USA > Pennsylvania > Crawford County > Pioneer sketches : scenes and incidents of former days > Part 17
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In the winter of 1835 Amos Fish was driving Willis Benediet's team with a sleighload of grain from Evansburg to Harmonsburg. While crossing Conneaut Lake, when near the middle the ice gave way. Mr. Fish jumped from the sleigh and saved himself, but the team and load went under the ice and were lost.
About the same time Frederick Bolard on horse back. and Wicks Parker with a team and wagonload of goods, came to the lake, and when Mr. Bolard proposed to go around it Mr. Parker laughed at him and drove on the ice. When part way across they found the ice sunk about one foot under the water. When Mr. Bolard thought of turn- ing back his heart bounded within him, and he said that at that moment he would have given all he possessed to be off the ice and safe on land. But Mr. Parker drove on and Bolard followed him in awful suspense, and was greatly relieved when nearing the shore. When men will venture like this with loaded teams out upon the ice, how can we expect that boys will not venture, too, upon the glary. bending ice on their skates, with frequently the sad result of going under the ice to rise no more?
John McMurtry, of Sadsbury, Pa., who died in 1885 at the advanced age of 102 years, was a soldier in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, being in the advance guard in entering the City of Mexico. He lived a life of single blessedness; had contracted marriage in an early day, was jilted: but later a daughter of his affianced bore him a daughter, on which offspring he bequeathed the sum of $3,000, though previous to this bequest the girl married
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well and is now living in Meadville. His sister, Sallie, who married Snowden Barrickman, and who now lives in the Pymatuming Swamp, is 90 years of age.
John McTeer, an old settler of Hayfield Township, Pa., was unjustly charged with killing a man at Conneaut Lake and was sent to the penitentiary for life; he served a term of ten or twelve years and was then pardoned. The man who committed the murder for which McTeer was convicted, upon his death bed confessed that he done the awful deed; thereupon McTeer was released. This is an instance where the innocent was made to suffer for the crime of the guilty. James McDowell, brother of Alex and John F. McDowell, informed my ancestor that he was engaged with Aaron Burr on an expedition down the Ohio River, which turned out to be rather a nefarious and spec- ulative venture, and the expedition was authoritatively checked, which business we understand to have been running off negroes via the underground railroad.
Alex and John F. McDowell, of Summerhill, were old settlers who were in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, whose descendents now hold some of the old Con- tinental money. After the war they built a distillery near Dixonburg, Pa., at which place and upon their farms they lived many years, up to the time of their demise.
Jeremiah Hadlock emigrated from Vermont at an early day and settled in the woods of Richmond Township, Pa., sixteen miles east of Meadville, and cleared up a farm. He died at the age of 92 years from the effects of a tree falling on him, breaking one of his legs and injuring his spine.
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Freeman Hadlock, a son of Jeremiah, also took up 160 acres of government land across the street opposite his father's, and lived upon said land many years. He said it seemed to be more work to clear the land of the numerous sand rocks than of the timber. A sad accident happened on the place: Lucinda Hadlock, a young girl eight years of age, fell into a spring on the farm near the house, and was drowned. Mr. Freeman Hadlock now lives in Dorset, Ashtabula County, Ohio, at the advanced age of 93 years, in the enjoyment of quite good health.
If the people throughout our country would pan out like the MeMurtrys and Hadlocks we could soon refer back with good grace, in longevity, to the days of Noah.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
R. D. CHEESEMAN
ORN IN ALBION, PA., where he attended school. At the age of 15 or 16 he engaged to work for A. Denio, proprietor of the Handle Mills (now Otsego Fork Mills), Miles Grove, Pa., where he faithfully served his employer day in and day out; and when Mr. Denio consolidated his steel mills at Baldwinsville, N. Y., and handle mills and removed and rebuilt the same at Miles Grove Mr. Cheeseman went with him in the capacity of foreman in the wooden department of the celebrated Otsego Fork Mills. And during the long space of thirty years R. D. Cheeseman has accomplished one thing which the writer could not even hope to do, viz: through all those years he has faithfully served his employer ten hours per day, which will probably foot up more hours of constant daily toil than can be duplicated by few in Erie county; and should his sun not go down at noonday, he bids fair to remain in the same capacity for coming decades.
Mr. Cheeseman is a man of temperate and frugal habits, has a pleasant home, a family (wife and two children), who apparently enjoy the even tenor of life in the pleasant vil- lage of Miles Grove, Pa.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
P. O. PAUL.
THE GANDER-AGENT-STAGING-LIVERY-NURSERY STOCK-HORSE DEALER.
· O. PAUL was born in Conneaut Township, Erie County, Pa., where he spent his boyhood and youthful days on the farm.
An incident is related of him when a boy of five or six years. His uncle Prosper Keep had a cross gander which he promised to give to the boy Paul if he would carry him home. The boy eagerly grappled onto the gander and started homeward. There were a pair of bars he had to pass which were made in the old-fashioned style from split timber and were heavy. Here came the query how to manage the gander, as he would have to use both hands to let down and put up those heavy bars, and when young Paul came to the bars he put the gander on the ground and placed his feet upon each wing, and in this position he held his gander until he had let down and put up the bars. Wben his uncle and father saw that he could manage that gander they concluded that he could get through the race course of life.
At the age of 16 he had a desire to do something for himself other than farming, and engaged to sell nursery stock for L. C. MeLaughlin, Spring, Pa. Later he got married and worked his father's farm some three years, and during a portion of the time taught school and sold light- ning rods for a year. Afterwards he removed to Titusville with his family and went staging from that place to Pleas-
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antville and Shamburg, and when business became dull he ran a livery and sale stable in Titusville for some years. Later, Bullion, Red Rock and Bradford fields were tried, when he returned to Springboro and engaged in the nursery stock business on his own account, and has for years past continued in that business, having in the meantime built a fine residence at Springboro. On said premises and upon his farm is kept a good stock of horses, and among the fleetest, over which he takes as much pleasure in pulling the reins as he did in his boyhood days stepping on the wings of the gander.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
A. C. MARTINDALE.
HE SUBJECT of this sketch is more than an ordinary man. Mr. Martin- dale first came to our notice in 1850, at Albion, near where he purchased 100 acres of land. He engaged in boating on the Erie & Pittsburg Canal in the coal trade from Sharon and elsewhere to Erie, Pa.
In the winter of 1854-5 Mr. Mar- tindale contracted to furnish Andrew Hofsies, of Erie, a large quantity of propeller steamboat wood, to be delivered on the Public Dock at Erie the follow-
ing summer. He proceeded with his usual native goahead- ativeness to the work; a gang of wood choppers were set to work in his woods, while he and others with oxen and sleds were engaged in hauling the wood to the birm side of the canal at Jackson's, near Albion, about a mile distant from the woods. Mr. Martindale drove a large yoke of cattle, and the man who hauled as much wood as he from daylight until dark had something to do. Before springtime he had hundreds of cords of the best kind of beech and maple wood, cut four feet long, piled up on the bank of the canal ready for shipment on the opening of navigation.
There was lots of hard work in this wood business and not as much money as there should have been, but Martin dale made it pay, anyhow, by doing a good share of the work himself. During six or eight months of the year he would skip the shoemaker and ask no odds of his sole
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leather or uppers on his feet. He could chase a mink or a coon through the woods or through thistle and brier patches barefooted, as unerringly and with all the avidity of a hound after a deer. When Abe Martindale started out after a mink or a coon, with his dog and axe, they were his meat, sure.
Well Abe, like Davy Crockett, liked recreation, and on off business days you could see him circulating around his neighbor's premises, four or five miles off, inspecting their crop of rabbits, mink and coon, and he would be sure to carry some of them home at night, as trophies of the day. He was unpretentious, generally minding his own business, a good talker, and a hard worker. He did not wait for a golden opportunity to turn up, but he set to work and turned up something. This was his nature.
In the vicinity where Mr. Martindale lived there was a good deal of beech timber in the forest and many beech nuts grew upon the trees. Abe conceived the idea that hogs could be wintered cheaply on beech nuts, and he soon became the owner of several hundred hogs. These porkers began to help their owner 'turn up something,' and it came to pass that these rooters began to plow his neighbor's land at rather an unpropitious time of the year. Mr. Martindale, however, was not the man to trespass upon his neighbor, and generally kept a vigilant eye upon his drove, and when he found his pigs were going for his neighbor's angle worms he took them away, and when the shack season was over, and these beech nuts had propagated scions (young beech trees) corn planting time came on, acres of corn were planted, and when the corn had formed a stalk, yet uneared, loads of it were cut for the pigs, which was devoured with a relish, stalk, silk, leaf and tassel. They must have something to fill even up so they could breathe a healthy hog grunt.
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it is too expensive in Pennsylvania to make a grunting hog fat on solid corn, and Abe knew this as well as any one, and he emerged from the hog business smilling. Presently you see upon his farm six or eight hundred sheep; and he gave the sheep, lamb, mutton and wool business a thorough test. He did nothing by the halves ; whatever he engaged in, he threw his whole soul into the business, and when the time came for a change he was on deck for a shift.
Next we see him stocking up his farm with horses- colts principally. Later, Mr. Martindale being aware that there were many abandoned farms in the oil region, Pitt- hole and vicinity, there you see him with fifty or sixty cows, engaged in selling the lacteal Huid, also butter and buttermilk, to the denizens of Oil City and Titusville. And yet later, he engaged in manufacturing lumber near Titusville. During the past few years he has bought addi- tions to his farm near Albion, which now comprises several hundred acres of good land.
We find him now quietly engaged upon his farm in the poultry business, with nearly a thousand chicks. He pro- poses to be second to none in his region in the ben fruit business. Success to you. Abe.
It makes no difference whether he wants to go sho F or bare-footed a portion of the year, his imprints are his own. and he has made his mark on more than one landscape. Always industrious, genial and apparently happy, rendering unto Cæsar the things that are his, and, for aught we know, unto God the things that are his; and the people in his neighborhood will know that Abe Martindale lives among them to be congratulated.
As he marches down the hillside of life, Through past scenes of varied strife; And with his rifle, wad or leaden bullets. From his dunghill can shoot his pullets.
CHAPTER LXXXVII.
LEXINGTON.
TS NAME derived from Revoluicnary fame, was settled in 18-, by people from New York and the New Eng- land States, in ' whose veins coursed the blood of their sires of Lexington of old.
Among its earlier settlers were Elijah Dury Johnson, Ray S. Silverthorn, - Rattibone, Judge Miles, Mathew Anderson, Sanford Salisbury, Eber Holbrook. Simeon Knight, Philip Bristol (a pioneer school teacher at Lexington), Peter Holbrook, John Hay, Robert Large, Samuel and Cornelius Ball, Cook, William and Daniel Sawdy, Seth Devore, - Strong, Hymenius and Zedock Smith, and others.
These early settlers of Girard and Lexington, as else- where, had to undergo their trials and privations in early life, but they rose equal to the occasion.
They wisely chose and settled upon one of the most favored spots of earth-a prolific soil, excellent water and timber, throughout Girard, Fairview and Millcreek. A healthy climate, exceedingly so, according to Dan Rice's version of it, who said he lived in the healthiest place in the world; there were no deaths among the early settlers for forty years, and then they had to send off forty miles to buy
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a corpse to start a burying ground. But this is Dan's way of putting it.
Thrilling scenes and incidents happened among the pio- neers. Two girls, Jane and Elizabeth Hanna, while on their way to school, when at Crooked Creek, saw a couple of black, curly puppies, near the stream. They took after the little beauties and gave them a lively chase. Presently the pups started to climb a tree and one of them fell back to the ground. The girls caught it, and it instantly gave a startling ery, and the mother of the cubs came growling after them. The girls had found more than they bargained for. They ran to the school house, considering themselves quite fortunate in getting off without the prize.
Such like and other causes had a tendency to make some of the stalwart boys and girls tardy, late at school, and the school master said that he would have to punish the scholar who should be ten minutes late at school, with out a sufficient reason from the parent. One Ame Ball, who was noted for his inflation of matters and things in general, came into school one morning late and puffing. The teacher said :
"What made you so late, Ball ?"
Ball-"'Chased by a bear."
Teacher-"Where ? "
Ball-"Down near the creek."
Teacher-"How big was the bear ? " Ball-"Big as that yearlin' out there." Teacher -- "How long was his tail ? " Ball-"Oh, God; long as my arm."
21
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"Teacher -- That bear's tail was too long; you may stand up here." Then a good dose of beech oil was administered to him for his tardiness and his long bear "tale."
Captain David Sawdy settled in Lexington in 1814. He was a sea captain and owned the ship Nancy Belle. At the commencement of the War of 1812 he sailed to Sweden and loaded his ship with Swedish iron and steel, which would have yielded him immense profits had he reached American shores with it. But fate was against him. As he was off the coast of Scotland his ship sprung a leak and he was compelled to put into the port of Glasgow for repairs.
The authorities there took advantage of his situation, seized his ship and cargo, imprisoned the captain and crew, confiscated his property and left him penniless.
Being released in the course of a year he made his way to Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with a Quaker lady whom he married, and she furnished him money to buy 300 acres of land and to build a store and blacksmith shop, which place he named Lexington. In 1836 he was cleeted to the Legislature, where he served his constituents well. Returning to Lexington he settled upon his farm, where he spent the most of his time quietly until death.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
S. SALISBURY.
ANFORD and his wife, Sarah Salisbury, emi- grated from Cortland County, N. Y., in 1824, and settled upon land about one mile northeast of Lockport, Pa., where, in due course of time, the timber was cleared off and a good farm opened for cultivation. and a saw mill erected on the place. Like other early settlers in a primeval forest, they had to hew their way. Their family consisted of eleven children, seven boys and four girls.
Sanford Salisbury, though a quiet man and a good farmer, possessed a rare mechanical genius, which was developed in the family, especially Henry, Darius, Tracy and Lawrence. Some incidents in the life of his eldest son Henry we might mention. When a youth of sixteen years, a neighbor (Mr. Sherman) had a water power saw mill that did not run to his satisfaction, whereupon the boy, Henry, told Mr. Sherman that he could rig his mill to run much better. The owner, somewhat skeptical however, set the boy to work, when in a short space of time that saw mill danced a much livelier gait.
Soon after he went to Hancock, N. Y., where he built a mill on the Deleware River, at which place he married and later returned to Lockport, where he improved and in vented machinery for Ezekiel Page, in his large oar factory; and later, assisted by his brother Tracy, built the first oar blading machine and improved oar turning lathe, used at
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Albion, Pa .. Richmond and Edgerton, Ohio, at which latter place, in company with Wm. Webb, of New York, and Henry E. Salisbury, they done a large business in the manufacture of oars. Having passed through former diffi- culties, and when in the height of a prosperous and a future prospective business, his wife died, and a few months later he followed her.
Sanford Salisbury and sons, Henry, James and Darius, built and run one of the first canal boats on the Erie & Pittsburg Canal. And, later, he and his son James built and sold the first revolving wooden horse hay rake used in the country, which are still in use and have proved to be one of the best labor-saving implements, for its cost, ever invented. Messrs. Cook and Salisbury sold many of them.
James went to Kansas in an early day, Where he found an elephant in the way, He found a Lecompton and a Topeka constitution, One for, the other against a slavery institution.
However, he built a cabin on his land, And went to work with a willing hand; When he was ordered to get up and go, "No," said Jim, "that I will never do.
I have as good a right to Kansas land As you. border ruffians, or any other man: On the soil of Kansas I'm going to make my home, Whomsoever else may come."
Time passed on, mid trials and tribulation, While some left their places of destination; When the breeze kieked up by John Brown's caper Gave to Kansas an anti-slavery legislature.
Thrilling scenes there enacted, and in other places When in '60 pro-slavery kicked clear out of its traces. Lineoln being elected, he sailed the ship aright, But during his voyage he had an ungodly fight!
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Early in '65, when peace was echoed through the land, The great Lincoln, eut down by the assassin's hand, Shocked many millions for the spell
His tragie death by a demoniac of hell.
The people of Kansas having been loyal to themselves and to their country, they now enjoy a common heritage of a free State, free schools, under a system second to none in the Union, and has made greater advancement than per- haps any other State in the same space of time.
James P. Salisbury, I understand, introduced the first mowing machine into Kansas, which he used in cutting large quantities of hay, for which Fort Leavenworth fur- nished an excellent market in the early settlement of Kan- sas, it being the great station for the overland wagon trains to purchase their outfit.
He was captain of a military company to aid in driv- ing General Price from their borders; afterwards elected to the State Senate. Having acquired a competency for old age, he quietly resides on his farm, near Leavenworth.
Darius, third son of Sanford and Sally Salisbury, re- moved to Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1855 and purchased eighty acres of land, containing some twenty acres of up- land, the remainder being hillsides and flat land, with the Ashtabula Creek running through it. on which was consid- erable timber on the hillsides and bottom lands and an un- known quantity of stone in the creek bed, and a mountain- ous, circuitons hill to climb up and down, long and steep enough to tire a greyhound in making one round trip up and down this declivity.
Darius being Inred on in the belief that there was great value to be derived in a future day from the timber and stone, he built a saw-mill to cut a portion of said timber
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into lumber, which was done in time, perhaps, with some profit for the few years that the mill stood, and with a great deal of hard work. But afterwards, every cord of wood and every cord of stone that he got out of that hell- hole cost him more than he got for it. He being a good mechanic his two hands, most anywhere out on God's do- main, would have netted him more than any team and wagon hauling wood and stone out of that gulf of Charybdis. Though he was a man of small stature, he stood up heroically battling with the logs and rocks, his farm work intermixed with other arduous work on that place and vicinity for nearly thirty years of incessant toil. When. through over over work and exhaustion, he took to his bed he was the most patient sufferer for six months I ever saw. when he peacefully passed away.
As he toiled o'er life's rugged way Characteristically he looked for a better day; Patiently, heroically, he lingered on, Awaiting his departure to the great beyond.
Tracy, the mechanic, is at Ashtabula, and working in different parts of Ohio. Albert and Lawrence live in Albion, Erie County, Pa., the former as a gardener prin- cipally. Though a natural mechanic, he was prevented from striking out in any particular line on account of poor health for many years of his early life.
Lawrence, after leaving the farm to go to where the family had removed in Williams County, Ohio, returned to Albion and went to work for James Van Sickle, who fur- nished him a kit of tinner's tools with which to make eups. basins, tin pans, sap buckets, and to roof buildings. On the evening of the first day's service he came out a full- fledged tinner. He continued his tinsmithing at good
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wages for several years and then struck out for himself and for the past twenty years he and his sons have dispensed the tin and hardware business in all its varieties. Some years ago his former employer removed from Albion, leav- ing to Lawrence clear sailing "alone to his glory."
Diana, the eldest daughter, died at the old homestead in 1850, aged 22.
Malvina married the writer of this sketch in 1854, with whom she now lives at Ashtabula, Ohio.
Maria married William Keyes, with whom she was living in 1874 in Wisconsin at the time of her death.
Eliza R. Salisbury, the youngest daughter, lives near Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has spent the greater por- tion of her life.
Cyrus, the second youngest boy, in 1864 served nearly a year in the army, up to the close of the war. He died on the farm in Williams County, Ohio, a year afterwards.
Sanford Salisbury. the father, died in Williams County, Ohio, at an advanced age.
Sally Salisbury, the mother, died in Albion, Pa., in 1885, whither she had removed from Williams County. Ohio, after the death of her husband and son, in the full enjoyment of all her faculties up to the closing drama of an exemplary Christian life, beloved by all who knew her.
A kind word she had for all with a good cheer, Withholds for us her memory dear;
A gleam of sunshine flit o'er her radiant face, Always betokening a Christian grace.
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
LOCKPORT-CRANESVILLE-ALBION-GIRARD -- ACROSS LAKE ERIE IN A CANOE.
ACOB COFFMAN was the first settler in Lockport, having removed from Somerset County, Pa., in 1806 to Lockport, where he settled on lands near the present site of the village. He raised quite a large family, and was grandfather to the present race of Coffinans, now resi- dents of Lockport.
Some of the early settlers and business men were Wm. Tyler, Wm. Aldrich, Mr. Leech, Sidney Sawdy, Eli Sawdy; and at the time of building the locks of the Erie & Pittsburg Canal, 1840- 43. Messrs. Baldwin, Himrod & Co. were prominent figures in trade, when they had scores of teams with sleds from all parts of the country hauling stones in winter from a quarry about three miles east of the place, to be used in building the Lockport loeks. Money didn't make the mare go in those days in Lockport near as much as did " Blue Crackee," a serip generally used by that firm to pay off the teamsters and quarry men. Occasionally you could discount a crackee to get 25 cents to pay postage on a letter, or such like; but the inevitable erackee was the legal tender for labor, dry goods and provisions, or to pay the " boot " in a cow, colt, or horse trade.
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