USA > Ohio > Wyandot County > Past and present of Wyandot County, Ohio; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievemen, Vol. I > Part 26
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The present will not be blameless, if it follows the trail of the past, and fails to preserve the remnant that is left. The historic dead still sleep on the bluff crest, the deed of trust in the office of the county recorder of Wyandot county, Ohio.
The foregoing constitute the more important features of the Indian village,-historic Upper Sandusky. About them were grouped the homes of the villagers. Many of the cabins are remembered by old residents. Others are located by means of a copy of the original plan of Upper Sandusky, prepared for the Government by Lewis Clason, deputy United States surveyor. It is to be presumed this was for the convenience of
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officials in estimating the value of in and outlots, and listing them for sale at the land office.
A few of the more important dwellings, with several scat- tered ones, will be given to show the grouping about the village site. All were log cabins save where otherwise noted.
Lewis Clason's plan of Upper Sandusky left Chief Clark's house in the middle of Walker street, just west of the west line of Third street. There were cabins located as follows:
On inlot 217 northwest corner of Walker and Third.
On inlot 212 southeast corner of Walker and Fourth.
On inlot 156 southwest corner of Wyandot Ave. and Fourth.
On inlot 165 where Robert Wall lives.
On rear end of inlot 125 (original plat) fronting on alley near a fine spring.
On inlot 109 northwest corner of Johnson and Fourth.
On inlot 56 southwest corner of Hicks and Fourth where Conrad Baehr lives.
On inlot 106 southeast corner of Johnson and Fifth, Chief Hick's house, a frame building, was partly on inlot 70 over- lapping Fifth street. It is still standing and in use, but in poor repair. Brown's cabin stood on inlot 19 south of the railroad on Fourth street.
Isolated, but not a part of the village proper, were: Arm- strong's cabin, where Thomas O'Brien lives. Chief Sum- mun-de-wat's home was on the east end of Thomas Agan's lot. Being a substantial two story frame, it was moved to the lot front, corner of Seventh and Spring streets and remodeled some years since. Immediately following the land sales it was occupied by George Garrett and family, and has since been known as the Garrett homestead.
On inlot 207 southwest corner of Sandusky and Wyandot Ave., there were two cabins, a singe and a double.
The Walker and the Hicks homes, the council house and the addition to the agency building were the only frame build- ings in the village proper. It was a typical frontier village, differing little from those of the whites. The business and domestic life of the Indians centered about the springs and on and near the bluff overlooking the valley of the Sandusky. Tribal business was conducted at the council house. Govern- ment business at the agency. Disturbers of the public peace
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were entertained at the Indian jail. The Walker home was a show spot of the village. The community store supplied their needs at reasonable prices. The Garrett tavern, a central figure in the grouping, was the rest house for the weary traveler, and Archie Allen was the village barber and man of all work about it.
The Overland stage company's stages, tarried regularly for rest and refreshment and delivered mail at the agency. The familiar Yo-ho, Yo-ho, Yo-ho, Yo-ho, Yo-ho of the driv- er's horn waked the echoes on arrival and departure of the stage.
To round out and complete the sitting, the dead were given Christian burial and loving remembrance in the village burial ground over there on the bluff crest. There then, is a word picture of historic Upper Sandusky, as it was in the hands of a people who gave it history. As it was in 1842 when the nation reluctantly ceded their reserve to the United States, and sadly prepared for their departure the following year.
History records the parting scenes as most affecting. Be- ginning days before the start, services were conducted in the church. Daily consultations were held in the council house. Much time was spent in putting their burial grounds in order. All unmarked graves were furnished head-stones neatly in- scribed. The remains of John Stewart, colored preacher, also those of Chief Sum-mun-de-wat who was murdered in Wood county in the fall of 1841 while hunting, were brought here and reburied near the church, and monuments erected to their memories.
On the day of departure, just before the start, Squire Grey Eyes addressed the assembled whites, bidding them a kindly good-bye, with parting injunction to meet them in Heaven. The rest of his address was directed to the scenes they were leaving with most touching tributes to forest and stream, plain and valley, their homes, the graves of their dead, with final and most eloquent farewell to that which was dearest of all-their church.
PIONEER UPPER SANDUSKY
1843-50
By A. H. Owen
The last days of July, 1843, mark the transition from Indian occupation to pioneer settlement. Only the name and
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site were to remain. The abandoned homes were to serve the present temporary need of the race that has ever been tread- ing on the heels of the Indian, on his march toward the setting sun. The Wyandots were on their last trek as a nation, one that was to end in disintegration, dispersal and merging in the flood of new life, that was to overtake and overwhelm them.
The deserted homes were almost immediately occupied by the land hungry and the speculator who had long been im- patiently waiting and knocking at the gates of the Reserva- tion. For years appeals had been made to the government to remove the Indians from this last retreat of their former wide domain, and the government was weak enough to yield even though it had assured the Wyandots in 1817 they never would be called on to part with it.
No consideration was given to the remarkable demonstra- tion the nation had made of its capacity for uplift. None to their inherent right to an equal chance with the white man in the race of life. They were cumberers of the soil and must move on.
The honor of a great nation lies most, in the performance of treaty obligations along just lines, with the humble, rather than the powerful. As all improvements went with the land, there was a distinct advantage in shelter ready for occupancy over a vacant site, even though appraised and the value added to the price of in and out lot. At the opening of the reser- vation for sale and settlement they would be still more valu- able. As the land sales did not occur for nearly two years after the departure of the Wyandots, the speculator and the land hungry were merely squatters, in the parlance of the time.
In the period 1842-5, preparatory to the survey and plat- ting of the lands and town site and throwing the Reserve open to settlement, conditions remained much as they were during Indian occupation. The squatter traded at the Walker store -Walker still, though his name was John, a white man who had bought the community store; the wayfarer found a home at the old inn, and the overland stage tarried as usual. Mean- while the squatting speculator made hay of imaginary claims to possession of some abandoned cabin.
The survey of the town site was made in November or December, 1843, by Lewis Clason, deputy U. S. Surveyor.
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At the same time William Brown surveyed the lands of the Reserve.
Under the provisions of Section 5, of an enabling act passed by the State Legislature February 3, 1845, Samuel M. Worth was elected county auditor, and William Griffith, Ste- phen Fowler and Ethan Terry were elected county commis- sioners, April 7, 1845. They met April 16th, following, and organized. Moses H. Kirby's proposal to sell to the county his possessory right to the council house was accepted, and the auditor was directed to pay him thirty dollars therefor. The auditor was also directed to have such repairs made to the upper part of the council house as would be necessary for the accommodation of the county officers.
At their meeting, July 26, 1845, inlot 147 was reserved from sale, and it was ordered that inlots 145 and 146 be pur- chased for public use. At this meeting they provided for the public sale of the in and out lots vested in the county com- missioners by act of Congress, approved February 3, 1845, and that said sale be advertised in the Ohio Statesman, Ohio State Journal and Wyandot Telegraph, also, that two hun- dred sale bills advertising the sale be procured. The dates of the sale were set for August 20-21-22, 1845. Terms of sale one-fourth cash, balance in equal annual installments secured by note bearing interest. August 11, following, they met and appraised the lots, valuing them from $25 to $500, accord- ing to location.
The land sales broke the quiet of the waiting season attend- ing the government's preparation for opening the Reserve to sale and settlement. Material for building purposes was dumped upon the ground before the sale ended. Indeed, some buildings had been built and others were in process of con- struction, on the streets, the builders expecting to purchase in the neighborhood, and move them thereon, the house in which the writer was born being one. Each day thereafter saw increase of men and teams employed in its delivery. Piles of lumber, logs, brick, stone, sand and lime rose on every hand.
Hewed and squared timbers were used for sills and frame- work. Logs hewed and leveled on one side, and tenoned on ends of joists, poles and sawed sections of log slabs for raft- ers, the old fashioned split lath furnished the foundation for the plastering, and the clapboard shingle formed the roof.
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Milled lumber for floors, siding, studding and finishing com- pleted the necessaries for the superstructure.
Sections of sawlogs of varying lengths were quite fre- quently used for foundation purposes. Buildings were set well up above ground and the open space below boarded up. Brick and stone were also used. Much of the stone came from the Old Mission quarry. This quarry was located in the bed of the Sandusky, just above what was then called the ford. It was opened in 1824 by John Owen, Sr., grandfather of the writer, contractor and builder of the Old Mission church.
For finishing and siding, walnut was generally used, it being very plentiful on the Reserve. Poplar was also used but more so as the walnut supply gave out. Ash and oak were used for flooring, the boards being five to eight inches in width. straight of grain and free from knots. It was the age of virgin forest, where the sound of ax and saw had never broken the quiet of nature. Many of those old floors, and quite a number of buildings covered with walnut siding and with walnut fin- ishing within, may still be seen in the village.
A copy of the Pioneer in the writer's possession pub- lished August 5, 1848, contains the advertisement of Henry Peters, for 1,000 walnut, ash, cherry, and poplar sawlogs delivered at his mill one-half mile south of town. The mill was on the west bank of the Sandusky, not over forty feet south of the old Ronk bridge.
The government platting of the town site had made San- dusky and Wyandot avenues each ninety-nine feet wide, for business purposes, suggesting their intersection as the pro- posed business center.
Speculation ran rife as to whether the business center would remain at the old or remove to the new location. Both had their partisans. The county commissioners prior to the land sales had, by reservation and purchase of ground for public use, recognized the new location. At the time, how- ever, business activity was confined to the old location.
The new center was a stubble field, and to the southwest and west as far as Hicks and Eighth streets, and north almost to Walker, a muck bog that was fed by springs. One of these springs was on the south side of Wyandot not thirty feet from the west line of Seventh street. There was a natural outlet for all this spring water in a low draw that followed a line drawn diagonally across lots from the northeast corner of the
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village property past the Seider wagon and carriage factory northeast to Finley street hollow. Hence some, uncertain which would be in the running, invested in both locations or somewhere between.
Attendance at the land sales was very large and excite- ment ran high. Prices paid were proportionately high. Our father who attended the sales often said men lost their heads and forgot that but one-third of the in and out lots were to be offered for sale. He said that one might go to the land office and buy equally good locations with the cash down paid for lots at the land sales. He often referred to the fact that Dr. Isaac Ayers paid $125 for his corner lot at the land sales, while he paid $32 for the opposite corner at the land office.
The following illustrates the prices paid for business lots at the land sales. David Ayers paid $650 for inlot 144, south- west corner Sandusky and Wyandot avenues; $252 for the corner where now the county jail stands; and $200 for the lot on which the Maxwell store building stands.
J. Miner paid $418 for the corner on which the old Over- land Inn stood, at intersection of Fourth and Wyandot ave- nue and $159 for the corner across the street west of it. Joseph M'Cutchen paid $300 for inlot 174, later known as the Yellow Corner; $154 for inlot 153, now the residence of John Morris ; and $154 for inlot 156, where Samuel Althouse lives; N. C. Robbins paid $550 for inlot 120, where now is the Com- mercial National Bank ; John W. Senseney, $262 for the inlot on which stands the First National Bank; David Watson and John D. Sears, $200 for the lot where Robert Wall lives; C. Huber, $200 for inlot 216 and $120 for inlot 237, northeast cor- ner of Third and Walker; William Corbin, $113 for inlot 219, northwest corner Fourth and Walker.
For a short time, conditions favored the old center. They had the hotel and the postoffice. It was official headquarters of the stage company, and what few business places there were were near by. Naturally the life of the embryo village centered there.
The John Walker store occupied the old community store stand. D. Ayers & Co. had opened a small store in the Walker home, and Thomas Miller, tanner and manufacturer of harness, saddles, trunks, valises, etc., was on the east side of- Fourth street, north of Walker. Joseph M'Cutchen opened up the first stock of general merchandise, following
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the land sales. He occupied his own building erected on the alley corner where John Morris lives. James M'Lee began business in an old building just east of the M'Cutchen store. Later he removed to a new building on the Bowman lot, corner of Fifth and Wyandot. Near the time of his removal, prob- ably just prior thereto, Henry Zimmerman, Sr., completed and opened the Blue Ball hotel, which shortly thereafter be- came official headquarters for the stage company. There were no stores in those days that dealt exclusively in any one line of goods. What were called dry goods stores carried groceries, boots and shoes, queensware, hardware, etc., and were better known as general merchandise stores. Ready cash was a scarce article with the pioneer. Business was largely a mat- ter of exchange, the merchant taking whatever the pioneer had to sell, allowing the highest cash price therefor. All busi- ness advertisements in the papers of those times called for country produce of all kinds, viz. flax, timothy and clover seed, corn, wheat, rye, oats, beeswax, honey, rags, ginseng, tow, bacon, smoked meat, country linen, cloth and linsey, eggs, butter, beans, potatoes, apples, wood, lumber logs, etc. Hides were tanned on shares and taken in exchange for man- ufactured products; everybody, the butcher and the baker bartered. Exchange was the rule of business.
E. B. Elkins built the building now occupied by Jacob Greek as a residence, and used it both for residence and cab- inet shop. Hon. Moses H. Kirby succeeded George Garrett in charge of the Old Inn, and after continuing it a year or two, discontinued, and it passed out of existence as a hostelry. Robert Taggert was grocer and baker. His place of business was next to the Blue Ball hotel.
The pioneer business men at the new center were agress- ive and resourceful. They early secured control of the vil- lage organization. In 1848 W. W. Bates, who built the Amer- ican hotel, where now is the Reber House, was president, and Jacob Juvenall, recorder of the village council. An ordinance published August 5, 1848, established twelve feet as the width of sidewalks on business streets, allowing four feet to mer- chants and mechanics to display wares. This was amended September 9, 1848, authorizing fifteen feet in width on San- dusky avenue, repealing so much of previous ordinance as applied thereto. To offset the big spring at the old center they established public wells, walled with brick, and furnished
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with log drinking troughs, at the courthouse site, Fifth and Wyandot, Johnson and Sandusky, and Finley and Sandusky corners. They painted their store fronts in varied colors. Their stores were known by names as the Regulator, Empor- ium, etc. Any and all means were used to draw and hold in- terest in the new business center.
David Ayers was the pioneer builder. He early completed a substantial two-story frame on the ground where Casper Vogel's shoe store is located and removed their stock of goods from the Walker house thereto early in the fall of 1845. John W. Senseney erected his building where now stands the First National Bank. Its front was painted in pink and white oblong blocks (6x10 inches) and called the checkered store. He opened the second general store in the new village, under the firm name of Buell & Senseney. N. P. Robbins built next, north on inlot 129, what was known as the Regulator. This was a frame, its front painted in the national colors in alter- nating stripes. It was occupied by N. P. Robbins & Co., deal- ers in general merchandise. Anthony Bowsher utilized the one-story log cabin on the now Moody corner for a grocery and provision store and in connection sold liquor. The low double log cabin on the rear of the lot he occupied as a residence.
In October, 1845, the commissioners advertised for plans and proposals for building a county jail. October 30, they met again and considered the plans and proposals submitted. John M'Curdy's bid of $2,740 being the lowest of the eight bids submitted, he was awarded the contract. It provided for the completion of the building by November 1, 1846. It proved to be a losing proposition for M'Curdy. The work dragged along until March 9, 1848, when he was allowed five hundred dollars additional to his contract price. At that meeting he was ordered to finish the northeast bedroom and the auditor was directed to procure and have set a stove for the use of the county recorder. This building was on inlot 147, now bounded by Court street on the south.
June 4, 1846, the first move toward the building of a court- house was made. Fifty dollars was offered for draft and specifications for a building to cost from $6,000 to $9,000.
September 11, a contract was made with Wm. Young for $7.500, the building to be completed bv October 1. 1848. Young failed to make good and assigned his contract to his
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sureties, viz., Andrew M'Elvain, David Ayers, John A. Mor- rison, David Tuttle and T. Baird.
The commissioners next contracted with John W. Ken- nedy and John H. Junkins, they agreeing to complete the building for the original consideration less what had been paid to Young.
It was a poor paying, disheartening contract. These men, like Young, found it impossible to carry out their engagement, and again there was an interval of suspension of work. Often during the progress of building, work had to be suspended for want of materials of one kind or another. Finally a contract was made with John H. Junkins for $9,800, less what had already been paid to Young, Kennedy and Junkins. With the suspension of work by Kennedy and Junkins, the com- missioners were practically at sea. No one wanted the con- tract on terms the commissioners were willing to make. Junkins only accepted final contract under increase of con- sideration. The date of completion seems to be a matter of doubt, and in the absence of any reliable record one's opinion based on memory and what fragmentary record remains is just as good as another's.
The impressions of two events in the writer's memory re- main so clearly and distinctly we can recall at will our mental pictures of things seen. One was the burning of the council house, described in connection, and the other was our earliest remembrance of the old courthouse.
My father's tailor shop was on Wyandot avenue, opposite the courthouse. I was spending the afternoon with him at the shop. The day was pleasant and the sun shone warm, just such a day one would expect in June. The shop door was wide ajar, and I was standing in the doorway, watching what was to me a busy scene across the way. The masons were at work on the north wall. It was nearly up to the top of the second story windows. Workmen were busy everywhere about it. Some with hods of mortar, others with trays of brick were walking up a footway in the scaffolding from one landing to another, until they reached the platform above, where they dropped their burdens. The platform or scaffolding was built outside the walls instead of inside as now. Here and there on the north wall face were holes where brick were left out, and childlike, I wanted to know what the holes were for. They were the resting places of the crosspieces or joists of the scaf-
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folding that supported the platform. As the wall progressed upward the platform had to follow and so the holes were left behind. Later on we saw the holes filled and the walls painted and penciled.
I seriously doubt the completion of the building before the summer of 1851. The records show that John H. Junkins was allowed October, 1851, an extra compensation of $2,200 for work done on the building. This seems to have been a final settlement, and as money was a scarce article in those days Contractor Junkins and the county board very likely set- tled promptly. I was then three and a half years old. Ear- lier than that I could not have remembered so definitely and clearly as I do. I have no recollection whatever of the build- ing prior to that. What I saw is ever the initial slide in my memory's moving picture gallery of childhood. The filling of those holes in the wall face, the painting and pencilling of the walls, the raising of the bell and its ringing. All sub- sequent are more or less clear according to impressions. The uprights of that scaffolding were long poles that seemed to be planted in the ground and were higher than the men standing on the platform.
Juvenall, Anderson & Co. occupied a one-story frame on the northeast corner of Wyandot and Sandusky avenues.
Henry Peters, Sr., held forth, we believe, in a frame build- ing where now is the Tschanen drug store. Both the above were general merchandise stores. Joseph M'Cutchen and John Walker, two of the merchants at the old center, finally concluded to join forces with the hustlers at the new center. Each took in a partner, removed up street and advertised ex- tensively under the firm names of M'Cutchen, Anderson & Co., and Walker & Garrett. M'Cutchen built the old Yellow Corner, lived in the rear and the firm occupied the front. Ferris & Kiskadden's drug store was one door south of the checkered store. J. Wheeler & Co., stoves and tinware was on Wyandot avenue opposite the courthouse site.
Hoffman & Deaboler, tailors, occupied the front room over D. Ayers & Co. store. Wm. Beals, manufacturer of harness, saddles, etc., was in a one-story frame on the Hotel Gottfried corner. Geo. F. Stoll, Alexander Valentine and John W. Senseney were manufacturers of cabinet ware, holding forth as follows: Geo. F. Stoll, where now is the Neumeister bak- ery; Valentine, about where Dr. Bowman's office is located,
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and John W. Senseney was in a two-story frame which stood where the county heating plant is now located on Court street. It then fronted on the alley.
William Bearringer, wagon maker, pitched his tent on the northeast corner of Fifth and Johnson.
Among early hotels, besides the Blue Ball, in the period 1845-50, were the Pennsylvania, M'Elvain, and the American. The Blue Ball discontinued business in the late fifties.
The M'Elvain was opposite the Vogel block. . It was erected by Andrew M'Elvain over the upper level of the draw or waterway that formed the outlet for the muck bog west and southwest. Nature thus provided a ready to hand base- ment without excavation. After conducting it for a time, M'Elvain was succeeded by Christian Huber, who ran it until April, 1849, when he gave way to Hiram Flack. Later it was known as the Layton House, conducted by Moses B. Layton, who advertised it as the only hotel in town that did not have a bar. It experienced many changes of names and propri- etors. Was last known as the Van Marter House and finally ended its career in a conflagration.
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