Champaign County, Ohio - The whole text, 1881 (part 6 of 32)

The reports carried back, from time to time, of the mildness of the climate, fertility of the soil, the abundance of game and future prospects of the country, soon turned a tide of emigration to the new El Dorado. Many of the early settlers came originally from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, but many of them moved directly from Kentucky to Ohio. These pioneers of civilization and their immediate descendants braved the dangers of a comparatively unknown region, and endured the toils and trials unavoidably incident to a country totally without improvement. The present generation knows little or nothing of what it costs in time, in patient endurance and in deprivation of every comfort, to change the wilderness into a fruitful field, and to lay broad and sure the foundations of the prosperity that crowns the State of Ohio to-day.'

The population of the Northwest Territory increased so rapidly and to such an extent that before the close of 1798 it contained 5,000 free male inhabitants, of full age, and eight organized counties - this being the requisite condition, under the ordinance of 1787, to entitle the people to elect Representatives to a Territorial Legislature, and on the 24th day of September, 1799, the two Legislative Houses were organized.

On the 30th day of April, 1802, an act of Congress was passed authorizing the call of a convention to form a State Constitution, which convention met at Chillicothe on the 1st day of November next following. On the 29th of the same month, a Constitution for State Government was ratified and signed by the members of the convention. It was not referred to the people for their approval, but became the fundamental law of the State by the act of the convention, and by this act, Ohio became one of the States in the Federal Union.

The first General Assembly, under the State Constitution, met at Chillicothe March 1, 1803, and, among other acts, created eight new counties, among which were Greene and Franklin. Champaign County was formed out of these in March, 1805.

By the act of the Legislature, passed February 20, 1805, the boundaries of the county were described as follows : " Beginning where the line between the eighth and ninth ranges, between the Great and Little Miami Rivers, intersects the eastern boundary of the county of Montgomery ; thence east to the eastern boundary of the county of Greene, and to continue six miles, into the county of Franklin ; north to the State line ; thence west with said line until it intersects the said eastern boundary of the county of Montgomery ; thence to the place of beginning."

In the year 1817, Logan County, on the north, and Clarke, on the south, were established, and reduced Champaign to its present limits. From Howe's " History of Ohio " we learn that prior to the act of the Legislature defining the boundaries of Champaign, the first court for the then county of Greene, which, with Franklin, included Clarke, and extended to the lake, was held in a log house, containing but one room, built by Benjamin Whiteman, five and one-half miles west of Xenia, near the Dayton road. On the 10th of May, 1803, the court for organizing Greene County was held in this log cabin, then the residence of Peter Borders. The first business of the court was to lay off the county into townships, and, after being in session one day, it adjourned for the trial of causes at the same place, August 2, 1803. One of the grand jurors was Joseph C. Vance, who afterward took an active interest in the settlement of Champaign County proper. The Judge having given his " charge" to the jury, "they retired out of the court " to a small hut a short distance off to make solemn inquest of crimes committed. The records do not show there was any business for the grand jury when they retired, but they were not long permitted to be idle. It was characteristic of the times that personal disputes and difficulties be settled "by combat," and, as courage and strength were common, personal encounters were the rule. Black eyes and bruised faces not infrequently closed quarrels and "gave satisfaction."

Among the incidents of the day, it is narrated that Owen Davis, the owner of a mill hard by, charged some one with stealing hogs. The insult was resented, and a fight was engaged in at once, in which Davis came off victor. He then went into court, and, addressing himself particularly to Benjamin Whiteman,, one of the Associate Judges, said, "Well, Ben, I've whipped that d - d horsethief - what's to pay ? " and threw down on the table a buckskin purse containing $8 or $10, from which "pay" was to be taken, and added, for the benefit of His Honor, " Yes, Ben, and if you'd steal a hog, d - n you, I'd whip* you too."

The grand jury examined seventeen witnesses, and found nine bills of indictment - all for affrays committed after the court was organized. All partiesengaged pleaded guilty and were fined, Davis' share in the transactions of the day costing him $8. The incident is characteristic of the times, and illustratessubordination to the civil authority, while exercising the right to settle private disputes in their own way, without the "law's delay." Joseph C. Vance, one of the grand jurors at the court named, was an expert surveyor and " laid out " the town of Xenia. When Champaign was partitioned from Greene and Franklin, he removed to Champaign, and, in his capacity as surveyor, laid out the town of Urbana, and was appointed the first Clerk of the Court for the new county.

By the third section of the act which fixed the limits of the county, the house of George Fithian, in Springfield, was made the temporary seat of justice, at which place the first term of the Court of Common Pleas was held. The officers of the court were Francis Dunlevy, President Judge; John Reynolds, Samuel McCullough and John Runyan, Associate Judges ; Arthur St. Clair, Prosecuting Attorney; John Dougherty, Sheriff; Joseph C. Vance, Clerk. The first grand jury was composed of Joseph Layton, Adam McPherson, Jonathan Daniels, John Humphreys, John Reed, Daniel McKinnon, Thomas Davis, William Powell, Justis Jones, Christopher Wood, Caleb Carter, William Chapman, John Clark, John Lafferty, Robert Rennick. Among the first petit jurors were Paul Huston, Charles Rector, Jacob Minturn, James Reed, James Bishop and Abel Crawford.

At the May term of 1809, the names of Frederick Ambrose, Simon Kenton and John Guthridge appear in the panel of grand jurors. Edward W. Pearce was a resident attorney, and supposed to have been the first. Moses B. Corwin, Henry Bacon and James Cooley were among the early attorneys. Most of these men were conspicuous in the future growth of the county, and the descendants of many of them may be still recognized in the politics and industries of the county.

The first trial at the first term of the court, September, 1805, was the case of the State against one Taylor for threatening to burn the barn of Griffith Foos, of Springfield. At the first session of the Supreme Court, held in 1805, the Judges were Samuel Huntington, Chief Justice, and William Sprigg and Daniel Symmes, Associate Judges. The first case tried was the State against Isaac Bracken, Archibald Dowden and Robert Rennick, for assault on an Indian named Kanawa Tuckow. The defendants pleading "not guilty," and taking issue " for plea, put themselves upon God and their country." The jury was composed of William McDonald, Sampson Talbott, Justis Jones, George Croft and others, and the accused were defended by Joshua Collett, who afterward was one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. The merits of the case are not recorded, but the fact that at that day an Indian could seek for redressof grievances before the Supreme Court shows that his white neighbors were willing to do him justice. The defendants were acquitted. Since that date, not only the Supreme Court of Ohio has taken a step forward in the trial of causes, but the Indian is an anomaly - neither a person nor a chattel !

Col. William Ward, who held a patent for Section 28, laid out, the same year, the town, which he called Urbana, Joseph C. Vance being surveyor. A square in the center of the town was donated for public uses. In the mean time, a log house on Lot No. 174, on East Court street, was made the seat of justice, and used as a court house until 1814, when a brick building was erected in the center of the public square. The lot was afterward the property and residence of Mr. Duncan McDonald, and to-day is occupied by the extensive livery stable of Mr. Samuel H. Marvin.

In the first year, also, the county was subdivided into Springfield, Salem and Madison Townships, which continued, with other subdivisions, until 1817, when Clarke and Logan Counties were organized. The other subdivisions were

Bethel and Zane, in 1806 ; Harmony, 1807 ; Union, 1810 ; Moorfield, Concord, Wayne, Urbana and Lake, 1811 ; Pleasant, German and Boston, 1812; Jefferson, 1818; Miami, 1814; Goshen, Jackson and Harrison in 1815, and Pike in 1816. The present boundaries of the county were established in 1817, making, from the townships then created, Johnson in 1821, Adams in 1827, and Rush in 1828 - in all, the twelve townships which now comprise the county. The township of Boston, now in Clarke County, contained the site of an Indian village called Piqua, and claimed to have been the birthplace of Tecumseh. Some log cabins were built, and the place called Boston, with the expectation of building up a town ; but the cabins have disappeared and the sloping hill is covered with a growth of Indian corn.

Champaign County lies on the fortieth parallel of latitude, south of the middle of the west half of the State. It is bounded on the north by Logan and Union Counties, on the east by Union and Madison, on the south by Clarke, and on the west by Miami and Shelby. The boundaries are, for the most part, sectional lines. The general shape is that of a rectangle, about twenty-three miles in length, east and west, by an average width of fifteen and one-half miles, north and south, including an area of 356 J square miles, or 228,160 acres.

The name is significant of the general character of the country. In a few places in the county it is hilly, with occasional undulations or rolling hills ; but as a whole the surface is level, covered at an early day with timber, and made up of plains and prairies. The county is well watered and drained by permanent streams. The greater part is drained by Mad River, which rises among the hills in the eastern portion of Logan, and, crossing the northern line of Champaign, at nearly the middle point, flows, in almost a straight course, southward, crossing the southern boundary at a point about two miles further west than the point of crossing the northern boundary. The' stream is ordinarily a quiet-running creek, where boys cast their hooks for sunfish and minnows ; but occasionally, after heavy rains, it rises suddenly, and, with a mad and foaming current, overtops its banks and asserts the propriety of its name. The settlement and drainage of the country have diminished the volume of water and the full flow, which at the first characterized all the water-courses of the country ; yet its tributaries keep a steady supply, and numerous flouring-mills and millsites mark its banks.

Mack-a-cheek, the Indian name for the Indian towns of that locality, risingin Logan County, flows almost parallel with Mad River for several miles, and makes a junction with the latter about a mile below the northern line of Concord Township.

King's Creek, which is understood to have taken its name from the death of an unknown Indian, who was killed on the banks of the stream, not far from where Kingston stands, and whose appearance gave indications of being a chief - rises in the northeastern part of the county, two miles southward from Mack-a-cheek, and flows about one and a half miles north of the middle of the county.

The eastern edge of the county, through the Darby and smaller tributaries, drains into the Scioto on the east, and the waters of a still narrower strip, on the western border, flow into the smaller branches of the Great Miami. The largest tributaries of Mad River on the west are Glady, Muddy, Nettle and Spring Creeks, which, with their innumerable branches, cover Harrison, Concord and Mad River Townships with a net-work of smaller streams. The southeastern townships drain into Buck Creek, which, though rising in Madison County, flows across the southeast corner of Champaign into Clarke County, emptying into Mad River.

The general form of the surface of the county is that of a broad, shallow trough, lying north and south, Mad River flowing through the middle, draining the main body of the land, while the edges shed their waters eastward to the Scioto and westward to the Miami. The western border is table-land, cut by tributaries of the Mad River and Miami. In the southeast, prairie predomi- , nates, and the highest and roughest lands are found in Wayne and Rush Townships.

Sugar, beech, oak and hickory give character to the forest. In the northwestern townships and Mad River bottoms, formerly poplar trees, in great numbers, abounded, which have been almost exterminated, and, from the demands for black walnut for distant markets, this timber is also being rapidly destroyed. The white cedar of the swamps and the red cedar of the hills are the only conifers native to the county. In the southeast part of Mad River Township is a large tract known as the " Cedar Swamp," once a favorite resort for botanists and others on holiday excursions. The tangled brakes and the treacherous ground are being changed by a system of drainage, and the indications are that in a few years the last vestige of the cedar, like the poplar and walnut, will be destroyed.

The wealth of the county consists in the productive capacity of its soil. Grass and grain are grown with equal facility and abundance, and have given to the county a mixed husbandry, to be found successfully employed on almost every farm. Statistics, to be hereafter given, will indicate the variety of products and the fatness of the soil.

Early Condition And Progress

Prior to the settlement of the county by the whites, the Indians had undisputed possession, and Champaign was the common hunting-ground of the Ottawas, Shawnees, Wyandots, Senecas and other tribes, many of whom, long after farms had been opened, made their annual visits to their former haunts. On the waters of the creeks, farmers still point out the places of wigwams of Tecumseh, Capt. Lewis, Capt. Johnny, Cornstalk, Logan, Molunkee, La-wil-a-pie, Capt. Gray Eyes, Dr. John, Big Turtle, Little Turtle, Jocco, Beattise, Lumpon-the-Head and others, some of whom took a conspicuous part in subsequent troubles. A white woman, called Mollie Kiser, who had been captured in childhood, usually accompanied some of them in their trading expeditions, and was said to be a most excellent interpreter. The first settlement followed up the water-courses, for the same reasons, probably, that led the Indians along the same course. In the valleys and along the water-courses, were to be found their favorite hunting-grounds. Portions of the county were a dense forest, while other parts, other than the low, flat prairies, were clear of trees, excepting occasionally a clump of jack-oaks. These were called " the barrens," and were found in various parts of the county. Some of them have since been covered

a growth of black and red oaks, which in turn are dying out, and, if not molested, will probably make way for some other species of timber. The timbered lands in the vicinity of the streams were in many places wet and marshy, and the woods abounded in ponds. Cooper, in his Leather Stocking Tales, gives currency to the thought that the treeless portions of the country were " cursed " and barren, and the notion prevailed to a considerable extent that these places were unproductive, a notion confirmed to a degree by the peaty character of the soil in the low prairies. A wide extent of these comparatively dry and untimbered lands was found in Salem, the eastern portion of Urbana and the southern section of Union Township. In Salem, the land still is known as a the barrens," but is to-day considered by resident farmers as comprising the garden spot of the county. The " settling-up " and cultivation of the country interfered with the annual burnings of the grass, a common practice both with the Indians and the first settlers. This practice kept down the growth of young timber, which took a vigorous growth as soon as the fires ceased to be kindled, which, with the second growth of timber where trees had been removed or prostrated by storms, was called the " fallen timber." Mr. Abram Powell, one of the early residents of Champaign, thinks there is now more timber in the county than there was in 1805. Judge William Patrick, no mean authority on all questions of fact from that day to this, is of opinion that the forests have been materially diminished.

It is in dispute whether Pierre Dugan or William Owens was the first settler. Dugan was a Canadian Frenchman, who adopted a savage life, married a squaw, and followed hunting and trading. He lived in a cabin at the head of the prairie, still called " Dugan," not far from the homestead of the late James Long. He is known to have lived there prior to 1800. William Owens settled in Mad River Township in the year 1797, on what was afterward known as Qwen's Creek, about two miles south of where Westville now stands. The farm on which the late Henry Blose lived comprised most of his lands. Capt. Abner Barrett settled on what is known as Ruffin's Ridge, but subsequently moved to a cabin in Union Township, on the ridge bordering the lower section of Dugan Prairie, the corner of his land being within a few rods of the Ludlow line. The farm now belongs to and is occupied by James Young. The Captain was a tall, active and muscular man, with a stentorian voice, and was fond of telling the fright given to a six-foot Kentuckian, who had stopped with him for the night, by the unexpected entrance of Tecumseh, who, seeing the man's fears, patted him encouragingly on the shoulder, calling him a big baby. Later in life, he was injured in one leg by an accident in crossing a frozen stream, which compelled him to walk with a crutch or cane. He was an early riser, and his voice might have been heard any morning calling the hired hands and boys to work. The home of the Captain overlooked the stretch of beautiful prairie in which the town of Mutual is built. Along this prairie, and near and south of the town, John Runyon, John Lafferty, Jacob Minturn and Justis Jones settled, and not long after Henry and Jacob Van-Meter, Nathaniel Cartmill, Benjamin and William Cheney and William McLain settled farther down the valley, then and still called Buck Creek, near what is now Catawba, a station on the railroad connecting Springfield and Columbus. Parker Sullivan, John Pence, John Taylor, Nathan Fitch, Jacob Pence, Ezekiel Arrowsmith and William Kenton, a brother of Simon Kenton, settled along Mad River, west and northwest of Urbana. John Reynolds settled in the western part of Mad River Township about the year 1803. He afterward removed to Urbana, and for many years took an active part in all public enterprises and whatever concerned the interest and prosperity of the town and county. He early saw the importance of drainage, and to him is chiefly owing the construction of the water-course known as the " Dugan Ditch," wdiich drains the middle and upper portions of Dugan, by a circuitous route, now through the western section of the city, then far beyond the city limits, into a branch known as Deer Creek. Mr. Reynolds built the first frame house in Urbana, on the corner of what is now the Weaver House. He afterward built the frame building in the southeast side of the public square, now occupied as a photograph-room and grocery store, in which he lived, and built on the west and adjoining to the same, a brick house on the corner, which he used for a store. This house has been greatly enlarged and improved, and now occupied by Messrs. Hitt, White & Mitchell.

Jacob Johnson and Matthew Stewart settled on King's Creek, and Arthur Thomas about four miles north of Urbana. The latter, who was a Captain in the war of 1812, was ordered, with his company, to guard the public store at Fort Findlay. On his return, having lost his horses, he and his son separated from the rest of the company to hunt for them. They encamped at the Big Spring, near Solomonstown, about five miles north of Bellefontaine, and the next morning were found killed and scalped. Their bodies were brought to Urbana by a deputation of citizens.

John Thomas settled about three miles south of Urbana, about where Mrs. Newell now lives, and had, a distillery up the creek, between where the Newell and Donavan houses now stand. At this date it is impossible to obtain the names of all who settled in the county prior to 1805. Besides those already named were Felix Rock, John Logan, John Owen, John Dawson, John Guthridge, Jonathan Long, Bennet Taber, Nathan Fitch, Robert Norse, Jacob Pence and others.

The town, as was before stated, was laid out in 1805. The first house erected was a log cabin built by Thomas Pearce, on Market space, immediately north of what was once the old market house, now the city hall building, and east of South Main street. This cabin was built before the town was laid out. He was the father of Mr. Harvey Pearce, of Urbana, who, in an active and vigorous old age, still manages the labor on a large farm. He afterward built a cabin on the knoll, about three hundred yards east of East Lawn street, which was subsequently used as a schoolhouse, being the first school, and taught by Peter Oliver and William Stephens. Hard by, Mr. Pearce cultivated a cornfield many years, which subsequently contained a race-track, where horses were shown and scrub-races run.

Among the first settlers of the village were Joseph C. Vance, George Fithian, Samuel McCord, Zephaniah Luse, William H. Fyffe, William and John Glenn, Frederick Ambrose, John Reynolds, Simon Kenton, Edward W. Pearce. Shortly after, were Anthony Patrick, William McDonald, John Hurd, James Dunlap, Daniel Helmick, John Miller, Henry Weaver, Bethuel Sample, Adam Mosgrove, .Joseph Carter, William Smith and the Bells, who were distinguished, one from the other, by their several occupations.

As this distance of time from the early settlement of the town and county, it is difficult to fix the line indicating when the pioneer settlement ceased to be such and a new order prevailed. The Pioneer Association recognize and accept as members all who are over fifty years of age, resident of the county. This, under existing circumstances, is well enough ; but if the rule be carried forward from year to year, that which is now considered the distinguishing feature of the pioneer or old settler - that is, the settlement of the primeval country and preparing it for the civilization of to-day - is totally lost sight of. The association is called by a misnomer, and becomes, instead, an historical society, for the collection of incidents and. current history during the lifetime of its members. If an arbitrary line were to be drawn, it would range somewhere about the time when the invention and use of machinery in the workshop and on the farm separates the two periods. Making this the dividing line brings it down to a comparatively recent date ; yet it has been only within the past forty years that the marked and material changes have been made. Taking the pioneer rule as the test, it will include the names of many who cast their lot with the " unfenced " village and country - who, by their talents and labors, have materially contributed to make them what they are. Among thesd in the town may be named James Cooley, John H. James, Israel Hamilton, John McCord, Joseph White, Lewis Crain, William C. Keller, Henry Weaver and others who may hereafter be mentioned in the sketch of Urbana in its earlier days, and the names of Edward L. Morgan, Ezra Read, Joel Reed, Charles Lincoln, Anson Howard, Simon Earsom, John Earsom, Solomon Yause, Absalom Eox and many others, who located in the country and opened up the farms. These men and the sons of those who located prior to the war of 1812 were co-workers.

If a criticism were made of the character of the people of that generation and of that which preceded it, the common verdict would be that they were men and women of rare good sense, and with an utter contempt for all sham. There might occasionally be found a Roariny Ralph Stackpole , or a Hetty Gordon , delighted with her personal charms. These made the exception. Books and culture were, for the most part, limited to the clergy and lawyers, who were treated with a deference which the present day repudiates. Yet schools, at an early day, commanded general attention.

Rye and corn whisky was a common drink, and it was an almost universal practice "to treat." Men kept a bottle on the shelf or in the cupboard - yet delirium tremens was unknown. Both town and country taverns kept an open bar, where liquor was dispensed at retail, and public opinion had not pronounced so decidedly against the practice as in later days. It is commonly admitted that before chemistry had manipulated the "mash" with drugs, in order to produce the largest yield from a given amount of grain, or an article called whisky and other spirituous liquors were compounded in the laboratory of the chemist, or rather in the cellar or outbuilding of the manufacturer, from ingredients furnished by the druggist and town pump, the spirits then distilled were comparatively pure. There is no question that the drink would, and often did, intoxicate ; but it has been a mooted point whether drunkenness was as common then as now, and whether the country, in this respect, has not been going on from bad to worse. The best thing which can be said for the distilleries is that they afforded the best and almost the only market for the surplus grain, and usually paying several cents per bushel for corn more than could be obtained elsewhere. This advantage was offset by worse evils. So far as the producer was concerned, he always wanted a "little in the house," and the wagon-load of corn could be hauled back home in a jug ; and, with the best of whisky, the character of the crowd that congregated at the distillery showed the character of the business.

While Indian corn was the leading agricultural product, and for many years the main dependence of the settlers for bread, wheat was grown very early in the settlement of the country. Between 1803 and 1808, three grist-mills were started in the county on King's Creek, about a mile apart. These were a tubmill by Arthur Thomas, a tub-mill by Joseph Petty, and an overshot mill by John Taylor. Adam Kite also had an overshot mill on Mad River, where Parker Bryan's mill now is. To Kite's and Taylor's mills were attached saw-mills. In the same section of the county and on Nettle Creek, a little later, other tubmills were started. At this day, it is hardly necessary to describe an overshot mill, though in the changes which have been effected by the " turbine" wheel and steam, the " overshot " is being done away with, and probably will be as little known to the next generation as the tub-mill is to this. The " tub " was a simple modification of the overshot, the wheel, instead of turning on a shaft, moved by the overshot of water from the head race into troughs or buckets constructed in the circumference of the wheel to which was geared the machinery for grinding, turned in a tub, horizontally, with a spindle placed vertically, the lower end of the spindle turning in a socket in the bottom of the tub, and the upper end in a cross-beam. The water was let into the tub by means of a sluice or mill-race, which, impinging against flanges or buckets in the rim of the wheel, turned the machine and found escape through an opening on the opposite side of the tub into a " tail-race." Midway between the tub and the cross-beam, the buhr-stones were placed, revolved by the motion of the wheel in the tub. In the earlier settlements, the mill-stones were manufactured out of the common limestone rock of the country, and not until years afterward were they displaced by the French buhr. In nothing are we more impressed with the singular adaptability of the people of that day to the stress of surrounding circumstances. A mechanical ingenuity supplied a remedy for almost every difficulty. It may have been, and probably was, rude and rough, and not to be compared with the finished article made and dressed by machinery, but it answered the purpose for which it was intended. We see this same inventive faculty and adaptability to the condition of things in the preparation and making of the clothing and other articles of domestic use. In grinding, the miller did not consider it always necessary to stay at the mill. The corn was placed in a box or hopper, carefully covered to protect it from the blue-jays and sap-suckers with which the country abounded, opened the sluiceway and went to his corn-field or elsewhere to work, to return about the time the grist was finished, and perhaps to find several at the mill, waiting their turn.

Early Manners And Customs

The young men and women of to-day have very little conception of the mode of life among the early settlers of the country. One can hardly conceive how great a change has taken place in so short a time. In no respect are the habits and manners of the people similar to those of sixty years ago. The clothing, the dwellings, the diet, the social customs, have undergone a total revolution, as though a new race had taken possession of the land.

In a new country, far removed from the conveniences of civilization, where all are compelled to build their own houses, make their own clothing, and procure for themselves the means of subsistence, it is to be expected that their dwellings and garments will be rude. These were matters controlled by surrounding circumstances and the means at their disposal. The earliest settlers constructed what were termed " three-faced camps," or, in other words, three walls, leaving one side open. They are described as follows : The walls were built about seven feet high, when poles were laid across at a distance of about three feet apart, and on these a roof of clapboards was laid, which were kept in place by weight poles placed on them. The clapboards were about four feet in length, and from eight inches to twelve inches in width, split out of white-oak timber. No floor was laid in the " camp." The structure required neither door, window nor chimney. The one side left out of the cabin answered all these purposes. In front of the open side was built a large log heap, which served for warmth in cold weather and for cooking purposes in all seasons. Of course there was an abundance of light, and, on either side of the fire, space to enter in and out. These " three-faced camps " were probably more easily constructed than the ordinary cabin, and was not the usual style of dwelling-house. The cabin was considered a material advance, for comfort and home life. This was, in almost every case, built of logs, the spaces between the logs being filled in with split sticks of wood, called " chinks," and then daubed over, both inside and outside, with mortar made of clay. The floor, sometimes, was nothing more than earth tramped hard and smooth, but commonly made of " puncheons" or split logs with the split side turned upward. The roof was made by drawing in the top, gradually to the ridge-pole, and, on cross-pieces, laying the " clapboards," which, being several feet in length, instead of being nailed, were held in place by poles reaching the length of the cabin, laid on them, called weightpoles. For a fire-place, a space was cut out of the logs on one side of the room, usually about six feet in length, and three sides were built up of logs, making an offset in the wall. This was lined with stone, if to be had conveniently, if not, then earth. The flue or upper part of the chimney, was built of small split sticks, two and a half or three feet in length, carried a little space above the roof and plastered over with clay, and, when finished, was called a " cat-and-clay chimney." The door space was also made by cutting an aperture in one side of the room of the required size, the door itself being made of clapboards secured by wooden pins to two cross-pieces. The hinges were also of wood, while the fastening consisted of a wooden latch catching on a hook of the same material. To open the door from the outside, a strip of buckskin was tied to the latch and drawn through a hole a few inches above the latch-bar, so that on pulling the string the latch was lifted from the catch or hook, and the door was opened without further trouble. To lock the door, it was only necessary to pull the string through the hole to the inside. Here the family lived, and here the guest and wayfarer were made welcome. The living-room was of good size, but to a large extent it was all - kitchen, bedroom, parlor and arsenal, with flitches of bacon and rings of dried pumpkin suspended from the rafters. In one corner were the loom and other implements used in the manufacture of clothing, and around the ample fire-place were collected the kitchen furniture. The clothing lined one side of the sleeping apartment, suspended from pegs driven in the logs. Hemp and flax were generally raised, and a few sheep kept. Out of these the clothing for the family and the sheets and coverlets were made by the females of the house. The country abounded with the weed called Spanish-needle, which seemed to grow everywhere and in immense quantities. Instances are given where this plant was pulled and treated precisely as flax, making a beautifully white and substantial goods. Over the door was placed the trusty rifle, and just back of it hung the powder-horn and hunting-pouch. In the well-to-do families, or when crowded on the ground floor, a loft was sometimes made to the cabin for a sleeping-place, and the storage of " traps " and articles not in common use. The loft was reached by a ladder secured to the Avail ; generally the " bed-rooms " were separated from the living-room by sheets and coverlets suspended from the rafters, but, until the means of making these partition walls were ample, they lived and slept in the same room* Rev. Hugh Price, in the former part of his ministry at Buck Creek, was sent by his synod as a missionary to one of the " waste places," where the people lived after this primitive fashion, used to give an amusing account of his embarrassment and the expedients he resorted to to get into the bed assigned to him in the presence of the family and a bright light from the fire-place filling the room. The morning ablutions were made at the trough near the spring, sometimes from a pewter basin on a stump near the door.

Familiarity with this mode of living did away with much of the discomfort, but as soon as the improvement could be made, there was added to the cabin an additional room, or a u double log cabin " was constructed, being substantially a " three-faced camp," with a log room on each end and containing a loft. The furniture in the cabin corresponded with the house itself. The articles used in the kitchen were as few and simple as can be imagined. A " Dutch oven" or skillet, a long-handled frying-pan, an iron pot or kettle, and sometimes a coffee-pot, constituted the utensils of the best-furnished kitchen. A little later, when a stone wall formed the base of the chimney, a long iron " crane " swung in the chimney-place, which on its " pot-hook " carried the boiling kettle or heaA^y iron pot. The cooking was all done on the fire-place and at the fire, and the style of cooking was as simple as the utensils. Indian or corn meal was the common flour, which was made into "pone," or " corn-dodger," or " hoe-cake," as occasion or variety demanded. The " pone " and the " dodger " were baked in the Dutch oven, which was first set on a bed of glowing coals. When the oven was filled with the dough, the lid, already heated on the fire, was placed on the oven and covered with hot embers and ashes. When the bread was done, it Avas taken from the oven and placed near the fire to keep warm while some other food was being prepared in the same oven for the forthcoming meal. The " hoe-cake " was prepared in the same way as the dodger - that is, a stiff dough was made of the meal and water, and, taking as much as could conveniently be held in both hands, it was molded into the desired shape by being tossed from hand to hand, then laid on a board or flat stone placed at an angle before the fire and patted down to the required thickness. In the fall and early winter, cooked pumpkin Avas added to the meal dough, giving a flavor and richness to the bread not attained by the modern methods. In the oven from which the bread Avas taken, the venison or ham Avas then fried, and, in the winter, lye-hominy, made from the unbroken grains of corn, added to the frugal meal. The woods abounded in honey, and of this the early settlers had an abundance the year round. For some years after settlements were made, the corn meal formed the staple commodity for bread.

Clothing

The clothing of the early pioneers was as plain and simple as their humble homes. Necessity compelled it to be in conformity to the strictest economy. The clothing taken to the new country was made to render a vast deal of service until a crop of flax or hemp could be grown-out of which to manufacture the household apparel. The prairie wolves made it difficult to take sheep into the settlements, but, after the sheep had been introduced and flax and hemp raised in sufficient quantities, it still remained an arduous task to spin, weave and make the wearing apparel for an entire family. In summer, nearly all persons, both male and female, went barefoot. Buckskin moccasins were commonly worn. Boys of twelve and fifteen years of age never thought of wearing anything on their feet, except during three or four months of the coldest weather in winter. Boots were unknown until a later generation. After flax was raised in sufficient quantities, and sheep could be protected from the waives, a better and more comfortable style of clothing prevailed. Flannel and linsey were woven and made into garments for the women and children, and jeans for the men. The wool for the jeans was colored from the bark of the walnut, and from this has come the term " butternut," still common throughout the West. The black-andwhite wool mixed varied the color, and gave the " pepper-and-salt " color. As a matter of course, every family did its own spinning, weaving and sewing, and for years all the wool had to be carded by hand on cards from four inches broad to eight to ten inches long. The picking of the wool and carding was work in which the little folks could help, and at the proper season all the little hands were enlisted in the business. Every household had its big and little spinningwheels, winding-blades, reel, warping-bars and loom. These articles were indispensable in every family. In many of the households of Champaign, stowed away in empty garrets and out-of-the-way places, may be still found some of these almost forgotten relics.

The spinning-wheels, and probably other articles connected with their use, were made as late as 1834, by Joseph Clark, who lived in the little frame house on the west side of Locust, near Court street, where, some years prior to the time stated, he did a thriving trade in this line. The preparations for the family clothing usually began in the early fall, and the work was continued on into the winter months, when the whir of the wheels and the regular stroke of the loom could be heard till a late hour of the night. No scene can well be imagined so abounding in contentment and domestic happiness. Strips of bark of the shellbark hickory, thrown from time to time in the ample fireplace, cast a ruddy, flickering light over the room. In one corner, within range of the reflected light, the father is cobbling a well-worn pair of shoes, or trying his skill at making new ones. Hard by, the younger ones are shelling corn for the next grist. The oldest daughter whirls the large spinning-wheel, and with its hum and whir trips to the far side of the room, drawing out the thread, while the mother, with the click of the shuttle and the measured thump of the loom, fills up the hours - the whole a scene of domestic industry and happiness rarely elsewhere to be found.

It is well for a Young America" to look back on these early days. It involved a life of toil, hardship and the lack of many comforts, but it was the life that made men of character. Champaign County to-day has no better men than the immediate descendants of those who built their cabins in the hazelbrush and by patient endurance wrought out of the wilderness the landmarks for a prosperous commonwealth. One of these writes that " the boys were required to do their share of the hard labor of clearing up the farm, for at the time the country now under the plow was in every direction heavily timbered or covered with a dense thicket of hazel and young timber. Our visits were made with ox teams, and we walked or rode on horseback or in wagons to 'meeting.' The boys 'pulled,' 'broke' and 'hackled' flax, wore tow shirts and indulged aristocratic feelings in fringed ' hunting-shirts ' and coon-skin caps ; ' picked '

Industry such as this, supported by an economy and frugality from which there was then no present escape, necessarily brought its own reward. The hard toil made men old before their time, but beneath their sturdy blows they saw not only the forest pass away, but the fields white with the grain. Change and alteration were to be expected, but the reality has distanced the wildest conjecture, and, stranger still, multitudes are still living who witnessed not only the face of nature undergoing a change about them, but the manners, customs and industries of a whole people almost totally changed.

Agriculture

In a preceding portion of this sketch we have given an outline of the 44 lay " of the county, taken mainly from the geological report issued by the State. By reference to that description of the county, the reader will readily infer that, although covering but a small area of territory, compared with other counties, few, if any, possess finer agricultural advantages. In the earlier settlement of this section, ponds, marshes and swamps abounded where to-day are found fertile and cultivated fields. The low and flat places were avoided for the higher grounds, not only on account of the wetness but for sanitary reasons. The proximity of a spring, also, had much to do with the location of the cabin ; but in the selection of places for the erection of other buildings, convenience was the ordinary test. The corn-crib, made of rails or poles, and covered with clapboards or prairie hay, as convenience suggested, was as apt to be in close proximity to the 44 front door" as at the rear of the building or near the stable. The latter was as primitive as the country. In the matter of stables and corncribs, very little improvement was made until long after material changes had been made in the dwellings, and we wonder, at this day, at the want of consideration shown not only in the general arrangement of these outbuildings, but of many things connected with the household work which now are considered of prime importance. Agricultural implements were, at the first, necessarily rude, and the agriculture of corresponding character. Even had such a matter been known, there was little need for 44 scientific" agriculture. The soil was new and productive. It was a question simply of home supply, and for many years the markets within reasonable distance scarcely repaid the labor of hauling. The methods and implements employed fully answered the purposes for which they were intended.

The first substantial inclosures were constructed of rails, in the form still used, called the 44 Virginia rail" or worm fence, in a new country, with abundance of timber, the cheapest, most substantial and durable fence that may be built. After the sod was broken, the ground was mellow and plowed with oxen. The plow in common use was a long wooden one, somewhat after the shape of the plow now in use, with an iron sole and point and an iron cutter. The immigrant brought his plow with him, but subsequently they were made by a man named Wesley Hughes, in Salem Township.

If the field was too full of stumps and roots, the mattock and hoe were required to do good service, and the field was planted to corn. The corn was dropped by hand - in which work the girls commonly took part - and was covered and cultivated with the hand-hoe. Many farmers as late as 1840 followed the same method. After that date, the horse-hoe or shovel-plow had begun to be used, and gradually worked its way into general use, to mark out the rows and cross-furrows for the " dropper " and to follow after to cover the seed ; and finally, with the two-shovel plow, or " double-shovel," drove the hand-hoe from the corn-field - the horse, with the changes in implements, superseding the ox. Invention has kept pace with the demand for better and improved machinery. After the lapse of eighty or one hundred years, the science of corn-raising - that is to produce the maximum yield per acre at the least expense - is still in its infancy. Though great changes have been made in modes of planting and culture and in the style of the implements used, it is questionable whether larger corn crops are raised than were produced fifty or sixty years ago. Mathematically, the "breaking," or "bar-shear" plow, is perfect. Preferences are made for different manufactures, but the preference arises mainly from use in a soil for which a plow may be specially adapted. The future will probably show material changes in methods, rather than in the form of the machinery. The past ten years have made great changes in both respects. To-day, save in the " cutting," " shocking " and " husking," the use of machinery enters into every process. Invention has come to the help of the farmer, as it has come to all other industries, and lifted from his life the drudgery of toil; yet it is a matter for surprise that none of the great labor-saving agricultural implements have been invented by farmers.

We have used the term "corn," instead of maize or Indian corn, as being the word in common use to designate the latter-named grain. The kind usually planted was an eight-rowed variety, called the Harness corn ; but the " Hackberry," a rough-capped dent-corn, and the "calico," a spotted or various-colored species, were planted ; but there was little pains taken to prevent the corn " mixing," and the result was a "mixed multitude." No special pains were taken to ascertain the quantity raised to the acre ; but the estimate is that the product ranged in good seasons from fifty to seventy-five bushels.

In the cultivation of wheat, greater changes have perhaps taken place than in the planting and gathering of corn. The land was plowed the same as for corn, and harrowed with a wooden-toothed harrow, or smoothed by dragging over the plowed ground a heavy brush, weighed down, if necessary, with a stick of timber. It was then sown broadcast, or by hand, at the rate of about a bushel and a quarter to the acre, and " harrowed in" with the brush. Though corn-meal, baked in the shape of pone-dodger or hoe-cake, was the main reliance for bread, and continued to be for many years, yet wheat was raised at an early day. The kind usually sown was a red wheat, and went by the name of red chaff. There was no classification as regards quality or freedom from foreign seeds and dirt into first, second or third class.

Occasionally, a field would be grown producing what was called " sick wheat," so named from its tendency to cause vomiting. Various devices were adopted to obviate this, but none of any avail ; but it was commonly understood that the best thing to be done with it was to convert it into whisky. We have been unable to ascertain whether the " sick-wheat " was the product of a particular variety of wheat, or from certain localities, from the condition of the undrained soil, or made its appearance generally the same year. It has been described as differing little or none from the wheat now grown, except in the appearance of a red spot on the grain or an indication of sprouting. Some have claimed that it was simply malted wheat. Whatever the cause, it has totally disappeared. The harvest of 1875 yielded a grain which some of the old settlers said was identical with the sick wheat of fifty years ago. That year was attended with heavy and continuous rains. Thousands of bushels in the county were not cut. A large proportion of the wheat harvested sprouted in the shock, and a large part of this, when thrashed and ground, was unfit for bread, and, in some cases, the unground grain was refused by the hogs.

The wheat harvest ripened in the earlier part of J uly, and farmers expected to be pretty fairly in the field by the 4th of the month. The implement used was either the sickle or cradle, and, not infrequently, both in the same field. The sickle was at the first the only instrument ; but by 1820, the cradle had begun to be in common use. The former, almost identical with the " grasshook " now in use, has been so completely superseded by later inventions that one is rarely to be seen except in the cabin of the old settler. The stalks of wheat were grasped in the left hand, and cut by drawing the knife close to the hand. The result was generally a " pretty close shave," and few middle-aged farmers of to-day can be found whose little finger or the lower part of the hand does not show the ugly scars received from the sickle teeth. When a sufficient quantity was cut to make a good-sized sheaf, it was bound and thrown aside, to be afterward placed in " stooks " or shocks, twelve bundles or sheaves making a stook, and "capped" in the same manner as now. The sickle was gradually exchanged for the " cradle," which came into general use about the years 1825-30.

The cradle was a scythe fastened to a frame of wood, with long, bending teeth or strips of wood, for cutting and laying the grain in swaths. The " reaper " has well-nigh as effectually displaced the cradle as the latter did the sickle. Life on the farm necessarily compels the husbandman to be a " jack-ofall- trades," and there were many farmers over the county who could not only make a tub or a barrel but the frame work and fingers for the cradle. Jacob Gardner is the first one of whom we have any knowledge who made the making and repairing of cradles a regular business. Mr. Gardner lived on Court street, below North Main, and had his shop in the back part of his lot. He still occupies the old premises, broken with the infirmities of age, and rarely ventures out, unless to meet with his old Masonic brethren, of Harmony Lodge, with whose history and prosperity he has been long identified.

There were very few farmers who did not know how to swing the scythe and cradle, and there was no more pleasant picture on the farm than a gang of workmen in the harvest-field, nor a more hilarious crowd. Three cradlers would cut about ten acres a day. One binder was expected to keep up with the cradle. Barns for the storage of the unthrashed grain are a comparatively " modern invention," and, as soon as the shock was supposed to be sufficiently cured, it was hauled to some place on the farm convenient for thrashing and feeding and there put in stack. The threshing was performed in one of two ways - by flail or tramping with horses, generally the latter. The flail was used in stormy weather, on the sheltered floor, or when other farm -work was not pressing ; the thrashing by tramping, commonly in clear weather, on a level and well " tramped " clay floor, or, in later days, if the space was sufficiently large, on the barnfloor. The bundles were piled in a circle of about fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and four to six horses ridden over the straw. One or two hands turned over and kept the straw in place. When sufficiently tramped, the refuse straw was thrown into a rick or stack, and the wheat cleared by a "fanningmill," or, sometimes, before fanning-mills were introdnced, by letting it fall from a height of ten or twelve feet, subjected to the action of the wind, when it was supposed to be ready for the mill or the market.

The next step was to get the wheat to market. At a very early day in the raising of wheat, the acreage sown was small, and fifteen bushels to the acre was considered a good return, and the immigration into the county gave a home market for the surplus raised. This, however, did not continue many years, as each year added to the number of producers, and, as early as 1830, the hauling of wheat and other products of the farm to distant markets was the general practice. Sandusky, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati were the centers of trade for this section ; Dayton a little later superseding Cincinnati, owing, probably, to the supposed advantages of better roads and time saved, as well as extensive mills and breweries and enterprising grain-dealers. The " national road" was not completed through the State until some years afterward. The custom was for several farmers to go in company. The roads were heavy and full of marshy places, and the frontiersman's skill with the ax, and ingenuity in " fixing up " a disabled wagon, were always in requisition. When heavy loads were hauled, it was not unusual to take relays of horses, with provender for the trip, the exchange of horses being made at about the half-way house on the road. Teamsters carried their provisions with them, and camped out wherever nightfall overtook them, or, if corn and hay taken for the trip were consumed, to turn into the yard of one of the inns to be found along the line of all the great thoroughfares, " for man and beast." As small as the tavern fares were, the prices of wheat, barley and clover seed were insufficient to justify any expenses for travel that might be avoided, hence the teamster carried with him his food and some rough bedding. From 1830 to 1840, and perhaps later, the Salem Township " barrens " raised heavy crops of fall barley, which were hauled to the breweries or grain-dealers in Dayton. The last few years have hardly averaged a hundred acres to the county.

Laborers were abundant, and the farmer had little or no difficulty in supplying himself with "hands," either for the season or for an emergency. Almost every one could swing the cradle or scythe, or perform any other work in the harvest field. Before the introduction of the reaping machine, expert hands from settlements in the northern counties would go to some of the lower counties, and continue along with the ripening grain on their return trip. Journeymen and others working at trades in the towns, would also go to the country in harvest and take a hand in the field. The rule was, not only with the hired laborer but with the farmer and his boys, to be at work with the early light. The eight and ten hour rule did not enter into the arrangement. A day's work on the farm was the labor that might be performed between " sun and sun," and this was understood and accepted on the part of employer and employe, though it was usual to perform the " chores " after the return from the field, making an additional hour or two.

There was no fixed price for produce or stock. Judge John Taylor, whose father settled in Mad River Township in 1808, says, " the first purchase his father made of corn was a few bushels only, and cost 50 cents a bushel, and, at the same time, paid $12 for a cow and calf, and $5 for a brood sow. The market place was Cincinnati, and it took eight days to make the trip. I took a load containing eight barrels of flour and sold to a merchant named Ruffner, at the rate of $1 . 25 a barrel, and received for the load two barrels of salt. " The time is not stated, but must have been about the year 1815. Making the usual estimate of five bushels of wheat to the barrel of flour, gives the price of wheat to be 25 cents per bushel, less the hauling to Cincinnati. He also adds, " that in the winter of 1815, he and Emanuel Metz hired to John Pence and John Norman to manage and drive teams, attached to rough mud-sleds, which were loaded with flour to he delivered in Wahpokenetta ; and in the next summer (1816), his employers built boats to carry the flour down the Auglaize River to old Fort Defiance, thence down the Maumee to the lake and into Canada, and in the venture lost both time and money." " The price of labor was 50 cents a day, which was also the wages of a hand in the harvest field. A good farm hand could be hired from $8 to $10 a month." In 1830, wheat hauled to Dayton sold for 37 J cents a bushel. In 1879, the average price for the year was $1.07.

The swine of the early settlers, compared with the hogs of 1880, would present as wide a contrast as it is possible to conceive. Whatever the breed may have previously been or called, running wild, as was customary, the special breed was soon lost in the mixed swine of the country. They were long and slim, long-snouted and long-legged, with an arched back, and bristles erect from the back of the head to the tail, slab-sided, active and healthy ; the " sapling-splitter" and "razor back, " as he was called, was ever in the search for food, and quick to take alarm. He was capable of making a heavy hog, but required two years or more to mature, and, until a short time before butchering or marketing, was suffered to run at large, subsisting mainly as a forager, and in the fall fattening on the "mast." Yet this was the hog for a new country whose nearest and best markets were in Cincinnati and Baltimore, to which places they were driven on foot. Persons then, as now, engaged in the purchase and driving of swine or cattle as a special occupation, and, by means of trustworthy agents, visited distant sections to buy up large droves. Judge John Reynolds, in connection with his other enterprises, was also a stock-dealer. It was not uncommon to see a drove of hogs driven into the public square to be weighed, preparatory to starting them on their long journey. As each porker was caught, it was thrust into a kind of leather receptacle, commonly the harness breeching, which was suspended to steelyards. As soon as the hog was fairly in the breeching, the whole was lifted from the ground, and thus, one by one, the drove was weighed and a minute made of each, and, with a pair of shears, a patch of bristles was cut from the hindquarters as evidence of the fact that the pig had been weighed. Two or three days' drive made the hogs quiet enough to be driven along the highway without trouble, moving along at an average gait of eight to ten miles a day. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping together in herds the hogs bought in distant and sparsely-settled neighborhoods, where they were but little handled and rarely fed. The highways, even when well-opened, led through hazel brush and fallen timber, and even down to a late day, rarely fenced on both sides. Every strange sight and sound gave an alarm, and the hogs scattered in every direction, to be gathered together again at their former haunts. This difficulty was obviated, we are informed, by Mr. John Earsom, an old settler, who was engaged in collecting hogs from distant settlements into one drove, by enticing them into a pen and then running a " stitch " through the eyelids and securing by a knot. Thus blinded, the hogs seemed instinctively to keep the road, and once started could easily be driven by a person on horseback. Two or three days' drive made them comparatively quiet and tractable, and, reaching their destination a clip of the scissors or knife made all things right again. Another pioneer adds to this statement that, in order to catch the hogs, shelled corn was trailed from the brush into a strong rail pen, having a " slip-gap." As soon as the hogs were in the pen, the gap was closed, and, by means of a long pole with a hook on the end, which was made to catch behind the foreshoulder of the leg, the hog was drawn to a convenient place ; a strap with a slip-noose, which was placed just behind the tushes of the upper jaw, drew the animal to the desired spot, when the stitches were made without further trouble and the brute then released.

Almost every farmer raised a few hogs for market, which were gathered up by drovers and dealers. The delivery of hogs began usually in September, and the business was carried on past the middle of winter. The price ranged in an early day at about #1.25 per 100 pounds, though at times running up to #3.25 or #3.50, with a fair margin after driving to Cincinnati or Baltimore. About 1840, the hog trade was brisk and speculation ran high. Mr. Andrew Wilson, Jr., then about twenty-two years of age, made a specialty for several years of buying up and driving herds of swino to distant markets, and was understood to have realized a handsome fortune in the trade, as fortunes then were counted, which 'afterward was lost in wilder speculation. Judge John Taylor [elsewhere spoken of in this sketch], about the same time was supposed to be hopelessly insolvent in consequence of some pecuniary ventures, but, as might have been expected of an old pioneer, he disregarded the importunities of his friends to avail himself of the law touching insolvent debtors, and entered the field as a buyer and drover of hogs. One or two seasons enabled him to pay the old score and lay the foundation for the competence of an honored old age.

In no stock of the farm have greater changes been effected than in the hog. From the characteristics of this wild animal, long-legged, slab-sided, roachbacked, muscular, tall, long, active and fierce, it has been bred to be almost as square as a store box, quiet as a sheep, taking on 250 pounds of flesh in nine or ten months. The swine no longer grows to be a hog, but goes to the butcher at not over a year old, and is a "pig." They are now ranked into distinctive breeds, which, so far as Champaign is concerned, has mainly narrowed to two - - the Berkshire and the Poland- China - in the breeding of which the county seems to be the dividing line between the north and south parts of the State.

In cattle and horses, Champaign for many years has claimed a high grade. Ex-Gov. Vance, in his association with the public men of the county, met with those who were taking an active interest in the improvement of stock, and at an early day brought into the county thoroughbred short-horns and horses. The result encouraged others to make like importations, and in a short time the breeding of thoroughbred stock - of horses, cattle, sheep and swine - was made a specialty by many. Of short-horn breeders, honorable mention may be made of Charles Lincoln, Howland C. Moulton, Parker Bryan, Samuel Cheney and others ; while farmers in every section of the county, engaged in breeding cattle for market, owned and kept a thoroughbred animal for use. Thirty to forty years ago, the breeding of cattle for feeding was carried on more extensively than to-day. The competition by reason of the occupation of immense tracts of the unoccupied Western territory, by persons owning immense herds of cattle, which may be fatted and shipped to market at four years old, at an average cost of #4 each, and the discrimination of railway companies in freights against the "local," or intermediate shipper, is rapidly driving the raising of fat cattle, as a business, out of this section. The discriminations made' against dealers living along the line of a railroad, and in favor of great railroad centers, and the rebates made to shippers at certain shipping points, the tendency of which has been, and is, to operate in the interest of capital and against the small dealer more certainly than the competition furnished by Texas and the Western Territories, are gradually undermining this important trade.

Whatever temporary advantage the policy pursued may give, we may reasonably hope that the pressure of public sentiment, or the force of a national law, may compel equitable rates of transportation on the part of an organization which threatens to be the overshadowing monopoly of the nation.

Under the act of the General Assembly of the State to authorize the organization of the residents of any county or district into societies for the improvement of agriculture, the required number of citizens met in Urbana in 1838, and in accordance with the act, organized the " Champaign County Agricultural Society." Unfortunately, the early records of the society have been lost, or, more probably, none were ever made, and the first minutes we find of its transactions date 1856.

It is difficult now to give the names of all who were directly concerned in the meeting called for the purpose of adopting a constitution and electing officers, and the proceedings of the first annual exhibit. Among those who took an active interest at that time were James C. Smith, John H. James, Philander B. Ross, Joel Funk, Joseph C. Brand, Lemuel Reynolds, A. F. Yance, John Thompson, Ed L. Morgan, William Patrick, Samuel Humes, Absalom Fox, Newton Harr, John Kenaga, James A. Nelson, William McDonald, Abram Herr, Dr. Adam Mosgrove, James Rawlins, Perry G. Madden, Jesse Phillips, R. M. Woods, Matthew Stewart, J. Pence, D. Loudenback and many others from all parts of the county. Mr. William Yance was elected President, and John H. Jones, Secretary, William Ward and Samuel Keener, Yice Presidents, Smith Minturn, Treasurer, and John Reynolds, Abram Showers, Isaac Smith, John Enoch and Henry Yan Meter, Managers. The first annual fair was comparatively an insignificant display of the stock and agricultural products of the county ; but few fairs have been held since more productive of substantial good or which have elicited more general and enthusiastic interest. The horses and stock lined the fence on North Main, beyond the town limits, and the Court House yard was covered with the varied products of the farm.

Champaign, in addition to the competition resulting from the associations of the counties adjoining on every side, has also found an active and enterprising competitor in a district fair, organized and conducted under private auspices, and holding their annual exhibit at Mechanicsburg, in Goshen Township. This association is entitled : "The Central Ohio Fair Association," a more detailed account of which will be found in the record of Goshen Township.

General Progress

A general description of the physical geography of the county has already been given, in which notice was taken of the quantity and waste of timber. Many localities which a hundred years ago were bare of trees, have since been covered with a dense forest. The western portion of the county still retains a heavy growth of beech and other trees, the primeval forest but slowly and surely making way for the plowshare. Scarcely a division of the county can be found where the second growth, or "fallen timber," has not appeared. The barrens of Salem indicate a second growth. A story is told of a man who "entered" at the land office a tract of land lying in Salem, who afterward, learning that it was in the barrens, exchanged it for a tract of woodland, hardly worth a quarter of its value. On the Mechanicsburg pike, near the old St.

George's Chapel, where Mr. James Fulton lives, and along through that quarter, was an open " barren " country, all of which was afterward covered with forest trees, of which large fields remain still. On the lower section of Dugan, on the farm lying at the junction of the Ludlow road and the Milford pike, the clumps of timber back some distance from the road have sprung up within the past fifty years. On the other hand, there has been a vast waste of timber, a hundred-fold greater than that of eighty years ago. Then there was an immense superabundance, and the difficulty was how to get rid of it, and in its stead make a fruitful field. To-day, the forest trees have a specific value, and the harvest goes on for the money that is in it, taking no thought of restoring the waste by a new growth, or of protection from storms or protecting growing crops. The theory that the denuding the land of its forests tends to diminish the rainfall and in the end impoverish the land, is not confirmed by the statements of Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, after years of observation. Yet, though this be true, and Champaign still have an abundance of certain kinds of timber and to spare, still, as a matter of " dollars and cents," the present cutting joined with the total neglect of planting a new growth, the future will deem a great waste. Forty years ago, with an occasional corn-field or open plain, almost the entire road from the eastern city limits, beginning at the lands of John Kenaga and Joseph Eichelberger, was an unbroken forest to the county line ; and a large part of this was unfenced. The past twenty years have cleared away many acres. The same may be said of almost every other quarter of the county. The black walnut, wild cherry and poplar wTere found in all sections - immense specimens of the latter in the western townships - all of which are being rapidly removed. In the woods, and along the highways, were found thickets of red and yellow wild plums, growing as large as the large domesticated blue plum of the garden, and equal to any ; also a blue grape, of good size, remaining long on the vine, slightly musky in flavor, but considered a fine grape. Forty years ago, the fields abounded in wild strawberries of delicious taste and fragrance. Few were raised in gardens, or were made a special crop. The berries, compared with the fruit and varieties now found in the gardens, were small, but they were abundant, and Saturday found the schoolboy, with his tin pail, looking for the tempting fruit. The grapes and strawberries are no longer to be found. Here and there may be found a clump of wild plums, but of stunted growth and bearing a fruit inferior to that of the old settlement.

Efforts have been occasionally made to raise the wild plum, but without satisfactory results. The tree in the wild state grows in groves, and its wild nature has been overlooked. The plantings made have been single trees, and the treatment the same as other fruit trees, which may possibly explain the failures. In 1880, several bushels of wild plums were sold in the Urbana market, which shows that the " plum thickets " of the county are not altogether destroyed. The new settler fancied, and with some truth, that the highlands were the more healthful. The nearness of a spring generally dictated the place for the cabin. The latter was made from the timber growing on the ground. A clearing was then effected by chopping off the trees of the field intended for cultivation ; and a larger " opening " begun by cutting a small kerf around the body of the trees, usually called the " deadening," and the neighbors, at a given time, with their oxen, met to drag the fallen logs into heaps for burning. Large portions of the county were heavily timbered, and many of these places were wet and miry. The shade trees and luxuriant growth of underbrush and vegetation prevented the rapid exhalation and escape of the rainfall, and the streams were kept constantly full, and the rains kept up a uniform supply. The rainfall of the past ten years will probably equal that of any decade within the previous sixty years, but the effects are of no long continuance. A drought is felt much sooner than formerly. The pent-up waters which gradually oozed from the marshy flat, or percolated through the gravelly bank, have been liberated by the destruction of the trees, the diversion of the surplus water into new and few channels, and by means of underdrains, so that the rivulet in a few hours becomes a foaming brook, and the modest stream a torrent. There is as much effort and expense put forth to-day to get rid of the surplus water as the early pioneers employed to get rid of the trees, and a recent agricultural journal gravely asserted but a short time since that in the next century there will be more anxiety and labor employed to take the tile up than were had in putting them in place. Whatever the future may do, the course adopted is drying the land.

With the beginning of the century, there were no roads in Champaign. For years, what were called roads were little better than wagon tracks through the forest, and these were supposed to follow the Indian trails. The highway was wide enough for all necessary purposes, but, down to 1840, or later, the roads were execrable. The undrained country partly explains the cause. At certain times, when the ground was frozen and worn smooth, or dry and solid, no roads were better ; but the proceeds of the road laws, in money or labor, were totally inadequate to keep them even in tolerable condition at the time most wanted, and only within recent years has it dawned into the minds of our road-makers that a good drainage is essential to a good road-bed. Fifty years ago, in every section of the county, the " corduroy " was found on every road. Corduroy wTas the name given to the roads made of rails placed crossways, through the soft and miry places. Occasionally the heavy teams, at this day, driving along the pike eastward from Urbana, will cut through the graveled crust and tear up fragments of the hidden " corduroy." At the present time, few, if any, counties of the State can boast better roads. A network of graveled pikes intersects every part of the county. These, in the aggregate, amount to 405 miles in length, and at a total cost of over $800,000, constructed on petition of parties interested in the proposed improvement, and paid for in installments, running through five years, by assessments on the real estate supposed to be benefited.

Aboriginal Inhabitants

Of the history of Champaign County, as associated with the Indian tribes, little need be said. We have elsewhere spoken of the principal chiefs and tribes which made this section, prior to its occupation by the whites, and for some time after permanent settlements had been made, a hunting-ground and trading-point. Wigwams were found over the county, and the sites, and possibly the ruins, oi many of them, are still pointed out. The Mack-a-cheek towns were in the bor ders of Logan, and*the Piqua or Pickaway towns, in Clarke County. We are not aware that the territory was claimed by any one tribe.

The county presented a good hunting-ground, with an abundance of deer, wild turkeys, black bear and small game. An occasional deer or flock of wild turkeys was found as late as 1835. For some time after the close of the war of 1812, Indians made their annual hunting-camps in various parts of the county, remaining long enough to lay in their usual supply. In a few years, they were removed to reservations, or the supply of game became so diminished that better opportunities were furnished in more unsettled parts of the State. The Miamis, Wyandots arid Shawnees were the tribes whose parties most frequented this section. Several councils were held in Urbana, at an early day, and generally in a grove, a little distance beyond the old graveyard at the upper end of Locust street. At these councils, distinguished chiefs of the Shawnee and Wyandott tribes were generally present, conspicuous among whom was Tecumseh. The life of this extraordinary man is closely identified with the history of Ohio, and no sketch would be complete without a particular reference to him. He was born not far from the city of Springfield, about 1T68, at the Indian village called the Pickaway towns, which were destroyed by Gen. Clarke, in August, 1780. A town named Boston was afterward laid out on the same grounds. In 1795, he was declared chief. He then lived on "Deer Creek," near the site of Urbana. Deer Creek is supposed to be the small stream flowing through and beyond the western part of the city, fed by the springs and rivulets from the higher grounds, and at one time a good-sized brook or creek. The following year, he returned to Piqua, and, in 1798, went to White River, Indiana, and from thence, in 1805, to a tract of land on the Wabash, given to him and his brother, commonly known as " the Prophet," by the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. He was now about thirty-seven years old, and from this time forward became conspicuous in the councils and conduct of the Indians. He is described to have been about five feet and ten inches in height, stoutly built and possessing great powers of endurance. In the chase or in feats of physical strength and skill, he was an acknowledged leader. His countenance was naturally pleasing, and he was said to have been generally opposed to the barbarities practiced by the Indians. In Drake's "Memoirs," it is stated he assisted in an attack on some boats on the Ohio River, near Limestone, Ky., when he was about seventeen years of age. The boats were all captured and all in them killed, except one, who was burned alive. Tecumseh was a silent spectator, having never before witnessed the burning of a prisoner, and when it was over, expressed his abhorrence of the act. It is questionable whether the Indian, unprovoked and uninjured, would not have remained friendly and hospitable. The many instances, narrated by persons still living, of their confidence and friendly intercourse with the whites, are too well authenticated to doubt that they too often were the injured party. In the settlement of the country, they were in the way. The same supposition has prevailed wherever the Indian has been found, and the law of force has been made the rule of action in dealing with them from that day to this. The question has been, how to get rid of him, and there was a want of moral sense in the Government to deal with him as a man, with the innate rights of a man. The wilderness - all frontier settlements beyond the power of the civil authority - develops an intuitive manhood or the lowest phase of human nature. Common wants and a common humanity elevate the former, and these are they who lay the foundations of a prosperous commonwealth ; the others " are of the earth, earthy " - "the rangers and regulators" - who live by selfishness and violence, and administer the public interests by the equities of Lynch law. Every community, whether new or old, has its lawless ruffian, and too often these were the men who exasperated the Indian into deeds of atrocity. Once on the war-path, the worst passions of his nature were roused , and he inherited the vindictive cruelties of his race.

The instances of the magnanimity and hatred of cruelty on the part of Tecumseh make him the more conspicuous. The active part which Tecumseh took in his hostilities to the white settlements did not arise solely from acts of violence. The wide-spread combination which he sought to effect had a broader purpose than retaliation for personal injuries. He was opposed to the grants of lands made by the Indians to the whites. To his clearer perceptions, the practice was fraught with evil. To prevent further surrender of their territory, he determined to unite all the Indian tribes into a league, the purpose of which should be that no treaties or grants of land should or could be made, save by the consent of the confederation. For the success of his scheme and the co-operation of all the Indian tribes in its maintenance, he saw the only protection against their dispossession and ultimate destruction by the whites, and to this end he constantly traveled, taking long and perilous journeys, and everywhere, by his matchless oratory, was successful in arousing the tribes to a sense of their common danger.

The prosecution of his purpose unavoidably led to conflict in arms. In the war of 1812, he was an active ally of the British, rendering them efficient service, but always humane in his treatment of prisoners, never allowing his warriors to wantonly murder captives or mutilate the bodies of the slain. In the summer of 1813 occurred Perry's victory on Lake Erie, when active preparations were made to capture Malden. On the 27th of September, the American army, under command of Gen. W. H. Harrison, set sail for Canada, and in a short time reached the ruins of Malden, from which the British army, under Proctor, had retreated to Sandwich. The route of Gen. Proctor led through the valley of the Thames. On the 29th, Harrison was at Sandwich, and Proctor on his retreat. On the 2d of October, the pursuit was begun and the retreating enemy overtaken on the 5th. The battle of the Thames followed on the 6th of the month. Tecumseh, who was at the head of the column of Indians, was killed early in the engagement, and his followers, no longer seeing him or hearing his voice, fled. The battle was decisive, and effectually closed hostilities in the Northwest.

The recollections of Gen. George Sanderson, who was Captain of a company in the regiment of Col Lewis Cass, published in the records of the Western Historical Society, give some particulars of the battle and of Tecumseh. In this paper, he says he had seen Tecumseh a number of times before the war, and remembers him well. He was a man of huge frame, powerfully built and about six feet two inches in height. I saw his body on the Thames battle-field, before it was cold. In the evening, on the day of the battle, I was appointed by Gen. Harrison to guard the Indian prisoners with my company. The location was near a swamp. As to the report of the Kentuckians having skinned Tecumseh's body, I am personally cognizant that such was the fact ; I have seen many contrary reports, but they are untrue. I saw the Kentucky troops in the very act of cutting the skin from the body of the chief. They would cut strips, about half a foot in length and an inch and a half wide, which would stretch like gum elastic. I saw a piece, two inches long when it was dry, which could be stretched nearly a foot in length. I have no doubt it was the body of Tecumseh ; I knew him. Besides, the Indian prisoners under my charge continually pointed to his body, which lay close by, and uttered the most bewailing cries at his loss. By noon, the day after the battle, the body could hardly be recognized, it had so thoroughly been skinned. My men covered it up with brush and logs, and it was probably eaten by the wolves. Although many officers did not like the conduct of the Kentuckians, they dare not interfere. The troops from that State were infuriated at the massacre at the' River Raisin, and their battle-cry was " Remember the River Raisin." It was with difficulty the Indian prisoners could he guarded, so general was the disposition of the Kentuckians to massacre them.

Gen. Sanderson, from whose statement the extract is made, was then a Captain under Col. Lewis Cass, was at the surrender at Detroit with his company, and with Harrison at the Thames, as a Captain in the regular army. He died at Lancaster, Ohio, a few years since, at an advanced age. The story as recited, and from that day until now currently believed, that the body of the Indian chief was flayed to be made into razor-strops, as mementoes of the battle, is too horrible for credence, and is only on a par with the barbarities tolerated by Proctor, under the weak plea that he was unable to restrain the men under his command.

Religious Organizations

The first church built in the town was a log structure, erected in 18 OT, in the northeastern part of the village, and, as was customary at that day, the lot on which the house was built was made the general burying-ground. In a few years, both the house and lot became too small for their intended purposes, and the same denomination erected a brick church, then considered to be of ample proportions, on the lot on the corner of Court and Locust streets. The platform on which the preacher sat was high, and approached by a flight of windingstairs on each side, and the pulpit for the use of the minister was a narrow semicircular desk, apparently too contracted for the demonstrative efforts of the pioneer preacher. All carpenter and cabinet work was made by hand, and the doors and lintels, still to be seen, give evidence of the painstaking and general finish of the work, though the pulpit presented the most elaborate workmanship. The pews were long wooden benches, with backs nearly perpendicular, uncushioned and uncomfortable, and were entered by two aisles running through the body of the building. A narrow ante-room across the south end shut off the audience-room, and on either side a stairway led to a gallery which extended on three sides of the house. Against the walls and to each of the pillars that supported the gallery, were affixed or hung on a nail a tin candlestick or socket, with a tin back, about four inches broad by eight or ten inches long, the latter intended, probably, to perform the double duty of reflector and to guard against fire. As " reflectors " they were not a continued success. The house was lighted by tallow candles - the ordinary " dip " of that time - making ten to the pound, the sexton making his regular rounds to u snuff " the wicks of the dimlyburning lights. Carpets down the aisles or around the chancels were not thought of. As a rule, the older men chewed tobacco, and wooden boxes filled with sawdust, for spittoons, were provided for, or perhaps furnished by the more incorrigible users of the weed. Hot only the members of the church and the more devout, but usually all, kneeled during prayers, and to this, perhaps, taken in connection with the tobacco, more than any other reason, is due the custom of men and women occupying different pews, the women usually occupying the central slip and the men the side-pews. At this day we wonder how our fathers and grandfathers were enabled to read by the light of the tallow candle, but, if the sexton did his duty in keeping the " dips" well snuffed, the candles seem to have answered their purpose.

The preacher used no manuscript or notes. The use of written sermons would hardly have been tolerated. Whatever the clergyman may have thought or known to the contrary, the congregation commonly believed that the minister.

being called of God to preach, would be endowed with power from on high, and his duty was to take no heed to what he should speak, as the inspiration he should receive would be all-sufficient for the hour. Hymn-books were very scarce, and, to supply this want, the chorister, or more frequently the minister, " lined " the hymn, reciting a stanza, or two lines, alternately with the singing. The singing was eminently congregational, and the tunes those which had been sung for generations, as " Dundee," and "Elgin," "Mear" and " Coronation," and the hymns mainly those of Charles Wesley. The choir sat in the gallery, opposite the pulpit, and not infrequently in singing a " voluntary " entertained the worshipers with one of the fugue tunes, which seem to have passed away with the performers. The old church was a shouting church, under the ministrations and preaching of Raper and Finley, Boucher, Marley and Lorraine. The responses and demonstrations were numerous and loud.

In 1835, the sleepers sustaining the floor gave indications of decay, which, together with the increasing population, suggested the expediency of building another house. Fears were aroused as to the safety of the building, and, as a house of worship, it was at once and forever abandoned. " To what base uses do we come." The " old temple of worship " was converted into a carriage-shop, and to-day is used as a livery stable.

The congregation erected, in 1836, a more commodious and convenient house, on the corner of North Main and Church streets, now recognized as the First Methodist Episcopal Church, which, from time to time, has been altered and improved to suit the wants and tastes of the community. An offshoot of the first church organized a second church on Water street, and, in 1879, removed to the beautiful building, styled " Grace M. E. Church," on the corner of South Main and Market streets. *

We have been thus particular in our sketch of the first church as a type of the pioneer associations. In the country, worship was commonly had in the cabins of the settlers as the " itinerant" made his circuit or a chance preacher came along. The early settlers attracted to their respective neighborhoods families and acquaintances from their former homes, who soon built up " settlements ' ' to which were usually attached the name of the first settler or most conspicuous man of the neighborhood, and sometimes designated and known from some incident or physical formation of the country. Thus, we find the Diltz and Middleton settlements, Ruffin's ridge, the Barrens, Fort Mingo, Mount Tabor and Mount Pisgah.