Huron County, Ohio - The whole text, 1909 (part 3 of 29)

From this decidedly humble beginning, the present large and prosperous St. Paul's church and congregation have gradually developed. Three churches they built, only in turn to find them too small for their ever increasing numbers. Old St. Peter's, at the west end of Main street, built 1840; New St. Peter's, on Hester street, built 1868; Old St. Paul's, at the corner of Wooster and Monroe streets, built in 1876. Finding that even their third building would no longer answer the demands made upon it by the ever growing congregation, it was decided to build a monumental building amply large for the future. The result of that determination is the new St. Paul's, the noble, beautiful structure of white limestone and Lake Superior red stone that now graces the corner of Main and Wooster streets. Nor is this all. Urged on by the conviction that education can never be real education unless it educates the heart as well as the mind; that education, divorced from religion, is incomplete; that the child must be trained in his duties towards God, his country, his parents and his neighbors as thoroughly and as well as in the three R's, this congregation has from the very beginning, built and maintained splendid parochial schools, ever since the year 1858. The present school is the pride of the parish. From it, many of Norwalk's noblest men and grandest women have graduated. Not only are all the ordinary common school branches taught, but thorough, practical instruction is also given in the commercial branches, bookkeeping, shorthand and typewriting. Added to this, there is an art department, in which drawing, painting in oil and water colors, crayon and pastel work are taught. A complete course in needlework, plain and ornamental, has been established for the girls. The Sisters of Notre Dame, who enjoy a very high reputation as teachers, have charge of St. Paul's school. The art exhibitions of this school, held annually, are noted for their lavish display of truly artistic work. The number of pupils is three hundred and twenty-five.

By George Mordoff, Ex-Superintendent

At the State Conference of Charities and Corrections, the Huron county institution is looked upon as a model, a fact of which every citizen should feel proud. The modern methods, employed by the management of county institutions, seek to make better men and women of the inmates, and they are in no sense a retreat for criminals and dissipated characters, as they were once looked upon as being. Sixty or more citizens of Huron county are given a real home - at least as real as institutional methods will permit. Respects for "The Rights of Others" 1$ the governing rule.

The land value of Huron county's home is twenty-five thousand, five hundred dollars, consisting of two hundred and four acres. The building value, forty- three thousand dollars. Live stock value, three thousand, one hundred and fortysix dollars, and other items of inventory bring the total value to seventy-four thousand, three hundred and fifty-nine dollars.

The farm produces as follows: Consumed by inmates, produce valued at four thousand, eight hundred and twenty-one dollars. Live stock sold, value, three hundred and ninety-eight dollars. Produce sold, eight hundred and eightyfive dollars. Total value of farm products, six thousand and four dollars.

Norwalk Academy

In October, 1826, an association of individuals was organized under the name of "The President, Trustees, etc., of the Norwalk Academy." A threestory brick building was erected on the site of our present high school. In October, 1829, the academy was consolidated with the district schools with John Kennan as principal.

In the museum of the Firelands Historical Society may be seen a catalogue of the officers and students of Norwalk academy under date of March 17, 1829. Trustees: Platt Benedict, president, Timothy Baker, Deverett Bradley, William Gallup, Henry Buckingham, Thaddeus B. Sturgess, Obadiah Jenney. John Kennan, principal. Nathan G. Sherman, Levina Lindsey, assistants.

Norwalk Seminary

On the eleventh of November, 1833, the Norwalk seminary was opened in the Academy building under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal church, with Rev. Jonathan E. Chaplin as principal The seminary burned February 26, 1836; was rebuilt in 1838, and closed in January, 1846, and the whole property sold under execution in favor of the builders. Reopened as Norwalk Institute in August, 1846, under the auspices of the Baptists of Norwalk.

Norwalk Institute

Rev. Jeremiah Hall was the first principal of the "Institute," and was succeeded by A. S. Hutchins, who continued as principal until 1855, when the institute ceased to exist by reason of the Akron School Law providing for graded

Norwalk High School

In March, 1855, the school board purchased the brick building occupied by the Norwalk institute, to be used as a central and high school building for the district. The purchase price was three thousand, five hundred dollars, which embraced the entire square occupied by the present beautiful high school building, a small library and some apparatus. In 1884 the central school building was erected at a cost of about sixty thousand dollars. The first graduate of the high school was Sarah E. Wilkinson in 1861. The largest class graduated is the class of 1905, numbering eighteen young men and sixteen young women. In all two

Huron county, Ohio, was organized in 1815 and embraced all the territory now included in Huron and Erie counties, having an area of five hundred thousand acres. The first session of the county commissioners was held August 1, 1815, at David Abbott's, the county seat then being at Avery or in Wheatborough township near Milan. The first county commissioners were Caleb Palmer, Charles Parker and Eli S. Barnum. The first county treasurer was Abijah Comstock.

Previous to 1816 the nearest postoffice was Huron. In that year Dr. Joseph Pierce was appointed postmaster and a postoffice established at Norwalk in the Benjamin Newcome house located on what is now known as the Asher Cole farm south of the old waterworks. The county seat was transferred to Norwalk in 1818. The voting population in 1818 was fifty-six. The first tax duplicate which included the territory now embraced by Huron and Erie counties was one hundred ninety-two dollars and forty cents. Huron county was divided into Huron and Erie counties in 1838. From this primitive beginning, Huron county has grown to be one of the wealthiest and most progressive counties of the state. Her present population is now about thirty-five thousand with a tax duplicate of five hundred forty-six thousand, five hundred and seventy-two dollars.

Sixty miles of modern stone and gravel roads have been constructed and this mileage is being added to rapidly. Nine steam railroads cross the county, several of them having large shops located in this county, bringing their taxable value up to two million, five hundred and forty-eight thousand, one hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Three electric railroads come within the county, with a taxable value of one hundred ninety-one thousand, six hundred and thirty-two dollars. Sixteen substantial banks enjoy the confidence of our citizens w deposits therein amounting to five million dollars.

The old courthouse which was built in 1818 was located on the same ground as the present courthouse. It was rebuilt in 1873 and was thoroughly remodeled in 1908. The old jail, which was built in 1819, occupied the same ground on which the Taber block stands. The present building was erected in 1887.

The Norwalk Chamber Of Commerce By Qir Jackson, President

Inspired by the success of organized effort in the upbuilding of communities, the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1908 to strengthen and develop the interest of Norwalk and to bring more business to its commercial and industrial enterprises,

It is the business of the Chamber of Commerce to develop cooperation. Although its individual members may be competitors in certain lines, that does not prevent cooperation along lines of mutual interest, and so far, harmonious united effort of members and committees has prevailed.

It is the purpose of this organization to assist in securing new industries for Norwalk, not by bonuses, but by showing Norwalk's superior advantages, that it is the best location economically for certain lines of manufacture when a superior degree of intelligence, sobriety and thrift is required of its laborers.

The Chamber of Commerce believes that it is the duty of influential men of this community to study tbe signs of the times - to assume the responsibility of the solutions of problems of the day - to devote their energies to the commercial, civic, social and esthetic developmént of the city - -to have as their aim the ideal Norwalk.

Norwalk Of Today From A Municipal Standpoint

The city of Norwalk with a population of about ten thousand people surrounded by a rich agricultural county, with a conservative, intelligent population, is a surprisingly resourceful municipality and is abundantly able to care for its own under any and all circumstances.

Our police and fire departments have always been maintained in such a manner, that for efficiency and high standard, they are recognized as among the best in any city regardless of size. And the fact that for nearly a score of years back, almost without exception, the city's tax rate has been the lowest of any of the municipal tax levies of the neighboring corporations, speaks for the business methods and judgment of other officers louder than any words here could.

The growth of the city is keeping pace with the demands of the day. Many new dwellings have been completed or are in process of construction, and right now the demand for houses to rent is at flood tide, and all modern dwellings offered for rent are immediately occupied.

During the past year, several new stores have been added, besides large additions to The Glass Block; a magnificent hotel, The Avalon, being finished to meet Norwalk's increasing commercial demands, and when completed this hostelry will be one of the finest between Cleveland and Toledo, a credit to its proprietors and to Maple City.

The new Wheeling & Lake Erie shops are today employing more men than ever before. The A. B. Chase Piano Co. and the Gallup-Ruffing Co. have constructed large additions to their plants.

Norwalk is planning and accomplishing for the future, by keeping pace with this steady increase in our business interests. We take a just pride in our water supply, which is wholesome and sufficient for double the present demands.

Norwalk has well under way a complete and perfect sewerage system, which includes a disposal plant. Forty thousand dollars was expended last year for new sewers, which are a part of the proposed plant.

City streets are covered with eleven miles of fine brick pavement, and quite a large amount of pavement is under way which will be completed before the end of 1909.

The credit for the wholesome condition of the municipality of Norwalk belongs to our splendid citizenship, in which we all claim a common share.

Our shipping facilities are of the best, having the main lines of the L. S. & M. S. and W. & L. E. Railways, and we are one of the largest traction line centers in the country, over one hundred and twenty-five interurban electric cars in and out of Norwalk every twenty-four hours.

Norwalk is an ideal place in which to make one's home. Its natural beauty and high standard of citizenship of which we boast makes an invitation to come to Norwalk almost irresistible to the business man, commercial traveler, mechanic or manufacturer, as well as the man who is able to retire and live out his days with most pleasant and agreeable surroundings.

The Indians found the prairie and woodlands of the Firelands abounding in game, but many years have elapsed since the last red man hunted within the borders of Huron county.

Seneca John was accustomed to hunt in the southern and western parts of Huron county. The early settlers of that region always gave him a cordial welcome, and some of them have placed on record their appreciation of his character. He could speak but little English, but was always friendly to the settlers, and was brave, honest, and trustworthy.

Ogontz was better known in the region of Sandusky, which was one of his favorite resorts at certain seasons of the year, for the purpose of fishing and hunting, and that locality was for years known, by reason of this fact, as "Ogontz place."

The tragedy which ended the life of each of these hunter and warrior chiefs, illustrates the sanguinary character of their race. Seneca John was accused of witchcraft, and having been condemned by his own tribe, was unhesitatingly slain - his own brother being the executioner. Ogontz, years before his death, had killed, in self defense, a rival chief, and had adopted the latter's son, who, even in his boyhood, cherished a desire to avenge his father's death. The boy grew up, and when the opportunity offered, took the life of Ogontz, who had been a second father to him.

It is a mystery how, in this northern climate, the Indians obtained the means of living through the winter. Even those tribes who did not despise agriculture tilled the soil in a superficial way, and often had short crops. In such a season, their chief dependence was on fish and game, and even these must at times have failed them.

The Indian's daily work was hunting and trapping game, when he was not on the war trail, seeking the scalps of his enemies. According to Seneca John, the hunting grounds were, by agreement, allotted among the tribes, and, doubtless, encroachments on one another's territory and disputes as to boundaries, were the fruitful causes of quarrels and bloodshed.

In the autumn of every year the prairies were burned over, that the abundant deer might be more easily tracked and hunted over the bare and blackened soil.

The squaws, meanwhile, tied up their little pappooses in bark cradles, which they hung from the limbs of trees, to be rocked by the passing wind while they toiled with sweating faces and aching backs.

This adventurous band left home and civilization, faced the perils of a journey of over six hundred miles, and endured the hardships and toils of making a new home in the wilderness of a strange land.

About eight weeks from their departure, these pioneers arrived at their destination, in the wilds of the Firelands, now Huron county. In these vast woods the blows of the settler's ax had never resounded; through their branches the smoke from the settler's cabin had never curled. Here roamed the deer, and the bear; and here the silence of the midnight hour was broken by the howling of the wolf and the whoop of the hostile Indian.

After awhile others came in, consisting of families of men, women and children. Some of the men were farmers, some were skilled in trades and professions.

The women were neat and industrious housewives, and diligent workers at the spinning wheel and the loom. These pioneers began the great work of converting a forest into a home, by felling trees, building houses and cutting out roads; and all through the season, there was busy work in this wilderness.

Rustic bedsteads, chairs, tables, and the omnipresent cradle, made their appearance in every house; and industry and ingenuity soon transformed every log cabin into a home.

The winters were safely and comfortably passed by the pioneers. Their fires crackled brightly and the festivities of Christmas time were observed as joyously in this Fireland forest, as in the old far-away home.

One great cause of the success of this country was the active help the women rendered their husbands. Every wife was indeed a helpmeet. She not only did the housework, but helped her husband in the clearings, amid the blackened stumps and logs. 0

Those of you who never lived in the backwoods, can have no adequate conception of the vast labor and toil undergone in this wilderness, to create the results which you see all around you. A settler's first years in the woods are a continued fight, hand to hand, with savage nature, for existence. It is pleasant for us today, to look out upon the broad fields, green with the growing crops; but do we know, can we calculate, how many blows of the ax, how many drops of sweat, have been expended in turning each one of these broad acres of land from forest to farm? Huron county's story forms an important chapter in the history of Ohio. That story I would love fully to recount to you step by step on this festal day, when she celebrates her eighty-seventh anniversary.

I would fain tell of its organization, and that of the townships; and of the rise and progress of its churches; the building of its houses of worship; of its schools, and the thorough work they have accomplished; of the establishment of mills and factories; how year after year the forest had been felled, and the chopping of blackened stumps have been transformed into smooth fields of waving grain; how the log cabins have been replaced by substantial and fine residences, large barns, fruitful orchards and bountiful crops. All this I have and much more I would be glad to recite in detail to you, but the sun of this long summer day would set before half could be told, so I will conclude by saying of our pioneer fathers and mothers who sleep in yonder graveyard, that their noble deeds will not be forgotten so long as the history of the Firelands is rehearsed among men.

Indian Habits And Customs

The Indians were always the allies of the British as against Americans, and as to their treachery and deceit all the white settlers could have attested. They professed to be friendly to the pioneers until about the breaking out of the war with Great Britain, when they joined with the English to destroy the whites.

Tpe manners, customs, feats, war parties and daily life of these sons of the forest form interesting chapters in aboriginal history. The character of the Indians was largely the result of their lives. They judged and lived by what the senses dictated. They had names and words for what they could hear, see, feel, taste and smell They had no conceptions of abstract ideas until they learned such from the whites. Hence their language was very symbolical. They could see the sun in its brightness, they could feel his heat; hence they compared the actions of a good man to the glory of the sun, and his fervent energy to the heat of that body. The moon in her brightness, the wind in its fury, the clouds in their majesty, or in their slow, graceful motion through a lazy atmosphere; the grace and flight of the deer; the strength and fury of the bear; the rush or ripple of water as it coursed along the bed of a river, all gave them words whose expressiveness are a wonder and marvel to this day. They looked on the beautiful river that borders the southern shores of our state. Their cabins or wigwams were of two kinds - circular and parallelogram. The former, the true wigwam, was in use when the whites came to this country. It was made of a number of straight poles driven firmly into the ground, their upper ends being drawn closely together; this formed a kind of a skeleton tent. The squaws plaited mats of thongs, bark or grass, in such a manner as to render them impervious to water. These were spread on the poles, beginning at the bottom, and extending upward. A small hole was left for the egress of smoke from the fire kindled in the center of the wigwam. Around this fire, mats or skins were spread, on which the Indians slept at night, and on which they sat during the day. For a door they lifted one end of the mat, and crept in, letting it fall down behind them. These tents were warm and dry, and generally quite free from smoke. Their fuel was nearly always split by the squaws in the fall of the year, and sometimes kept dry by placing it under an inverted birch-bark canoe. These wigwams were easily moved about from place to place, the labor of their destruction and construction being always performed by the squaws - the beasts of burden among all savage nations. The wigwam was very light, and easily carried about. It resembled the tents of today in shape, and was often superior in point of comfort and protection.

The cabins were more substantial affairs, and were built of poles, about the thickness of a small sized telegraph pole, but were of various sizes, and commonly, about twelve or fifteen feet in length.

The skin of a fat bear was a great prize to an Indian. It made him an excellent couch on which to sleep, or a cloak to wear. His flesh was supposed to impart bravery to those who ate it, hence when dipped in sweetened bear's fat, it was considered an excellent dish, and one often offered to friends. Venison, prepared the same way, was also considered a dish fit for the most royal visitors; a hospitality always extended to all who came to the camp, and if not accepted the donor was sure to be offended.

They used vessels made of elm bark to carry water in. They would strip the bark in the winter season when it would strip or run, by cutting down the tree, and, with a crooked stick, sharp and broad at one end, peel the bark in wide strips, from which they would construct vessels holding two or three gallons each. They would often make over a hundred of these. They cut a sloping notch in the side of a sugar-tree, stuck a tomahawk into the wood at the end of the notch, and, in the dent thus made, drove a long chip or spile, which conveyed the water to the bark vessels. They generally selected the larger trees for tapping, as they considered the sap from such stronger and productive of more sugar. Their vessels for carrying the sap would hold from three to five gallons each, and sometimes, where a large camp was located and a number of squaws at work, using a half-dozen kettles, great quantities of sugar would be made. When the sugar-water would collect faster than they could boil it, they would make three or four iarge troughs, holding more than a hundred gallons each, in which they kept the sap until ready to boil. When the sugar was made, it was generally mixed with bear's oil or fat, forming a sweet mixture into which they dipped their roasted venison. As cleanliness was not a reigning virtue among the Indians, the cultivated taste of a civilized person would not always fancy the mixture, unless driven to it by hunger. The compound, when made, was generally kept in large bags made of coon skins, or vessels made of bark. The former were made by stripping the skin over the body toward the head, tying the holes made by the legs with buckskin cords, and sewing securely the holes of the eyes, ears and mouth. The hair was all removed; and then the bag blown full of air, from a hole in the upper end, and allowed to dry. Bags made in this way would hold whiskey, and were often used for such purposes. When they became saturated they were blown full of air again, the hole plugged, and they were left to dry. Sometimes the head was cut off without stripping the skin from it, and the skin of the neck gathered in folds like a purse, below which a string was tied and fastened with a pin. Skin vessels are not indigenous to the natives of America. Corn was their principal crop, and was raised entirely by the squaws. When the season for planting drew near, the women cleared a spot of rich alluvial soil, and dug over the ground in a rude manner with their hoes. In planting the corn they followed lines, to a certain extent, thus forming rows each way across the field. When the corn began to grow, they cultivated it with wonderful industry, until it had matured sufficiently for use.

Pioneer Gatherings

It may be interesting to the younger as well as to the older class of people to recall some of the industrial, social and religious gatherings of the pioneers of Ohio.

In the early settlement of the country there were cabin and barn raisings, log-rolings, wood-choppings, corn-huskings, and sewing and quilting parties, and at such gatherings, utility and amusements were usually blended.

The pioneers were helpful to each other, not only in "raisings" and "rollings," requiring a force of men, but also in other ways. If a settler was incapacitated from work by sickness or other cause, his neighbors set a day and gathered in force and plowed his corn, harvested his grain, or cut his wood for the winter, as the season or occasion required. And when a pig or a calf or a sheep was killed, a piece of the same was sent to the several families in the neighborhood, each of whom reciprocated in kind, and in this neighborly way all had fresh meats the greater part of the summer.

Corn-huskings were great occasions. Sometimes the corn ears were stripped from the stalks and hauled to a favorable place and put in parallel or semicircular windrows, convenient for the huskers. Moonlight nights were usually chosen for husking-bees, and sometimes bonfire lights were improvised. After the company gathered, captains were selected who chose the men off into two squads or platoons which competed in the work, each trying to finish its row first. The captain of the winning squad would then be carried around on the shoulders of his men, amid their triumphal cheers, and then the bottle would be passed.

West Main Street, New London

Women also attended these pioneer gatherings and sometimes assisted at the husking, but more frequently were engaged in the early evening in quilting or sewing, or in helping to prepare the great supper-feast that was served after the work was done.

There was a rule that a young man could kiss a girl for each red ear of corn found at a husking, and it goes without the saying that all the girls were kissed, some of them several times, for it was surprising how many red ears were found - so many, that the number was prima facie evidence that some of the boys went to the huskings with their pockets full of red corn ears.

Nearly all the pioneer gatherings wound up after supper with dancing, in which the old joined as well as the young, and when a fiddler could not be obtained, music for the occasion was furnished by some one blowing on a leaf, or by whistling "dancing tunes." The dancing then was more vigorous than artistic, perhaps, for the people were robust in those days, effeminacy not becoming fashionable until later years.

The pioneers were industrious people. The situation required that the men must chop and grub and clear the land ere they could plow and sow and reap. And the women had to card and spin and knit and weave and make garments for their families, in addition to their household work. A pioneer minister's wife in telling about her work upon a certain occasion, said: "I've made a pair of pants and a bed-tick, and washed and ironed, and baked six pies today."

Wool had to be carded into rolls by hand, and after the rolls had been spun into yarn and the yarn woven into flannel, the product of the loom had to be "fulled" into thicker cloth for men's wear. As this was a hand or rather a foot process, it necessitated "fulling" or "kicking" parties. Upon such occasions the web was stretched out loosely on the puncheon floor and held at each end, while men with bared feet sat in rows at the sides and kicked the cloth, while the women poured on warm soapsuds, and the white foam of the suds would often be thrown over both kickers and attendants.

Carding and woolen mills and spinning and weaving factories came later, served their purpose and time, but are no more, and now people go to stores and get "hand-me-down" suits without either asking or caring where or how they were made.

While there were social amusements in pioneer times religious services were not neglected. As there were but few church buildings then camp meetings were frequently held during the summer season. Camp meeting trips were enjoyable outings. The roads to the camp grounds often ran by sequestered farm homes and through shady woodlands, where the rays of the sun shimmered charmingly through leafy tree-tops, and the fragrance of the wayside flowers deliciously perfumed the summer air.

At the camp, white tents in a semi-circle partly surrounded an amphitheater of seats in front of a pulpit canopied by trees. The Creator of heaven and earth reared the columns of those camp cathedrals, along whose bough-spanned dome, soft winds whispered and in whose leafy fretwork birds sang. From the mossy floor flowers sent up their perfume like altar incense, and in accord with place and surroundings, the congregation was wont to sing:

At the camp, visitors were received with cordial greetings, for the campers had the warmth of friendship in their hearts and of Christian zeal in their souls, and their frank manner and winsome ways were favorable preludes to the services that followed.

At these camp meetings some of the worshippers would become quite demonstrative at times, for the personal manifestations of joy or devotion differ as much as our natures differ. No two persons give expression in the same way to any human emotion. Religion can come to you only in accordance with your nature, and you can respond to it only in the same way.

Singing was a prominent feature of camp services. It was the old-fashioned singing, without instrumental accompaniment. Singing, such as our dear old mothers sang, and although faulty, perhaps, in note, came from the heart and went to the heart. The singing of today may be more artistically rendered, but it is the old-time songs that comfort us in our sorrow and sustain us in our trials as they come back to us in hallowed remembrance from the years that are past.

Progress And Changes Of The Times

The pioneers found the country of which Huron is now a part without church, school, market, roads, merchant, mechanic or cultivated acre - if we except a few spots that may have been marked by the rude efforts at tillage by the Indian. Savage beasts and uncivilized men were in deadly conflict throughout the domain of the wilderness. Except when winter withdrew them to their caverns, the earth teemed with venomous and loathsome reptiles. The country was utterly destitute of any of the moral or material resources that bear relation to civilized life. Such, in brief, was its condition when that band of moral heroes, the pioneers, entered the country and grappled with privations and dangers altogether unknown to the generation who now occupy this country, and even to the experience of those who have of late years undertaken the subjugation of the forests west of this. There exists no analogy between the habits and modes of life of those who were backwoodsmen at the commencement of the present century, and those who have peopled the new states and territories of the west. Here, until the opening of an Atlantic market by the completion of the New York and Erie canal, in 1825, there had been no sale of produce except for neighborhood consumption; while westward of this, during the iast ten or fifteen years particularly, artificial communications, by means of canals, turnpikes, or railroads, have advanced, almost with the van of the immigrating column, and agriculture, commerce and manufactures, with all the happiness they bestow, have been enjoyed, with the exception of brief delays, by the first populations of the new states and territories. Steam, as an agent of transit alone, has wrought a wonderful revolution in accelerating the dis- tribution of population and wealth. The pioneers of Huron county made their way hither from their former eastern homes by the tedious process of horse and ox teams, and some even on foot, occupying weeks in their journeys. They were the manufacturers of almost everything they used, including their farming implements and the fabrics with which they were clothed. Their food, also, as well as their raiment, was the exclusive production of their own farms. There were no importations of goods. The modes of pioneer life and their isolation from society did not require imported goods. The early settlers were pioneers and America is the only country which produced pioneers. Other countries were settled by people moving enmasse from one place to another, but here they came singly, each man for himself. In European countries tribes would move in a body and overrun, absorb or extinguish the original inhabitants of a country, dispossess them and occupy their territory. But in America we had the gradual approach of civilization and the gradual recession of barbarism.

When civilization crossed the crest of the Alleghenies, Ohio was looked upon as the garden of the west, and soon various settlements were made in the territory now known as the Buckeye state. Casuists claim that the deer was made for the thicket, that the thicket was made for the deer, and that both were made for the hunter; and in further correlations state that the soil was not only intended for those who would cultiyate it, but that if the valley produces corn and the hillside grapes, that people suited to the cultivation of such products take possession of such localities on the theory of the eternal fitness of things.

It is different now with persons who remove to the far west, from what it was with the early settlers in Ashland county. Transportation facilities make a trip to the west a quick and easy matter, and stocks of clothing, farming implements, merchandise and provisions of all kinds can be shipped from the east to the west by railroads, making rapid transits instead of the ox-team trips of the long ago. The privations of Huron county pioneer life were serious situations, compared with those of the early settlers of the west today.

No country settled at and prior to the date of the portion which now forms the state of Ohio, ever had but one race of pioneers - the men who penetrated the wilderness, endured all the hardships incident to its subjugation, and transmitted to their successors the comforts and conveniences of a high civilization. When this class of men pass off a given spot, they disappear for all time; the country which was first redeemed by them will know them nor their like no more forever.

We confess to a feeling of veneration for the characters of those men who penetrated the wilderness and inaugurated civilization and its train of blessings in a region where savages and wild beasts had maintained undisputed empire. The scenes through which they passed are suggestive of rich fields for the genius of the poet and painter, and fields that it is hoped may be hereafter occupied.

In days of yore friends and neighbors could meet together to enjoy themselves, and with hearty good will enter into the spirit of social amusements. The old and young could then spend evening after evening around the firesides with pleasure and profit. There was a geniality of manners then, and a corresponding depth of soul, to which modern society is unaccustomed.

A few years ago, one who had witnessed all the stages of our material development - the gradual redemption from our wilderness condition to our recent full estate of national prosperity - and having himself, by years of industry and economy, gathered about him all the comforts and luxuries of modern life, had an irrepressible longing to be among the men and scenes of by-gone days. He would again become a pioneer in a new country. He sighed particularly for that unbounded hospitality which dissolves -

He could not, of course, hope to realize'those halcyon days except in a new country. He therefore again, old as he was, resolved to sacrifice the comforts and luxuries of his Huron county home - the results of the toil of his own hands - and seek a new one in the west. With this view, he traveled over Towa, Minnesota, etc. There he found the wilderness, true enough, but he could not find the men. The old race was not there. He discovered an utter absence of all the types and shadows of the pioneer times with which he had been familiar in his early manhood. Instead of the matron and maiden decked in home-made tow-cloth and linsey-woolsey, he found hoops, silks, satins, and an exuberance of vanity and pretension. In place of the large-hearted humanity of the days of yore, he found selfishness, and a race for accumulation even more intensified than had developed itself in the modern times among ourselves. Far beyond the rising tide of population, he found the locomotive and its "train" of vice and social demoralization. Our friend returned home, well persuaded that no condition of society now exists upon the face of the globe that affords a parallel to the times for which he sighed and with which he was once familiar.

Early Schools

For several years after the first settlement, but little attention was paid to educational matters. The teachers were illiterate, and the school-houses were of the rudest style of architecture. The following description of one will illustrate. It was situated on a knoll about four rods from a fine spring of water in the midst of a dense forest. It was constructed of round logs twelve and sixteen feet long, one story high, with a log across the north end placed about four or five feet high from the floor, and about the same distance from the wall, upcn which, and against the end wall, was erected a large stick chimney, plastered with mortar, joined to a stone back wall cemented with the same material.

The roof was made of clapboards that were held in their places by weight poles, which in turn were held by a small log, notched into the ends of the top end logs, and called a butting pole. Not a nail was used. Greased paper was used in place of glass for windows. The ground floor was composed of huge puncheons, faced and jointed by some pioneer with his broadaxe, and laid large logs placed in as sleepers. The seats were made from small trées, cut into logs of the proper length and split in two, the bark taken off, and the other side hewn and made smooth; two-inch holes were then bored into the ends and middle, into which sticks were placed for legs. Holes were bored into the walls on the west side, and the south end, and large wooden supporters placed therein, upon which were laid boards to write upon; then, to complete the structure, the door was made by cutting a hole in the southeast corner of the house, five and one-half by three and one-half feet in dimensions; the same was cased with timber, split, hewn and shaved, and fastened with wooden pins.

A scholar thus described his teacher's personal appearance: "He wore linseywoolsey pants and home-made linen vest, red flannel warmus, cowhide shoes, the sole and upper leather both of his own tanning, together with overshoes made from sheepskin with the wool on."

As to his pupils, they came from every direction for two miles each way. Some of them six feet in height, all dressed in homespun from head to foot. The young women were also clad in homespun. The books corresponded with other surroundings. A majority of these youngsters went to work with a will, and soon acquired the rudiments of an education, and matured into excellent men and women.

There were always three or four classes in spelling, and this exercise was the last before school was dismissed in the evening. Their old books were conned over year after year until they were worn out and the children grew up to manhood and womanhood, and never knew, and perhaps do not know to this day, what was in the back part of them. That was the kind of a start many a great man had. These schools cannot be despised when it is remembered that the greatest and best of the nation, including such men as Abraham Lincoln, Edwin M. Stanton, and Stephen A. Douglas, were among the boys who attended them.

There was always much competition in the spelling classes as to who should get the "head mark." In the later schools it was the custom that the best speller might stand at the head until he missed, when the one who spelled the word correctly should take his place, and he then stood next to the head; but they did things differently in the earlier schools; the head of the class once gained and held until the last spelling at night, the head mark was received and the lucky scholar then took his place at the foot of the class, to again work his way gradualy to the head. These classes sometimes contained thirty or forty scholars, and it was something of an undertaking to get from the foot to the head. Spelling-schools were the beauty and glory of school-days. The scholars were always coaxinz the teacher to appoint a nizht for a spelling school, which he usually did for about two nights in a week.

The Pioneer Preachers Of The Firelands

A tribute of praise shculd be given the pioneer preachers of the Firelands. The Methodist ministers were the first on the Firelands of which we find any record. As early as 1811 the Rev. William Gurley preached in Huron county. It has been written that great was the joy when they heard that a preacher had arrived. At that time there was no minister of the gospel within at least forty miles. No sermon had then been heard in our county, and the news soon spread

A log school house, so recently built, was filled at the hour for worship. It was "Indian summer." The manner in which the audience were dressed was striking enough. The men were mostly dressed in tow shirts, linsey coats or hunting shirts and buckskin pantaloons, and moccasins instead of shoes were extensively worn. and there might be seen a vest of spotted fawn-skin made with the fur out, caps made of the skins of the raccoon and muskrat were worn instead of hats. These articles of dress were all of domestic manufacture, and mostly clumsy and uncouth in appearance. The costume of the ladies was almost entirely of home manufacture, except that of those who had recently arrived from the east. A few Indians, attracted by curiosity, were present; they were in their hunting costumes with rifle, tomahawk and knife.

The pioneer preacher's church was the log cabin or the log school house. His pulpit a rude table. His horse and saddle bags were his inseparable companions. In the early conferences it was customary for the bishop to admonish the preachers to "be kind to their beast," and truly these itinerant horses shared with their riders in the arduous toil and struggle connected with planting the gospel. The pioneer preacher's library was a portable library, consisting of a Bible, hymn book, discipline and a few other books, carried in the saddle bags and read on horseback, or by the weird flicker of the pine knot or tallow-candle in the cabin of the pioneer.

Among the preachers of an early day who visited the Firelands were William Gurley, True Pattie, James McIntyre, Harry O. Sheldon and Russel Bigelow. These pioneer preachers have been described as follows:

William Runnels, who always rode the best looking 'horse on the circuit, and of which animal there was no better judge, was a most interesting and pleasing speaker.

Elder Russel Bigelow, his oratory was of divine inspiration and under his unequaled and soul stirring appeals I have seen people leave their seats and get as near the pulpit as possible, apparently unaware of changing their places. "Such vast impressions did his sermons make, he always kept his flock awake."

"I was clad in homespun, the produce of my wife's industry. My horse and equipage were of the humblest kind. The journey was mostly through a dense forest. I traveled thirty miles before I could find a road leading westward along the lake shore. Where Elyria now stands there was no bridge and I crossed the river on the ice. My circuit extended from Black river along the Ridge road by where Norwalk now stands, then to the little town of New Haven, and thence by a zigzag course to Sandusky bay and Venice and Portland, now San- dusky city, thence through Perkins, east along the lake shore to the place of beginning. I soon formed a four weeks' circuit of twenty-four appointments with two hundred miles of travel."

The pioneer preacher, with a broad brimmed white hat and round breasted coat, well posed in his easy saddle, was easily recognized as he drew near the log cabin, or the "meeting house," where the congregation was usually in waiting. With saddle-bags on his arm, he pressed through amid the devout worshipers, who would strike up some favorite hymn, making "melody in their hearts, and melody with their voices." Kneeling and offering a silent prayer, the preacher would first unlace his well bespattered leggings, then draw from the saddle-bags his bible and hymn-book.

Pioneer Stories

Many incidents might be enumerated to show that the paths of the pioneers were not strewn with roses, and many of the comforts which they enjoyed later in life were obtained by persevering exertions, industry, and economy on their part and the people of today can form but an imperfect idea of the privations and hardships endured by the pioneers of Ohio.

The first work of the newcomer was to select a location, then to cut poles or logs suitable to build a cabin for his family. The dimensions of the structure were according to the size of the family.

After the house was completed, the next thing in order was to clear off a tract of ground for a corn and potato patch. They usually plowed new ground with a shovel-plow, on account of the roots, and the harness for the horses was often made of leather-wood. Corn was ground on a hand mill or pounded in a mortar or hominy block. It was then sieved and the meal or finer portion was used for bread and the coarser for hominy. Their meat was venison, bear wild turkey, as it was difficult to raise hogs or sheep on account of the wolves and bear, which made pork and mutton scarce. Wolf scalps were worth from four dollars to six dollars a piece, which rendered wolf hunting a paying business.

The pioneers were a generous, warmhearted and benevolent people. Although they did not want to see the game driven away by a too rapid settlement of the country, yet when a new settler came, they extended him a cordial welcome. There was social equality then - distinction in society came later.

People went miles to assist in house and barn raisings and in log-rollings, while the men were doing this work the women were doing quilting or sewing. Bountiful meals were served at these gatherings, chicken-pot-pie being the principal part of the bill of fare. These pot-pies were usually cooked in big iron kettles out of doors. After the day's work was done, the evening was passed in social amusement - dancing being quite popular. If they had no fiddler, music was furnished by some one singing or whistling "dancing tunes."

Weddings were the great occasions of those days and brought old and young together, the festivities lasting two days. The wedding ceremony took place at the home of the bride and the second day was the "infair" at the home of the groom.

Although there were many dangers and great privations in pioneer life, there was happiness, also. In later years, the early settlers often referred to that period as "happy days of primitive simplicity."

The pioneers would take hickory bark torches and go a mile or more to call upon a neighbor and enjoy a winter evening in cracking nuts and telling stories, ending with refreshments being served in the form of a hot supper. Cooking utensils were few, and a pot or kettle often had to be used for several purposes in the preparation of a meal.

An anecdote will illustrate how prolific the pioneers were in expedients. Neighbors, who lived about two miles apart, with a creek between them, had arranged for a visit on a certain day. When the visiting party got to the stream they saw that the freshet had washed away the foot-log and as they stood in perplexity, wondering how to cross, the neighbors whom they were going to visit, came with his yoke of oxen and mounting the "near" ox, forded the stream and the woman, Europa-like, sprang upon the back of the "off" ox and was soon landed in safety upon the other bank of the creek. Another trip and the man was also taken across. Upon their return in the evening the stream was again forded in like manner.

Johnny Appleseed was present upon one occasion when an itinerant preacher was holding forth to an audience at the public square in Mansfield. Johnny was lying upon some boards near the outskirt of the crowd, when the preacher, who was speaking against the sin of fashion, exclaimed, "Where is the barefooted Christian traveling to heaven?" Taking the question in a literal sense, Johnny responded, "here he is," and raised his bare feet in the air.

Johnny Appleseed's death was in harmony with his unostentatious and blameless life. It is often remarked how beautiful is the Christian's life; yea, but far more beautiful is the Christian's death! Those who were with Johnny at his last moments, stated that as the end drew near "the fashion of his countenance was altered ;" that a smile wreathed his thin lips as they moved in prayer, and that a halo seemed to crown him with the glory of a saint as he passed "from death unto life," from the life here to the life there.

In olden time the rich and the poor dressed much alike, the men generally wore hunting shirts and buckskin pants; the women wore dresses made of linen and flannel goods, spun and woven by their own hands.

The school houses were in keeping with the cabins and the times and the pedagogues who instructed the youths in the mysteries of the three R's - "readin,' 'ritin' an' 'rithmetic," as the London Alderman put it, was called "master." The scholar whose "ciphering" included the "rule of three" was considered well advanced.

There were "puncheon" bench seats and wooden pins were put in the logs at the side of the room, and upon these a board was placed for writing desks and the preparatory course in writing was to make "pot-hooks" and "hangers." 'There were no classes, except in spelling, as there was no uniformity in the books used.

The scholars, old and young, went bare-footed in warm weather and so did the teacher. The school-master carried a long hickory rod as an insignia of his position and with which he often enforced his authority, for the pioneer did not believe in spoiling the child by sparing the rod.

While the old-time schools may be looked back to as inferior to those of today, yet they were the schools in which our Calhouns, our Clays and our Websters were educated.

Times change and we change with them, but the fount of childhood is perennially fresh and there are little sunburnt, rosy-cheeked boys and girls who now fill our better appointed school rooms, as the children of the past did in their day and generation.

Religious services were frequently held at the homes of the settlers, even after houses for public worship had been erected. In the summer time the "threshing floor" of barns were often used as "meeting houses" for Sunday preaching. Camp meetings were also features of that period.

In narrating deeds of valor of the pioneers, it is well to state again that the women not only shared the dangers of those troublous times, but often displayed heroism and deeds of daring equal to those of the bravest of the brave. One instance is all I now have space to cite - that of Elizabeth Zane, sister of Colonel Zane.

At the siege of Wheeling in 1782 the supply of ammunition became almost exhausted, and it became necessary to renew it from Col. Zane's quarters, forty rods distant. Miss Zane volunteered to accomplish the hazardous feat. She was from Philadelphia, was highly educated and had only a few weeks' experience in border life and warfare. She was young and active, with courage to brave the danger and fortitude to sustain her through it.

Brave soldiers stepped forward and insisted that they be sent on the errand, declaring the lady should not undertake such a dangerous exploit. But Miss Zane disdained to weigh the hazard of her own life against that of others and claimed that à woman would not be missed in the defense of the fort, but that every man was needed. The grandeur of her heroism and the eloquence of her appeal to be permitted to serve her country at the last won her case, and as the gate was thrown open, she bounded forth with the buoyancy of hope and in the confidence of success. An account of the adventure says that the Indians startled in amazement and exclaimed "A squaw! a squaw!" but made no attempt to interrupt or harm her.

Arriving safely at her brother's fortress, she made her errand known, and, getting all the ammunition she should carry, started upon her return trip. But the Indians were no longer passive. They fired volley after volley at her and the bullets riddled her clothing, but her person was unharmed. She reached the fort in safety and by her intrepidity and daring the army was saved.

Miss Zane's brother was the founder of Zanesville. The town was laid out in 1799 and was first called Westbourn, a name which it continued to bear until a postoffice was established under the name of Zanesville and the village then took

Hunting In The Early Settlement

Hunting occupied a large portion of the time of the pioneers. Nearly all were good hunters, and not a few lived almost entirely for many years on the results of the chase. The woods supplied them with the greater amount of their subsistence, and often the whole of it; it was no uncommon thing for families to live several months without a mouthful of bread of any kind. It frequently happened that the family went without breakfast until it could be obtained from the woods.

The fall and early part of winter was the season for hunting deer, and the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and fur-bearing animals. It was a customary saying that fur was good during every month, in the name of which the letter r occurred.

As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light snow, the pioneer hunter, who had probably worked pretty faithfully on his clearing during the summer, began to feel uneasy about his cabin home ; he longed to be off hunting in the great woods. His cabin was too warm; his feather-bed too soft ; his mind was wholly occupied with the camp and the chase. Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was nothing of skill and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter, before setting out in the morning, was informed by the state of the weather in what situation he might reasonably expect to find his game; whether on the bottoms, on the hillsides, or hilltops. In stormy weather the deer always seek the most sheltered places, and the leeward sides of the hills; in rainy weather, when there was not much wind, they kept in the open woods, on high ground. In the early morning, if pleasant, they were abroad, feeding in edges of the prairie or swamp; at noon they were hiding in the thickets. In every situation, it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain the course of the wind, so as to get to leeward of the game ; this he often ascertained by placing his finger in his mouth, holding it there until it became warm, then holding it above his head, and the side that first cooled indicated the direction of the wind.

These hunters needed no compass ; the trees, the sun and stars took its place. The bark of an aged tree is much thicker and rougher on the north side than on the south ; and the same may be said of the moss: it is much thicker and stronger on the north than on the south side of the tree; hence he could walk freely and carelessly through the woods and always strike the exact point intended, while any but a woodsman would have become bewildered and lost.

Pioneer Boyhood On The Firelands

I have been asked to come from my home in Illinois to meet the few remaining Pioneers of the Firelands and such of their descendants as may assemble here, for the purpose of indulging in reminiscences of the long past, which cover the boy-

Although almost half a century intervenes between the present and the bright morning in August, 1852, when my father, with his two-horse wagon, transported two of his boys, with their trunks, containing their few worldly possessions, to the nearest railroad station, for the purpose of taking the train for a distant state, and thereby, in fact, forever terminating our relations to Huron county as home, yet this visit, and the occasion of it, awakens emotions and recollections shared perhaps by none of you who have yet to sever your connection with the homes of your childhood.

But to the story which I am to relate: The eighth day of June, 1833, terminated the journey of two immigrant families, the heads of which were brothers, from an eastern state to the Firelands, in far away Ohio. Such it seemed to those families before they started and to their friends left behind, and such they realized it to be before they had completed their journey. A steam craft on Lake Erie had furnished the transportation to the port of Huron, while, after time spent in prospecting by the heads of the families, ox teams did the remainder of the work of landing the families, of one of which the boy to whose experience you are asked to listen was a member, near the prospective home in the forests of Clarksfield.

This journey of twenty-five miles made through Berlin, Florence and Wakeman, to the center of Clarksfield, was not made over the good roads and easy grades now to be found, but over traces of roads then newly cut out or blazed through the forests, with no bridges over many of the streams and no artificial drainage. Those who remember the vile reputation of "Wakeman Woods," of that day, will not be at a loss to fully appreciate the horrors of that journey. Mo wonder that the young mothers turned their thoughts many times with tearful eyes to the homes they had left.

The family did not find a ready-made farm house, of comfortable capacity, with the accompaniments of barn and out houses, orchard and garden in which to rest its weary and travelworn members. It did not find friends who had gone before and who were ready to open hospitable doors to the newcomers and make easy their settlement and welcome their coming. What they did find was an unbroken, heavy forest of beech, maple, walnut, oak and other kinds of timber, such as 'bid a mad defiance to the pioneers all over Ohio at the beginning of the century.

The kindness of a pioneer family which had preceded this family to the depths of this forest by a few months, gave shelter to the unsheltered for six weeks and until an opening in the forest upon the site of the future home could be made and a house could be erected. This house was, of course, of logs, but care was taken that they should be straight logs, and that they should be nicely notched at the corners and smoothly hewn on the inside, as they were placed in position, so that the new house, though covered only with elm bark at the first, was both presentable and comfortable. Think of it, dear housekeepers, the first fireside of this family, where the mother cooked for many months, was beside a large stump, near the

This house being finished (and it is remembered that the particular house had neither closed windows nor door during the first summer, nor until frosts and cold winds of autumn made them necessary), the next thing to be done was with fire and ax and strong arms to drive back the domain of the forest and make room for the field which was to produce the living. This was a slow process and occupied the labors and efforts of years.

One of the pioneer preachers herein named, in 1866, thirty-three years after the immigration of the family to Clarksfield, conducted the funeral services of the father, Hiram W. Cunningham, and in the biographical notice of the deceased given, said that he had personally chopped, burned and cleared one hundred acres of Clarksfield's heavy timber. Year by year the cleared circle became larger and the demand for cribs and a barn more imperative.

The first year of course, yielded no returns for the family support. The limited amount of money brought as a result of the sale of the little farm in York state, was all used up in paying the expense of removal or in making the first payment on the purchased land, so the family must be fed and clothed by some other means, No resources remained other than the hands of the father, which were skilled in carpentry and wood craft of other kinds, and the grinding needs of the immigrant family for many years made the requisitions upon this resource continuous and exacting. So, for several years, and until fruitful fields occupied the space of the primeval forest, the day's work of the father furnished the food of the family from year to year.

The boy well remembers the first attempt at corn and wheat raising among the green stumps of a patch just cleared of the timber where no plow could be used, or if used, could live an hour. The corn was planted, not with a check-row corn planter, nor with a hoe, even, but with an ax, which was driven through the roots into the virgin soil a few inches, the corn dropped in and the ground closed over the seed by the foot. No cultivation could be given it other than by chopping out the fire weeds, but the hot sun and the rich soil did the work, and the returns well repaid the effort. In the fall the removal of the corn made way for a seeding of wheat. In this manner the pioneer provided for his table.

The satisfaction felt by the pioneer in eating from his first crop, produced under the difficulties here delineated, cannot be well told, even by one who has realized it, any more than it can be realized by one who has not passed through the experience. The capitalist may say to himself, *Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry," but his satisfaction does not approach the happiness of the pioneer, who, having cleared the forest, has demonstrated his capacity to produce a crop.

Being thus established in a home, which for most of the time intervening between the date here given and the legal majority of the boy in question, was his only home, made better year by year as the means were secured, let us look at the surroundings:

Clarksfield had then been settled sixteen years only, and everything was new, in the town as well as in the adjoining towns, Smith Starr, Benjamin Stiles, Samuel Husted, and possibly some others, had moved "out of the old house into the new" frame and plastered house, but other than the very few lived in their pioneer houses, similar to the one above described. The Rowlands, Barnums, Woods, Furlongs, Bissells, Clarks, Grays, Days, Lees, Blackmans, Smiths, Perceys and nearly all of the population of the township had progressed no further than the log-house stage of civilization. "These houses were generally built in the most primitive style of architecture of that day, with log gables, roofs held in place by log weight poles, instead of by the use of nails, doors hung on wooden hinges, with wooden latches, which obeyed the puli on the leathern string from the outside. With puncheon or slab floors and well-chinked and an annual "daubin'," the home could defy the elements without, and by the aid of a fire upon the hearth of the wide fireplace, built of rocks gathered from the fields or from the river bed, supporting a mud and stick chimney, the home was made comfortable at all times. Before these fires were cooked and served the homely meals, and around them were gathered as happy families as now gather around the anthracite fires in the elegant houses which have succeeded these pioneer homes.

The clearings were small and mostly confined to the neighborhood of the *Hollow," where the first settlement of the town was made, or along the roads leading therefrom, and to go to Florence or Norwalk, one must encounter the horrors of the roads, or trails, which served for roads, leading through "Wakeman Woods," or "Townsend Woods," terms which, even at this distance of time, awaken a shudder.

The boy remembers a night spent in a mud hole with his parents in the road leading from Norwalk to Clarksfield, about April, 1836, when an almost empty wagon was too much for the team, and it was only after daylight, the next morning, that aid came and enabled us to release ourselves by doubling teams. The good roads now leading to Florence and to Norwalk from Clarksfield, through fruitful fields bordered by beautiful homes, give no intimation of the terrors that awaited the traveler along the same lines sixty-five years since.

The only roads that existed in the town of Clarksfield at the period written about, which had the semblance of roads or deserved the name, were those leading north, south and east of the Hollow, and these were yet much bordered by woods, and in many places were of the very primitive corduroy character. Other roads, or what are now known as public highways, in the town, were not then even "chopped out," with few exceptions, and neighborhood trails across lots and through the woods were permitted by tolerant settlers as favors to those who, like our family, had essayed to settle back from the settlements before then made. It is remembered that the families spoken of only reached their leafy, primeval home, at Clarksfield center, by leaving the main road a half mile east of the Hollow, and by following ax-men, who went before the wagons and cut out a trail. It was many years after this time that the roads were so improved as to be passable for teams and wagons, and not until after 1850, were the roads leading south and west from the center of the town, anything more than trails, once chopped out and partly grown up with briers and other impediments. It was a long time, and only after the roads were bordered by enclosed fields, that they were made passable their entire length, and it was unnecessary for the traveler to make detours here and there to avoid the swamps and swales which so often intruded across the roads. The corduroy period was a long one, and the higher duty of the settler to provide himself and family a shelter and food before he found time to make roads, kept these necessary appliances of civilization waiting many years.

Bridges over the two confluents of the Vermillion river were then few and of an ephemeral character. The substantial stone and steel structures which now span those beautiful streams, not only command admiration as triumphs of engineering skill, but they serve to bring back recollection of early efforts at bridge building. Where were once long stretches of corduroy passage ways over the black alder swamps, are now seen single stone culverts, which serve to bridge the murky waterway formerly so dreaded by the pioneer.

At the period indicated there was no house of worship in the township, nor in any adjoining townships, though worshippers were not wanting ; for no district of country within the nation was more largely settled by religious people than was the tract of country known as the Firelands. The pioneer school houses, the scantily furnished cabins, and the leafy forests were made to do duty as places of religious worship to meet the want of the settlers of which their self-imposed banishment from older homes had deprived them.

Among the most lasting and thrilling recollections of the boy whose story this is, are those connected with those primitive gatherings. Take the scene of a few settlers gathered up from the scattered settlements, connected only by forest trails, in one of these pioneer log school houses, where the only furniture was that manufactured by the help of an ax, saw and auger from the outer slab of a saw log; where the log structure, dedicated to learning and the arts, was made without the use of a nail or article of iron, and was as free from metals in its construction as was King Solomon's temple ; where one side of the little room was devoted to the fireplace, and its walls made impenetrable to the cold winds by the "chinkin' and the daubin'," but where the hearts of the gathered worshippers were one in sympathy and love to the Maker, and their speaker, a circuit rider or exhorter, fired by the love of souls, in loud and electrifying appeals called upon the sinner and the backslider to repent while the opportunity yet remained ; where the effect of these appeals brought the careless and the scoffer to their knees and led wicked men to better lives - these scenes, now no longer to be seen, left impressions upon the beholders not to be forgotten.

In the way of religious gatherings of that day, the boy remembers most vividly the camp meetings, now known to the people of this day only in tradition. One in Clarksfield in 1837, one in Wakeman in I841, and one in Rochester in 1846, came under his observation and will serve as typical of the class. These meetings were generally arranged to come off after haying, late in the summer or early in the fall, when worldly cares were less likely to distract attention. A piece of native forest was chosen, where good drainage with shade and water were to be had. A plat of two or three acres or more was cleared of the underbrush and the ground smoothed and leveled; at one end of the plat was erected the preachers' tent, facing inward, at the front of which was a stand for speakers, under cover. Upon the other three sides were erected tents or cabins to answer for the accommodation of the people. In front of the preachers' stand was an enclosure of seats for from fifty to one hundred people, the enclosure being formed by poles placed upon posts or crotches set in the ground. The purpose of this enclosure was for the accommodation of circles for prayer and for those seeking after the light of religious experience, which we might call the anxious seat, but which the irreverent of those days called the "bull-pen." Beyond this enclosure were seats for hearers, made by placing slabs or planks across supports of logs and timbers, arranged so as to provide aisles leading towards the preachers' stand. To these tents people came from many miles around, bringing beds, furniture and provisions for a week's outing, and here were carried on all the household arts for a comfortable stay. Cooking was done by open fires in the rear of the tents, and sleeping accommodations made upon piles of clean straw and bed clothing within the apartments of the tents. The tin horn at the preachers' tent served the purpose of a "church going bell," in calling the people from their tents to the general auditorium for the several services, and laggards in the tents met the severe reprimand of the "preacher in charge." Rules were enacted for the government of the encampment and severely enforced.

To these gatherings came all sorts of people for all sorts of purposes. Religious exercises and experiences were not the only incentives. There came the gossiper, the curiosity seeker, fun lover and the horse trader. There came the sincere religionist, yearning for the salvation of his neighbor, and there came the irreverent scoffer of things held sacred by the other class. The gatherings were not always characterized by the sanctity that pervades church-going assemblies of this day, but frequently made work for the grand juries. In other cases the disorders created by the irreverent were informally and promptly treated on the grounds to doses of muscular Christiaity from an athletic preacher or muscular layman, a remedy swifter than that afforded by the law and generally more effective.

It is far easier now to describe the organization and proceedings of such a gathering than to accurately measure the effects upon the participants. The measure of one relates to Time, while the effects of the other can only be known in Eternity, Many who came to scoff and ridicule, left the grounds rejoicing in a new life, and here steps in the religious life were commenced which terminated only in a hopeful death.

These school houses and camp meetings produced or furnished the arena of action of such eminent pioneer preachers of the Firelands as Leonard B. Gurley, William B. Disbrow, James McIntire, James A. Kellum, John Mitchell, Adam Poe, James McMahon, Richard Biggs, H. O. Sheldon, Russell Bigelow, E. R. Jewett, Thomas Barkdull, William C. Pierce, of the Methodist Episcopal church, and Revs. Betts and Streeter, of the Presbyterian church ; Rev. David Marks and Rev. Fairfield, of the Baptist church, as well as many others whose names are remembered by the descendants of the pioneers with reverence.

Most of these men were from time to time in the early days guests at the home of the family in question, and the boy remembers of having heard most of them from the pulpit or the desk of the school house.

In this connection it may be said that it is probable that Sunday schools were organized and carried on upon the Firelands at an early day, for as early as 1836, at Clarksfield Hollow, a school was in operation, conducted by members of different denominations. I remember being in this school at its beginning for that season ; remember that Rev. Streeter was at the head of it, and the lesson of the

The library in use is remembered for its utter want of adaptation to the needs of children. Instead of being of such a character of matter as children would become interested in, its books treated upon the most severe and sober theological questions, such as children of no time take to.

A. Sunday school celebration held near Berlin chapel, between Berlinville and Florence, on July 4, in the year 1843, is remembered by this particular boy for the many children it called together from all of the surrounding towns, the pretty address delivered by Mr. Dwight, and particularly for the good things we had to eat.

Clothing Of The Pioneer

The clothing in which the pioneer boy was clad was not tailor-made, nor was it even hand-me-down, ready-made clothing, but the result of the summer work and the cunning skill of his mother's fingers, which worked early and late. In the spring of each year a crop of flax was sown, and at maturity was pulled, rotted, broken in the flax-brake and hatcheled by the men folks, when it was ready to be carded, spun and woven into cloth, called "tow and linen," for the next year's clothing. So of the wool of the few sheep kept. The price of wool in the markets of the country was not then a burning question as now; the limited supply was scarcely sufficient for the domestic wants of the families of the pioneer. The supply was either carded into bats at home or carried to the woolen mill and made into "rolls," ready for the spinning wheel. The same mother's hands spun it into yarn ready for the weaver or ready for her winter's knitting into socks. The spun yarn, dyed in butternut or blue dye, sufficed for the "filling," in a web, which was of cotton yarn, and the product was known as "jeans." The weaver's work done, the same mother's nimble fingers cut, fitted and made the tow and linen or the jeans into coats, pants and vests for the boys.

As time passed on and the family became more forehanded, which meant, had more sheep and other stuff and something to sell in the market, the cloth was made of all wool and went to the cloth dresser for fulling and dressing, and came home shining like broadcloth. Here came the need of the tailor, who cut the cloth ready for the itinerant sewing woman, and the boy came out in a suit of "fulled cloth," with shining brass buttons. So the work of clothing the boys developed from year to year until maturity enabled him to dress in "store clothes" from his own earnings.

It was not always that the last year's suit lasted well until this year's suit made it appearance, in which case the boy, in the interim between the passing away of the former and the coming of the latter, might have passed for Riley's "Raggedy Man." It must have been during one of these destitute periods that the mother in question, ever alert to the needs of the children, wrote to her mother in the east, in a letter dated November 17, 1839, the original of which came to the hands of your essayist a few years since, and is now preserved with the greatest care, as follows: "We have raised our living this season, and it seems much better than to buy it and not know where it is to come from. Our children are well, but very ragged, - not having any wool of late, we are quite destitute of clothing. You wrote you had sent me some stocking ya but I have not received it yet. If I could get it I would make my fingers fly."

This letter was sealed with a red wafer. It bears the postmark of Clarksfield, November 29, and is charged with eighteen and three-fourths cents postage. Letters patent of nobility from a sovereign king or emperor would not be prized higher. It gives a phase of family and pioneer history not to be forgotten. It convicts the pioneer boy of once having belonged to a crowd of "very ragged" children, but it brings no blush.

Boots and shoes were not brought to the pioneer home ready made and in assortments sure to meet all demands. Hides, taken from animals killed for family supplies of meat, or, more often, hides taken from domestic. animals dying from the murrain, were taken to the near by tannery, dressed into leather and were, by the neighboring shoemaker, made up into boots and shoes for the family, with the emphasis upon the word shoes for, as a matter of true history, the pioneer boy in question never possessed the greatly coveted boots until he was permitted to earn them by work for a neighbor, at thirteen years of age.

For years after the period of this writing, the settlement in question had school, and the only school opportunities were obtained by sending the children to neighboring districts, the tenure of which privileges to us outsiders depending upon the demands made by children within the districts. Long tramps through the woods and through swamps spanned by fallen trees only, was the price paid by the children for the instruction received by them. Finally, in the spring of 1840, a truly pioneer school house came to the doors of this family, and its description may be taken as that of pioneer school houses throughout Ohio and the west. It was built, not by direct taxes levied and collected in due course of law, nor by the issue of bonds, as would now be done, perhaps; but by the combined labors of the men in the district, voluntarily given. On a given day, by appointment, all turned out with axes and teams, and from the contiguous woods cut the logs, hauled them to the site of Bissell's Corners, and within a few days had erected a log building about twenty by twenty-five feet in size. The gables were of logs and the roof of shakes, or boards, as they are sometimes called, rived with a frow from an oak tree, and held in place upon the roof by overlaying each course of the roofing with a heavy weight pole.

Openings were cut in the logs, at appropriate places, for the windows and door. At one end a wide fireplace, without jambs, capable of receiving wood six or seven feet in length, was provided. This fireplace was built of boulder stones, picked up in the neighborhood, and served as a foundation for a stick and mud chimney terminating above the roof. In this fireplace were piled large quantities of wood in winter, and the fires served well to heat the room. The door was of rough sawed boards, hung upon wooden hinges and held shut by a wooden latch. The windows, while supplied with sash for glazing, were, as the boy well remembers, only covered with greased paper at the first term of the school, taught in the summer of 1840. Floors of rough sawed lumber were laid. This building, each autumn during its service, had to be daubed with mud to keep out the cold. The furniture consisted of benches made without backs, from slabs, or the outer cuts from saw logs, supported by legs driven into auger holes For a writing desk for the larger pupils, a wide board, supported by heavy sticks driven into a log, at the proper height, at one end of the room, did duty.

Within such a house as this your pioneer boy and the children of his district were taught from Webster's Elementary Spelling Book, from Murray's English Reader, and from Daboll's Arithmetic, and other antiquated primary books for three months each winter for ten years, beginning with the year 1840. Near by were the woods and the river and the ample play grounds. Let no one waste any sympathy upon these children on account of this apparent dearth of opportunity. The defects in the opportunity are only apparent and made so by a comparison with the schools of the Firelands of today. That district never added a single man or woman to the ranks of illiteracy. Out of one enrollment of thirty-five pupils, now before the writer, more than one-half, after nearly sixty years, are known to be in life. No one of that company ever entered the ranks of the criminal class. So let no one despise these antecedents of this particular boy, for be assured he does not, but glories in them, for from such surroundings came the Lincolns and the Garfields of loved American fame.

From out of these humble surroundings, which be said to be typical school environments of the great majority of schools upon the Firelands in their beginning, came pupils armed with that best of qualifications, self-respect and self-reliance. Came also healthy young men and women, taught in the atmosphere of morality and patriotism, to bless society here and in other states.

In this semi-isolated life, cut off from the far-off outer world, its faint eachoes hardly touched this particulàr family. Books were few, and for many months no newspaper visited the circle. From year to year the only changes were the changing seasons. "They waited for the spring with eager longing, for it brought the sugar-making season, so loved by the youth; it brought with it the flowers, natural to our woods, and unlocked its treasures of life.

It may be said with propriety that the schools of the Firelands, from the first, though humble in their pretensions, were fostered by an enlightened and intelligent public sentiment. The pioneer, though poor, and from a poor New England or New York home, was not illiterate.

Your pioneer boy, like the school boys of today, improbable as it may appear from the opportunities and surroundings above given, had ambition, and this passion pointed to the Norwalk Seminary, as the object to be attained. His few visits to the county capital, always looked upon with greater favor than a visit to Europe with the Paris exposition as a part of the attraction, would now be viewed, were always more desired by him, for the reason that he could look upon the seminary and indulge his fancies as to his future in that temple of learning; but alas for human ambitions, for before the proper time came the seminary was a thing of the past, and he had to be satisfied with Berea and Oberlin.

He is in error who supposes that the poverty of opportunity herein delineated as the lot of the pioneer and his family was an unmixed evil. Poverty in no case is without some compensating benefits. The honest efforts of him who suffers from poverty to overcome its inconveniences, strengthens and builds up his character and renders him stronger for the conflicts of life.

The spirit of unrest by which this age and the century from which we are about to pass has been so much influenced, invaded the woods of the Firelands in those years of which we write, and seized upon the boys then as it does now. Here, then, now, and always, as Willis has expressed it,

And more than that it has lifted him out of this and other more eastern states, and that boy and his girl are moving beyond the Mississippi. The west is sapping the east of its best material, and if the fathers and mothers of the latter are asking themselves, "Where is my boy tonight?" the answer comes back from the far west, "He is here and is building up empires."

Did the boys of that day have any fun, do you ask? Certainly. A healthy boy will manufacture his own amusements, if he does not have to work too hard. The boys of those times were mustered into the ranks of labor at an early age say at ten or eleven years of age, and made to contribute to the common weal of the family; yet on rainy days fishing was permissible, when it rained too hard for work. So at night, after having performed all the work during the day that an ingenious father could get from a rather unwilling boy, fishing parties were common to the mill ponds. Husking bees, coon huntings, logging bees, and house or barn raisings, called the young men and boys together.

It may seem to the boy of today, who, with his surroundings of a beautiful country home, a farm productive of everything necessary, as well as of many luxuries, where the labors of the farm are so largely performed by machinery, with the facilities for excursions to distant places, and with frequent trips upon the lake; with concerts and lectures and theaters and conventions the year round, that he has all the fun, and that we of sixty years ago must have had only a dull round. Not so. While we combated roots and stumps in the soil, where the boy of today plows with no obstruction, while riding his plow, we had before us the virgin forests, an open book and a museum of unfailing resources of amusement. They furnished the small game, which we delighted to hunt, in abundance. They furnished nuts of every variety, delicious wild fruits and mandrakes and slippery-elm bark. They furnished the materials for his stilts, his dart, his pop-gun, his whistles, and his bows and arrows, as the season for each of these sports came around. Then the boy of long ago had the fun of chopping down little trees, before chopping became a daily task, and of seeing them fall, a pastime of pleasure unalloyed, except by the admonition from his seniors to "cut close to the ground."

Then the streams, little and big, now so nearly dried up in summer, ran high all the year round, and never failed to furnish amusements of the rarest kind. In winter the boy sported upon the ice of the river or skated, if he owned the skates, and in summer he fished or bathed in the water or guided his raft or skiff there- on. No delight in the world is so welcome to a boy as to spend half of his time on a warm summer day in the water at his favorite swimming hole. I see it now, at the bend in the river, embowered by a spreading elm tree's shade, made more dense and welcome by the wild grapevine which has year by year clambered up its rugged sides. The noon hour of the school day afforded the time, and the disposition was never wanting. Since that experience, in the long past, the Hoosier poet, who knew the joys of the "Old Swimmin' Hole," as the Clarksfield boy knew it, has put the whole story in poetic dialect:

Yes, the old man has come back. He finds the river here, but the locus of the old swimmin' hole has yielded to the shifting sand bank ; the old sycamore has also passed away, as have the boy playmates, without whose presence the visit is almost a blank.

The pioneer boy had little money, in fact he hardly saw enough of it to recognize the different denominations of the currency of the day. This was largely due to the fact that there was little money in the country. Business was largely carried on by barter. A pound of butter would buy a pound of cut nails. Two pounds of butter would buy a shilling hat. A good horse could be bought for from twenty five dollars to fifty dollars, and a cow for ten dollars. The little money that came into the family in big copper cents, sixpences and shillings, for dimes and halfdimes were rarely seen, had to be carefully saved for tax-paying time. In fact the boy had little use for money. Shows rarely came this way, and a part of our religious teachings was to the effect that a show that had a round ring in the tent, whatever else it may have had, was awfully wicked. The railroads of the day, all of which were corduroy roads, always gave free excursions, the passenger carrying his own lunch.

The gayest of all the year with the boys was the day known as "Trainin' Days: when the militia of the town were called out for drill. The bright red and blue colors of the privates' and non-commissioned officers' uniforms dazzled the eye of the boy ; but the finer uniform of the captain and lieutenants, as they marshaled the men to the stirring music of the fife and drum, or by sharp commands put them through the manual of arms, drove his senses into something like a stupor. The grand event of the day was when the colonel, if he happened to be a near by dweller, gay in his iridescent garb of gray and gold, galloped upon the parade ground, surrounded by his staff, and in thundering tones gave orders to the battalion, which moved the men as a piece of machinery and terrorized and almost froze the heart of the dazed lad from the back woods. The movements of Sherman's army before Atlanta, or of Grant's in the Wilderness, could not have been more bewildering.

Some here will remember the coming through the county of the straggling recruits for the so-called "patriots' war," the uprising of a few disappointed men in Canada, in 1837, with arms and pieces of artillery, as does the writer, and of the alarm all felt at the prospect of a border war with Great Britain, growing out of the affairs upon the border at Niagara river. These alarms, with the calling out of the enrolled militia in 1846, when men were wanted for the Mexican war, were such as to awaken the martial spirit of the people and to set the boys at school to playing soldier.

The presence in Clarksfield of two water gristmills and sawmills at the time this story begins made life there much more desirable at that time. The prime question was to get something to grind. With that the boys had nothing to do and little concern ; but the going to mill upon an ox sled with a little grist of grain, the operation of grinding the grist between the two great stones, the delivery by the dusty miller of the prepared flour or meal, and the great, wide mill pond were matters, once seen, to be told and talked over for a month and never to be iorgotten by the boy whose experiences and observations had then been so limited. Later on in life, when his muscles and discretion could be trusted to do the business, the boy was himself made the supercargo of a grist of grain on its way to the mill. The grist was equally divided by the parental hand, one-half in one end of the sack and one-half in the other end, thrown across the horse, and the boy mounted on top, with directions to use care in balancing the grist, and he was dispatched upon the errand. That boy has the most rueful recollections of his experiences of the grist falling from the horse in the woods road, away from help, and of his agonizing tears at the disaster. The grist had to be gotten upon a stump and the unwilling horse led between the stump and a near by tree which kept him from stepping to one side before the status of affairs had been restored, but success only awaited perseverance. The varied business ventures of the later life of that boy, with their adverse turns, bear no comparison to these weeping struggles with the grist in the wilderness.