, and by a sort of unconscious influ- ence he won many friends. He was a man of ripe judgment and excellent native sense. Like his father, he dispensed a generous hospitality. For the poor, as well as the rich man, he had recogni- tion and smiles. With the young men he was an especial favorite, and the country boys knew him because he knew their fathers or had performed some kindness toward them. If a neighbor or friend was sick he was first in attendance, and at the house of death last to abandon it. It is said of him that he attended more funer- als than any man in the county. Here is a private ministry, un- commissioned of creeds or priests, and the virtues which it illus- trates shine all the brighter, because, like the sun, they involun- tarily shine. Here is an entire gospel full of "on earth peace and good will to men " such as was announced when the New Era be- gan, and when He was born of whom the prophesies had said.
JOHN K. McBRIDE.
John K. McBride, son of Alexander McBride, deceased, was born in Westmoreland county, Pa., on the 8th of December, 1811, and immigrated to Ohio with his father early in the spring of 1814.
From the period at which he was able to perform physical labor until he was seventeen years old, he toiled industriously and indefatigably upon the farm with his father. He distinctly recol- lects conveying oats to Wooster in sacks, on horseback, and selling them at eight and ten cents per bushel, and hauling ashes on an old-fashioned sled to the asheries of the town and disposing of them at five cents per bushel.
He endured the usual hardships and privations of the farm un- til the year above designated, when he went to learn a trade-the wheelwright and chair-making business-with Moses Culbertson, with whom he remained four years. He then went to Millersburg, in debt about one hundred dollars, and embarked in business upon his own responsibility.
His brother James, then a clerk for Benjamin Bentley, and hav- ing some experience in the dry goods business, proceeded to
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Millersburg, where he and John purchased the dry goods store of Benjamin Jones and Edmund Hatch.
This business they conducted for three years, when they sold out. Mr. McBride then repaired to Canaan Centre, Wayne county, working at his trade one year, when he removed to Jack- son, on the pike, for a similar length of time pursuing his trade, when he "shut up shop," sold out his tools, and invested the earn- ings of his persistent toil in a store.
Here he handled goods and merchandise until 1842, when he came to Wooster, continuing in business till 1850. He then pro- ceeded to New York city, engaging largely in the wholesale trade of groceries, which line of speculative enterprise he prosecuted for II years, returning to Wooster in 1861, his present and permanent residence. His next investments were in real estate, buying sev- eral farms, which, although living in the city, he visited daily, and over which he exercised personal supervision.
In 1863 he was nominated for the Probate Judgeship of the county, but was defeated at the election by the soldiers' vote. In 1866 he was a candidate for the same office, and was elected, and in 1869 was re-nominated, and re-elected. His term of six years in that honorable office expired in February, 1873.
He was twice married, on the Ist of May, 1844, to his second wife, the eldest daughter of Thomas Robison. He had three children, Harry, James and Thomas McBride. Harry is a merchant in New York. James entered the army in 1861, volunteering in the three months service, subsequently en- listing in the 16th O. V. I. for three years, and serving out the whole period.
He received a wound in his head in the battle of Vicksburg, and contracted disease in the service, which culminated in his death in the fall of 1868. Thomas A. McBride, M. D., his youngest son, a graduate of Kenyon College, studied his profession with Dr. Firestone of Wooster, attended four courses of lectures in New York, and graduated with credit and honor at the Physi- cian's College of that city. For some years he has been practicing his profession in Bellevue Hospital, New York. He is a skilled physician and destined to distinguish himself.
Hon. John K. McBride, though he has attained his three score years, is still in the vigor of ripe manhood and promises fair to attain a very advanced old age. His intellectual power is just at its zenith, and a long career of activity and usefulness is still be-
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fore him. Being a man of remarkably regular and temperate hab- its, his physical constitution is robust and unimpaired. As Judge of the Probate Court none dare to gainsay his impartiality, prob- ity, fairness and sound judgment. In the discharge of his duties no stain fell upon the ermine of his judicial character. By his in- domitable will and inflexible energy and industry; by his straight- forwardness in the line of duty and the exercise of a mature judg- ment, he has acquired a competence of this world's goods, and has left an example not only to his friends, but the community gener- ally of what in the absence of fortune, or a paternal inheritance, can be accomplished by a brave perseverance and a dauntless spirit.
MICHAEL TOTTEN.
John Totten, the father of Michael Totten, was born in County Derry, north of Ireland, in the year 1749, and in 1765, emigrated to America. The war between Great Britain and the Colonies breaking out, he immediately joined the Colonial army, in which, under Generals Washington and Wayne, he served seven years.
After the close of hostilities, he removed to Kishacoquillas val- ley, in Pennsylvania, where he married Nancy McNair. He next went to Virginia, thence to Raccoon creek, Pa., and thence to Co- lumbiana county, Ohio. He and Johnny Gaddis, a Scotchman, and Charles Hoy built the three first cabins that were built in Co- lumbiana county, near Liverpool.
But prior to his removing to Ohio, he joined General Wayne's army, operating in the west, and remained with him a year, until the treaty of Greenville, in Darke county, Ohio, August 3, 1795. He removed to Stark, now Carroll county, Ohio, in 1805, five miles south-east of Osnaburg, on the Little Sandy, settling on what was long known as the Baum farm.
In 1809 he removed, with his family, four miles west of Massil- lon, and in May, 1812, at the age of sixty-three years, he died. He was a massive, muscular man, who performed gallant service for his country in two of its wars, always enjoying good health and never confined to a bed of sickness until prostrated by the disease that ended his life. On one occasion he was shot in a fight with Indians, and had his thigh broken.
Hon. Michael Totten was born May 11, 1800, and had five brothers and four sisters, all of his brothers and two of his sisters being dead. After his father's death, in February, 1813, Michael removed to Wooster, in company with his mother and the rest of
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the family. They remained in Wooster during 1813-14, Michael occasionally hauling logs for his brother-in-law, Isaac Poe, then owner of the Henry Myers farm, for the purpose of building a cabin, which was afterwards known as the "haunted house." The house was built in 1814, Jacob Matthews doing the hewing, as- sisted by Archibald Totten, the Driskels being present at the rais- ing of it.
From Wooster Mr. Totten's family removed to, and located one-half mile east of the village of Congress, the entire country then being a perfect wilderness; and in February, 1815, and with no assistance but George Poe, Henry Totten and John Meeks, he erected his cabin in the woods. After they had left Wooster, and prior to their removal to Congress township, they lived in a double log shanty, which they erected where the old brick kiln stood, on the Mansfield road, on the Myers farm, and close to their door were three Indian graves.
Mr. Totten lived in Congress township seventeen years, and in 1832 removed to Chester township, where he purchased lands, and for many years devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. A num- ber of years ago he removed to Wooster, where, with his family he has since continued to reside. Mr. Totten has been twice mar- ried ; first to Louisa Crawford, of Congress township, by which marriage there resulted two children, Matilda and Henry, the for- mer marrying James Freeman and dying in Illinois; the latter, Henry, being joined in marriage to Jane Ramsey, and living in Chicago; second, November 16, 1830, to Mrs. Susanna Ramsey, of Washington county, Pennsylvania, daughter of William Ewing, deceased, of Canaan township, and wife of Samuel Ramsey, of the aforenamed county, who died in November, 1824. By her first marriage, with Mr. Ramsey, she had four children, George, William, Jane and Samuel, the latter a retired physician in Reedsburg, Wis- consin, and a man of wealth, culture and education. By this sec- ond marriage of Mr. Totten there resulted the following issue: Nancy, Susan, John, Enoch, Hiram E. and Melissa A .*
*John and Hiram are dead. Hiram was a Lieutenant in the 120th Regiment, and in the battle of Jackson, Miss., after the surrender of Vicksburg, was struck with a shell from the effects of which he died with his parents, in Wooster, in about twelve weeks. He was a young man of decided mental endowments and was fitting himself for practice at the bar when he enlisted. He was a brave soldier-bore his sufferings like a martyr and marched into the Great Presence as consciously and heroically as though he had picketed the spaces of eternity and measured the depth of the Infinite.
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Mr. Totten has been a citizen of Wayne county for 65 years, and can be properly classed with the oldest of the living pioneers, there being but few indeed who have lived so long as he within the limits of the county. His settlement in it dates back to the year immediately succeeding the organization of the county. Wooster then was but a dim spot in the wilderness, and Wayne county, much larger than it now is, contained but four townships. He has witnessed its advance from disorder to order ; from dark- ness to light; from license and confusion to prudent restraints and remarkable civilization.
His life has been an extremely active and eventful one, re- plete with hazardous adventures, many hardships and exciting situations. He was a man well suited to the times in which his activities were exerted. His courage no man dared to question, and, the associate of the Poes and other brave spirits of the early days, he learned daring in the shadow of danger, and neither wild beast, Indian nor tomahawk possessed terror to him. He entered Congress township when it was in the wilderness of the centuries preceding it, and many are the acres of forest that fell before his strong arms, and the fields that he cleared, that now blossom and ripen with bountiful harvests.
In his more vigorous days he bore a conspicuous part in the progressive enterprises and measures of the community, and was an aggressive, public spirited citizen and man. As early as 1829 he served with Michael Funk and John Vanosdall as one of the Trustees of Congress township, and in all his local positions of public trust sustained a reputation for zeal in the fulfillment of his duties. In 1836 he was elected to the office of Auditor of Wayne county, and re-elected in 1838. He served in the Ohio Legislature from December 1, 1845, to December 7, 1846, and from December 6, 1847, to December 4, 1848, in all of which capacities he acquit- ted himself with credit and honor.
Since Mr. Totten's residence in Wooster and retirement from the public his life has been spent in quiet and rest in the circle of his family. His wife came to Wayne county with her father, Wil- liam Ewing, in 1812. She is an exemplary, Christian woman, and though but a few days since passing her eightieth birthday, her cheeks wear the rosy freshness of youth, and she is in the enjoy- ment of fine health, and cheery as a maiden of sixteen. Fifty years ago Mr. Totten was one of the best specimens of the heroic backwoodsman ; a stout, athletic, daring adventurer, and a hunter
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whose delight was in the thickets and ravines of the woods. He encountered the Indians in contests for game, met them in their camps and settlements, slept in their bark huts, well knowing their treachery, but too brave a man to fear them. He frequently met old Captain Lyon and Tom Jelloway; knew Baptiste Jerome, * after whom Jeromeville, in Ashland county, was named, and threshed wheat at his house.
Identified as Mr. Totten has been with the first settlement of the county and its heroic period, and with his vivid and unfailing recollection of events of half a century ago, he has proven a most valuable auxiliary to us, and we are largely indebted to him for much of the incident that appears in the history. His recollec- tion of the Fulke massacre; his knowledge of the Driskels, and his association with and relationship to the Poes, being a brother- in-law to Isaac, son of Adam Poe, divest our narratives and de- scriptions of all romance and semblance of fiction.
MICHAEL TOTTEN CHALLENGED BY A BEAR.
When his mother and the family were living in the cabin which stood on the old brick kiln site, he went up on the hill, about half a mile from the house, to look after the cows, and while sitting on a log, listening for the cow bell, a big black bear passed close by him, pausing a moment and looking at him, and then going on. He ran at the top of his speed back to the house and gave the alarm, where- upon Archibald Clark, John, George, Elijah and William Glasgow started in pursuit of bruin with dogs and guns, Mr. Totten also accompanying the party. The dogs tracked it some distance, and treed it about half a mile west of where John McKee, Esq., lives-a mile north of the University. All that had guns fired at it, and, after receiving thirteen bullets, it tumbled to the ground. This was in August, 1814.
A TERRIBLE NIGHT IN THE WOODS.
While Mr. Totten was living in Congress township, and soon after his removal there, Isaac Poe, who then lived on the Henry Myers farm, had been up in Congress township, where he afterward moved, and on his return home he found that his horses had strayed away, and were for two weeks lost, as he supposed. Mr. Totten, then but fifteen years of age, being in the woods in search of the cattle, came in contact with Mr. Poe's horses, and knowing that they were his, concluded to take them home. He got elm-bark and made halters for them, and started toward
*Jerome was a Canadian Frenchman, and, says Knapp, " was a man of posi- tive character, impulsive, generous and brave, devoted in his friendships, and bit- ter in his enmities. His natural gifts of mind were good. He could converse fluently in French and Indian, and so as to be understood in English. To the early settlers he was of great service in furnishing them with provisions, some having expressed the opinion that they would have incurred the hazard of starvation, had it not been for the aid afforded by him."
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Wooster on the line of blazed trees. A storm came up and darkness overwhelmed him. In his wanderings he got into the Killbuck bottoms, to the rear of the resi- dence of the late Samuel Funk, and could go no further. Here, through the rain and wind and lightning of the storm, he remained during the night, holding on to the horses and reaching his brother-in-law's in the morning.
PACKING SALT ON HORSEBACK.
Michael Totten's brother William, and James Gaff, of Stark county, bored for salt on Killbuck - went down 440 feet and broke the augur. They procured salt water, but could not manufacture over a half bushel of salt per day. Michael packed it from the well up to the farm in Congress township, on horseback. Salt was then worth four dollars per bushel and wet at that.
In 1813 he was water-boy to the harvest hands cutting wheat on the Avery farm, then owned by George and Isaac Poe. The crop consisted of about ten acres, and it was principally "sick wheat." He has no explanation of the cause of this sick wheat. On the Byers farm, then owned by a Scotchman, named Billy Clark, a har- vest was cut that year.
A LOST BOY IN THE OLDEN TIME.
As an incident of the year 1820, Michael Totten relates the excitement created by the search for a lost boy, named James Durfee, eight years old, whose parents lived near Perrysburg, seven miles north-west of Congress, then in Wayne county, but now in Jackson township, Ashland county. It appears that the child accompa- nied his uncle, David Souls, in search of some hogs in the woods. Becoming tired, his uncle told him to remain at a gap until he returned from more extended search. When the uncle at length came back, the boy was gone, and it having snowed heav- ily in the meantime, no trace of " Little Jim" could be seen. He made a wide search for him, hallooed, but without result, then gave alarm to the family and neighbors. Everybody turned out, Mr. Totten among the number, and for three days the hunt was vigorously prosecuted, but finally had to be abandoned as hope- less.
Weeks afterwards, in March, two miles from where he was lost, the body of the little fellow was found in the woods, near a brook, into which it is supposed he had fallen, and, getting out, had frozen to death, covered by snow. His eyes had been picked out by ravens, and locks of his hair were afterwards found strewn over the snow, by Mr. Totten, when out coon hunting.
During the search for the boy Mr. Totten entered a "Yankee slash," and there shot a huge buck.
SAVES A BOY'S LIFE.
In 1815 he saved John Mowry from drowning, who was then a lad of 16, in Little Killbuck. He had sunk in the water when Mr. Totten sprang in after him and, assisted by John Shinneman, succeeded in getting him out of the water. When taken out he was speechless, but recovered.
Michael Totten's mother was the second white person who died in Congress township (1821), Amasa Warner's wife being the first, dying on the farm now owned by Royce Summerton, his mother being buried in the Rumbaugh graveyard.
His earliest neighbors in Congress township were Isaac and George Poe, James Carlin, Matthew Brewer, Peter Warner, John Nead, John Jeffers, Walter Elgin, etc.
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He helped to build the first Presbyterian church in Congress township, on the corner of section 27. His brother, John Totten, taught the first school in the township, in the cabin in which his mother lived, the Brewers, Ewings, etc., send- ing their children to the school. After him a Mr. Beatty taught, Elmer Yocum, Sally Totten, etc., etc.
GENERAL WILLIAM GIVEN.
O! why has worth so short a date? While villains ripen gray with time, Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great, Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime!
-Burns.
In our off-hand ink-Takings of the various individuals whom we have drawn together and seated at random in this volume, we have at times been embarrassed almost to the verge of despair. The vagueness or incompleteness of all knowledge concerning the substance of the shadow left us; the absence of essential data which would serve to illustrate mental traits, or be indicative of disposition, or character, has too often rendered our pen-portrai- ture and sketch-work not only a difficult, but an irksome and unen- viable toil.
We have even lamented the misfortune of our years, and regret- ted that we had not lived in the days when intimacy would have been possible with many who have been blotted from the breathing roll. In regard to that worthy assembly of pioneers with whom "life's fitful fever is over," we have had too often to rely upon others for information, whereas the Takings should be a mirror of the man, and such a one as should reflect the broader outlines of character, which are perceivable by all, and draw out those pecu- liarities visible only to a few.
In some instances we have been relieved of this embarrassment by our personal knowledge of the dead, but we are free to admit that in a majority of instances we have been destitute of that knowledge, so powerful in giving effect and strength to character- ization.
With General William Given the writer of this memoir had some personal acquaintance, and concerning him entertains some pleasing and undying recollections. He remembers him in the healthy, vigorous flush and activity of his physical manhood ; in the full possession of his bright, sparkling intellect; in his natural adjustment to all charities; his generous, benevolent, royal na-
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ture ; his compass and vastness of soul; but, better than all, for the tender, sympathetic heart that pulsated in his genial, glowing bosom.
He was born on the 4th day of September, 1819, in the town of Newville, Cumberland county, Pa. His father and mother came from County Tyrone, Ireland, although they were of Scotch extraction, belonging to the Clendenning clan of the Camerons, who were a religious sect which separated from the Presbyterians and continued to hold their religious meetings in the open air. They were resolute maintainers of the unblemished purity and rights of the Reformed church. They had hovered for many years about the mountainous regions of the parish of Kirkmahoe, in Dumfrieshire ; and as they began to confide in the kindness of their less rigid brethren they commenced descending, step by step, from a large hill to a less, till they finally swarmed on a small, sterile mount, with a broomy glen at its foot, beside a little village, which, it seems, one of their number named " Graceless Quarrel- wood." This settlement was chosen with some skill, and, in the period of the persecution, might have done honor to the military tactics of John Balfour, of Burley. It is a long, straggling village, built in open hostility to regular lines or the graceful curves of imaginary beauty. The cottages which compose it are scattered, as if some wizard had dropped them down at random ; and through the whole a streamlet winds, and a kind of road, infinitely more crooked than the stream. They were a sect of religious enthusi- asts who entertained peculiar views, and were distinguished by an intense and overflowing devotion, which appeared to be the result of the consciousness of direct communication with Divine Powers. They were rigid, conventional and austere-made few converts, as few people are fond of inflicting on themselves willingly the penance of controversial prayers and interminable sermons.
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