Cuyahoga County, Ohio - Chapter 8: The Period from 1798 to 1800, 1870

The Best Townships - Annual Meeting of 1798 - New Assessment - Report of the Equalizing Committee - Subsequent Career of Seth Pease-- Bounty on Gristmills - Road built to the Pennsylvania Line - Escaping the Ague - Carter's Generosity -Settlement of Euclid An Ague-Smitten Family - Description of a Plumping-Mill - Kingsbury's Hand Gristmill - Lack of Medicioe - Annual Indian Hunts in Cuyahoga County - Annual Drunks - Carter's Quarrel with Indians - His Influence over them - Fishing at Rocky River - The First Gristmill - The Surveyors give up Euclid - The First Sawmill - The First School - Fermation of Trumbull County - First Election in it - First Court of Quarter Sessions of Trumbull - First. Justices of the Peace from the Present Cuyahoga - Organization of Civil Townships - Boundaries of Cleveland - First Constables - Kirtland's Remonstrance against High Prices.

As before stated, it had been decided by the directors to take some of the most valuable townships as the standard, and bring the others up to that standard, by. the addition of fractions. Those selected by the committee as the most valuable in the whole Reserve (outside of those chosen to be sold for the general benefit), were townships five, six and seven of range eleven, and township eleven of range seven; now, respectively, Middlefield in Summit county, Bedford and Warrensville in Cuyahoga county, and Perry in Lake county. ;

At their annual meeting on the 23d of January, 1798, the stockholders confirmed the action of the directors, in giving acity lot, a ten-acre lot and a hundred-acre lot to Mrs. Stiles, a hundred-acre lot to Mrs. Gun, and a hundred-acre lot to James Kingsbury; also a city lot to Nathaniel Doan, conditioned on his living on it asa blacksmith. At the same time another assessment of twenty dollars a share was ordered; thirty-five dollars a share having already been raised during the preceding summer.

The question of political jurisdiction was still not quite decided, but the stockholders offered all their political authority, more or less, to Congress; at the same time requesting that the authorities of the Northwest Territory should form a new county, to embrace the Western Reserve. Some small donations of land were also offered to actual settlers. A committee reported in favor of building a road near Lake Erie from the Pennsylvania line to Cleveland, with a branch to the salt springs in the present county of Mahoning. The stockholders voted that the fifteen hundred dollars promised to the Indians, through Brant, should be pid to the United States superintendent of Indian affairs, to be divided among the Siz Nations as he should think just.

On the 29th of the same month the stockholders were again convoked by the directors to receive the report of the committee on partition, consisting of Pease, Spafford, Warren and Holbrook. Six townships were to be sold for the general benefit; two of them being Euclid and Cleveland (then including Newburg) and four being outside of Cuyahoga county. Four other townships (Warrensville, Bedford and two outside the county) were drawn in four hundred parcels, one to each share. All the rest of the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga was drawn in ninety-

These, as before arranged, were received by the proprietors, who clubbed together in groups for the purpose; each group dividing its portion among its mem~ bers as they could agree. This. ended the direct connection of Mr. Pease with the Connecticut Land Company. He was afterwards employed by the "' Holland Company " in surveying its Jaud, which comprised six or eight of the westernmost counties of New York. When his brother-in-law, Gideon Granger, became postmaster-general of the United States in 1801, Mr. Pease was made assistant postmastergeneral. While holding that position he was employed by the government to relocate the south line of the Western Reserve, in 1806.

The stockholders were still in trouble because Congress had failed to take any special action regarding their territory, andagain petitioned the legislature of Connecticut to afford them relief, but that body wisely decided to make no movement which might bring it into collision with the national authorities. The company also voted to give two hundred dollars, or loan five hundred, to any one who would put upa gristmill near the Cuyahoga, and likewise to others, to do the same in other localities. T'wo more assessments were levied, of ten dollars per share each.

In the spring of 1798 a party of eighteen came out to the Reserve and built a road from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania line, near the lake shore, which occu- The sume year Doan, (who had returned from the East to scttle, ) Edwards, Stiles and Guu followed the example of Kingsbury and located themselves four or five miles each from the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Doar made his home at the point long known as Doan's Corners, and the others along the ridge south from that point. The object of all of them was to escape the ague, then so terribly prevalent in the ''city," and to a great extent they succeeded. Their removal left the '' city" to the occupancy of Mr. Carter, Mr. Amos Spafford, (who came there the same year) and their families, and to Joseph Landon and Stephen Gilbert who cleared land and sowed some wheat. 'he early accounts speak

Carter and his wife to the fever-smitten inhabitants. He seems to have escaped sickness to a considerable extent, and his expertness with his rifle enabled him to make frequent and most welcome presents of game to his afflicted neighbors. Deer were plenty, and could be seen forty, fifty or even sixty rods away, owing to the fact that there was very little underbrush in any part of the county. Mr. Carter also brought goods that year to trade with the Indians; thus becoming the first merchant in the county after the settlement by the whites. 'The same year Mr. John Morse and others made a settlement in Huclid.

As illustrative of the hardships undergone by the early settler, it may be mentioned that Nathaniel Doan and his whole family, numbering nine persons, were sick during a considerable part of the season.

Seth Doan, a boy of thirteen, and he had the inevitable shakes. For two months Seth went to Mr. Kingsbury's and got corn, which he then crushed in Mr. Kingsbury's hand-mill and took home to the family. When he was unable to go they had no vegetable food but turnips, though Carter and his hounds kept them pretty well supplied with venison.

The miil spoken of, at least the first one built by Mr. Kingsbury, was of the form which was common in all the new country during the first years of settlement. An ovk stump was hollowed out so that it would hold about half a bushel of corn. Above it a heayy wooden pestle was suspended to a "springpole," the large end of which was fastened to a neighboring tree. A convenient quantity of corn being poured into the hollow, the pestle was seized with both hands and brought down upon it. Then the spring-pole drew it up a foot or two above the corn, when it was again brought down, and thus the work continued until the corn was reduced to a quantity of very coarse meal. 'These machines-were commonly called '' plumping-mills," aad probably each of the first-settled townships in the county had one or more of those rude but convenient articles. For three or four years there was no water-mill nearer than Pennsylvania.

Mr. Kingsbury, however, being a particularly enterprising pioncer, soon constructed something more effective than his plumping-mill, though still unable to compass a regular gristmill. Getting a couple of large stones in the vicinity, he shaped them into some similitude to mill-stones and fastened the lower firmly in position. 'To the upper one he affixed a long lever, by which it could be rotated back and forth, and with this simple machinery he and his neighbors were able to grind their corn finer and more rapidly than with the discarded plumping-mill.

The doctor who attended the surveyors having returned with them, there was no physician in all this part of the Reserve. It fact it was twelve years more before one located in Cuyahoga county. The people had to do their own doctoring and provide their own medicine. Instead of calumel they used an infusion of butternut bark; instead of quinine, a decoction of dogwood and cherry. These were crude remedies, yet, notwithstanding the extreme sickliness of the locality, which is admitted by all the early settlers, it does not appear that the mortality was much larger than in sections where there was an ample supply of physicians. Doubtless, however, a good physician would have stopped the prevalent fevers more quickly than they '' wore themselves out," and would thus have prevented much suffering.

The last three years of the eighteenth century were remarkable in this locality for the early appearance of warm weather. Pinks and other flowers bloomed in February each year, and peach trees were in full blossom in March.

the number of several hundred, were in the habit of coming every autumn from their summer homes on the Sandusky and Maumee, where they raised their corn, and assembling at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. There they piled their canoes, and then scattered out into the interior to spend the winter in hunting and trapping. Having acquired an ample supply of meat for summer use, and a quantity of valuable furs, they would return in the spring to the point where they had left their canoes.

Here they would sell their furs, and before returning home would indulge in a grand, annual drunk. For this festive occasion they prepared, with praiseworthy caution, by giving their tomahawks, knives, rifles and all other weapons to the squaws. These articles the latter would hide in some secluded place, carefully concealed from the warriors. Sometimes an ample allowance of whisky would be purchased 'in bulk" of the nearest trader, with which the Indians would retire to some forest nook and there celebrate their frantic orgies. Sometimes they bought it by the drink; increasing the amount and the frequency as the hours progressed.

Whichever way was adopted a terrific scene was the result. 'The warriors, as the whisky mounted to their brains, threw off all the usual stolidity of their demeanor; told with braggart shouts of the wars in which they had been engaged and the number of scalps they had taken; tore off even the scanty guarment they generally wore; rent the air with» bloodcurdling yells, and often fought among themselves with nature's weapons or such clubs and stones as they could pick up. At such times they frequently sought zealously for the knives and rifles of which they had previously dispossessed themselves, but the

Nor were the squaws entirely deprived of their share of amusement. After their lords had awakened from the sleep which followed their debauch, and had received back their weapons, the gentler sex were allowed (provided there was any whisky left or any fur to buy it with) to indulge in a lively drunk of their own. Their demonstrations were almost as frantic, but not usually as pugnacious, as those of the warriors.

After all had satiated themselves with pleasure - according to their ideas - they launched their canoes, loaded in their dried deer meat and bear meat, and those skins which, being unsalable to the whites, they destined for the furnishing of their lodges, and paddled swiftly away to their fertile cornfields at the head of the lake.

In the spring of 1799, the Indians obtained the whisky for their annual celebration from Mr. Carter. After using up their first supply they sent him furs and obtained more, and this was often repeated. Doubtless thinking that the less liquor they drank the better off they would be, the worthy trader, as the tradition goes, diluted the whisky with larger and larger quantities of water, as his customers became more and more intoxicated. The result was that they became sober long before they expected, and knew that a fraud had been perpetrated. Nine of them came to Carter's cabin in a great rage; swearing vengeance because they had been cheated out of a part of theirdrunk. Luckily all their arms were still in the possession of the squaws. They quickly burst open the cabin door, but the burly trader, standing behind it, knocked down three or four of them as they entered, sprang over their prostrate forms, rnshed upon those outside, and drove them, unaccustomed to fist-fights, in tumultuous disorder to their canoes. Ere. he.returned to the cabin, his other foes gathered themsélves up and slipped quietly away.

For a while Carter was somewhat anxious lest they should all return with their weapons, but instead of that, after a considerable time had passed, a deputation of squaws appeared and professed themselves desirous to make peace. 'The trader readily assented, walked over alone to the camp of his enemies, and easily succeeded in pacifying them. Whether he was able to convince them that it was a highly moral transaction to water an Indian's whisky when he was getting too drunk, and then knock him down for resenting it, history saith not, but there is no doubt that he exercised an immense influence over the Indians, and could take liberties with them which no one else could. His bold, rough-and-ready ways, his great physical strength, and his expertness as a marksman and hunter, far superior to their own, were all attributes which naturally gamed the intense admiration of the rude, untutored children of the forest. Some of them declared he was a magician, and could kill an animal with his rifle without breaking its hide.

On their way to and frora their summer residence, the Indians usually stopped at Rocky river to fish, and this was also a favorite resort of the whites. The former generally fished at night in their canoes, with torchlight and spears; the whites used these means,

In the spring, summer and fall of 1799, W. W. Williams and Major Wyatt built the first gristmill in the present county of Cuyahoga. It was located at the falls of Mill creck, in what was long known as the village of Newburg, but is now a part of the city of Cleveland. 'I'he Land Company gave the proprietors a hundred acres of land and all the irons for their mill, in consideration of their putting it up. The irons were the most important part of the structure, as it was absolutely necessary to bring them from the Kast, while all the rest of the appliances could be procured in the vicinity.

The water was conveyed in a trough dug out of logs to an undershot wheel, 'twelve feet over," which had but one set of arms, with brackets fifteen inches long, running inside the trough. David and

Gilman Bryant, who were still engaged in their grindstone trade from Vermillion river, made the millstones out of material obtained by the side of the creek, half a mile below the mill.

By this time it had become evident that almost all the surveyors had given up their idea of settling in Euclid, and about all that remains in evidence of their design is the name of the great mathematician, applied by them to their favorite township. Other settlers, however, came into that township and Cleveland, of whom more particular mention will be made in the township histories.

The next year, 1800, Williams and Wyatt built a sawmill, near their gristmill, on Mill creek; the former, like the latter, being the first institution of its kind in the county. As in the case of the first null, too, the irons for the sawmill were presented by the company.

This year was also distinguished by the establishment of the first school in the county. It was kept by Miss Sarah Doan in the Kingsbury neighborhood, which, as before stated, was long a part of Newburg, but has now been absorbed in the omnivorous city.

Some important movements were made regarding the fee-simple and the political jurisdiction of the Western Reserve. The United States at length formally conveyed all its title to the soil of that territory to the State of Connecticut (by which State it had been legally vested in the members of the Land Company and in the *'Fire Lands" proprictors), while on the other hand the State formally released to the United States all its claims to the political jurisdiction of the territory in question.

On the 10th of July, 1800, the legislature of Ohio formed a new county out of parts of Jefferson and Wayne, comprising all of the Western Reserve, including the ''Fire Lands" and the neighboring islands in the lake. 'To this county was given the name of ''T'rumbull," in honor of Jonathan Trumbull, then governor of the State of Connecticut, and ason of thecelebrated Revolutionary governor of the same name, who was the original '' Brother Jonathan." The county-seat was located at Warren; the most of the settlers, who were very few, being in the southeastern corner of the Reserve.

On the 22nd of September, 1800, Gov. St. Clair issued his proclamation, directed to David Abbott, who had been appointed sheriff of Trumbull county, and who lived near the mouth of Chagrin river in the present county of Luke, requiring him to hold an election at Warren on thesccond Tuesday of October, for the purpose of choosing a representative in the Territorial legislature. 'The election was duly held at the time and place specified, when only forty-two votes were cast for the whole county of Trumbull; that is to say in the whole Western Reserve. As it was about sixty miles from the county-seat to Cleveland and the same distance to Conneaut, it is quite probable that some of the voters stayed at home. Edward Paine, whom we have mentioned as living with the Stiles family during the first winter that Cleveland was occupied by white people, received thirty-eight of the forty-two votes, and was declared duly elected. This was the first election in which the settlers on the Reserve had taken part, and they were highly pleased to find themselves once more performing the accustomed duties of citizens.

Meanwhile, however, the first court of quarter sessions had been held at Warren, on the fourth Monday of August, 1800, by the judge of probate and the 'justices of quornm" of the new county. The former was John Leayitt. The latter were John Young, Turhand Kirtland, Camden Cleayeland, Eliphalet Austin and James Kingsbury; the last named being the only member from the present county of Cuyahoga. 'The first justice of the peace not 'of quorum," from this county, was Amos Spafford. The court appointed a commission consisting of Amos Spafford, David Hudson, Simeon Perkins, John Minor, A. Wheeler, Edward Paine and Benjamin Davidson, to report a proper division of Trumbull county into townships with convenient boundaries.

On their report the county was organized in eight townships, of which Cleveland was the westernmost. It comprised all of Cuyahoga cottnty, together with the townships of Chester, Russell and Bainbridge in Geauga county. It also embraced the whole Iudian country to the western boundary of the Reserve, (including the Fire Lands,) which was also the western boundary of the county. Its jurisdiction over the tract west of the Cuyahoga was, however, merely nominal; as there were no white men there to govern, and no one in those days thought of subjecting the Indians on their own ground to civil law. Thus the township of Cleveland had an area of about two thousand three hundred and forty square miles; of which, however, only about two hundred and sixty square miles were open to occupation by the whites. The next township cast of Cleyelund was Painesville.

The distinction between survey townships and civil townships should always be borne in mind by those studying the early history of this section. Thus, while the civil township of Cleveland embraced the immense territory aboye described, the survey township of the same name comprised only a small district about five miles by eight, out of which were afterwards formed the civil townships of Cleveland and Newburg.

After the county had been thus divided into townships, the court appointed constables for them; those for Cleveland being Stephen Gilbert and Lorenzo Carter.

In this year Turhand Kirtland, writing to General Cleaveland from the town which bore the name of the latter, declared that the prices of land were too high; objecting especially to the demand of twentyfive dollars per acre for city lots. He stated that the crops were extremely good, the settlers healthy and in good spirits, and their numbers increasing as rapidly as could be expected. There was a universal scarcity of cash, however, which of course made payments difficult. The settlers were anxious that the company should build a store, and take grain and other produce in payment for their land. This, however, was not done.