Crawford County, Ohio - Chapter 21: Tod Township, 1912

The Last Land in the County Occupied by the Indians - The Township Named Three Times and Named Wrong Each Time - Osceola Laid Out With County Seat Expectations- Early Settlers - Churches and Schools - Reminiscences - A Horse Monument.

"Dear country home ! can I forget The last of thy sweet trifles? The window-vines that clamber yet Whose bloom the bee still rifles? The roadside blackberries, growing And in the woods the Indian pipe?"

Tod township was the last township in this county to be opened for settlement. The treaty of the Indians in 1817 reserved to them a tract of land 12 miles square in what is now Wyandot county. By a supplementary treaty in 1818 the Wyandots were given an additional five miles adjoining this tract on the east. In this five-mile strip was Tod township.

On the north and the south and the east, the land was being rapidly taken up by the settlers, and all along the border the forests were being cleared away and the farms cultivated. Many settlers, besides hunting in the reservation as it suited their pleasure, settled on the land, some honestly leasing from the Indians, but most of them "squatting" on the reservation. As early as 1825 the advancing civilization demanded this land, but the Indians refused to sell, but finally in 1836, they agreed to dispose of the 60 square miles ( 12 miles deep and 5 miles wide) which they had secured at the supplemental treaty and two additional miles. In 1837, these lands were thrown on the market, and what is now Tod township was open to settlement, and the Indians had no longer any land in the present Crawford county.

1838, the Crawford county commissioners divided the territory secured from the Indians into two townships. The northern six miles was called Leith and the southern six miles was attached to Antrim. There was objection to the name of Leith. George W. Leith was one of the prominent men in the new territory, and with William Brown was appointed justice of the peace of the new township. His ancestry goes farther back in this county than any other white settler. His father, Samuel Leith, was the first known white child born in the Sandusky valley, probably in the old Indian town on the river, about three miles southeast of the present town of Upper Sandusky. The original John Leith in 1763, when a boy of 16, was captured by the Indians. Instead of killing him they adopted him into their tribe, in the family of Capt. Pipe, the Delaware chief who burned Crawford at the stake. They brought him to their town on the Sandusky, and when the War of the Revolution broke out the British appointed him in charge of the store at the Wyandot town and here he remained during the Revolution, and was also there during the Crawford campaign of 1782. His store was naturally the headquarters of the British, Indians, and the renegades during the Revolution and the Indian wars which followed. In 1762 the Mingo Indians on one of their raids into Pennsylvania captured a young girl, Sallie Lowry, and adopted her into their tribe.

captive white girl and they were married, and in 1775, Samuel Leith was born. The husband and wife were captives of different tribes, and the wife was taken to the home of the Mingoes on the Muskingum, while Leith remained on the Sandusky. Every argument and inducement were offered the Mingoes to let the wife join her husband, but they refused to give her up, and Indian courtesy prevented more drastic measures. Finally the Mingo Indians held a council, and decided to let the wife join her husband but the decision was that they would give to the Wyandots nothing but the wife and child. So every vestige of clothing was removed from the mother and child, and she was informed that if she wanted to join her husband, she could go. Leith in his narrative thus describes her reunion with her husband : "She shouldered her boy, waded the Walhonding, the Tuscarawas, passed through the wilderness, slept in the leaves by a log, contending with briars, nettles, flies, mosquitos, living on June berries, wild onions, wild peas, elm bark, roots, etc. She came to a squaw who was tending a small piece of corn and taking care of several Indian children, while the warrior was abroad. The squaw said : 'Where you go ?' She replied: 'Sandusky; my husband.' 'Where clothes?' 'They took them,' (pointing from whence she came.) 'You hungey?' 'Yes.' 'Me get meat.' The squaw told her to remain until the warrior returned; but she concluded to journey on. The squaw gave her a piece of blanket and some deer meat and she started. I was at the time busily engaged in handling pelts, revolving in my mind what I should do. I was whipping the pelts and throwing them on a pile, and had just stepped in to get another supply, when I saw my wife approaching. She threw the child down on the skins, dropping there herself, saying: 'Here, John, I've brought your boy.' The fatigue of the journey and the joy of the meeting overwhelmed her for a time. There have been many happy meetings under far more favorable circumstances, but at no time or place was there ever a meeting that filled the parties with more triumphant joy." John Leith continued with the Indians until about 1792, when with his wife and two children, he made his escape, and was closely pursued by the Indians until he reached Fort Pitt, ( Pittsburg. ) The son, Samuel, came to Ohio and was a soldier in the War of 1812 on the side of the Americans. He settled in Fairfield county, and here John Leith was born in 1807 and George W. Leith in 1810, the latter coming to this county in 1824, making his home with his guardian, his father, Samuel Leith, having died.

After this family the township was named Leith on account of the influence of George W. Leith. But the name was not satisfactory to many of the settlers, on account of the original Leith being a British agent and an ally of the Indians during the Revolution and the Crawford campaign. Through courtesy toward George W. Leith, and for whom all had the greatest respect, the specious argument was presented that there were many Germans in the township, and the word Leith was as difficult for them to pronounce as was the world Shibboleth to the Scriptural heathens- two thousand years previously. The commissioners took this as their cue, and changed the name of the township to Centre, in June, 1839, it being at that time the exact centre of the county, a name which was certain to get them into no trouble on account of ancestors. This name continued until Wyandot county was formed in 1845, which left only two miles of Centre township in Crawford county, and this two miles was no longer in the centre, but was the extreme western part of the county, so that name was a misnomer, and in 1845 the commissioners named the new township Tod, after David Tod the democratic candidate for Governor in 1844, who was defeated and his supporters on the Board of Commissioners did him what honor they could by naming a township after him. South of Tod the fractional township of Antrim that remained in the county was named Dallas, after George M. Dallas, the Vice President of the United States. In the eastern part of the county the land secured from Richland was named at the same time after James K. Polk the Democratic president, and the new townships had the good old democratic names of Polk, Dallas, Tod and Texas, the latter being a rallying cry of the party as the Whigs bitterly opposed the admission of Texas into the union. Had it been given to our pioneer fathers to lift the veil that obscures the future there would have been more protest against the name of Tod than there had been to that of

Leith. For hardly had the machinery of government started in the new township than there was a re-alignment of parties, and David Tod joined the new party and as the opponent of the Democrats was elected Governor of the State in 1861, so it is not safe to perpetuate the name of a political idol until after he has quietly died and been honorably buried.

Tod township is traversed by three streams, Brokensword, Indian Run, and Grass Run, the beds of which consist of a shaly limestone rock. The first named is the largest and by far the most important, and the derivation of its name is traditional. It is said that after Colonel Crawford's historical engagement with the Indians and subsequent escape, he missed his nephew. With others he retraced his steps, only to be taken prisoner by the Delawares. Conducted by them to this stream, he is said to have drawn his sword and broken it over a rock. Another version is, a broken sword had been dropped by one of Crawford's retreating army.

Col. Crawford, after '-'^e battle, in making his escape, did pass througA Tod township, entering the township about two miles northwest of the present village Oceola, about where the farm of John R. Outhwaite or U. M. Kellogg is now located ; he passed through in a southeasterly direction, leaving the township at about the farm of John Fisher or John W. Snavely, a mile and a half northeast of Oceola. After his capture, near the present town of Leesville, the Delawares took him back over the same route as they were desirous of finding the horses which Crawford had been compelled to abandon about the time they entered the township. The stream Brokensword was first known by the Indians as Crookedknife, but there is no authority for connecting the name with anything relating to Col. Crawford. He crossed the stream in Holmes township, near where the Brokensword Stone quarries are now located.

The soil of Tod township is a pale clay loam but exceedingly rich. Well improved farms with substantial and attractive buildings are seen on every hand.

Lumbering and limeburning for many years formed the chief industries, aside from agricultural, but a number of grist-mills also flourished here, at one time four being along the banks of the Brokensword. In early years when there was much waste timber, potash and blacksalts were manufactured, and in more recent years a considerable amount of quarrying of stone has been done. The timber of this section was largely black walnut, oak, beech, maple, sycamore, butternut and poplar.

After the Wyaridots had relinquished their claim to this territory in the spring of 1837, the United States held a sale at Marion, Ohio, selling off this land to private ownership. Neighboring landowners, capitalists from the East and from Bucyrus and Marion, both in the form of organized companies and as individuals, vied with each other in acquiring this land. A Mr. Howland of Cayuga, New York, purchased fourteen hundred acres, partly lying within Tod township. Zalmon Rowse, General Samuel Myers, Abram Holm of Bucyrus, with Messrs. Cox and Young of Marion county, formed a syndicate known as the Oceola Company and purchased the choice or central part of the township, with an expressed view of bringing the county seat to the town which they would there establish. That their plan miscarried was probably no disappointment to the promoters, who disposed of their land to good advantage before the death blow to the hopes of the little village of Oceola fell by the erection of Wyandot county by the Legislature. Of the private buyers. Judge G. W. Leith, James Winstead, Daniel Tuttle and Jacob Shaffer were first. It has been a debatable question as to whether Leith or Winstead made actual settlement first, for with that distinction goes the honor of being the first settler of Tod township. Regardless of the question, there is a full measure of honor and credit accorded the name of each, for both were men of bright minds and active, and with Daniel Tuttle did more than any others in directing the earliest affairs of the township. Besides Leith, Winstead and Tuttle, other settlers in 1837 were Adam Bair, John Foster, James B. Horick, William Hartman, Edward Kellogg, David Kisor, Lucius P. Lea, Mordecai McCauley, Isaac Miller, John Turner, and Jacob Yost. Other early settlers were John Cronebaugh, Lewis Longwell, James McCain, James B. Robinson, Jacob Snavely, and Stephen White in 18^8 ; Lyman King in 1839 ; William Brown, William Gordon, Michael Hough, Jesse Ja- queth, and John Webb in 1840; William Andrews, Frederick G. Hesche, and Samuel Swineford in 1841 ; Elijah Jaqueth in 1843, Jonathan Outhwaite and Amos Souders in 1845.

Adam Bair had been a carpenter in Bucyrus, and so had John Cronebaugh, the latter assisting .in building the first court house ; F. G. Hesche, had also come there from Bucyrus to run a saw mill, and later returned, built the Hesche corner, and was in business at Bucyrus until his death.

James Winstead lived to a remarkable old age, honored and respected by all. He was born in Shenandoah county, Virginia, in 1801, and was fifteen years old when he moved to Ohio, locating in Fairfield county. In 1826, he moved to Bowsherville, Wyandot county, then Crawford county, where he built a cabin on the edge of the Indian reservation and followed his trade as a coppersmith. It would seem there could not be much business done at that trade in those days, and in fact his greatest patronage was not from the settlers but from the Indians. The latter had in their possession ore obtained from Michigan mines and for converting this into rings, bracelets and anklets they would pay most liberally. So strongly did he become entrenched in the good graces of the redmen, he was in 1829 persuaded by them to move upon their reservation. He was given the use of a double log cabin east of Upper Sandusky, an orchard, all the cleared land he wished to cultivate, was furnished with meats, and was given a liberal patronage. He lived almost as one of them, taking a seat at their camp-fires and joined them on hunting excursions. Probably no white man had a more intimate knowledge of this tribe, their habits, beliefs and mode of life, than did he. He remained with them until after the sale and then moved to section 11 of Tod township, where in the spring of 1837 he erected a rough log cabin, with puncheon floor, but also equipped with glass windows. There was no semblance to a road leading to the tract he located, necessitating the cutting away of timber and brush to permit the passage of his oxen and wagon. The road he made became known as the Perrysburg road, and enabled him to strike the Upper Sandusky road. As illustrative of the customs of the times and neigh-.

borly help settlers were glad to give, it may be mentioned that Winstead gave a wood chopping bee with a view to having a better road between his farm and Oceola. Neighbors joined in with a will, and the cost to him was two gallons of whiskey and the expectation that he would be called upon to return the favor upon occasion and for the same remuneration. Mr. Winstead was one of the three first trustees of the township and one of the most active men of the times.

Upon the organization of the township as Leith, James Winstead, Z. P. Lea and Jacob Yost were installed as trustees, and G. W. Leith and William Brown as justices of the peace. Stephen White was first clerk, but resigned the same day and was succeeded by Ozro N. Kellogg. Abram Shaffer was constable ; Mordecai McCauley and Z. P. Lea, supervisors ; Adam Bair, G. W. Leith and Lewis Longwell, fence viewers, and David Kisor was treasurer. G. W. Leith and David Kisor also were overseers of the poor. The first election was held at the home of Mordecai McCauley, and James Winstead, John Cronebaugh and John Horrick were elected trustees; David Kisor, treasurer, and James B. Robinson, clerk. The first officers after the name was changed to Tod township were : James Winstead, Isaac Miller and Daniel Tuttle, trustees; John Forster, clerk; Isaac Miller, treasurer ; F. G. Hesche, assessor ; Frank Rapenow, constable; and William Andrews, judge of election.

When the name of the township was changed from Leith to Centre George W. Leith immediately tendered his resignation as justice, and his friend George Garrett also resigned.

The first recorded marriages in the township were those of Isaac Miller and Jane Lea and also Stephen White and Mary Lea, in 1838, Zalmon Rowse going out from Bucyrus to perform the ceremony. A trip from Bucyrus to Oceola was no easy matter in those days. James C. Steen was an early Bucyrus justice, and he was sent for to perform the marriage ceremony of William W. Norton, his bride being Mary Brown of Oceola. Mr. Steen in his recollections gives the following account of his trip, the marriage occurring on the evening of Jan. 8, 1841 : "I was called upon to perform this ceremony at a time of year when the most miserable of all roads were at their worst. There was sufficient frost to make the walking uncertain and the ice on the streams unsupportable. It was impossible to drive from Bucyrus to Oceola in a buggy, could one have been procured. Allowing myself plenty of time, I concluded to make the trip on foot. After a circuitous meandering through the woods, over logs, and through mudholes, I arrived at Grass Run, which was quite swollen and bridgeless. The lateness of the hour forced me to a hasty decision, which was to attempt to cross on rather an insecure limb; but like a friend in need, it failed to furnish its support at the most critical moment, giving me an opportunity to rehearse the oath before the evening ceremony, in water up to my neck, at freezing point. I arrived a little late at the village, and coolly walked to a friend's to brush up a little for the festive occasion. The ceremony was performed without referring to the incident!" The first known birth in the township was a son of William Hartman, born in 1838.

Oceola was laid out in May, 1837, by a land company, composed of Bucyrus, Columbus and Marion capitalists, and named Osceola, after the most noted Indian chief of the Seminoles. With the passing of time, probably through carelessness, the letter "s" has been dropped and the name has long since been mispelled

Oceola. The land where Oceola was situated had just been purchased from the Indians, and the town was laid out on the north and west banks of the Brokensword, on a site which was almost the exact center of the county, and the idea prevailed that if a thriving village could be built up there, the time would arrive when it would become the county seat. The new town was laid out accordingly on a rather large scale. In the center was a public square. Main street which was the road from Bucyrus to Upper Sandusky was ninety feet wide. South of it was Water street and north of it High street, each seventy feet wide. Commencing on the west the streets were named First, Second, and Third, then came Brokensword avenue, which crossed the public square, then came Fourth, Fifth and Sixth streets, and the river was reached on the road to Bucyrus. All these streets were 70 feet wide. In all there were 164 lots, and the village progressed from the start, but before it attained sufficient headway to take definite measures to secure the county seat, the legislature erected the new county of Wyandot, and Oceola just succeeded in being in Crawford county, and as it was now en the extreme western border, all hopes of county seat honors were a thing of the past.

There was a large crowd present at the lot sale, and the lots brought good prices, and many were sold; prices ranged from $25 up, some of the corner lots bringing $100, the projectors of the town had so impressed the people that it would eventually be a county seat that the speculation was rife. One man had some swamp land in Illinois along the lake; this he traded for Oceola property. The Illinois land is now a part of Chicago, worth far more today than the valuation real and personal of the entire village of Oceola.

The first cabins were erected in the town site in 1838. Daniel Tuttle, familiarly known as "Bishop" Tuttle, moved to Oceola in 1840 and became the first merchant and manufacturer of the place. He had prior to that time for some 13 years been a traveling representative of a clock manufacturer, his territory extending from Maine to Louisiana, and was a man of wide experience and observation. While at Bucyrus his attention was attracted to the proposed county seat of Oceola and he -located there. He thought great possibilities lay in the manufacture of lime, as Bucyrus was at the time hauling in the commodity from a distance of forty miles at an excessive cost. He started a rude kiln in 1841, employing Lyman King to do the burning. He had in 1840 built a water mill, which was run steadily for a few years when power was available. As travel over the Perrysburg Road from Bucyrus to the northwest became more general it became apparent a tavern was needed at Oceola, and Mr. Tuttle soon supplied the need. He built an addition to his house, and as his business justified, later converted it into a twostory tavern. In 1842 he embarked in the fur trade and otherwise dealt with the Indians. He was the first postmaster of Oceola, serving from 1840 to 1845. In fact he was the moving spirit of the village. John Turner conducted a store here until the Mexican War broke out, then enlisted in the army. Jacob Yost, who built the first frame house in the village, continued trading with the Indians for many years. G. Leonard conducted a hat store; in 1850, he was advertising to manufacture corn brooms on shares and also to thresh corn with a machine. In 1 85 1 R. G. Perry & Co. conducted a store and in 1858 he started the manufacture of carbonated pearl ash. In 1854 a water-' power grist-mill was built by David Neeley, but the dam was destroyed in i860. He sold out in 1862 to A. N. Stonebreaker, and later the property passed into the hands of Judd and Deck, by whom it was sold to Garret Ziegler in 1867. It was on an island near the west bank of the Brokensword just below the bridge. While originally it was run by water power, later steam was introduced, and it was known as the Limestone Island Mills. It finally came into the possession of A. N. Phillips about 1873, a large three-story frame building. After Lemert secured a railroad this large structure was placed on rollers, and moved to its present site at Lemert a distance of over three mile^, the trip taking weeks. The lime industry was probably the most prosperous _ business in the village. Originally started by Daniel Tuttle, others who went into the business were William Miller, and David, Joseph and Moses Snavely, and more than half a century ago there were about 200 kilns in operation, but the lack of transportation facilities, gradually made the lime industry less and

Samuel Swineford started a chair manufactory in 1 84 1, which he conducted for about three years. G. W. J. Willoughby established a factory for the manufacture of wooden bowls, and built up an extensive business. In 1847 Amos Souders started a tannery, and continued the business for a dozen years when it was discontinued. William Sigler commenced the manufacture of potash in 1841, continuing in the business ten or twelve years. He also bought the Tuttle mill, and put in steam power. He had a saw-mill in connection, and manufactured shoe lasts, butter bowls and other wooden articles, including tables and chairs. He also put in a carding machine, but this branch was soon discontinued.

Dr. J. N. Richie settled in the village as a physician in 1847; he took an active hand in township affairs, and became one of the best known physicians in the county, and after following his profession in Oceola for nearly half a century, he died on Dec. 17, 1895.

Later day business men of the village were Rodney Poole, J. Grubb, Richard T. Garrigues, Samuel Teetrich, and William T. Kelly, who established the first drug store and also carried a line of groceries. In 1861, Oceola erected a town hall, the dimensions being 30 by 40 feet.

The citizens of Oceola met November 25, 1850, to take action toward inducing the projected Ohio & Indiana Railroad to pass through the village. G. W. J. Willoughby was chairman of the meeting and J. M. Rickey, secretary. Mr. Willoughby, James Clingan and J. C. Steen were appointed a committee to wait upon the directors of the road. Their efforts availed them nothing however, and the little village was doomed to its second great disappointment in a matter of vital importance to its welfare.

Losing the railroad, the citizens took an active hand in sectiring a plank road from Oceola to Bucyrus. The road was built, and proved a great convenience to the people and the business of the village, but a constant loss to the stockholders, and it was finally abandoned. It had two toll gates, one at the outskirts of Oceola, and the other just west of Bucyrus. It was the only plank road ever built in the county.

A post office was established at Oceola April I, 1840, with Daniel Tuttle as postmaster. He continued until he left the village and it was discontinued July 8, 1845, ^^^ J^st a year later it was re-established on July 8, 1846, with William H. Sigler as postmaster. He was followed by James C. Steen March 7, 1848; Josiah Morrison, May 18, 1850; Samuel Pike, July 29, 1853; John N. Richey, Oct. 16, 1854; Joseph Hildreth, Dec. 13, i860; D. D. Martin, Feb. 14, 1861 ; R. T. Garrigues, April 12, 1866; Alfred Owen, Aug. 6, 1885; S. M. Wilson, June 19, 1889; W. B. Forrest, June 30, 1893; J. C. Frost, Sept. 18, 1897; P. H. Heater, March 12, 1902. Although Oceola is not on a railroad, the importance of the village is such that a post office is still continued at that place.

When the Toledo and Ohio Central Road was built a station was established in the northern part of the township, and a town was laid out called Lemert, after Col. W. C. Lemert one of the men active in securing the road. The Limestone Mills were removed overland from Oceola to a new site along the track of the road. Two stores were started in the village, and one or two small shops. A post office was established there on Feb. 8, 1881, with Gust Leonhart as postmaster; he was succeeded by F. T. Smith, Sept. 13, 1882 ; William Evans, Nov. 23, 1897; E. L. Mansfield, April

All over the county, in the larger cemeteries and in the little country graveyards are hundreds of monuments that mark the last resting place of those who fought in the War of the rebellion. But just north of Oceola is a little monument that marks the spot where is buried one of the dumb heroes a horse who carried his soldier rider over several of the southern states. The horse was drawn by Abe Conger of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry, at Louisville Ky., and in one of Stoneman's raids the men were 87 days in the saddle, covering seven states and nearly two thousand miles of riding. At the close of the war Conger had become attached to the horse and brought him home; as years passed the horse became a pet ; he was taken to reunions where he appeared to recognize the flag and pricked up his ears at the martial music. Finally on Sept. 4, 1886, the old war horse, Frank, died, being then about 26 years of age. The veterans the next day took him to the woods of Capt. John Harter, just north of Oceola, where he was buried, and a little monument erected to mark the site of the old war horse.

The first schoolhouse was built on the banks of the Brokensword, southwest of the village, in 1839, and the first teacher was Jane Snavely, who received ten dollars a month, but when winter came her brother taught the school, receiving $15 per month. When the village of Oceola was started, the arrival of settlers made a schoolhouse necessary, and an old Indian cabin was fitted up as well as possible where the children were taught, but the new village contained a schoolhouse site, and on this the trees were chopped down and a log building erected in 1841 ; this was replaced in 1845 by a! frame building, which did duty for ten years, and in 1855 it was purchased by the Methodists and removed to their lot to be used for church purposes, and a two story frame erected, the growth of the town necessitating more than one room to accommodate the pupils. This frame was later replaced by the present brick structure.

The township has five schoolhouses. District No. I is at Lemert. No. 2 is between Lemert and Oceola, on the northwest quarter of section 24, the Mary E. Doty farm. No. 3 is in the village of Oceola, north of the public square. No. 4 is nearly two miles south of Oceola, the northeast quarter of section 2, the farm of Daniel Songer. No. 5 is two miles south of this in the southeast quarter of section II, the farm of A. M. Kinsey. These buildings are all on the north and south road which runs through the center of the township. And this road can well be called the schoolhouse road of the county. From the Seneca county line to Marion county, a distance of twenty miles, it has twelve schoolhouses, four in Texas township, five in Tod and three in. Dallas, and all modern. No other road in the county comes anywhere near this record.

The township of Tod, owing to its smallness and to the manner in which it is scattered out, has been somewhat backward in the matter of building churches. That does not mean the citizens were lax in their religious duties. Far from it, for they held services in their cabins sooif after the township was organized. As early as 1838, largely through the efforts of

Z. P. Lea and his family, a Methodist Episcopal congregation was organized in the northern part of the township, which subsequently built the first Methodist Episcopal church in Benton. The people were so varied in their faiths and creeds, no single congregation gained strength enough to build a church of its own outside of the village of Oceola. For nearly ten years the Methodists, Campbellites, United Brethrens, (Presbyterians, Lutherans and Universalists, and sometimes the Quakers, held meetings in the village schoolhouse, and a great part of the time these were union meetings, sometimes two denominations used the building on Sunday, the one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. It was also used of evenings, by some denomination, and there was scarcely a day or a night when the building was not in use. The first outside assistance in religious devotion came from Rev. George Reid and J. B. Robinson, of Bucyrus, who established a Bible society in 1840. Rev. William Matthews the Presbyterian minister at Bucyrus was the first to receive a salary, he holding services Sunday afternoons in 1845 and 1846. The Methodist Episcopal denomination became organized as a distinct body about the same time, with Rev. B. F. Royce as pastor, it coming within the Melmore Circuit, North Ohio Conference. The United Brethren congregation soon followed in its organization. The Campbellites, who were numerically strong prior to the Civil War, lost so many in that struggle they did not reorganize after the war. Under the leadership of Capt.

John Wert, a Union Sunday School was started in 1846 and conducted in the schoolhouse until 1854, then in the United Brethren church, all denominations uniting and making it a union Sunday school. As churches became stronger they organized Sunday Schools of their own, the Metbodists being first.

In the graveyard south of the village is buried Benjamin Maskey, who was in the War of 1812, enlisting in the Pennsylvania Militia; he was born Nov. 2, 1789, and died Jan. 21, 1867. Here also is buried Janies C. Steen, who was first lieutenant in Capt. Caldwell's independent company in the Mexican War, and died June 20, 1885; also Cyrus Peck, of the same company, who died June 18^ 1870. The oldest stone in this yard is that of Samuel Staley, who died Jan. 15, 1848, but there were burials here prior to this. In the Oceola graveyard is buried James Forrest, born May 17, 1799, and died May 10, 1880. He was with Commodore Perry at the battle of Lake Erie in the War of 181 2. When the war broke out he was living in Huntingdon county. Pa., and his uncle was drafted, but having a large family it was difficult for him to go, so his nephew, James, volunteered to go in his place. He was but 13 years of age, but so large that he was easily accepted. In 1854 he came to Crawford county where he had a farm north of Oceola on which he lived until his death. The oldest stone here is a child of John W. Bates, who died April 12, 1846, but there were a number of burials prior to this.