Wayne County, Ohio - Chapter 20, 1910

Chapter 20

Coffee, per pound, sixty-two and a half cents ; tea, per pound, three dollars; common keg tobacco, per pound, fifty cents; coarse muslin, per yard, fifty cents; nails (forged), eighteen to twenty cents per pound; iron, per pound, sixteen cents ; salt, per bushel, four dollars ; indigo, per ounce, one dollar; powder, per pound, one dollar.

Other commodities were in proportion. Transportation was ten dollars per hundred weight from Philadelphia, and three dollars and fifty cents from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, brought in freighting wagons. It took thirty-five days to make a trip to Wooster to Philadelphia. A teamster received onehalf of his pay before he left here and the remainder in that city. To that city he carried furs and skins of beaver, bears, otters, coons, deer, together with dried venison-hams, and such other commodities as were staples of exchange, and then brought back with him goods and wares for the Wooster merchants. At that time a saddle of mutton could be purchased from the

Market Quotations For Iqoq

The following prices prevailed in this county in 1909: Coffee, twentyfive cents; tea, fifty to seventy-five cents; tobacco, sixty cents; muslin, per yard, ten cents for best; nails, per pound, four cents (common) ; iron, per pound, four cents; salt, per bushel, eighty cents; indigo, per ounce, fifteen cents; gunpowder, fifty cents; hogs (live weight), six to seven dollars; cattle (beef), six to eight dollars per hundred. This will show the great contrast in many household articles with the passing of years, but it should be understood that during the Civil war period prices of most all the articles herein named were much in advance of those of today.

The first white man to die in this county was Alexander Crawford, a brother of Josiah Crawford, who later in the county's history owned the Bald's Mill. Shortly after his arrival in Wooster his horse was stolen by an Indian. He immediately started in pursuit of the savage thieves, going on foot, which was at that time a popular method to travel. He persevered in his search as far as Upper Sandusky, but failing to overtake or capture them, he abandoned his pursuit. On his return he could obtain no water to drink, save what lay in the pools in the woods and by the roots of fallen timber, and being very dry, was compelled to slake his thirst with this greenscummed and poisoned water. This was in 1808, and his pathway was amid the solitudes and stolid gloom of dense and dreary woods. On his return to Wooster, he was burning with a violent fever, when he found a stopping place under the protecting roof of William Larwill, which proved to be his last abode on earth. He was sick but a few days, and died in the small office of Mr. Larwill's store, which was situated on the grounds known now as No. 4, Emporium block. Mr. Larwill described his sufferings as being terrible. He had no medical aid.

Near the present .First Methodist Episcopal church the town site proprietors had laid out a cemetery and donated it to the^town. It was called the "public graveyard.'' Here Crawford's remains were interred. John Larwill, Benjamin Miller. William Larwill, Abraham Miller and one or two more dug his grave and buried him. His coffin was made of rough boards by Benjamin Miller and his son Abraham, and he was carried to his final resting place upon spikes of wood on which his coffin rested. Later his grave could not be identified by anyone. The sombre years hai'e swept over it and it casts no shadow unless upon some stricken heart. The deathground holds him and his sleep is as sweet as if under the granite shaft.

Two Noted Characters, Driskel And Brawdy

Among the noted characters who caused much trouble at a very early time in Wayne and adjoining counties may be cited the names of the Driskels and Brawdys.

The Driskels were settlers of Wayne county prior to 1812, but how much earlier than this they came to Wooster and its vicinity is not known. John

Driskel was one of the first supervisors of Wooster we have any record of, and was acting in that capacity in the last named year. He had three brothers, Dennis, William and Phenix, and a sister Sally, who married Bill Gibson. His family consisted of four children. Bill, Pearce, Dave and Reasin. They emigrated from Columbiana county to Wayne county and for a time lived on Apple creek, near the old Sibbs mill.

For a number of years after their settlement in \\Hyne comity, old John Driskel was regarded as an honorable old man, though much addicted to intemperance and inclined when drunk to be c|uarrelsome. Dennis, his brother, was a temperate, enterprising citizen, and bore that name wherever known in this county. He was one of the trustees of Plain township, in company with John McBride and Abraham Runyon, and in 1829 owned and conducted the old grist mill at Springville, in Plain township, which he sold in 1832.

For some years after he came to Wooster. John Driskel owned farms and made realty exchanges. The first suspicion of crookedness upon him occurred when Horace Howard was keeping the hotel called Eagle House, on West Liberty street. A party had gathered in the bar-room one evening, among whom was John Driskel. and the excitement becoming too boisterous, the proprietor ejected the inmates from the premises. As Driskel went out of the bar-room, he picked up a candlestick and carried it out of doors with him, but it seems he immediately threw it over into Mr. Howard's garden, who, not knowing this, caused Driskel to be arrested next morning. Michael Totten was one of the jurors in the case. The evidence was not of that character to evince an act of theft on the part of Driskel, and he was acquitted. This was about eleven years after Driskel came to Wayne county, and this was the first suspicion upon him and the first arrest.

Steve Brawdy, a brother-in-law of William, a brother of John Driskel, was sentenced to the penitentiary from Wooster for stealing a heifer from Jacob Shellbarger, at Naftzger's mill. The warrant for his arrest was issued by Squire Bristow, and Jacob Crawford, constable of Congress township, assisted by Michael Totten and Moses Loudon, arrested him. Brawdy was a strong and powerful man and in the melee a knife was plunged into Loudon's thigh the full length of its blade, but which only made Loudon the more determined and Mr. Totten and the constable the more resolute. He was taken before Squire Bristow, had a hearing, was bound over, received his trial at Wooster, and was sentenced to three years' confinement in the Ohio penitentiary. The fact of Brawdy's relationship to the Driskels induced many suspicions and the vigilance of the citizens and the officers soon led to the discovery of a gang in which John Driskel was the central actor.

About this time General Beall had a yoke of oxen stolen and taken to Cleveland and sold. A young man, Ben Worthington, was arrested and tried for this offense and sent to the penitentiary. The revelations of this trial established the complicity of Driskel and Brawdy with the Worthington theft.

John Driskel was finally arrested for stealing horses in Columbiana county, Ohio, and brought back from Beaver county, Pennsylvania, where he was caught, and was tried and found guilty and sentenced from New Lisbon to the penitentiary. This was along about 1829-30. He, however, managed to make his escape, the particulars of the same being as follows : Convicts were at that date permitted to labor, under guard, on the public works at Columbus. Driskel, with a chain and a fifty-six pound Aveight fastened to his leg, had charge of a wheelbarrow and was conveying dirt on the Ohio canal. He concluded he would make an effort to escape, and, picking up the ball in his hand, started to run and was immediately fired upon by six guards, who unfortunately missed him. He had shrewdly selected a period well on toward night for his escape. Arriving at a farm residence, he sought the wood pile and there finding an ax, severed the ball from the chain. Having dispensed Avith the ball and chain, he leisurely made his way back to Wayne county, to where his family liA^ed, near Burbank, Avhere he filed the clasp of the chain from his leg.

Mr. Totten afterAvard said he frequently heard him relate how he effected his escape. The cutting off of the iron ball by the farmer's ax, and the filing of the chain, etc., Driskel would tell of it and laugh over it until his voice might be heard a half mile.

The authorities hearing of his appearance in Wayne county, an effort Avas made to recapture him, Avhen, to elude his pursuers, he led for a time a roving life, stealing horses, concealing them in thickets, burning barns, houses and other things, finally leaving the county. Shortly after this he was captured in Mohican toAvnship, Ashland county, and committed to the charge of tAvo men, named Peterson, to take him back to the Columbus penitentiary to serve out his sentence, but Avhen stopping over night at Sunbury, Delaware county, the old man by shreAvdness and force effected his escape and never again appeared in Ohio. He Avas next heard of in the West, where his family and confederates joined him and continued their criminal pursuits for some years. In time, the "Regulators" of northern Illinois rose upon them.

captured old John, his son William and others of the gang. These were immediately shot and his youngest son David was soon afterward caught and hanged to a tree by judge "Lynch."

It is the opinion of Mr. Totten that this band of outlaws composed of the Driskels, Brawdys and others originated in Wayne county and this is likewise corroborated by the statement of Hon. L. O'Dell, of Clinton township, one of the most intelligent of the early settlers of Wayne county. They had no long or settled residence at any point in the county, living at different times in Wooster, Wayne, Chester, Congress and Plain townships. They were a gang of bad, bold and dangerous men and desperadoes, a terror to peaceful and law-abiding citizens, whom even-handed justice pursued slowly, but finally visited with most fearful retribution. They were men of invincible courage, of powerful physical strength, and enjoyed nothing so well as a carouse and a knock-down. Their leading crimes consisted in burglaries, incendiarisms and horse stealing. They concealed their stolen horses in the dense thickets of the woods, stole corn from the farmers to feed them, and at a suitable opportunity run them out of the county.

Old John Driskel was a blustering, swaggering, bullying character, and when drunk was constantly provoking disturbances and putting society into a ferment of alarm and apprehension. Few men whom he encountered were his equals in the brutal conflicts which he induced. On the occasion of a public muster in Lisbon, Columbiana county, he became terribly boisterous and flung his banter to the assembled crowd. Like Caleb Quoten in the "Wags of Windsor," he was bound to^have a place in the reviews. Timid men feared him and stouter desired to avoid collision with him. Driskel's rule was if he could not provoke a quarrel by general boasting and threats, to select a large musclar man and challenge him to a fight. And if he refused to accept, to hit him at the time or watch for another chance and deliver a blow upon him.

On this occasion, Driskel selected Isaac Pew, a large, bony specimen of a man, and after offering him sundry indignities, and without any warning, hit him a terrible blow. Springing instantly upon him, he bit off Pew's ear. This occurred at the tavern at Lisbon, then kept by Christian Smith, one of the associate judges of Wayne county at one time. Pew was a man who kept his own secrets and felt amply able to defend himself against Driskel, or anybody else, if he had a fair showing. When next general muster came around, Driskel was present, as was also Pew, the latter having remarked, "He has my ear and now I will have his nose." Seeing Driskel, he approached him.

but susiDCcting his intentions, Driskel retreated and Pew followed him closely. He was interrupted by Bill Driskel, John's brother, but rushing past Bill and John, seeing he was about to be caught, turned about, when Pew instantly sprang at old John and bit his nose off.

On a certain occasion, old John was parading the streets of Wooster, talking boisterously and bragging that he weighed two hundred and eight IDOunds and that no man could whip him. Smith Mclntire, who was clearing off some land on the Robison farm, south of Wooster, came to town in his shirt sleeves to procure tobacco. Being a very muscular looking man. General Spink and Mr. McComb approached him and asked him if the thought he could V hip that man, pointing to Driskel. Mclntiie said, "I can whip anybody, but I don't know that man and I am a stranger here and, more than that, I am a peaceful man." Whereupon he started back to his work, when Spink and McComb called to him to return. He obeyed and after some entreaty consented to whip Driskey, upon the consideration of preserving cjuiet and establishing order. Spink remarked to Driskel pointing to Mclnfire, that he had not yet whipped him, when Driskel rapidly advanced toward him and said, "You think you can handle me," to which Mclntire responded, "I do." Driskel said, "Well, let us take a drink and then to business." Mclntire responded, "I want nothing to drink." Driskel took his drink and faced Mclntire and when the word "Ready'' was given, Mclntire hit one blow that knocked him insensible and so serious was the result that Doctor Bissell had to be called and it was several hours before he rallied from the prostration. Not satisfied with this encounter, in a short time afterwards he challenged Mclntire to a second test, which the latter accepted, having General Spink and Col. James Hindman for his seconds, Driskel choosing for his backers one of his sons and his son-in-law, Brawdy. The contestants met and with a similar result. Mclntire, after his adversary was on the floor, picked him up like a toy and started with him toward the fireplace, exclaiming, "I will make a burnt offering of him," but his rash purpose was prevented. This fight occurred in the bar room of Nailor's tavern.

Weather And Crops Years Ago

1825. - May i8th the terrific "Burlington storm" swept over Delaware, Licking, Knox and Coshocton counties, the most violent tornado that ever visited Ohio.

1833. - November 13th of this year, the "stars fell." It was a copious shower and meteoric tramps tumbled through the heavens and popped earthward in prodigal confusion.

1835. - Heavy rains fell during the summer, submerging the bottoms and rendering tillage impossible. Hay crops were seriously damaged and cattle died from eating it. A comet was observed this year.

1854-55. - The winter of these years will long be remembered. Snow covered the ground thirteen weeks in succession. The month of May, 1855, was remarkably diy, but from the loth to the 17th of June of this year will not be forgotten in history for its remarkable floods.

1855. - On December 24th it began to snow and from this date until the last of March the sleighing remained excellent, the snow covering the earth until about the 20th of April. Forest and fruit trees were killed, and since the first settlement of the country no winter presented so grim wrinkled a front.

1859. - What is known as the "June frost" of this year was a sad visitation upon northern Ohio. June 5, 1859, on Sunday morning, the face of the earth looked as though a sheet of living flame had smitten the vegetation that covered its hills and valleys.

1873-74. - The winter of' these years is worthy of special iiKmtion. On January 6 and 7, 1874. occurred the "great ice storm," which must be distinguished for its destructive effects upon the forests of the .country.

Adam Poe, The Indian Fighter

The terrible encounter of the Poe brothers - Andrew and Adam - with the stalwart chief. Rigfoot, occupies a cons])icuous ])age in the annals of our border strifes. It should contribute a most interesting feature to the history of Wayne county, that we are able to furnish with accuracy the brief sketch of the brother Adam, who for over twelve years was a citizen of this county. His sons were among the earliest of the pioneer band in Congress township and made the first improvements in that section, as well as having been a pioneer of 1813 in the town of Wooster.

The following narrative of this incident was written up and published many years since by that most accurate historian, Ben Douglas, and he gained his knowledge from Mrs. Kuffel, who was the daughter of Adam Poe, who was in the encounter with Bigfoot, and reads as follows ;

A body of seven Wyandots made a raid upon the settlement of whites on the Ohio river, near Fort Pitt, and, finding an old man in a cabin, killed him, stole all they could and withdrew. The news of the murder spread rapidly and my father, Adam Poe, and Uncle Andrew, together with half a dozen neighbors, began pursuit of them, determined to visit sudden death upon them. They followed the Indians all night, but not until morning did they get close upon them, when they discovered a path or trail leading to the river.

My uncle Andrew, who. like my father, was a strong man and always on the lookout, did not directly advance to the river, but left his comrades and stealthily crept through the thicket, to avoid any ruse of the Indians and if possible surprise them. He at once detected evidences of their presence at the river, but not seeing them he crept quietly down to its bank, with his gun fixed to fire. He had not far descended when he espied Bigfoot and a little Indian with him, both of whom had guns and stood watching along the river in the direction whence the remainder of the party were. He (Andrew) now concluded to shoot Bigfoot, and fired at him, but his gun did not discharge its contents. The situation instantly became terrific.

The snapping of the gun alarmed the Indians, who, looking around, discovered Andrew. It was too late for him to run and I doubt if he would have retreated if he could, for he was a great wrestler and coveted conflict with the Indians. So he dropped his gun and bounded from where he stood and caught both the Indians and thrust them upon the ground. Though he fell uppermost in the struggle, he found the grip of Bigfoot to be of iron, and as a consequence the little Indian soon extricated himself and instantly seized his tomahawk and advanced with fatal purpose toward Andrew. To better assist the little Indian, who had the tomahawk aimed at the head of Andrew, Bigfoot hugged and held him with a giant's grasp, but Andrew threw up his foot and kicked the tomahawk out of the Indian's hand. This made Bigfoot indignant at the little savage, who soon repeated his experiment with the tomahawk, indulging in numerous feints, before he delivered the main blow, which Andrew parried from his head and received upon his wrist.

Andrew now, by a desperate endeavor, wrenched himself from the clutches of Bigfoot and, seizing the gun from one of the savages, shot the little Indian. Bigfoot, regaining his upright position, got Andrew in his grasp and hurled him down upon the bank, but instantly he arose, when the second encounter occurred, the issue of which threw them both into the water and the struggle now was for the one to drown the other. Andrew finally caught Bigfoot by the hair and plunged him in the water, holding him there until he imagined he was drowned, a conclusion in which he was sadly mistaken. Bigfoot was only playing off and soon recovered and was ready for a second encounter. The current of the river had by this time borne them into the deeper water, when it became necessary to disengage themselves and seek to escape immediate destruction.

A mutual effort was at once made to reach the shore and get possession of a gun and close the struggle with powder and lead. Bigfoot was a glib swimmer and was first to reach the bank. In this contingency, Andrew wheeled about and swam farther out into the river to avoid if possible being shot, by diving strategies. The big chief, lucklessly to him, seized the unloaded gun with which Andrew had shot the little Indian. Meantime Adam Poe, having missed hi^ brother and hearing his shot, inferred he was either killed or in a fight with the Indians and hastened toward him. Adam now being disco'.'ered by Andrew, the latter called to the former to shoot Bigfoot. Unfortunately Achm's gun was empty, as was the big Indian's. The strife was now between the two as to who could load the quickest, but Bigfoot, in his haste, drew his ramrod too violently from his gun thimbles, when it was thrown from his hands and was sent some distance. He rapidly recovered, but the accident gave Adam the advantage, when he shot Bigfoot as he was in the act of drawing his gun upon him.

Having disposed of Bigfoot and seeing his brother, who was wounded, floating in the river, he instantly sprang into the water to assist him, but Andrew, desiring the scalp of the great chief, called to Adam to scalp him, that he could save himself and reach the shore. Adam's anxiety for his brother was too intense to obey the mandate and Bigfoot, determined not to let his scalp be counted among the trophies of his antagonist, in the horrid pangs of death, rolled into the ri\er and his carcass was swept from the eye of man fore\-er. Andrew, however, when in the stream made another narrow escape from death, for just as Adam arrived at the bank for his protection, one of the number who came after him mistook Andrew for an Indian and shot at him, the bullet striking him in the shoulder, causing a severe wound, from which in course of time he recovered.

So that it was my Uncle Andrew that had the wrestle on the bank with Bigfoot and the struggle in the river with him, and it was my father, Adam Poe, who shot Bigfoot when he came ashore. The wound that my father received he got in the fight with the body of six Indians who were overtaken, five of whom were killed, with a loss of three of their pursuers and the hurt done to my father.

Poe Whips Five Indians

While living on this side of the Ohio, two Indians crossed the river, both of whom were intoxicated, and came to Adam Poe's house. After various noisy demonstrations, but without doing any one harm, they retired a short distance and under the shade of a tree sat down and finally went to sleep. In the course of two hours, after they awoke from their drunken slumbers, they discovered that their rifles were missing, when they immediately returned to Poe's house and, after incpuring for their guns and being told they knew nothing about them, they boldly accused him of stealing them and insolently demanded them. Poe was apprehensive of trouble and, turning his eyes in the direction whence they came, discovered three more Indians approaching.

Without manifesting any symptoms of surprise or alarm, Poe coolly withdrew to his house and, saying to his wife, "There is fight and more fun ahead,'' told her to hasten to the cornfield near by with the children and there hide. This being accomplished, he seized his gun and confronted the five Indians, who were then in the yards surrounding the house and trying to force open the door. He at once discovered that the two Indians who came first had not found their guns, and that the other three were unarmed. So he dropped his gun, as he did not want to kill any of them, unless he had to, and then attacked them with his fists. After a hand-to-hand encounter, lasting ten minutes, he crushed them to the earth in one promiscuous heap, and, having thus vanquished and subdued them, seized them one at a time and threw them over the fence and out of the yard.

After leaving Pennsylvania, Adam Poe removed to the West Fork of Little Beaver, in Wayne township, Columbiana county, where he entered several quarters of land. From that county he removed to Wayne county, in 1813, bringing with him his wife and youngest son David and his daughter Catherine. He first settled in Wooster, on North Market . street, and he followed the business of shoemaking for three years. He was then nearly seventy years of age. He was by trade a tanner and an excellent shoemaker. He then removed to Congress township and there bought sixty acres of land from his son, George Poe, and there he resided for almost twelve years, when, growing old and infirm, he removed to Stark county, where, with his son Andrew he died. He was a member of the old Lutheran church.

Mrs. Kuffel relates this concerning his death : A great and enthusiastic political meeting was being held in Massillon. The crowd, hearing Adam Poe, who had killed the celebrated Indian, Bigfoot, lived but a few miles distant, dispatched a delegation after him. When he appeared on the ground he was wonderfully lionized and made the hero of the day. He was caught and carried through the crowd on the shoulders of the excited multitude. As old as he was, being past ninety, he had as much pluck as any of the boys.

That day of excitement, however, sounded the death knell of the mighty borderer, the iron-nerved, heroic Adam Poe. He returned from the political meeting prostrated, enfeel)led and sick and soon thereafter died. A son of Andrew Poe, at whose house Adam died, hurried to the residence of Mrs. Kuffel, at Congress, to inform her of the dangerous illness of her father. She received the news about nine o'clock and, being then forty-seven years of age, mounted a horse and rode through the darkness and over uncertain roads, reaching her father's only in time to see him, to whom this w orld had no terrors, succumb to the king of terrors and the terror of kings.

Gen. Thomas T. Dill, who was born in Wayne county, Ohio, in 1842, and who sen-ed in the Union army during the Civil war for a term of five years, had charge of the troops who were detailed to execute President Lincoln's assassins, in the prison yard in Washington, District of Columbia, on July 9, 1865. Three details of men had to be selected before anv could l)c secured who would cut down the bod}^ of Mrs. Serratt, which woman harbored Booth in her home the day before Lincoln was shot by him. Dill was also present when Booth's body was placed under the corner of the Arsenal, beneath the floor. Later it was moYed to the family burial place of the Booth family.

Salt Works On The Killbuck In 1815

At an early day in Wayne county and all northern Ohio the most coveted commodity sought for among all classes was salt. Prices ran from sixteen dollars to twenty dollars per barrel. This could not long be endured, so with the genuine enterprise and pluck of pioneers a project was set on foot to obviate freighting salt so long a distance as from Pittsburg and some of it carried from points on the Ohio to Coshocton, at the head of the Muskingum, thence to Walhonding, and tugging it up the Killbuck in dug-outs and pirogues, as did Benjamin Jones and the triple-nerved William Totten. To bore for salt in this county was the scheme sought out and carried forth to a successful completion.

March 5. 1815. Joseph Eichar commenced this task. He went down with a chisel-shaped auger to the depth of four hundred and sixty-five feet and salt water was obtained and the product of salt was sought in great quantities at first, but the flow did not last long and the works were abandoned. M e draw the following from an old letter furnished by Mrs. Joseph Lake, of New York, daughter of Joseph Eichar:

"One of the greatest obstacles they met with in boring was the striking of a strong vein of oil, a spontaneous outburst, which shot up as high as the tops of the surrounding tree-tops. One of the workmen dropped a coal of fire into it and in less than a minute everything was a roaring blaze. The men became terribly frightened and Jim McClarran struck a bee-line for Wooster, without hat or coat, for, said he, 'we have struck through to the lower regions, and it looks as though we had set the world on fire.' "

The fire was later extinguished and a bottle of the oil sent to Dr. Townsend, who pronounced it a "wonderful phenomena"- - it was doubtless petroleum oil, but that article was then unknown to the world. The whole surface of Killbuck creek was covered with the oil. This mixture of oil and salt was not what the people wanted and soon the new-found salt works on Killl)uck were abandoned for all time.

Herewith is the census enumeration for Wayne county, by decades, and its population by townships and precincts, towns and cities, according to the last United States census, 1900:

City, Town And Village Population City Of Wooster By Wards

There have been almost fifty villages platted within Wayne county since its organization. The following is a list of a large per cent, of the plattings :

Madison (first county seat), Wooster township, vacated 1814. Marshallville, Baughman and Chippewa townships, February 7, 1817. Mount Eaton ( Paintville) , Paint township, 1813.

Indians Cause Powder Explosion

Howe in his "Historic Collections" mentions a singular incident as having occurred in a small huilding near or adjoining the old Stibbs mills, built in 1809 near Wooster. This building had been fitted up for a small general store, such as would accommodate the settlers and the few remaining bands of Indians. It was managed by Michael Switzer. In this store were William Smith, Hugh Moore, Jesse Richards, J. H. Larwill and five or six Indians. Switzer was in the act of weighing out some gunpowder from an eighteen-pound keg. while the Indians were quietly smoking their pipes, filled with a mixture of tobacco, sumach leaves and kinnikinnick, or yellow willow bark, when a puff of wind coming in at the open window blew a spark of fire from one of their pipes into the powder. A terrific explosion occurred. The roof of the building was blown off and carried a long distance, the sides fell out, the joists came to the floor and the door and chimney alone were left. Switzer died in a few minutes; Smith was blown through the mill and badly injured; Richards and the Indians were also badly hurt and seriously burned. Larwill, who happened to be standing against the chimney, escaped with little or no harm, except, like all the rest, his face was well blackened and he was knocked down l)y the shock.

The Indians, fearful of being accused of causing the accident intentionally, some days later called a council of citizens for an investigation, which was held on the bottom, on Christmas run, west of Wooster.

The Fuller Sisters

Among the literary characters produced in Wayne county should not be forgotten the names of two sisters - Frances and Metta Fuller - whose combined poems were compiled within one joint volume. The former was a native of Rome, New York, while the latter was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1839 the family removed to Wooster, when Metta was but a babe of but a few months old. At the age of fourteen Frances was supplying the local press with gems of poetry and prose. She rose rapidly and soon established a reputation in the literary world. Willis and Morris, of the Home Journal, a popular literary paper of New York city, containing sweet stanzas of her writings, pronounced her as among the most brilliant of women writers. Edgar Allen Poe, famous as author of the "Raven," classed her with the most imaginative of American poets. In 1853 she married Jackson Barrett, of Pontiac, Michigan, to which state she removed. Later she moved to the Pacific coast where "rolls the Oregon." She did not live happily and was divorced and later married a Mr. Victor, brother to the husband of her sister Metta. In that far-away clime she improved in her literary tastes and did most excellent work.

Metta, like her sister, attended the schools of Wooster, and at fifteen years of age composed a romance founded upon the supposed history of the dead cities of Yucatan, entitled "The Last Days of Tub" Metta's noni de plume was the "Singing Sybil." She grew to be a woman of charming graces and wonderful endowments highly improved upon. "The Senator's Son," a plea for the Maine law, written at the age of twenty, had an extensive sale both at home and in foreign lands. She married, in July, 1856, O. J. Victor and removed to New York city where for many years she followed literary work with success. One of her poems was "Body and Soul," one stanza of which reads :

"We suppose ourselves to lie throwing no shade of disparagement upon anyone in declaring that in the 'Singing Sybil,' her not less gifted sister, we discern more unquestionable marks of true genius, and a greater portion of the unmistakable inspiration of true poetic art than in any of the lady minstrels - delightful and splendid as some of them have been - that we have heretofore ushered to the applause of the public. One in spirit, and equal in genius, the most interesting and brilliant ladies - both still in their }-outh - are undoubtedly destined to occupy a very distinguished and permanent place among the native authors of this land."

Wooster produced Alf Howard and he became the American violinist - named "America's Ole Bull.'' He was the son of Horace Howard and brother to Harvey, Charles and William Howard, of Wooster. He died aged fifty years, in February, 1873, at Prophetstown, Illinois. He was a man of a phenomenal musical genius. Early in life, even before his tenth summer had passed, he developed a peculiar fondness for instrumental music. At the age of fifteen he went to Detroit. Michigan, engaged as a dry-goods clerk, but soon repaired to Niles, Michigan, where he conceived his niche in life and at once set about developing his talents. He organized a troupe and appeared before many w'estern audiences beyond the Mississippi river. In 1841 he joined the June, Turner & Company circus, with wdiich he traveled one season, then returned to Wooster. Here he formed a minstrel company, traveled throughout the entire W'est and finally, like a shining star, appeared suddenly in Philadelphia, wPere he rvas first known as the "Ole Bull" of this continent. After 1844 he was connected -with Barnum's show of New York, wPere, rvith his single violin, he drew immense throngs of music-loving people. He next went to the Old World, where he sought and won great musical fame as a violinist. After coming home, he traveled and played in almost every state in this country. He made money fast, but this was not his aim - it being rather to entertain and excel in his chosen profession.

Jonathan Chapman, better known as "Johnny Appleseed." was born in Boston, Alassachusetts, about 1775, and become somewhat of a noted character in Wayne county, Ohio. As a fruit grower and early-day nurseryman, he was celebrated. Hon. John H. James, of Urbana. Ohio, in an address before the Cincinnati Horticultural Society many years ago, had this to relate of him ;

"I saw- him first in 1826, and have since learned something of his history. He came to my office in Urliana, bearing a letter from Alexander Kimmont. The letter spoke of him as a man generally styled 'Johnny Appleseed' and that he might desire some counsel about a nursery he had in Champaign county. His case was this ; Some years after he had planted a nursery on the land of a person who gave him leave to do so, he was told the land had been sold, and was now in other hands, and that the present owner might not recognize his right to the trees. He did not seem to be very anxious about it, and continued walking to and fro as he talked, and at the same time continued eating nuts. Ha^-ing advised him to go and see the person that he might ha\-e no difficulty, the conversation turned. I asked him about the nursery, and whether the trees were grafted. He answered 'no' rather decidedly, and said that the proper and natural mode was to raise fruit trees from the seed.

"In i8oi he came into the Territory with a horse load of appleseeds, gathered from cider presses in western Pennsylvania. The seeds were contained in leather bags, which were better suited for his journey than linen sacks. He came first to Licking county, Ohio, where he planted his seeds. T am able to say that it was on the farm of Isaac Stadden. In this instance, as in others afterwards, he would clear a spot for the purpose and make some light enclosures. He would then return for more seeds and select other sites for new nurseries. When the trees were ready for sale, he left them in charge of some one to sell for him, at a low price, which was seldom if ever paid in money. If persons were too poor to pay they received the trees free. Nearly all of the nurseries in Licking county were planted from his nursery. He also had numerous nurseries in Knox, Richland and Wayne counties.

"It is claimed that on the remote borders of Chester and Congress townships he scattered seeds, and that some of the earliest orchards of that settlement were produced from his nurseries. One thing is certain, that his nurseries in Wayne county prior to the establishment of the county of Ashland supplied the pioneers of that and adjacent counties with the settings of their future orchards. In East Lhiion township there is no doubt that this fanatical wanderer located one of the nurseries. On Little Sugar creek, near the residence of David Carr, he selected the site, which a hundred years ago, in the primal silence of its wild environments, must have been poetically picturesque.

"On account of superstition among the Indians, and as he dressed in a fantastic manner and seemed to interpret their strange dreams for them, they were all his fast friends. They looked upon him as a great white medicine man. During the war of 1812, when the other settlers on the frontier were harassed and Ixitchered Iw the Indians, he pursued the even tenor of his ways, undisturbed by the brutal savages. He, being in their confidence, gained many points which benefited the whites, whom he warned to flee when danger seemed lurking near. At the time of Hull's surrender, Johnny Chapman rode day and night to herald the disaster and admonish the people to flee for safety and life. Indeed he was an odd, but humane man. He disliked to injure or kill even the least insect, or reptile, or bird of the forest. Kind, true to man and beast, endowed wdth genius and intellect far above the average person, it is no wonder that newspapers and state historians have ever kept publishing details of his half nomadic, half civilized life. He died in Allen county, Ohio, in the summer of 1847, aged seventy-two' years, fortysix of which had been consecrated to his self-imposed mission, of giving out apple seeds and doing self-sacrificing deeds for his fellow pioneers. Peace to his ashes!"