USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve and early Ohio > Part 7
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Ah me! it was worth while to be young in those days-the joy of living-the pulses beating high with happiness and love, and ecstasy. Who would not be a boy again in the dear old days of the pioneer on the Western Reserve ?
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PIONEER COLLEGE OF THE WESTERN RESERVE
The colleges of the Reserve have been powerful factors in the progress of the section. Every boy and girl who could, attended college. Those who could not, and their name was legion, at least tried to get an Academical education. The children of the early days thought nothing of walking three or four miles to school each morning. If they lived too far to walk many drove, some went on horseback. The writer him- self attended an Academy five miles from his home, making the journey each day on horseback. If there was a boy and a girl who lived too far away from the school they would rent a room, the sister would do the housekeeping, the brother the wood chopping and the chores. Sometimes several girls would rent a room and board themselves. Sometimes several boys would club together and "Bach it". There was no scandal in those days, the boys were gentlemen and the girls as pure as Caesar's wife.
It was a notable fact that in those days the boys and girls who were attending the High School or Acad- emy were generally fitting themselves for teachers or preachers.
The Western Reserve college was instituted in 1828, and was the first college in the territory of which it bears the name.
The college buildings are of brick and situated on a beautiful spacious campus similar to those of Yale, after which it was modeled.
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This institution did a phenominal work. In 1846 it had nineteen professors and 320 students. In 1882 it was removed to Cleveland and became the Adelbert College. The Rev. Dr. Storrs was its first president.
The Rev. John Shepherd was possessed of an idea of starting a college on a broad and liberal basis, for a better education for the youth of the Reserve.
Impelled by this idea his castles which had rap- idly widened and heightened until he could see in the future a great institution of massive and frowning buildings to which the boys and girls of this and other states would crowd in an ever lengthening throng, one bright sunny morning in 1832 he mounted his horse and rode forth into the wilderness, he rode on and on until he reached a tract of land that seemed to suit his purpose. The tract was a dense, heavy, un- broken forest, the land level and inaccessable from roads. Five hundred acres were purchased, the tract cleared. The first meeting of the trustees was held in an Indian opening in the forest in the winter of 1832. Improvements were commenced, a log house or two erected and in 1835 Messrs. Mahan, Finney and Mor- gan were appointed as teachers. This log cabin, slab- halled, wilderness college was the first college of the world to open its doors to women, on the same equality with the men. It was thoroughly from the start a poor man's college. It placed a collegiate education within the reach of indigent and industrious young men and women. It even boarded them for seventy- five cents a week, if they ate without meat, or if meat was desired, one dollar per week. Oberlin was early at swords points with the opinions of the surrounding
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country, but the surrounding country came to believe as Oberlin did. Oberlin was the hot bed of abolition. She opened her doors to the education of the blacks, but out of the 24,000 pupils Oberlin has had, only sixty colored persons have completed a course. In 1846 Oberlin was flourishing ; at that time she was supported by endowments, pledges, 500 acres of land in Oberlin and by 10,000 acres of land in West Virginia, and had at that time 492 pupils.
Hiram College is the third college on the Reserve to organize and was under the control of Campbellites, or Disciples, as they called themselves. This college has been universally successful and has sent some great men out in the world. It is better known as "Garfield's College". James A. Garfield was made president of this institution in 1857. In 1870 the great historian and educator, Burke, took charge. Aaron Hinsdale succeeded to the presidency of Hiram College and held that position until 1882.
Of Buchtel College, situated in Akron, and Adel- bert College of Cleveland, it is not our purpose to speak as they were born after the iron age of Western Reserve effort.
THE HOME OF MORMONISM
Nine miles southwest from Painsville, on the east bank of the Chagrin river, is the village of Kirtland, known as the home of Mormonism.
The Mormon Temple at this place is an object of some curiosity. It is sixty by eighty feet, built of rough stone, plastered over and colored blue. It is marked out in courses to imitate regular masonry. The spire, measuring from the top to the base of the building is one hundred and forty-two feet. In front of the building is a large tablet bearing this descrip- tion, "House of the Lord, built by the Church of the Latter Day Saints, A. D. 1834".
The first and second stories are divided into "two grand rooms" for public worship. The lower "grand room" is fitted up with seats as in ordinary churches with canvas sub-divisions which can be let down from the ceiling, forming smaller rooms. In either end of the room are four pulpits made to seat three persons each. The attic is divided up into about a dozen of small rooms. The cost of this Mormon temple was $40,000. The Mormons came to this place in 1832, and after remaining here some five or six years, left here in 1837, most of the sect with their leader re- moved to Missouri.
The sect is divided into three factions, the Ring- donites, the Twelvites and the Strangites.
The Strangites returned to Kirtland in 1883 and took possession of the old temple. They style them-
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selves "The Re-organized Church of the Latter Day Saints."
Little Mountain is located near here. It has been claimed as the highest point of land on the Western Reserve; this is a much disputed point, as Akron and Sharon township also claim that distinction. Little Mountain is an abrupt knob, some 200 feet in height above the surrounding country and can be seen from a long distance. It is a mecca of the curious and is much visited. It commands a delightful view of the surrounding country landscape and of Lake Erie, some ten miles to the north.
COLONIAL ACTIVITIES OF THE WESTERN RESERVE
THE LIGHT AND FIRE
The light used by the pioneer was largely the light of the open fire-place, supplemented by the torch of pine knots or hickory bark for out door work.
Light had its transitory period as had all other things. The children of today do not realize how much of the work of their mothers and grandmothers was done in the dark ,or at least in a light that would be called darkness in this age of the world. The use of a vessel containing melted fat with a strip of cotton cloth for a wick was soon supplemented by the use of dipped or moulded candles. Candles were used solely in some families up to as late as 1860. Candles were partly superceded by the use of lamps made to burn lard or fish oil notable mainly for their nasty and of- fensive smell. These lamps were followed by others made to give a much brighter, cleaner light, but were highly explosive and dangerous. The use of coal oil as a light did not become a factor of the lighting problem until after 1830 and was not used generally until into the fifties. In the later sixties there were many fam- ilies yet depending on candles alone for lighting pur- poses. The coal oil of the period included from 1855 to 1865, was very explosive and many deaths were caused by its use . The writer can remember selling coal oil for eighty cents per gallon, in 1865.
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AN EARLY CLEARING
COLONIAL ACTIVITIES
In the early days of the settlement on the Reserve the fire was produced by the use of the flint and steel. The coals in the fire place were covered up each night so as to have live coals to start a fire in the morning. It was a serious thing for a settler to get up in the morning of a cold winter's day and find that he had no punk or light wood to start his blaze, and his coals all dead and gone out. There was nothing to do but to start with a shovel to a neighbor's to borrow a few live coals and it frequently happened that his nearest neigh- bor was located a mile or two from his cabin. Hunters frequently started fire by flashing the powder in the pan of their flintlocked rifles on punk or doty wood, fanning it into a blaze.
The first lucifer match was not made until 1829 and did not come into general use until many years later.
The first steel pen was not made until 1830, while the use of the quill pen continued in some localities up to 1860, while it appears that four-fifths of the steam engines now working in the world have been construct- ed during the last twenty five years.
After the general use of kerosene or coal oil, came the use of gas lights followed in turn by electric light- ing, new inventions in gasolene lighting, many and varied.
EARLY GRINDING
The early settler suffered much inconvenience in not being able to have his corn ground at home. In some sections the nearest mill was twenty miles away, through a trackless forest, in which the Indian, bear
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and wolves roamed at large. Corn was the cereal on which the pioneer depended almost exclusively for his bread . To go to the mill required two or more days. Starting with a horse and sledge, or on horse-back with a bag of grain before him, he found his way by blazed trees or well known land marks to the frontier mill; he sought the cabin of some friend, or camped out until his grist was ground. Sometimes he found the miller crowded with orders and had to wait patiently, fre- quently for days, until his turn came. The spring of 1799 was a noted era in the history of the Reserve. The first grist mill erected on the Reserve was built in the spring of this year at the falls, in Newburgh, at which the inhabitants could get their corn ground, in- stead of pounding it. In the year of 1807 Capt. Joseph Hart erected the first grist mill in Summit or Portage county, as it then was known. This mill was a great convenience to settlers for twenty miles around. Seven years later, there were only the saw and grist mills, and three log houses in Middlebury. In this year, 1814, wheat was worth $3.00 per bushel, and corn was $2.00 per bushel. In 1802 a mill was built on Tinkers Creek, in Hudson. In 1806 a mill was erected on Mudbrook in Northampton. Previous to the erection of these mills, and in some sections still later, the method used to grind meal was to cut a tree so as to leave a concave surface, or if this could not be done, burn out a hole in the solid stump, shaped like a wash basin, then bend over a small tree or sapling for a spring pole, bringing its tip over the stump. To this tie a bark of wythe and suspend an iron wedge, axe, or any other heavy iron weight for a pestle. The corn was then shelled and
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poured in the hollow of the stump, when the spring pole pounding was commenced and continued until a toler- ably good quality of meal was made. Some made a leather bag, filled it with shelled corn, placed it on a rock and pounded it with the back of an axe until the corn was mashed ; it was then sifted, the finer part used for flour, and the coarser part used for hominy which was much relished.
David Daniels, of Palmyra, Portage county, in the fall of 1799, planted a crop of wheat. After threshing it out with his flail he cleared up about a bushel of the grain and carried it on his back to a mill located at Poland, O., about thirty miles distant; had it ground and returned with the flour to his cabin, where for the first time wheat bread was enjoyed in the southern part of the Western Reserve.
For ten years succeeding the close of the War of 1812, wheat brought only from two to three shillings per bushel, while a day's labor would barely purchase a yard of cotton cloth; thirty-two bushels of corn has been known to be exchanged for four yards of fulled cloth.
At one time the nearest mill to Mantua was at Burton in the next county. Rufus Edwards on one oc- casion collected his season's crop of grain and took it in a canoe to Burton to be ground, but arriving late at night, he left the grain in the boat, intending to get it as soon as daylight appeared; but when he went for it the next morning he found that some prowling Indians had carried it off. It was all the wheat there was in the entire township, and its loss was much felt and greatly mourned.
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TRAPPING
"A simple plot is mine ; Legends and runes
Of credulous days Old fancies that have lain
Silent from boyhood, taking life again."
"The common air was thick with dreams- He told them to the toiling crowd;
Such music as the woods and streams Sang in his ear, he sang aloud." -Whittier.
While trapping is a trade in itself, requiring not only the cunning of the Indian, but the skill and ingen- uity of the white man, yet it has its charm, so subtile, so invidious, that when once in possession of a man he finds it hard to resist its demands on his time and labor.
In the early days the furs most sought after were the wolf, first, because he was an enemy to man and to civilization. Secondly, because his scalp brought a bounty of seven dollars, no small fortune in those days of privation and want. James Redfield, of Harrisville, was a famous wolf-catcher ; he had caught one hundred and twenty, up to 1830. He at one time, bought a horse for one dollar, which he used to bait his traps.
The next in value to the hunter and trapper was bear. These animals were so plentiful in those early days that the Indian would trade a bear-skin for a gal- lon of the "pale-face's" whiskey.
The traps used in catching these animals were three-fold. The first a pit, a deep square hole dug in the ground covered with some light material and covered with leaves, with the bait placed in the
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center. The bear in trying to reach the bait would break through the light material and be precipitated to the bottom, caught, and caged by his own efforts. A huge iron trap, with jagged jaws, some two feet in diameter, was also used. The third was made of a cir- cle of saplings driven in the ground, with but one open- ing. A huge log, supported by a massive figure four, was the instrument of destruction. Deer were plen- tiful, and deer-skin were always in demand; they furn- ished couches and clothing for both the red and the white man.
Otters were plentiful about the time the whites ap- peared, but they were soon killed off or disappeared.
We come now to the second generation of men, a new generation of men and trappers. The wolf, the bear, the deer, had all been driven out by the onward march of civilization. The crash of falling forests, the sounds of the hunter's horn, the blaze of burning logs and brush heaps, all tended to force the frightened wild beasts to move to more westwardly homes.
This new generation trapped for the smaller fur- bearing animals. The coon, the musk-rat, the mink, and the skunk. The most prized by these men were the moonlight coon hunts, the rush of coon-dogs, the scurrying of the frightened coons, the blaze of torches, the shouts of excited hunters.
All this added zest to the life of the early resident. The mink and muskrat were caught in iron traps as was also sometimes the case with skunks. But the favorite way to catch the latter was to build a circle with small stakes, and the usual "figure four" trap. In winter time large numbers were dug out. As many
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SHINING DEER
CAMPING SCENE
COLONIAL ACTIVITIES
as fourteen have been found in one hole. A good black skunk skin in that day, properly dressed, and with no white upon it, would bring one dollar and fifty cents each.
Those with white upon them from fifty cents to one dollar each.
A man skilled in trapping could in the winter sea- son, make better wages at this than any other employ- ment, in that day.
GOSPEL MEETINGS
"God should be most where man is least, So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag of form or creed
To clothe the nakedness of need- Where farmer-folk in silence meet- I turn my bell unsummoned feet ; He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone.
Of old the fire-tongued miracle, But flamed o'er all the thronging host The baptism of the Holy Ghost; Heart answers heart, in one desire The blending lines of prayer aspire, "Where in my name, meet two or three,"
Our Lord hath said, "I there will be." -Whittier.
The early settlers coming as they did from all sec- tions of the East, and of different nationalities, suffer- ed from too many church organizations, rather than too few. The consequence was that many of the new organizations on the Reserve were too weak in numbers to do efficient work. Yet from the first the people were never without the Sabbath, and the worship of God,
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the settlers generally being men and women of strong religious convictions.
The Rev. Edward Brown, in his memorial sermon at Wadsworth, at the celebration of the 60th anniver- sary of the settlement of Wadsworth, said: "Today all unite in the most affecting tribute of respect to those old Christian pioneers who like the Father of the faith- ful, erected the altar of God wherever they went. The foundation of the prosperity of the place was laid in the observance of the Sabbath, and the erection of the log schoolhouse in the wilderness, to serve the double purpose of a seminary of learning, and a sanctuary for the pure worship of God.
I have heard my father tell of the arrangement he and Mr. Warner made together to set up the public worship, in a more permanent manner. He had just arrived the previous week. Hearing that religious meetings were held at a house of a man by the name of Warner, the three families went on Sabbath morning, through the woods to his house. The meeting was con- ducted by Mr. Warner; those who were singers assist- ing in that part of the worship, and my father taking part in speaking and prayer. After the meeting, Mr. Warner called my father into the other part of his double log house for private conference. "First," said he, "I wish to know who and what you are ?" My father replied, "We are Congregationalists from Connecticut". Mr. Warner replied, "My parents were Congregational- ists ; I am a Methodist and I have been almost alone in keeping up meetings the year past; and now I propose that we unite and we can sustain meetings every Sab- bath. I see you are singers ; that will be a great help.
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And now your people have a practice that I like; that of reading a sermon when you have no preacher. Have you any volumes you can bring to read from ?" "I have many," replied my father. The meetings were con- ducted jointly by these two men, in the manner agreed upon at the house of Mr. Warner, until the erection of the south schoolhouse, the next fall, when they were held in the schoolhouse. Here began a fraternal union between these two old pioneers, who may, without any injustice to others, be termed the founders of the Meth- odist and Congregational Churches. A union that was never broken."
Through these early beginnings I have sketched, the Sabbath has ever been kept as a day of rest and worship and moral and religoius atmosphere created ; the soil broken up and prepared, from which the churches of today have sprung.
The first religious services in the different town- ships seem to have been held in private houses, then in the schoolhouses and finally, houses of worship were built. The history of religion in one township is much like that of any other. To write a religious history of the Reserve, in all its aspects, and in every township, would make many large volumes. As settlers became more numerous, neighborhood prayer meetings were held in many townships.
Villages frequently saw two or more denomina- tions unite and build a union church building. Each denomination using the building alternate Sabbaths, both congregations attending each other's services. From these humble beginnings have sprung all the churches that now dot the fair expanse of our beloved
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country. Starting right, under all kind of difficulties ; giving to God what was God's and rendering to Caesar, what was Caesar's, they formed the beginning of one of the greatest people that was ever confined within geographical boundaries. A people who in their love of God, fellowmen, fair play and love of liberty, are distinctive from the people of the rest of the state, or the states surrounding them. They have left their im- print on National character and National History.
The Rev. Joseph Badger, of Massachusetts, a grad- uate of Yale College, and an ex-revolutionary soldier, was the first minister of the gospel to come to the Western Reserve for the purpose of ministering to the religious wants of the white race. There were other missionaries before him, but they had come to teach the red man the straight and narrow way that leadeth to Salvation.
The Rev. Badger came here with an earnest pur- pose, traveling from point to point on horseback, hold- ing services at log-cabins throughout the wilderness, and later in log schoolhouses. He was very much loved and esteemed by the early people, and his earnest ef- forts bore much good fruit, and in the end was crowned by an abundant and lasting success. In some parts of the Reserve he laid the broad foundations of a Chris- tian morality which has largely tinctured the whole civilization of this section of the state. It is said of him that he was the friend of everybody and that everybody was his friend.
Among the pioneer ministers it would be unjust not to mention Rev. William Wick, of Long Island, New York. He removed to Youngstown in 1800. He was a
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clergyman of the Presbyterian faith. He preached in a log church in Youngstown for a number of years, raising a large family of children and preaching the gospel whenever opportunity offered. He was a very earnest and godly man and his efforts brought forth much that was good in his wide circle of labor on the Reserve. During his pastorate in the Ohio wilder- ness he preached 1,522 sermons and married fifty-six couples, a record that has never been exceeded by any other clergyman in the same length of time and under the same condition. He left an influence for good that in his locality is yet felt. He died in 1815, while yet the Connecticut Western Reserve was in its swaddling clothes, leaving behind him eight stalwart sons and five amiable daughters to mourn the good man who had once more "gone on before".
The first church organization on the Reserve was that of Austinburgh in 1801. The membership of this early church consisted of only sixteen, with the Rev. Joseph Badger as organizer and pastor. Revival ser- vices were held, great excitement followed, the whole country was awakened to its religious needs and some thirty or forty new members were added to the church membership, and the organization at once was placed on a sound and healthy basis. Conviction was called the "jerks", and seemed to take the form of jumping, contortion, etc. Nearly all the women on whom the holy spirit was working, sprang to their feet, whirled around and around on their toes with extended arms and dishevelled hair until exhausted, when they fell to the floor and passed into a seeming trance.
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There were many other intelligent and able work- ers in this new field, men of recognized ability and grad- uates of eastern or foreign colleges; they did much good and labored zealously, but they have been forgot- ten as those who knew them, and whose hearts loved them, have long since crumbled to the dust. Two or three score of years has succeeded in burying them and even their names in the oblivion of the forgotten past.
EARLY SALT INDUSTRY
Adventurers, it has been said, penetrated to the Mahoning salt springs as early as 1755, but no reliable authority has been advanced to prove the statement, except the fact that the "Salt Springs" was laid down in Evan's map, published in Philadelphia in 1755.
Col. James Hillman, of Youngstown, one of the oldest pioneers of the Reserve, transported goods as early as 1786 from Pittsburgh by way of the Salt Springs, Ravenna, mouth of Tinkers Creek, then down the Cuyahoga to its mouth where the schooner Mack- inaw picked up his goods and took them to Detroit.
Hillman says that he erected a log hut at Cleve- land, which was the first house built in that place, and with the exception of the houses of the Ottaways, then abandoned, at the mouth of Tinkers Creek, and the abandoned houses at the Salt Springs, there was not another house between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. In 1786 Hillman says he made six trips from Pittsburg to Cleveland. Each time his caravan consisted of ten men and ninety horses. He says that in 1786 there were three or four houses standing at the Salt Springs, empty, and that these three or four cabins were the
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