USA > Ohio > Fairfield County > Pioneer period and pioneer people of Fairfield County, Ohio > Part 7
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In this township is Buckeye Lake, once a great swamp and cranberry marsh, several miles in length, running from near Millersport to Thornville, a distance of eight miles. About the center, where the county line crosses, there existed a lake of considerable size on which floated a cranberry marsh. The marsh still floats there and berries are gathered every year by the daring and fearless natives. This was the great swamp mentioned by Gist where he camped in 1751. It was on the old Indian trail leading from Duquesne to the Shawanese town of old Chillicothe, on the Scioto. This trail passed Mt. Pleasant-a trading point called the "standing stone." This trail was the great overland route from Ft. Pitt to the falls of the Ohio near Louis- ville.
John Goldthwait, a Yankee schoolmaster, born in Springfield, Mass., was an early settler in Walnut township. His farm was on the road half way be- tween Pleasantville and New Salem. He had previous- ly taught school, in 1801, in Athens, O., and in 1802 in Greenfield township. By some he is believed to be the first teacher in Fairfield County, but it is claimed that James Hunter, of Virginia, taught school in Hocking township in 1801.
Goldthwait planted the first apple orchard in the county, on what is now known as the Levering farm.
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He brought his trees from Marietta or the Putnam nurseries. He started the first fruit nursery in this county on his Walnut township farm. He introduced the Fall Pippin, Rhode Island Greening, Wetherfield Seek No Further, Roxbury, Russett and other well known apples of New England. He lived a blameless life and was a devoted Methodist. His pride was the fine apples he had introduced into the county. There are but few names among the early pioneers deserving of greater honor than John Goldthwait. He died in 1829, and was buried in the old church yard at New Salem. His descendants are prominent people of Grant County, Indiana.
LIBERTY
The first settler of Liberty township came as early as the year 1801.
Christian Gundy and wife came to Fairfield Coun- ty in the year of 1800 from Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania. They came as far as Wheeling, Va., where Gundy left his wife and came on by himself. He cleared a piece of ground and planted it in corn on Walnut creek. During the summer he went to Wheel- ing for his wife. He spent the fall and winter in a rude camp with a blanket for a door. Robert Wilson, a neighbor of Gundy's came about the same time.
David Brumbuck came in 1803 and settled one- half a mile south of the present town of Baltimore. He later moved to Poplar creek, where he died. His son, Martin, lived a long life upon this farm, where he was a farmer and grape grower.
Nicholas Bader and Jacob Showley came to the county in 1804 and settled one mile north of the pres- ent Baltimore, and there they lived and died. They
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were natives of Switzerland. They embarked on board flat-boats at Pittsburg and floated down to the mouth of the Hockhocking and from there pulled their goods in canoes to the falls, or Hockhocking, now Logan.
Joseph Alt, also a Swiss, came in 1805 over the same route taken by Bader and Showley. He left his friends at the mouth of Hockhocking, while he and his son, Joseph, made their way on foot to Fairfield to the home of Bader and Showely. Mr. Alt succeeded in bringing his family and goods up the Hocking, and established them in his cabin in the woods.
His family has been a prominent and honorable one in Liberty township for ninety-four years. Emanuel Alt, the breeder of fine cattle two miles north of Baltimore, is a genial son. Here he owns a fine farm and a lovely home.
Francis Bibler came from Shenandoah county, Va., in 1805, with four sons and four daughters. His cabin stood where Basil is now located. His family was without bread for five weeks. Bibler went to Chillicothe to obtain a supply of corn and could get but one bushel, for which he paid two dollars. This corn was ground at Woodring's mill, five miles west of his home, on Walnut creek. Their first crop of corn was destroyed by squirrels and crows. Bibler, in one morning, killed 38 squirrels on one tree with his rifle and the next morning 18 raccoons from one tree.
At one of the early elections in this township there were but seven ballots cast.
Jacob Goss, grandfather of Dr. J. H. Goss, of Lancaster, came to the township in 1807. He also came from Switzerland. He had two sons and one daughter. Sebastian Leonard came about the came time.
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Jacob Goss laid out the town of Basil in 1825. The plat was made by Jonathan Flattery, an early sur- veyor. The neighbors named, or chose the name by ballot and the casting vote was deposited by John Goss, father of the doctor.
Henry Yanna kept the first tavern in the new village. He was also a butcher and sold thousands of pounds of beef to workmen on the Ohio Canal at 3 cents per pound. His sign was an ox. Peter Darning, a Swiss, also opened up a tavern in probably the same year. His home was the "William Tell." He sold "stone fence cider"-four gallons of whiskey to one barrel of water.
Henry D. Bolle, a Frenchman, kept the first store. His entire stock of goods rested on one shelf twelve feet long. In 1828 he sold out to Sebastian Leonard, Sr., father of Henry Leonard, and with $150 a new stock was purchased in Lancaster and Henry installed as the new merchant.
Henry Leonard was born February 14, 1812. He was a bright boy, but did not succeed in getting much primary education. He spent a few months in Gen. Maccracken's store in Lancaster, in order, as he said, to get some insight into the business. He returned to Basil and in a few years was a prosperous merchant. And the firm of Leonard Bros., Sebastian and Henry, became a large and well known establishment and had a profitable career for nearly forty years. Henry Leonard was much more than an ordinary man. He took a leading part in all public matters, was a leader in the church and a sincere Christian. Rev. George Leonard is his son.
Mr. Leonard is authority for the statement that at funerals, before the people left the house, it was
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customary to hand round the whiskey bottle and other refreshments, and that he was frequently called upon to perform this honorable service. The writer has good reason to remember Henry Leonard. He was a noble, generous, gifted man, and his memory will long be green in Liberty township. He was a brother-in- law of the late Jacob Beck. They married sisters. They were, also, cousins. Their fathers married sis- ters, daughters of Jacob Goss.
Rev. Martin Kauffman, of the Baptist Church, was the first resident minister. Rev. John Hite, of Walnut Township, preached in the neighborhood of Basil for many years. Rev. Benadum, of Bloom township, a United Brethren, preached often at the home of Mr. Showley, on Walnut creek.
Rev. George Wise, of the German Reform church, begun to preach at Amspachs', south of Basil, in 1817, now known as St. Michael's Church.
Men of great strength were numerous and popular among the pioneers. John Huntwork, not a giant in size, either, was a very strong man. Once at Zanes- ville, on a bet made by Mr. Fairchild, he loaded three wagons with salt, picking each barrel, weighing three hundred pounds each, by the chimes and pitching them into the wagons.
On another occasion he carried eleven bushels of wheat up a pair of steps at one load. Noah Gundy, late of Liberty township, witnessed both astounding feats.
Henry Leonard is the author's authority for state- ments in this chapter.
JONATHAN ACHEY,
A PROMINENT CITIZEN OF BALTIMORE, PASSES TO THE GREAT BEYOND.
Jonathan Achey, was born in Lebanon county Pennsylvania, August 15, 1822.
He was the only son of George and Elizabeth Spangler Achey. He received a common school edu- cation in Pennsylvania. Leaving school he removed with his father and family to Ohio. They spent one year in Franklin County, and then moved to Licking County, locating in Ætna township. Here the father spent the remainder of his life, dying in the year 1870.
Jonathan was apprenticed to the joiner and car- penter trade and served his time, as was then the cus- tom. About the year 1844, he came to Baltimore and began his career as a builder. He built many of the · fine houses and barns in and about Baltimore. Among these the fine residence of the late Byron M. Pugh and the barn of John Bright, of Poplar creek.
In the year 1847 he was married to Miss E. M. Gafford, daughter of Joseph Gafford. He has been an honored member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since the year 1852. During the greater part of his life he had been a church member, first of the Reformed Church; latterly of the Evangelical. The life of Jonathan Achey was a modest, unobtrusive one, full of good deeds, and such as to merit and enjoy the esteem of all who knew him. An honest man, a good citizen and a Christian gentleman.
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For several years he served the people of Baltimore as a member of the town council and the board of education. As husband, father and public servant he was faithful to every trust and closed a long and use- ful life in peace.
He left a widow and five children. His son Wil- liam Henry, a railroad man, lives in Texas. A daugh- ter, Nina May Crew, in Arcola, Illinois. Mrs. Par- thenia E. Collins, Mrs. Sadie J. Cochran and Mrs. Car- rie Honora Bright live in Baltimore.
BALTIMORE, FAIRFIELD COUNTY.
Baltimore, Fairfield County, was for three or four years the shipping port and rival of Lancaster. A. brief sketch of the town and leading merchants is appended :
The Ohio Canal was located through Fairfield County in the year 1825, and the first shovel full of earth thrown out by Gov. DeWitt Clinton, of New York, at a point near Hebron, in the presence of a vast concourse of people. Thos. Ewing and other prominent men of Lancaster participated. Gottlieb Steinman furnished a dinner upon a grand scale for that day. He told the writer that the crowd of people and the rush for dinner was so great that hundreds partook of it without payment, and that many persons afterwards sent their half dollar to him by mail. His loss was such as to greatly embarrass him.
At the close of the ceremonies at Hebron, Gov. Clinton was escorted to Lancaster, where he remained one day the guest of the people of Lancaster, who vied with each other in doing him honor. From Lancaster he was escorted to the county line by a large concourse of prominent people, where he was met by a delegation of prominent citizens of Columbus. In this way he made the trip to Cincinnati, by way of Springfield and Dayton, returning to New York by way of Chillicothe and Lancaster.
The canal was completed and ready for business in the year 1831, and the first boat passed Baltimore in October of that year. The prospect of a canal caused
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many towns to be laid out upon the surveyed line, and of the number Baltimore became the most prominent. The original plat covered nearly one square mile. It was a boom town, like many now in the west, and hun- dreds of the lots are now pasture fields.
The writer is indebted to Henry George Black, now a resident of Black Lick, Franklin County, Ohio, and long an honored citizen and merchant of Baltimore, for much of the information in this sketch, from whom we quote largely. Mr. Black has had a long and honor- able career and is passing a green old age quietly and pleasantly upon his farm. The partner of his long life was a Miss Rhoda E. Kelley, whom he married in No- vember, 1841.
" Henry Hildebrand laid out that part of the town lying south of the Licking Summit (about the year 1826 or 1827). That part of Baltimore was called New Market. George Huntwork laid out the part of Baltimore north of the canal about the same time, and it was called Rome. By the act of incorporation, the two towns were united into one and called Baltimore. At the time I went to Baltimore, March, 1829, to live, there were quite a number of small stores there, among which were Zug & Gordon, George Clark, Busby & Fetters, Michael Ruffner, William Wing, - Rogers, Mahlon Atkinson & Co. After the completion of the canal the number was reduced and several firms changed. William Wing and J. Smith Atwood, who had been partners in the construction of several sec- tions of the canal, engaged in a general mercantile bus- iness and erected a grain warehouse and continued bus- iness until about the winter of 1835 and 1836, when J. Smith Atwood, having married a Chillicothe lady
8
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named Orr, removed to Chillicothe, Ohio, and engaged in the wholesale grocery business for a time, and then went into the banking business, and afterwards removed to Wall Street, New York city, where he continued in the banking business until he removed to Lincoln, Ne- braska, where he continued the banking business for a time, and died a few years since in Springfield, Mis- souri.
Michael Ruffner and Coulson Davenport, from Barnesville, Ohio, with John Davenport, father of Coulson, engaged in a general mercantile business in 1829, and in 1832 or 1833, the Davenports withdrew from the business, when William Coulson, of Rush- ville,, Ohio, took the place of the Davenports with Michael Ruffner, under the firm name of M. Ruffner & Co., who erected the flouring mill on the canal, known now as the Norris mill. In 1838 or 1839 Michael Ruffner sold his entire interest to William Coulson, and removed to Coles county, Illinois, where he died several years since.
Mahlon Atkinson continued in business for a few years and left the place. Thomas Reed started with Asa Clark as a partner and continued in business a few years, when it was discontinued. Mr. Reed was a . citizen of Lancaster, and was a partner of Wm. J. Reese, in business in Lancaster.
Monticello and Millersport were located so near each other that upon the opening of the canal Monti- cello was entirely abandoned as a place of business and the business of the neighborhood was taken to Millers- port. Atwood & Usher opened a store at one of the points (which, I am unable to state). Mr. John D. Martin, of your city, can inform you of that fact. It is my opinion that Mr. Martin clerked a short time
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for Wing & Atwood, of Baltimore. There was a firm of Decions & Dellinger in the business a short time either at Monticello or Millersport. Harrison Del- linger died, and Daniel Decions removed to Greenup, Illinois, where he practiced law. At the time what is now known as the new reservoir was being con- structed, Elias Vance, who had been in the employ of Wing & Atwood, at Baltimore, for some time, estab- lished a business at Millersport, erected a grain ware- house, and continued in business until about the time the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne railroad was being con- structed through the western part of Ohio, when he removed to the town of Van Wert, Ohio, where he died some years since.
The first canal boat passed Baltimore in October, 1831, is my recollection, and they were expected in September, and several days had been named for their arrival. The citizens of Baltimore had placed a cannon on the bluff near the hotel to announce the ar- rival of the first boat, which remained in position some days before it was made to let the country people know that the boat had arrived.
Nathaniel R. Usher was a brother-in-law of At- wood, and died several years since in one of the north- west states.
About the year 1829 or 1830, Dr. Silas S. Geohe- gan and Amos T. Swayze began the publication of a weekly newspaper called The Baltimore Times and Canal Register. After continuing it for a time, it is my recollection that they sold the press to a Wm. A. W. Rawlings, and later I think it went into the hands of a Mr. Ellis, when it was removed to the town of Somerset, Ohio.
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William Wing, having succeeded several mercantile firms in business in Baltimore, in 1842, made an as- signment, and applied for the benefit of the Bankrupt Law, then in operation. At the sale of his stock of goods Tunis Cox and Elijah S. Anderson became the purchasers, and continued business for a few years. In the month of August, 1843, I opened a small stock of goods, and continued in business until about the: close of the war of the rebellion.
I was born in the month of June, 1817, and lived. in the village of Rushville, Ohio, until eleven years old, when I went to live with Michael Ruffner, at Pleasant- ville, Ohio, in June, 1828. The next March Ruffner removed to Baltimore, Ohio.
Dr. Luke Helmick and Dr. Wm. M. P. Quinn were practicing physicians in Baltimore at an early day, and they had several passes at each other in the Baltimore Times newspaper, showing up the dark spots on their character, but it did not terminate as the Osborn-Elliott case at Columbus, a few years since.
William Lamb slaughtered and packed pork on his farm, where he resided, in Walnut township, for a number of years, in the winter season, and conveyed the product to Baltimore, when it was shipped by canal boat to Cleveland. Mr. Lamb, about the year 1838, became a partner with Wm. Wing in the dry goods and grain business, and remained so until 1841, when he sold his interest in the firm to Wm. Wing, who as- signed in 1842, as I stated above.
William Coulson, of Rushville, and Joseph H. Ijams, of West Rushville, Ohio, in connection with their general store, purchased and packed in hogsheads of one thousand pounds or more the yellow tobacco
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that was raised by the farmers of the Rushcreek Hills, and conveyed the same to Baltimore for shipment by the Ohio Canal to an eastern market. Joseph H. Ijams established a general store in Baltimore, Ohio, about 1838, in which Oliver S. Reed was a partner, and who had previously been in the employ as a clerk with Michael Ruffner first, and William Wing afterward, and who died in the city of Columbus several years since.
David C. Ruffner at one time resided in Baltimore. He purchased a farm on the road between Baltimore and Millersport, on which he resided till the time of his death, which occurred in the city of Columbus, in con- sequence of an accident that befell him when conveying a horse thief he had arrested, on whom there was a re- ward offered for his arrest.
Dr. William Trevitt practiced medicine at Balti- more in 1830, for a time, when he removed to Thorn- ville, Perry County, and was elected to the legislature, and afterward became the secretary of the state of Ohio, and died in the city within the last fifteen years.
The first meal I ate in Baltimore was at the hotel kept by Laughlin Kennedy, who did not remain in the business long. John B. Allen, Henry Warner and Joseph Gafford kept hotels in the early days of Balti- more. Judge Abram Pitcher opened a public house for a short time only, on the corner of Main and Lib- erty Streets, where Jonathan Achey now resides.
Michael Ruffner, referred to by Mr. Black, was of an old Virginia family, with a very large connection in this county. Benjamin Ruffner and David Ruffner were old-time business men of this county, and known far and wide. Col. Joseph Ruffner and his sisters,
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Mrs. Daniel Keller, Christian Baker and David Pence were of the same family.
N. R. Usher was an engineer on the Ohio Canal and after his experience as a merchant, owned and oc- cupied the farm now the home of Milton Taylor, Wal- nut township. John D. Martin, of this city, when a boy, clerked in his store as a dry goods clerk.
General W. S. Rosecrans was at one time a clerk with John D. Martin, in a store at Utica, Licking County, Ohio.
Atwood & Co. were at one time one of the best known banking firms of New York city.
Wm. Wing was a man of ability, but unfortunate in business. Late in life he became the secretary of the Ohio Central railroad and died at Newark, Ohio a few years since.
Monticello was a considerable village at the time the canal was finished. The location of Millersport by Mathias. Miller killed the old town, and all that is left of the old site is an old well on the Lancaster road, about one-half mile south of Millersport.
Wm. Lamb was a business man of more than local reputation, but like his partner, Wm. Wing, failed in business and took the benefit of the Bankrupt Law. In his old age he parted with his Walnut township farm and purchased a farm west and adjoining the homestead of U. C. Rutter, where he died a few years since.
Wm. Coulson and Joseph H. Ijams were famous merchants of their respective towns, Rushville and West Rushville, but like hundreds of others they went down in the great crash of the early forties and never recovered. Coulson died in Rushville, having passed his 90th year. Ijams died in Iowa many years since.
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Joseph Gafford, a successful produce merchant of Burlington, Iowa, is a son of the old Baltimore land- lord of that name.
Pittsford, Reed & Co. were the successors of Jo- seph H. Ijams. Pittsford was the state superintendent of the Baltimore division of the Ohio Canal at the time he embarked in the mercantile business. In a few years he tired of the business and settled upon a farm near Kirkersville, Ohio, where he died many years since. His daughter became the wife of Isaac Fink- bone, of Liberty township. Casper Feidler, well known in Lancaster, and Jacob Wagner succeeded Tunis Cox in the mercantile business in the year 1849.
A good story is told of Henry G. Black, when a young clerk for Michael Ruffner. Baltimore was then the great shipping port for Fairfield County, and the Cleveland grain merchant often sent money by canal boats to Baltimore to purchase wheat. On one occa- sion a keg of coin was rolled off at the Baltimore wharf in the night. The captain called up the young clerk to take charge of the money. He is said to have re- plied, "never mind, no one will know what the keg contains, and it will be there in the morning." Dan Clinger says that in 1839 a string of wagons a quarter of a mile long could be seen every day for hours wait- ing their turn to unload grain.
TOBEY TOWN-ROYALTON.
C HERE are but few, if any, places in this county with a more interesting pioneer history than Royalton and the neighborhood.
The early settlers were vigorous, intelligent, brainy men, and from earliest times it has been a noted, refined and intelligent community.
William and Horatio Clark, it is believed, were the first settlers, along with W. Lane, father-in-law of H. Clarke. They settled on Tobey creek, one mile north- west of the present village of Royalton, and near the Indian village of Tobey Town .. The date of their coming was in the year 1799. A family named Win- tersteen came near the same time and settled on Sec. 32, of Bloom township. In the same year, month of November, Wilkinson Lane, of Pennsylvania, settled on Sec. 8, Amanda township, and in June, 1800, Thomas and Broad Cole, perhaps brothers, settled on the same section. One of the family, Abraham Cole, was a school teacher. Broad Cole was one of this family (we do not refer to the son of Thomas Cole, of that name, born in 1802) and was a tax payer in 1806. Bishop Asbury preached in his cabin at 3 P. M. on a week day, in 1803, the first preaching west of Lancaster, O. We cannot learn of any descendants of this Broad Cole, but that he lived here in 1803 and 1806 is unquestioned. Broad Cole, son of Thomas, born in 1802, married a daughter of Samuel Peters and lived upon the old homestead at the " big spring." His
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son, Thomas Cole, is a farmer in Amanda and an old school Baptist preacher. In June, 1807, David Swope and William Long settled on Sec. 8. In the year 1800 Dr. Silas Allen and his four sons, Whiting, Benjamin, Lemuel and Jedadiah, came and settled on Sec. 3. The families of John Searle and Abner Burnet, came with them. Subsequently, probably several years, Burnet moved to Meigs County, and Whiting and Benjamin Allen to Delaware County, Ohio. Col. William Ham- ilton lived on Sec. 10 as early as 1810. In that year he laid out Royalton for the Allens and upon their land. The village was so named for a town or county in their old home in Vermont. The first female child born in the new settlement was Eliza, daughter of Lemuel Allen. She was known in later years as Mrs. Meeker, and lived beyond 93 years. Dr. Silas Allen died in the year 1825. The first school in the neighborhood was taught by Miss L. Case in 1810. Lemuel Allen brought her from Granville, O. The building used was a new stable. The next school was taught by Warren Case, of Granville. In 1812 Henry Calhoun taught the school. In 1810 the Rev. Hoag, of Colum- bus, a Presbyterian, preached in Lemuel Allen's house. This was the first preaching in the neighborhood ex- cept that of Bishop Asbury in 1803, at the house of Broad Cole. Lemuel Allen kept the first hotel or tav- ern, Jacob Bush kept the first store in the new town. In 1814 the Methodists organized a society - which still flourishes.
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