Richland County, Ohio - Chapter 26: The Pioneer Society, 1880

Chapter 26: The Pioneer Society

THE Meeting Av Hemtock FALLS - THE ORGANIZATION AT BELLVILLE - THE ORGANIZATION IN 1869 - CoNSTITUTION - Tue CevrenniAL Meeting - Tue Meetine 1x 1879 - Gen.

The permanent organization was effected by the election of ex-Gov. Mordecai Bartley, of Richland, as permanent President; Eli Miller, of Knox; Amos A. Coffer, of Licking; John Shauck, of Morrow; Nathan Haskill, of Ashland; Jabez Cook, of Richland; Daniel Riblet, of Crawford ; William Larwell, of Wayne ; Abijah Ives, of Huron; Elutherus Cook, of Erie, and D. P. Leadbetter, of Holmes, as Vice Presi-

The Executive Committee were: Charles T. Sherman, of Richland; Henry B. Curtis, of Knox; William Stanberry, of Licking; Gen. E. W. Benson, of Morrow ; Charles Tannehill,

A committee was also appointed to draft a constitution to be presented to the Society at a future meeting; and those present were requested to obtain the names of the pioneers in their respective neighborhoods, and to obtain

Even, while this meeting was in progress, the mutterings of civil war were heard all over the land, and this, breaking out soon after, swallowed up all thought of everything save the safety of the country.

Upon the return of peace Gen. Brinkerhoff, of Mansfield, and a few others in various parts of Richland County, again urged the formation of an historical society. This was again effected, as far as Richland County was concerned, in September, 1869, at the county fair in Mansfield.

The meeting was organized by calling Alexander C. Welch to the chair. Gen. Brinkerhoff then reported the following constitution, which was adopted :

Arr. 4. 'he officers hereof shall be elected annually, at the annual meeting, and shall perform the duties usually pertaining to their respective offices.

The following-named persons were then elected officers for the first year : President - Alexander C. Welch. Vice Presidents - John Woods, Butler Township; Charles Savers, Blooming Grove Township; J. KE. Bevier, Cass; Michael Keith,

Each Vice President was requested to make. out a full list of the pioneers of his township. Addresses were then delivered by James Purdy, Mr. Welch and others.

Notwithstanding the intention of the Society to have an annual meeting, for some reason the time went by, and for several years no regular meeting was held. The officers, however, held meetings occasionally, and kept the organization intact. :

The centennial year, however, brought the matter again before the people of Richland, as well as other counties, and' a large meeting was held on the Fourth of July. At this meeting General Brinkerhoff delivered an address of great value, the larger part of which has been jncorporated in this history in various places. This centennial year gave a great impetus to the collection and preservation of pioneer history.

"God Almighty has so arranged and constituted the nature of things that nothing great or good, or strong in matter or in mind, comes to_ the earth except it comes through struggle and through storm. It is this law, and the struggle under it, which has made Ohio, of all the States

"The original settlers of Richland County. for the most part, have passed away. but their children, nurtured in the wilderness. are largely with us yet, and to them we of the second generation owe a debt of gratitude which we can only repay by imitating their virtues. and by perpetuating in our children, and through them in the generations of the future. the free institutions and the Christian civilization which they have bestowed upon us. I say Christian. because our institutions are the outgrowth of Christianity, as much as the oak is of the acorn.

"The pioneers of Ohio, for the most part. were God-fearing, Christ-loving. serious-minded men ; their courage was a Christian courage, rooted and grounded in the hope of a life that lies beyond. Wherever they went, churches 'went with them ; and, wherever log cabins were gathered, there also was the meeting-house and the schoolhouse.

"Men and brethren, fellow-citizens, young men and maidens, each and all. old or young, who have gathered here to-day. as we stand this hour at the threshold of a new century, let us not mistake the cause of all our greatness, or the secret of itscontinuance. It is notin money ; it is not in railroads, or telegraphs, or architecture, or art ; it is not in the pride and pomp and circumstance of tramping armies; or in a vast array of iron-clad vessels. or cannon-mounted forts. These are all well enough in their place, provided they are the battlements and bulwarks and ornamentation of that faith in God and humanity, that heritage of liberty and law and righteousness. which our fathers have bequeathed to us from their struggle in the wilderness... So long as the Republic shall remember and cherish the faith of its founders it will live, but whenever it forgets it and shall recognize no (iod but the blind evolving forces of nature, and shall have no belief of life. or reward; or retribution beyond, it will die.

* Long before another centennial day shall be celebrated in this place, you and I, who are gathered here to-day. will have passed away ; and our children also will have passed away ; even our tombstones will be moss-grown and crumbling, but we may, if we will, keep our memory green by transmitting to that generation unimpaired the faith and liberty we received from our fathers.

"For myself. I desire to put on record now, in the full maturity of every mental and vital power, the convictions I have given as to the perpetuity of the Republic.

"Tn their lifetime but few men are judged rightly. and, therefore, when we <lie the wisest epitaph. perhaps. that *can be written is. » he was born and he died. Still if a hundred years hence there are any living who care to remember me, and. in looking back through the perspective of a century gone, they can come to an honest conclusion that the facts will warrant it, there is nothing I can think of that I would desire more than that they would add to the inscription given, and grave it deeply in the granite, 'He loved his country ; he endeavored in his day and generation to be helpful to his fellow-mnen ; he lived and died in the faith of the Divine Nazarene."

The next meeting of the Society was held in September, 1878, at the fair grounds in Mansfield, and was largely attended and very enthusiastic. At this meeting J. H. Cook. James R. Gass, Thomas B. Andrews, Samuel McCluer, Calvin Stewart. E. W. Smith and Gen. R. Brinkerhoff were appointed an Executive Committee for the purposes of keeping up the organization and arranging for future meetings. Committees were also appointed for each township.

The next spring the Executive Committee met at the savings bank. and arranged for a meeting of the Society to beheld July 4, 1879. This meeting was held accordingly, was largely attended and very interesting. Addresses were

These meetings from year to year are very interesting. The gray-haired veterans are dropping into the grave one by one, and the time cannot be far distant when all those who first set foot on the soil of Richland County will have passed away forever. been - so it will ever be.

'Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore Who danced our infancy upon their knee, And told our marveling boyhood legend's store, Of their strange ventures happed by land and sea, How are they blotted from the things that be! How few, all weak and withered, of their force, Wait, on the verge of dark eternity, Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse, To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless course."

At the pioneer meeting in 1878, Gen. R. Brinkerhoff delivered an address which seems so pertinent to the objects of this chapter that it is inserted in full :

"We of this generation are most happy to meet so many of the generation which preceded us. We rejoice to know that so many of the pioneers of Richland County yet remain, and we extend to one and all a cordial welcome.

"Tt is now seventy years since thé first white man made his home in Richland County, and the dozen years which succeeded his coming are those which we regard as 'the pioneer times. During those years, the forests were subdued, roads were opened, houses were built, farms were inclosed, and the wilderness ceased to be the abode of wild animals and wilder men, and Richland County became the seat of an organized and permanent civilization. After 1820, the special trials and hardships of a pioneer life were ended. and society was orderly and comfortable. It is this heroic age, from 1808 to 1820, inclusive, that we celebrate today. It is an age of scanty records, and yet the deeds of those who lived in it were more influential in shaping the civilization which followed than all the other years combined. Pioneer times are fountains in the wilderness

"Richland County to-day. with slight variations, is what the pioneers made it. and it will thus continue through the generations to come. until by some catastrophe, chaos and the wilderness shall return again.

"J. Our constitution and laws, with all their peculiar differences from other States, are substantially what the pioneers made them, and, labor as we will, it is impossible to secure any large modifications. Take. for example, the restrictions upon our Governors, and the form of our courts - our best thinkers believe they ought to be changed, and a change has been attempted by constitutional amendments, but

"2. Our political divisions into counties and townships, with all their distinctive names and local combinations which so powerfully affect the daily associations and life of our people, were all substantially the work of the pioneers. The boundaries of Richland County, it is true, were

Ashland and Morrow Counties, but it was a temporary aberration which the people themselves of the districts cut off would to-day gladly rectify if they could.

"3. The location of cities, county seats, villages and roads, in which and through which the publie and private life of our people must continue for the most part to manifest itself, remains almost entirely as the pioneers decreed. Suppose, for example, that Mansfield had been located at Campbell's Mill. where James Hedges and Jacob Newman' first designed and staked it out, who can tell what its population and local life would have been to-day ? those two men had been New Kngland Yankees, instead of Virginia and Pennsylvania Germans, Mansfield, instead of being platted with a market square in the center, with narrow streets radiating out in every direction, would have been laid out like a checker-board, with broad avenues toward the points of the compass, and who can tell what a difference it would have made in the whole internal life of our city.

"The religious institutions and tendencies are mainly as the pioneers made them. The most powerful element in the whole structure of society is its religion.» Men in communities, or as individuals, develop according to their faith. Unlike an animal, a man's life is the outgrowth of what he believes, and what he believes is for the most part what he is taught in his youth. So a community develops according to its faith, and its faith in its fountain head is the faith of the men who founded it. In accordance with this law, the faith of Richland County, not only in religion, but also in politics, is stamped with the image and superscription of our hardy pioneers. Coming, as they did, in the main from Pennsylvania, it was but natural that orthodox Christianity should dominate the county, and that it should manifest itself most largely through the Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist Churches, and so it did, and so it will continue to do for generations to come. The pioneers of Richland County were steady, honest and industrious farmers. who feared God and hated shams, and so to-day, we are unyexed with heresies in religion or politics, and John Wesley, John Calvin and Thomas Jefferson continue the guiding stars of action in church and State with a large majority of our people.

"5. The equality of our social life, with none very rich and but few very poor, we owe largely to the pioneers. They were mostly men of moderate means, and fulfilled the prayer of the Psalmist, who desired neither poverty nor riches. There were no largedanded crowd our population into tenant houses, and the result is that to-day the average size of farms in Richland County is less than one hundred acres, and the great body of our farmers own the land they till, and non-resident farmers are few and far between. The advantages of this are immense, and will continue a subject of thankfulness for generations to come. So in every direction we look we have reason to rejoice in the legacies we have received from the pioneers of Richland County ; they were wise and prudent in their generation, and it is just and fitting that we should render honor to those who remain among us.

"Our photographic friends are doing a good work in preserving their portraits, but a more important work should still be done in preserving a record of their deeds.

" The pioneers of Ohio were a different type of men from those who, for the most part, have settled the prairie States to the West of us. They were hardier and more adventurous ; and for the simple reason that the dangers to be encountered, and the difficulties to be overcome, were greater. Ohio was a gigantic forest, which to subdue was a work in itself so enormous as absolutely to appal the average civilized man. It was only the strongest, the boldest, the most courageous, who dared to encounter it. The men in war who volunteer to lead a storming column in battle are honored for life when they survive. So it seems to me we should honor those who volunteered to charge upon the howling wilderness of Ohio during the early years of the present century. No wonder Ohio stands to-day the foremost State of the Union. Her people are the descendants of the mighty men of valor who conquered the wilderness.

"The time will come when the pioneers will be more appreciated than they have been heretofore, and our grandchildren will wonder why we of this generation have been so negligent in preserving a record of their names and deeds. Every effort in this direction is praiseworthy, and even at this late day much can be accomplished.

" We welcome, therefore, the pioneers of Richland County. We give them greeting in the name of 40,000 citizens who inherit their labors, and bask in the sunshine of that civilization which they founded sixty years ago. We invite you to all the honors of this convention, and hope to hear from you of the days and doings of the years we celebrate to-day."

So far as the record of the Society shows, the following names comprise a list of the pioneers who settled in Richland County, prior to the year 1820. This list is very meager and incomplete, but in addition to this the reader is referred to the history of each township, in the gathering of which the compiler has been able to add a number of names to the pioneer list.

Blo Bean Nv

A HISTORY of Ohio, and especially of 4+ Richland County, would be incomplete without some account of this very eccentric individual. known as Johnny Appleseed from the fact that he was the pioneer nurseryman of Ohio.

Johnny Appleseed deserves a place in history among the heroes and martyrs. for he was both in his peculiar calling. His whole life was devoted to what he considered the public good, without regard to personal feeling. or hope of pecuniary reward. Not once in a century is such a life of self-sacrifice for the good of others known. There has been but one Johnny Appleseed ; it is hardly possible there will ever be another.

He was born. according to one or two authorities. in Massachusetts, about the year 1775; was first heard of in Ohio about the year 1801, and was known to have traversed Richland County for the first time about 1811. The date of his birth is shrouded in uncertainty. Mr. C. 3. Coffinberry writes the following regarding this matter : chusetts. but at what period the writer never knew. As early as 1780. he was seen in the autumn. for two or three successive years. along the banks of the Potomac River. in Eastern Vir- If this be true, he must have been born some years before 1775. Why he left his native State and devoted his life to the planting of apple-seeds in the West. is known only to himself. He may have heen insane. he was generally He was cerginia.