Ashland City (part 36 of 57)

He then took his parting leave of the officers and ministers present on the scaffold - submitted calmly to have his arms and feet pinioned - the eap drawn over his head and face - the rope placed around his neck, and drawn up in order to launch him into eternity. The sheriff called out, nineteen minutes till the time expires - ten minutes - five minutes - one minute, during which announcements, he stood like a statue - unshuddering - unmoved, save to incline his head a little to the right. A moment before he was precipitated from the scaffold, the sheriff, approaching him, pressed the question, ''Steingraver, are you innocent of the crime of murder as charged against you?'' with apparent earnestness he replied, ''Sheriff, I am innocent.'' It was now just fifteen minutes past one o'clock. A moment, and his guilty or guiltless soul was thrust into another world to meet its Creator; a few spasmodic shrugs of his body and limbs and all was over. He hung suspended by his neck about an hour; was then pronounced dead by the medical men present; his body taken down and placed in a coffin and in something over half an hour it was transferred to an obscure place in the Ashland cemetery, and there interred.

During these proceedings the people behaved with decorum, the best of order prevailing throughout, except when the body was precipitated from the scaffold and for a short time became invisible to the crowd. Order, however, was soon restored, and the people quietly dispersed.

The Thornton Pool Case

The second murder trial in Ashland county was that of Thornton Pool, charged with the killing of Noah Mock, at the town of Orange, on December 17, 1853. The tragedy had its origin in the matter of seven cents that had been used at a raftle. The money belonged to Mock but had been appropriated by Pool, and in the controversy growing out of the affair, Pool stabbed Mock fatally. The ease was tried at the March term of court, 1854. Alexander Porter was the prosecuting attorney, and Fulton, McCombs and Given were the attorneys for the defense.

The trial resulted in a verdict of murder in the second degree, and the sentence of the court was, that Thornton Pool be taken hence by the sheriff to the county jail and from there thence within sixty days from the rising of the court be taken by the sheriff to the Ohio penitentiary, there to remain in confinement and to be kept at hard labor for a period of ten years.

One of Ashland county's most atrocious murders was that of Harry Willams which oceurred at Polk at about three o'clock on the morning of March 25, 1883, and for whieh William H. Gribben and George A. Horn were executed upon the seaffold. The murder was the result of a quarrel and was committed when the parties were in a state of intoxication. There had been bad feeling between the parties for some time and meeting at West Salem, Saturday evening, March 24. taunting words passed between the parties and the murder resulted after they had perched their home town of Polk. We quote from Judge Jabez Dickey '5 charge to the jury at the close of the trial.

: "The indietment charges in substance, that William Henry Gribben, on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1883, at the county of Ashland and State of Ohio, unlawfully, willfully, purposely and feloniously. and of deliberate and premeditated malice did make an assault on one Henry Williams, by striking him in the head with a certain stone and a certain axe, with the intent then and there, him the said Henry Williams, unlawfully, willfully, purposely and feloniously and of deliberate and premeditated malice to kill and murder. And by reason of the blows so struck, with the stone and axe, certain mortal wounds were inflicted in and upon the head of him the said Henry Williams, and of which mortal wounds he, then and there, instantly died. And that the said William Henry Gribben, by the means and in the manner aforesaid, unlawfully, wilfully and feloniously and of deliberate and premeditated malice, him, the said Henry Williams, did kill and murder.

''The indictment will be before you and you will look to it for a more particular statement of the charge. While the indictment charges the prisoner jointly with one George Andrew Horn, you will treat it as though it was against the defendant, William Henry Gribben, alone; each defendant being entitled to a separate trial.'' .

On the day of the execution a crowd of about eight thousand persons assembled in and around the courthouse grounds. A militia company was present to preserve order.

There was much fear that the enclosure would be torn down which was not at all lessened by the three or four shots which were fired. It was a time of suspense and horror to those inside the enclosure. They could not see what was going on outside and had to depend on their ears for information.

There were plenty of men who would have followed a leader right against the militia. The crowd was massed at the south end of the courtyard, and made most of their demonstration on that side. As the time of the execution approached the crowd grew bolder, and several attempts were made to tear down the fence, but the soldiers stood firm. The police were utterly unable to control the crowd. Several times they attempted to make arrests, but their prisoners were taken from them before they could hardly move. During the attacks on the fence a stone was thrown by some one in the crowd which struck one of the militia men on the head.

Some one took one of the bayonets from the rifle of one of the militia and threw it back towards the soldiers. It struck one man and disabled him from active service. Had the execution been an hour later there would have been bloodshed for each moment the crowd grew bolder. The entrance gate was on this side and was doubly guarded; as those who had tickets to witness the execution were admitted loud and derisive cries went up from the enraged crowd and loud and deep were the curses heaped upon the sheriff for admitting so many, yet calling out the military to keep the execution from being private.

The crowd was led by a tall farmer to whom the guns of the militia had no terror. He and several others turned their attention to the woodhouse, and part of the side was soon torn off, but the gap was filled with four soldiers. The former, nothing daunted, grabbed the guns by the bayonets and some one in the rear struck one of the guard with a stone.

The sheriff hurried Gribben on to the trap doors and the ropes were quickly adjusted by Sheriff Brown around Horn's neck and by Ex-Sheriff Gay of Mansfield around Gribbens.

There was a delay of a few seconds and then the voice of the minister was heard in prayer. He had uttered but a few words when Sheriff Gates sprung the trap and the bodies were precipitated downwards to death. Both men were killed instantly ; there was a few spasmodic jerks of the muscles and all was over.

The trap fell precisely at ten thirty a. m. The bodies were both pronounced dead in twenty minutes. Both their necks were broken by the fall.

It was a perfect execution and there was not one mistake made unless in view of the excited, yelling crowd there was some little hurry in the final preparation of the men.

The scene on the scaffold was one of confusion and disorder made so by the crowds who would listen to no reason or argument. It was almost impossible to make out what Gribben said so loud was the noise.

The Polk company was placed at one of the most exposed points, but every man stood to his post. Theirs was a most trying position because they were personally acquainted with a large number of those who were trying to get in. Several of them were struck with stones and clubs, but fortunately none seriously hurt. They will make good witnesses before the grand jury.

The Stein-Porter Tragedy

The most importnt case investigated by the grand jury of Ashland county at the October (1908) term of common pleas court, was the Stein-Porter tragedy at Loudonville, which occurred Friday afternoon, August 14, 1908. The following is taken from one of the local papers:

'*A wave of horror passed over Ashland county when the awful news was told and it became known that Miss Hester Porter, a highly respected lady of that town had been mysteriously shot twice in the back of the head and instantly killed and that Morris B. Stein, a prominent young business man of Des Moines, Towa, had also been shot and killed, at Miss Porter's home in Loudonville. Since that terrible event there has been a great deal said and printed in the newspapers over the state, also at Des Moines, Iowa, where young Stein resided. Many were of the firm belief that it was a case of double murder; while others were inclined to the belief that it was a case of murder and suicide - that either Stein shot Miss Porter and then himself or vice versa. At all events, the double tragedy has been a mystery, for the solution of which Prosecutor Frey has been diligently working since it happened. The prosecutor has been of the firm belief that Mrs. Mary Bayard, a sister of Miss Porter, and her daughter, Mrs. Morris B. Stein, wife of the dead young man, both of Des Moines, and who were visiting at Loudonville at the time of the tragedy, knew more about the affair than they testified to at the inquest held by Coroner Ash at Loudonville the day following the killing.

There was considerable interest manifested in what action the grand jury would take in this Stein-Porter case. The jury took up the case on Wednesday afternoon and heard the testimony of fourteen witnesses. It is understood that the jurors took five or six ballots, including two Friday morning, and each time the vote stood eleven for indictment for murder against Mrs. Bayard and daughter, Mrs. Stein, and four against an indictment. It is also stated that - some of the jurors got into a very heated argument while in session this morning and for a time it looked as though there would be trouble among them.

The grand jurors also reported that they comphed with the court's instructions and examined the county jail, ete., and that everything was found in proper condition as required by the statutes.''

The June Frost Of 1859

On Sunday morning, June 5, a great sheet of frost covered the hills and valleys in this part of Ohio, and was particularly severe in Ashland county. The spring season of that year compared somewhat with that of 1816, in which year there were frosts every month in the year. The frosts of 1816, although severe did not do as much damage as that of 1859. A writer to the State Commissioner of Statistics states: That after February in 1859, the weather had some extraordinary changes. Part of March and the first part of April, the season was very favorable and appearances promised one of the best of harvests. The fall grain looked more healthy than usual until the 4th of June, when after a rain, it clouded up and flakes of snow were seen flying in the air. On the morning of the 5th there was more than a common frost - it was a severe freeze. Ice had been formed from one-half to five-eights in thickness. Everything froze of the plant kind. . Wheat and rye froze in the blossom, corn in the stock, potatoes and other vines to the ground. © Some of the corn recovered, but the greater part of it did not. The weather was changeable, the greater part of the time cold, and on the morning of the Fourth of July there was another frost which froze the corn on flat and swampy land the second time.

On August the 11th and on the 28th there were frosts. Also in May and September there were light frosts, and on October 9th there was a heavy frost, which froze the corn fodder and soft corn. After that the weather was more favorable for the remainder of the autumn.

Another report to the state commissioner gives the following account of frost disasters of that and other years: In 1834 destructive frosts took place in May, as late as from the 13th to the 18th, six mornings in succession, destroying all the fruit and much corn and wheat. But the wheat was then in blossom, and in a great measure recovered by pushing up new stocks from the uninjured roots, and produced a small crop. The corn was replanted, and warm rains succeeding, the farmer was blessed with a fair return for his labor by the kindness of Him who has said ''Seedtime and harvest shall not fail.'' Even so in the year 1859, where the fields were immediately replanted as late as the 10th of June. The crop of corn was fairly good. The damage by the frost was a serious loss as the previous year had been unfruitful.

While the climate of Ashland county does not differ generally from that of its neighboring counties, yet an incident was related by the Rev. Seamans, at a meeting of the Ashland County Historical Society that is out of the ordinary, which is this: That upon one season back in the pioneer days snow fell on the 6th day of June to the depth of six inches, and that the young robins were frozen to death in their nests ; another statement was that in 1823 frost destroyed all the corn in the month of August, but it resprouted and produced quite a crop.

We turn from events of a more general character to enter into detail and specific account of the organization and settlement of the townships.

Montgomery township was surveyed by Jonathan Cox, in 1807, and the same year the survey was platted and certified to Jarad Mansfield, surveyor general of the United States. |The township was organized by the commissioners of Richland county in 1816. Prior to that time Vermillion and Montgomery each elected one justice of the peace and acted as one township. The pioneers of Montgomery, at the period of its organization, are believed to have been Robert Newell, Daniel Carter, Jacob Fry, Benjamin Cuppy, Henry Baughman, Samuel Burns, Daniel Mickey, Solomon Urie, Samuel Urie, Jacob Figley, William Montgomery, Jacob Crouse, James Kuykendall, Joseph Markley, John McNauil, Michael Springer, John Springer, Ilenry Springer, Daniel and Henry Vautilburg, and probably a few others not now remembered. The first justice of the peace was Robert Newell, who was succeeded by Daniel Carter, Sr.

The date of the settlement of Montgomery township may be said to have commenced about the year 1818, the settlers prior to that time being very few in number. From 1818 until about 1821, the township had reccived considerable accessions to its population. Squire Newell was the largest landholder, he being the owner of one thousand acres; the next largest was a Mr. Lanterman, of Trumbull county, who was the owner of about nine hundred acres, embracing what was later known as the ''Tunker Settlement.'' Under the laws of congress in force at that time, no one could enter less than a quarter section, and very few of the original settlers entered more than that quantity. These quarters were often divided and sometimes subdivided by the original purchasers, and sold to other settlers, which had a strong tendency to promote the density of the

In the southern part of Montgomery township was the well known Wyandot trail which in 1761 was followed by Rogers and his rangers in their route to the forks of the Muskingum on their return to Fort DuQuesne. It was also the route of General Beall on his expedition to Sandusky. This trail passes into Milton township and then into Richland county.

Montgomery, lying back from the principal streams, was not settled as-early as the other parts of the county, as no settlers were found within its limits until several years after the settlement at Greentown. It was mid-winter when the first settler arrived and his shelter until his cabin was built was an open-ended tent. He cut and hauled the logs for his cabin as quickly as possible, but could not raise it without help, and had to travel sixteen miles through the forest to get the fourth man for that purpose. This cabin was one mile northeast of the present town of Ashland.

These pioneers were brave men with a determined purpose to thus settle in the dense woods, in January with no shelter from the cold, the snow, the wolves, the bears, ete., but a tent.

But after the war of 1812, the county and township began to fill up quite rapidly and their pioneer history is much the same as has been written of the pioneers in other townships. As soon as the settlers could get a clearing about their cabins, and provide for their immediate wants, they began to plan about schools and churches.

'"Old Hopewell'' was the first erected here. It was called ''Old'' from the fact that later there was another of the same name erected in the town of Ashland. The old church was erected of logs, a mile west of Ashland, in 1819, by the Presbyterians.

Lake township was surveyed in 1807, and was organized on the 5th day of September, 1814, as it now is, except that a part or the whole of Washington township, Holmes county, was then included within its borders and so remained until the erection of Holmes county in January, 1824.

There is no town in Lake township. By the operation of the act of 1846, erecting Ashland county, Lake, which had already been shorn of its full proportions, by the erection of Holmes county, became further reduced, and has now a smaller area than township organization in the county, except Mifflin. It is sometimes called ''Little Lake,'' yet, notwithstanding its decimation of territory, the census report shows that it has increased in population favorably with the townships of the county.

mill, it may be a matter of interest to state that it was erected by Nathan G. Odell, in the spring of 1812. Mr. Odell entered the tract upon which the mill is located in April, 1810, and at once commenced his improvement, and in March, 1811, removed his family to the place. He was the first white settler within the limits of what is now Clinton township, Wayne county. He died in Michigan, in 1833, at the age of sixty-seven. The building was originally constructed of hewn logs.

In December, 1807, Joshua Oram, and family, immigrated to Fairfield county, Ohio, from the state of Maryland. In November, 1811, the family removed to Lake township, and entered and commenced improvement upon a quarter which, by subsequent divisions, became a part of the township of Clinton. In the fall of 1812, the family of Mr. Oram, with several others, established a fort near the southern line of Lake township, where they remained about three months. In 1815 his father sold the farm he originally purchased, and entered the northeast and southeast quarters of section 15, Lake township, and immediately commenced improvement upon the former quarter. After residing upon this land about three years, he sold to Asahel Webster, and removed to the southeast quarter, which he improved and made his residence until his decease, which occurred on the 27th day of August, 1831.

When his father commenced his residence in Lake, there was not a white family residing within the limits of what now forms the township. When he raised his second cabin, in 1815, he traveled a circuit of ten miles to gather the necessary force of men for the purpose.

The supplies of breadstuffs were obtained from Knox county, which was then considered the ''Egypt'' of the country, where the corn purchased was ground at Shrimplin's Mill, and was brought home on packhorses during the winter season, and on canoes when the streams were navigable. After the neighborhood began to raise its own supplies of corn, it was prepared for converting into bread by breaking up into wooden mortars, an article which belonged to nearly every cabin, and which was regarded as an indispensable machine in the domestic economy. The mills were so remote that many families subsisted for months, upon this domestic meal.

The Presbyterians and German Lutherans were the first church organizations in the religious field in Lake township; the Presbyterians having an organization there as early as 1826, other denominations coming later.

Mohican township was surveyed in 1807 by Jonathan Cox. On the 11th of April, 1812, the commissioners of Wayne county divided the county into four townships - the western part, including what are now Jackson, Perry, Mohican and Lake, and part of Washington in Holmes county, and the west half of what are now Clinton, Plain, Chester and Congress in Wayne county, and organized this territory as one township, under the name of Mohican. Thus Mohican township once embraced an area equal in extent to one-half of that which now constitutes Ashland county. Mohican was among the first settled and the first organized of any of the townships which now compose Ashland county. The population of Mohican township in 1820 was six hundred and thirty-two; in 1830, one thousand three hundred and sixteen; in 1860, one thousand seven hundred and twelve.

Thomas Eagle arrived in the township of Mohican on the 2d day of May, 1809, having succeeded the family of Alexander Finley a few weeks. His family then consisted of his wife and daughter Amelia. He first opened a small farm on the land now owned and occupied by Henry Treace. In the early part of the war, he, together with several of his neighbors, removed their families to the fort, at Wooster, as security against attacks by Indians.

Alexander Finley was the first white settler in Mohican township. © Withm a few weeks, however, other persons, namely, William and Thomas Eagle, Benjamin Bunn, and John Shinnebarger, all having families, settled in the neighborhood. The year following, (1810) Amos Norris, Vachel Metcalf, William Bryan, Thomas Newman, and James Slater, with their several families, removed to the township.

The Indians in the neighborhood at:this time were an intermixture of several tribes, the Mohegans, Delawares, Wyandottes, Shawnees, Chickasaws, and one or two who claimed to be of the Cherokee tribe. They were friendly and harmless, until the war of 1812 commenced, when the main body of them disappeared, and most of them, it is supposed, became attached to the British service.

The first year or two after Mr. Finley came to the country, he obtained his supplies of flour and corn meal from Shrimplin's mill, below Mt. Vernon. This journey to the mill was performed in canoes or pirogues, down the Lake Fork and Mohican, and up Owl creek, and occupied about three days for the trip. These vessels would carry from twenty to fifty bushels of corn meal.

The forests at this period were destitute of underbrush or small timber, but were covered with sedge grass, pea vines, and weeds, which afforded excellent pasture from early spring until about August. The sedge grass, when cut in July, or earlier, afforded very nutritous and palatable food for horses and eattle during the winter. Very lhttle iron was used in those days. The wooden ''mould board'' plow and wooden and brush harrows were generally in use twelve or fifteen years after Mr. Finley came to the country; and many continued their use several vears afterward.

The clothing of the men was buckskin and flax linen. The women were clothed in a fabric made of raw cotton and flax linen. Handkerchiefs, headdresses, and aptons were made, by the thrifty housewives, of raw cotton. The price of calico (being from fifty to seventy-five cents per yard) placed it without the means of any but very few to purchase. An excellent and industrious girl, as late as 1822 or 1823, toiled faithfully six weeks for six yards of calico; which, in those primitive days, before the era of hoops, was deemed sufficient for a dress. The lady who appeared in the first calico dress, attracted, it may be supposed, considerable attention in "'the settlement.'' Window glass was not in use until some years after the war of 1812, oiled paper being employed as a substitute.

When Mr. Hootman came to the township the major part of the village of Jeromeville was covered with fallen timber and hazel bush. |The improvements on the farms then settled were small, being log cabins surrounded by a few acres of partly cleared land. The roads were new and unimproved, and many of them little more than bridle-paths. The prices of produce in 1828-29 were, as I recollect distinctly: wheat, twenty-five cents; pork, one dollar and fifty cents per hundred weight; corn, eighteen cents; salt, five dollars per barrel; coffee, fifty cents per pound; tea, fifty cents per quarter; butter, six cents; eggs, nothing; iron, twelve and one-half cents per pound. 'The usual and best market place was Portland, (now Sandusky City). Twenty to thirty bushels wheat, a big load for two and four horses, ten days of travel if the roads were good, two weeks if not good. Massillon became a market town. The opening of the Ohio canal run the price of wheat up at once to forty cents, then fifty, and then our farmers at that time were satisfied, and expressed the wish that the price would continue at that as they then could make money. Our nearest gristmill was an old concern known as Goudy's Mill, southeast of Hayesville, with one run of stone, old niggerhead or boulder stone at that. Another was Smith's Mill, below Mohicanville. In the winter, when those small streams were frozen, we went to the Clearfork to Manner's Mill. Sometimes we had to go to Owl Creek, in Knox county.

There were the remains of no less than five ancient fortifications in Mohican township; the embankments very regular and very distinctly defined, until cultivation has nearly -destroyed their original features. Three are near Jeromeville, and two near the junction of the Muddy and Jerome Forks. They embraced areas averaging about one and a half acres. A mound near the old Indian village, bearing unmistakable evidence, after excavation, of its being a work of art and upon which trees, the growth of centuries, were standing, was also in existence. |

The following chronological memoranda of events of interest that have occurred in past years, furnished by Judge Ingmand, will be found of general and local interest:

November 13, 1833. Lights were seen falling on the early morning of this day, (three or four hours before daybreak,) having the appearance of showers of stars.

June 21, 1834. A terrific storm passed over Jeromeville and a district of country west, which appeared to have its most violent force between the latter place and the vicinity of the farm upon which the County Infirmary is now situated, prostrating in its pathway forest trees and fences, unroofing buildings, removing them from their foundations, ete.

1835. Thesummer remarkably wet, bottom lands much overflown, and too wet for tillage. Hay crop badly damaged, and cattle died the following winter in consequence of eating it. A comet appeared during the fall of the same year. November 11, a severe storm, which did much damage to Buffalo and other ports on the American side, and to the shipping on the lakes.

To those familiar with the days of log cabins, the phrase so often used, ''the latch string is out,'' is clearly understood.. This latch or fastening was made of wood, and in order to enable those from without to enter the dwelling, a small string was attached to the latch, (which was always on the inside) and passed through the door to the outside, and hence, to prevent the entrance of any person, the inmates would pull in the latch string, so that when it was not seen on the outside of the door, it was evidence that no one could be admitted. One window was usually all that was considered necessary in a log cabin. This was made by cutting out one log, some two feet in length, and then closing up by putting in small sticks, in the form of sash, and pasting greased paper over them to cause it to admit the light more readily.

As stoves were almost unknown in those days, a fireplace was used instead thereof. These were made by cutting out a hole in one end of the building, in some cases large enough to pass a two-horse wagon through the cavity. On the outside of the house, and connected with this, the chimney was built of wood and mortar, sometimes lined on the inside with stone and mortar, immediately adjoining the fireplace. In front of the fireplace was a large space left in the floor, called the hearth, which was usually covered with flat stone, and hence the old phrase ''hearth-stone."'

As the wants of the people of that day were few, and easily satisfied, the log cabin usually contained but one room, which served as kitchen, dining room, bed room, sitting room and parlor.

Upon land in Mohican township was a prairie, which appeared originally to have been a crust of vegetable matter overlying a sheet of water. As it was evidently land of great fertility, if the water under it could be withdrawn, efforts were made thoroughly to drain it. Ditches were made, in some places, to the depth of six feet, and considerable quantities of cedar trees, some of them twelve and eighteen inches in diameter, were found imbedded in the earth. What length of time they had occupied the position in which they were found is, of course, unknown, but they appeared as free from any evidence of decay as they would have shown on the day they perished. What is remarkable is that no cedars were ever found by the early settlers, growing in that vicinity. The inference is that a cedar swamp once covered the ground, and a tornado may have violently uprooted them, thus breaking the crust and burying them beneath the surface. Swamp flag and wild grass, very little decayed, were also found at the depth of from five to six feet.. Skeletons of buffalo and elk were also discovered, some of them of immense size. The head and horns of one elk found partly imbedded were of such dimensions that, placing the points of the horns upon the ground, two men on each side supporting them in an upright position. William Eagle, a man whose height was nearly six feet, would pass under them erect.

In the early settlement of the country there was no law providing for com mon schools - no tax levied or other funds provided for payment of teachers. Hence all buildings for the use of common schools consisted of some old evacu-

During the war of 1812, there were three blockhouses erected in Mohican township, one on the town plat of Jeromeville, a few rods north of the present gristmill; one near the Mohican creek, about four miles south of Jeromeville, on land later owned by Henry Treace; and one about a mile farther down the creek.

To these houses all the neighborhood would run for safety whenever the alarm was given, and not unfrequently they would have to remain there for several days and nights, with but little to eat or drink. Sometimes some trivial circumstance would cause an alarm, and the whole neighborhood would gather into the blockhouse, and, after remaining there perhaps a day and night, the mistake would be found out, and all would return to their homes again.

Clear Creek township was surveyed in 1807, by Mansfield Ludlow, but the date of its organization as a township cannot be ascertained by either township or county records. However, it is known that the population of the township in 1820 was three hundred and nine. The number had increased to one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven in 1860. When the first settlers came to this township they found the land covered with a dense forest, and had hard labor in clearing and improving their farms. The first list of township officers on record were those of 1862, to-wit: trustees, A. F. Shaw, John Bryte, and KE. T. Garrett; clerk, M. C. Percival; assessor, John Gibson; treasurer, David Stem; constables, John Swineford and John Neff..

The town of Savannah being pleasantly situated and on a leading road it was a place of considerable business for a number of years, and during the period of the evolution of counties it was a prominent candidate for the seat of justice for a new county. Savannah was laid out December 25th, 1818, and was named Vermillion, although the place was locally known as Haneytown, for the Rev. James Haney, an early resident of the place, and who had served several terms in the legislature as a representative from Ashland county. Rev. Haney was a man of good sense as well as of fine sentiment, and in a letter to a friend, speaking of the prosperous condition of the township, the result of the labors of the pioneers, also looked forward with an interest somewhat tinged with melancholy from the past to the future and expressed the inquiry as to whether succeeding generations would be informed of the names even, of those who had cleared the forest in fields and first cultivated the same. He recalled the lines of Henry Kirk White, that -

The selection of Ashland as the county-seat of the new county of Ashland gave a back-set to Savannah and the business of the town began to decline, but its downward course was checked by the erection of the Savannah Academy in 1858. i

The first instance in which the population of the village of Savannah was taken separately from that of the township of Clear Creek was in 1860. It then contained three hundred and thirty-six inhabitants.

A Presbyterian church was organized in Savannah in 1833. This church was an offshoot from the Hopewell church of Ashland. A Free Presbyterian church was organized in Savannah in 1851, with F. M. Finney, minister. The United Presbyterian church was organized there in June, 1858, by combining members of what was before known as the Associate and the Associate Reform Presbyterian churches, with J. W. Ashenhurst as pastor. The Associate Reform Congregation of Savannah was organized in September, 1831, by the late Rev. James Johnson, of Mansfield. The first house of worship in Savannah was built in 1834. A Disciple church was organized in the township in the year 1830. The denomination which was then known as the Disciples is now called ''Christians,'' but the proper denominational name for this sect of people is ''The Church of the Disciples of Christ.''

In 1822 the only mill in the township was a horsemill, built and owned by Thomas Ford. The first sawmill in the township was erected by Joseph Davis on the Clear Creek in 1822. In 1824 John Hendricks built a frame gristmill on the Vermillion, a short distance below the mouth of the Clear Creek. In 1827 John and Thomas Haney erected a gristmill on Mulhollen's run, a short distance south of the town. Prior to the erection of gristmills in Clear Creek township, the pioneers had to take their grists to Odell's in Wayne county - a distance of from thirty to thiry-five miles.

The first election in the township was held at the house of John Freeborn. The first physician in the township was Dr. Cliff. Prior to that the nearest physician was at Ashland.

The cabin of Thomas Ford was a prominent place of holding religious meetings in pioneer times in Clear Creek township. Men and women traveled often six or eight miles on foot, through the woods, at night they hghted their pathways by torches of hickory bark, to enable them to attend the services. In 1830, a church building was put up, known as ''Ford's Meeting House.'' This meeting house was considered the best structure devoted to religious services in that part of the county. The four quarterly meetings of the cirenit of the Methodist Episcopal churech - Mansfield being included in the cireuit - were held in this church for several years. The first religious service held in Ford's Meeting House was the funeral of Thomas Ford, who died October 10, 1830, aged fifty-seven years. His was the first interment in the graveyard adjoining the church.

Ripign Om Hen X Vas

In about 1820, the first schoolhouse in the southern part of the township was built on the line of the land of Abraham Huffman. The house was of hewn logs, eighteen by twenty feet, cabin roof, puncheon floor, puncheon tables and puncheon seats. It had greased paper windows, and the facilities for heating were limited to fires made in a fireplace such as were in general use in the cabins of those days, and afforded in cold weather insufficient heat to admit of practice in writing, as the ink would almost freeze in the pen in the process of transferring it from the inkstand to the paper. The first teacher was Robert Nelson, of Milton township, who continued in that capacity two or three years.

As evidence of the privations endured by many in the early settlement, Mr. Vanostrand mentions the case of a worthy family who came to the country destitute of either provisions or money, who subsisted a greater portion of one season upon pumpkins alone - commencing their use as food while the vegetable was yet unripened. The family would perhaps have suffered death by starvation, had it not been for the friendly aid afforded them by the neighbors, after learning their situation.

Every house in Clear Creek, as was the case in other townships in the early settlement, manufactured the wearing apparel for its own household. The males were dressed in buckskin and domestic linen; and the women and children were also dressed in fabrics the product of their own fields and households.

There were no woolen goods, as sheep would be devoured by the wolves; and after the wolves had so far disappeared as to invite the introduction of sheep, the climate and wild food were discovered to be unfavorable to their life and health. . Jacob Myers immigrated to Clear Creek township, April 23,1829. His native state was Pennsylvania, Green county, where he was ordained as a clergyman of the Baptist church. He purchased and entered the land which forms the tract upon which he has since resided, on sections 3 and 4, Clear Creek township.

Among the pioneer families of Clear Creek township, the following names are recalled: Elias Ford, Peter Vannostrand, William Shaw, James Haney, John Freeborn, David Burns, John Richards, Thomas Ford, Abraham Claberg and John Bryte.. Elias Ford came to Clear Creek township in 1819, and the Fords have been numerous and prominent in the township ever since. One of the number, Thomas H., became lieutenant governor of Ohio and was later a Colonel in the Union army in the war of the Rebellion.

David Bryte settled in Clear Creek township in 1821. He later located in Mansfield, where he served as deputy sheriff for two terms and in 1840 was elected sheriff of Richland county. He died in 1872.

Communications From Rev. John Haney

Under date of November 10, 1861, the Rev. John Haney wrote the following communication from Lansing, Iowa, to Editor Knapp, of Ashland. Mr. Haney

'"'In compliance with your request, I will state that the settlement of what is now Glear Creek township, Ashland county, commenced in the spring of eighteen hundred and fifteen (1815). In the winter preceding the Rev. James Haney, (my father) John and Richard Freeborn and William Shaw built a small keelboat in Cross Creek township, Washington county, Pennsylvania, and hauled-it a distance of twelve miles to the Ohio river. On the evening of the 10th of March of that year, Richard Freeborn, William Shaw, Daniel Devlin, my father and myself embarked on the boat which we had freighted with our goods, provisions, etc., from Wellsburg, Virginia, to the nearest navigable point on the Muskingum waters, thence to our destination. John Freeborn went by land with our horses and cattle. On reaching the mouth of the Muskingum we met unusually high water, which retarded our progress and made the labor of propelling our keelboat very severe. Daniel Devlin and I were then only sixteen years of age each. After many adventures and perils, we arrived at a place called Finley's bridge, about five miles south of Jeromeville, on the 26th of April, where we met our horses and pack saddles. On the evening of the 29th, we encamped on the ground now known as the old grave yard, on the line between Clear Creek and Orange townships, one and a half miles southeast of Savannah. The names of the parties there encamped were John Freeborn, Richard Freeborn, his wife Elizabeth and infant daughter Mary, William Shaw, his wife and daughters Eleaner and Jane, small children, Rev. James Haney, his sons John and Thomas and daughter Mary, aged respectively sixteen, fourteen, and twelve at that time. The balance of the family came out in the fall.

''The entire range of surveyed townships from the north to the south tiie of Richland county, in which Clear Creek was situated, constituted but one organized township, at first named Vermillion. The date of the organization of Clear Creek township I do not distinctly recollect. It was either John or Richard Freeborn who personally applied for the organization and gave the name. It was the name given by the Messrs. Freeborn to the principal creek in the township when they first saw it in the summer of 1814, and they gave the township the same name. I do not recollect who were the first officers of the township, but I do remember that, for several years the officers served without pay. Robert McBeth was the first justice of the peace.

''T am unable to recall the years that my father represented Richland county in the Ohio legislature. It was, however, during the period that the state organized its canal system.

'"'My impression is that Mrs. Elliott taught the first school in the township at her own house. I think the first religious meeting was held at father's house, three-fourths of a mile east of Savannah. At any rate, Rev. James Haney preached the first sermon ever preached in the township. For sometime after the commencement of the settlement of the country, religious meetings were held at private houses. If I am not mistaken, the first religious society was formed at Mr. Thomas Ford's and the first administration of the sacrament took place there. The precise time when and where the first church building was erected, I do not recollect.

""The village of Savannah was laid out in the winter of 1818, by myself. It was first called Vermillion. The first man who settled in the town was Joseph Fast. The first schoolhouse was a small log building erected on the northeast corner of the town plat. Jacob McLain was the first brickmaker and hatter in the town. Garnett Whitelock was the first blacksmith. Joseph Davis built the first sawmill on Clear creek, one and a half miles west of Savannah.

'"'John and Richard Freeborn planted the first apple seeds, which furnished the trees for several of the oldest orchards in the township. Thomas Ford erected the first horsemill for grinding grain in the township.

""The Indians hunted for several years after the first settlers came. They were principally Delawares and Wyandots. Game was plenty for several years after the first settlements were made. The wild pasture was good at first. Horses and cattle did well, but sheep were unhealthy until the country was improved.

''The streams had more water in then than now. The general health was pretty good, considering that the climate was damper than at present. The principal diseases were intermittent fevers and rheumatism. The social condition of the first settlers was good. Their common wants brought them in contact favorable to the cultivation of the social virtues. Few of the settlers did more toward improving the country than Abraham Huffman. He was a man of great industry and energy, always ready to administer to the wants of the needy. His uncompromising hostility to what he considered wrong, sometimes caused him trouble that many others could have avoided.

Mr. S. Parmele, one of the party which surveyed Sullivan township gave the following account of the survey and early settlement of the township:

'¢Sullivan township was surveyed in 1816, by Esquire Baldwin, of Newburg, Cuyahoga county, assisted by myself and others. The survey was commenced in the month of October; and the surveying party camped in the woods two weeks, there being no settlement nearer than Harrisville east, and Elyria north; no road but a line of marked trees. A road was laid out in the time of the war of 1812, nearly parallel with the present, but had never been marked. Game was very plenty. Business of importance recalled Mr. Baldwin to Newburg; being absent longer than was expected, the county not having very comfortable quarters, I started after him, there being no mode of communication but by messengers. I traveled on foot the whole distance by the aid of marked trees and trail not very well defined after I had left Harrisville.

'On the 8th of November, a very heavy fall of snow obstructed my walking very much; it was about a foot deep in the woods, but i went through. After all'this fatigue and delay, I was obliged to return without him. On my return night overtook me, and T was unable to follow the trail; but, nothing disheartened

I sat down on a log and waited for the moon to rise. It was still very difficult to follow the trail, and I could only do so by feeling the marked trees. As good fortune would have it, I was not very far from Mr. 'Strong's, of Strongsville ; and arriving there, I tarried till morning. In a few days Mr. Baldwin came, and we again prosecuted the survey; he brought another surveyor with him, which expedited our business much, and we accomplished the survey in about a week. During this time, considerable rain fell, and from Wednesday till Friday had to wade in water in some places up to our armpits. On Saturday

~morning finished the survey ; it was a very rainy day, the water had been so high we could not get to Harrisville for provisions, and were obliged to divide our rations having only one-fourth of a pound of bread a piece for three days, and some beef. We finally succeeded in getting to Harrisville on Saturday night. We went to James Rogers, and, notwithstanding they. had a wedding, we were received from the woods with the greatest kindness, and treated with marked attention; and surely wedding supper was never more acceptable to any one or devoured with keener relish - meats, pudding, pies, cakes, and a variety of sauce of wild fruits, cranberries, crab apples, plums, etc., for dessert. Soon after this I returned to Vermont, having finished surveying and selecting three thousand acres of land for myself and friends.

''On the 6th day of June the following year, (1817) seven families, all living in one neighborhood, namely, John Parmely, Sr., his wife Dorothy and his two youngest children, two married sons, namely, Sylvanus Parmely and Lois Parmely, and four children; Asahel and Fanny Parmely and two children; Jesse Chamberlain and his wife Betsey Chamberlain; Abijah and wife; Thomas and Lucinda Rice, with nine children; and James Palmer and his wife and five children, started for Ohio.

''Soon after our arrival in Sullivan, Mr. James Palmer went out to gather nuts, of which there was a great:abundance. It was on the afternoon of one very pleasant day in September; but venturing out of sight of clearing, he got lost. He wandered about till dark, without finding anything from which he could judge of his direction or distance from home. Night overtook him, and in this dilemma he was obliged to give up and laid himself down by a log to rest till morning. He passed a restless, if not a sleepless night. At one time a huge bear,came very near him, but fortunately was not hungry enough to attack him. His friends became quite alarmed at his prolonged absence, and at dark rallied out to find him; but their search was fruitless. Preparations were then made for search next day; two men were dispatched to Harrisville to raise men to assist them. They were fitted out with hickory torches and went this whole distance and returned before daylight - making a journey of twenty miles by torchlight. Mr. Palmer, however, by the aid of the stakes set up by the surveyors was enabled to find his way home about nine o'clock in the morning. <A messenger was instantly sent to Harrisville with the glad tidings that the lost was found.

"'Our cattle grazed in the woods, and we took turns watching them; one of our number following them through the day and bringing them up at night, fortunately we did not lose any. Each family selected one hundred and sixty acres of land as near the center as possible, and then decided to draw lots, as being the best way of settling the matter satisfactorily, for all had their preferences. This being amicably disposed of, all immediately built rude huts or shanties upon their land, without chimneys, and with but part of a floor; and around these rude fireplaces clustered their hearts' fondest affection, and the endearments of home in this forest wild rendered them contented and happy; and to this day they will cite you back to those times with delight and affection.

"Thus located in the midst of a dense forest, far from any settlement, and entirely dependent upon their own resources and good luck, they saw no dark side to the picture, but hopefully gazed on the bright sunlight that streamed in upon them as the forest trees fell before the athletic arm of the pioneer, and saw, or thought they saw, in the future many blessings in store for them and their children.

"'Our nearest neighbors on the east were at Harrisville, ten miles distant ; south, about eight miles; north, Elyria, twenty-five miles; west, New London, fifteen miles; sundry necessary articles of consumption and clothing could not be obtained this side of Cleveland. Salt was nine dollars per barrel, and cotton cloth fifty cents per yard. The nearest store was at Wooster, Wayne county. I walked through the woods to the latter place without any road, to obtain fifteen lights of glass for a window to my log house.

'*T recollect at one time I went six miles south, to get my horse shod, through the woods, with only a footpath, which was nearly obscured by the falling leaves. On my return it became so dark that my horse could not follow the path, and I was obliged to dismount and lead him. The only way I could keep the path was by the breaking of sticks under my feet when I got out of it. Twice in my efforts to find the old path, I turned round and went back a quarter of a mile to a certain place I knew I had passed, and you may imagine how difficult it was to get along, when I tell you it took me all night to get home over the distance of two miles. About this time a large body of Indians came from Sandusky into town on a hunting expedition ; making rather too free use of firewater, they were quite quarrelsome, and had frequent disturbances among themselves. At one time they got into a quarrel, and in their affray killed one of their number. This affair shortened their stay, and they left, to the great joy of the inhabitants, who dreaded their presence; indeed, they were rough neighbors, and sent terror to the hearts of every family.

'*A child of Mr. Durfee went out just at dusk with his uncle; he sent him back while he went into the woods to hunt some hogs. On his return he found the little boy did not go home. They immediately searched for him, and continued it for several days, but found no trace of the missing child. The next spring his bones were found by the side of a log, where doubtless he had perished the first night.

'On the' evening of the day the boy was lost two girls, daughters of a neighbor in Sullivan township, on their return home from Thomas Greer's, heard, on their way, what appeared to be the hoarse moans of a child; but fearing that it might proceed from a wild animal, they continued on their way. Mr. Durfee's house lay in their path, and calling there, they were for the first time informed of the loss of the child. Their conclusion at once was that the voice they heard proceeded from the lost boy ; and the father immediately started for the spot indicated - heard distinctly the sound, but his agitation and bewilderment finally traced it to the tree tops, and the voice becoming undistinguishable from the noise of the rain falling upon the dry leaves, he abandoned his search in despair, and returned home.''

Milton township was surveyed in 1807 and was organized in 1816. Originally, the two western tiers or sections, including the town of Olivesburg, were given to Richland county when Ashland was erected.

Among the pioneers of this township were the Andrews, the Dotys, the Lockharts, the Reeds, the Woodburns, and in addition to the above were Peter Brubaker, Joseph Bechtel, Henry Keever, John Néal, Michael Smeltzer, Jacob Foulks, Robert Nelson, Benjamin Montgomery, James Andrews, Peter Brubaker, John Clay, Frederick Sultzer, John Hazlett, Joseph Charles, Andrew Stevenson, David Markley, James Crawford, David Crabbs, Elijah Charles, David McKinney, John Ferrell, Abel Montgomery, William Houston, George Burget, and possibly a few others.

The residents of Milton township have always been such a well behaved and orderly people, satisfied with the good things of earth which they have so plentifully about them, that there is nothing very eventful to be said about the township.

'Prior to 1816, Milton had been under the jurisdiction of Mifflin. The first justice of the peace was Robert McBeth, from what 'is now Clear Creek, then under the jurisdiction of Milton.

The surveyors not only noted carefully the kind and quality of timber, but also the direction and size of the streams, the Indian trails, villages, and other objects of curiosity. The south boundary of Milton is noted as uneven and hilly land second rate, and timber. composed of oak, beech; and hickory. The east boundary is noted as generally level, soil good; timber the same as on the south line, with sugar maple, dogwood, and an occasional wild cherry. The land of the township is described as of gentle ascents and descents, some places level; soil good for farming, and, generally, more or less clayey. It has an abundance of water, flowing from clear, pure, and never-ceasing springs. . In the neighborhood of the Short farm is to be found one of the strongest springs in the county.

Milton, like other townships in the county, was densely timbered with oak, hickory, beech and other hard wood in the early settlement. No streams of any consequence are found in this township, but there are many fine springs and one of the finest in the county is found here. This is essentially a farming community, no town existing within its limits. Its early reminiscences are similar to those of other townships whose history has already been written, and need not be repeated. The same may be said of the struggles and triumph of its early settlers who came to a wilderness and have, after years of hardships, toil and dangers, brought it to a state of cultivation. These pioneers are now gone but their good works remain.

Among the early settlers were James Andrews, who came in 1806, and was a justice of the peace for twenty-seven years. He. also served as a captain in the war of 1812. Abraham Doty also came in 1816; William Lockhart, in 1808 ; John Woodburn, in 1825. Other early settlers were: Peter Brubaker, Joseph Bechtel, Joseph Charles, John Clay, John Hazlett, Henry Keever, John 'Neal and Michael Smeltzer.

Hanover township has been called the goodly land, with a health-giving climate and a wealth-giving soil; a country of beautiful landscapes, a land of rugged hills and charming valleys; a land where the esthetic and ideal harmonize and blend with the practical and real, forming an earthly elysium.

Hanover is the most southern township in Ashland county; a part of its territory is quite hilly, in fact some of its hills have altitudes almost like mountains, but the greater part of the township is adapted to cultivation and is not excelled for fertility by any other township in the county.

The Clearfork of the Mohican enters Hanover from near the northwest corner of the township, and after flowing an average southeasterly course about five miles, unites with the Blackfork and forms the Mohican. There is not the distance of a mile along the Clearfork that does not afford sufficient fall and volume of water sufficient to turn a mill the year round. Its channel is narrow and rapid, and confined within high banks, and the scenery along the stream is magnificently grand.

The Blackfork enters Hanover township at Loudonville, and pursues a southwesterly course about three miles, when it unites with the Clearfork. In the years agone a little town sprang up at the juncture of the forks, and a carding machine was built and operated there for a number of years, as also was a sawmill.

Hanover township was surveyed in the year 1807, by General James Hedges, deputy surveyor under General Jarad Mansfield, who was then the surveyorgeneral of the United States. The township was organized in November, 1818. The population two years later was one hundred and eighteen.

The first election was held on the 7th of November, 1818, fifteen votes being cast. The following are the names of the electors: Thomas Taylor, Robert Dawson, George Davidson, George Snider, Anthony Zeers, William Burwell, George Davidson, Jr., Amos Harbaugh, William Webb, Ransom Clark, Abner Winters, Stephen Butler, John Lisar, Abel Strong, and John Burwell. The following are part of the officers elected: Clerk, Abel Strong; trustees, John Hilderbrand, Abner Winters, and George Davidson ; treasurer, Amos Harbaugh.

Loudonville, the only town in Hanover township, was laid out August 16, 1814, by Stephen Butler and James Loudon Priest. The following sketch of Loudonville was written by Miss Mary E. Stewart, in about 1863:

'<The town of Loudonville was laid out in 1814, by James Loudon Priest and Stephen Butler. The beauty of the surrounding country, the mildness of the climate and the fertility of the soil, attracted the attention of the pioneer, and, in many cases, induced him to rear his humble dwelling upon some of our beautiful land and make it his future home.

When the town was laid out there was but a single dwelling in the place. It was a log cabin, owned by Stephen Butler, and although it had but one room, it was a hotel as well as the dwelling place of two families.

''Owing to the many hardships which emigrants to the far west (it was then called the far west) had to endure, and the difficulties they were obliged to encounter, the town improved but little during the first few years of its existence. In the year 1813, Mr. Caleb Chappel immigrated, with his family, to the then far west, and settled, for a short time, in Knox county, a few miles south of Loudonville. He assisted in surveying the grounds where the town now lies, and, in the spring of 1814, he entered land adjoining the town. The remainder of the year was spent in clearing the timber off the farm, erecting a log house, and preparing the grounds for use by the next spring. In the spring of 1815 he removed his family to his farm, which joins the northwestern corner of the town. Everything was new; and the many inconveniences with which they had to contend, and the dangers to which they were exposed, can only be known to those who have left comfortable homes, and taken up their abode in the wilds of a new country.

''Wild animals roamed at iarge through the surrounding forests, and the Indians built their fires and held their councils in the neighboring woods. Mr. Chappel's nearest neighbor was Mr. Butler; he was the squire, the tavern keeper, and, in fact, the only man in town. Mr. James Loudon Priest lived some five miles east, and Mr. Oliver three miles to the west. The nearest places for trading were Wooster and Mansfield, then small towns, containing a limited number of buildings and inhabitants. The dress mostly worn by the male portion of the community consisted of a loose hunting shirt, made of homemade linsey, being sometimes red, and sometimes blue. Those made of blue linsey were trimmed with a red fringe, and those made of red were trimmed with blue fringe. A pair of pantaloons made of the same material; a pair of stont moccasins; a cap made frequently of rabbit skin; a broad, black belt, worn around the waist, to which was attached a large knife, and frequently a tomahawk and gun, completed the dress of the early settler..

Pantaloons made of deerskin were generally worn by hunters. The female dress was made of either flannel, linen, linsey, or calico - the calico being the most expensive, as the others were manufactured at home. Such was the dress worn by the early settlers of our country, contrasting greatly with the dashing style of the fast young man and modern belle of the present age; and no doubt many a young American would consider it far beneath his dignity to acknowledge such was the simple dress worn by his forefathers.

Citizens Savings Bank

"One of the greatest disadvantages with which the early settlers had to contend was, that of educating their children. There was no school for some time after the town was incorporated; and the great cause of education was greatly neglected. At length, the people of the village and the neighboring country, seeing the necessity of establishing a school in their midst, convened together for the purpose of taking the matter into consideration. They soon came to the conclusion to build a schoolhouse and to procure a teacher who was worthy and capable of imparting instruction to the rising generation. <A subscription was raised for the purpose of building it, and it was not long before it was entirely completed. It was made of planks, stood upright, and weatherboarded on the outside; it had a shingle roof, then a great rarity. It occupied a very conspicuous place on the public square and was about eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, with a door in front, and three windows on each side of the room. A large fireplace occupied one end of the room and benches were placed along the sides. Taking all things into consideration, it was quite a respectable looking building, and served for many years as a public building for almost every purpose - for holding meetings, both religious and _ political. The system of public schools not being then established, the schools were all raised by subscription, and was seldom in session more than three months in a year.

''In October, 1834, a printing office was established in Loudonville. The paper was called 'Mohican Advocate and Hanover Journal.' The proprietor was a Mr. Rogers. For want of patronage, the publication was suspended after having reached six numbers.

'The mail in those days was carried on horseback, and when the first stage coach made its appearance, it was an object of wonder to the people in general. The day of the arrival of the stage was always looked forward to with much expectation, and people would gather around the Country Inn to await its arrival and to scrutinize the passengers.

''The first sale of lots was made on the 14th day of September, 1814. The proceeds of the sale were small. The first justice of the peace who was elected, living within the town of Loudonville, was Stephen Butler.

'""Brom 1817 untl about 1830, a direct trade, by means of flatboats, was conducted with Louisville and New Orleans - the boats passing down the Black Fork into the Mohican, then into the White Woman, (or Walhonding, as it is now named) thence into the Muskingum, and thence into the Ohio. These boats were generally freighted with flour and whisky, and would carry about fortyfive tons. The completion of the Muskingum improvement and Walhonding canal cut off this trade. During the period of this commercial intercourse with New Orleans, flour at Loudonville would command from two dollars and a half to three dollars per barrel, and would sell at the former place for five and six dollars.

''In the legislation connected with the internal improvement system undertaken by the state of Ohio, the town of Loudonville and the Black Fork of the Mohican occupied no inferior space. At a very early day the Black Fork was declared by legislative enactment to be within the purview of the fourth Article of the Ordinance of 1787, which proclaimed the navigable waters leading into the

Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, as 'common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory, as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor.'

'"The Walhonding canal was commenced with the intention and expectation of extending it up the branches of the river of that name, to Loudonville, on the Black Fork, and to Mt. Vernon, on the 'Vernon river,' or, as it was and is more generally known, the 'Owl creek,' also called the 'Kokosing.'

'(A few days previous to the time designated for advertising the letting of the work, a communication was made to the board of public works by the commissioners of the canal fund, then in New York, notifying the board that money could not then be borrowed at the rate authorized by law, and urging that the work for a time be suspended.

""The suspension proved to be indefinite; and thus, after a few spasmodic but ineffectual revivals, ended a project which, had it been successful, would, in all probability, have made Loudonville at this day the seat of justice of one of the most flourishing counties in northern Ohio. It was only the protracted period of financial embarrassment that immediately succeeded the year above mentioned, an embarrassment involving all the productive interests of the country as well as corporations and states, that defeated the construction of the improvement of the Black Fork."'

One of the most prominent men in Hanover township was Judge George H. Stewart, who was born in Alexandria, Huntington county, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1809. When a boy in his teens he went to Amagh, Pennsylvania, and clerked in a store for two years. It was at the time of the making of the Pennsylvania railroad and the Portage canal over the Allegheny mountains. 'Judge Stewart came to Loudonville in the summer of 1833, and was one of the early merchants of the town.

He commenced the mercantile business at a time when the people were talking about building a canal up the White Woman and Mohican. Stewart, having had experience in canaling, took an active part in procuring a law for a state canal to Loudonville, and the law was passed while General William McLaughlin, of Mansfield, was our state senator, and it was through his untiring labor in the legislature that the bill was passed and the canal. was located to Loudonville, and advertised for letting, but before it was commenced the legislature abolished all state works not commenced, and they failed to get a canal. In 1835-36, when the question of organizing Ashland county was agitated, he took an active part in bringing it about, and was sent to Columbus several times to lobby for the undertaking, spending his time and paying his own expenses.

In 1845-6 his efforts were rewarded, and in 1845 he was appointed associate judge for Ashland county, which office he held seven years. From 1846 to 1850 he took an active part in the construction of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroad, for which he secured the right of way through Holmes, Ashland and a part of Wayne and Richland counties, and in 1851 purchased a tract of land of David Foltz in Wayne county, and laid out what is now called Shreve, a station on the railroad above mentioned. He was employed by the railroad company as station agent for ten years.

E. B. Fuller, father of the late Dr. Amos B. Fuller and grandfather of the present Dr. Fuller, was born in New York in 1799, and married Sarah Culver, in Tioga county, Pennsylvania. In 1831 he first settled in Loudonville, and began the practice of medicine; was a doctor of the old school; was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics he was a democrat, one of the liberal kind, bitterly opposed to the fugitive slave law. In 1856 two fugitives came to his house early in the morning. He fed them and sent them to Robert 'Wilson, where they were cared for and taken beyond the reach of United States marshals, bloodhounds, ete.

Andrew J. Scott was born in Ashland county in 1827; attended school at the Ashland academy while Loren Andrews was proprietor, and also at Vermillion institute at Hayesville. For two years he taught in the Loudonville academy, and studied medicine with E. B. Fuller and was also a graduate of Buffalo university. He was a doctor of the old school. He was the father of the . present Dr. C. B. Scott.

On June 19, 1899, there was a severe storm and rainfall in the Clearfork valley near Loudonville. The river rose so suddenly that a Mr. Hunter who lived not far from the stream, had no time to escape and nine days after his partly decomposed body was found at a point six miles below where he had lived. The illustrations show some of the work of the flood.

E. F. Shelley, although born in Wayne county, is now one of Loudonville's most prominent citizens, and is president of the Loudonville Savings Bank. Mr. Shelley is also a member of the advisory board of this work.

Green township was surveyed in 1807, by General Hedges, deputy surveyor of the United States. There is no date on record when the first settlement was made. Knapp's History of Ashland County contains the following statement : ''The family of Abraham Baughman was the only one residing in Green township when the Messrs. Tannehill commenced their improvements in 1810." Another writer says: ''Just what date Abraham Baughman and John Davis came to the neighborhood of Greentown, Green township, Ashland county, has not been ascertained, but it was at a very early date, it might have been before 1807. They were the first settlers in Green township. They were there before Judge Peter Kinney, who arrived in 1810, but how long they were there before that date is not.now known. Baughman was a man of family and lived near Greentown.'' In an historical paper written in 1858 by the late Hon. John Coulter is the following statement: ''I came to Green township in 1810 in company with my father, Thomas Coulter, Jonathan Palmer, Joseph Gladden, Otho Simmons, Melzer Tannehill, Sr., and George Crawford. We reached the hospitable home of Abraham Baughman, August 25,1810. Mr. Baughman was the 'only white man living on the Blackfork from one end to the other. Mr.

Baughman and myself felled the first tree on my quarter section, for bees, a short time after I had entered the land. We were all from Pennsylvania."' Inasmuch as Abraham Baughman had an improved place when the Coulter party came there in 1810, he had evidently been located there for some time, perhaps as Mr. Graham stated in his history of Richland county. 'fas early as 1807." |

Therefore in all probability, Abraham Baughman and John Davis were the very first settlers in Green township, and their cabins were not only the first ones in the township, but the first in the valley of the Blackfork.

John Davis was a widower and kept widower's hall on what was later known as the William Irvin farm. Davis had been a soldier in the war of the Revolution, and died a few years after he came to Ohio, while on a trip to Chillicothe to draw his pension. Davis' death left Abraham Baughman and family the only white settlers of the Greentown country for several years. Abraham Baughman's family at that time consisted of himself, wife and two sons - Jacob and George - who were then boys in their teens. Mr. Baughman is described as a large, powerful, fearless man, who lived in peace even with the savages, who were at first his only neighbors. Jacob and George as young men indulged in athletic sports with the Indians; Jacob's favorite sport was to ''run, hop, step and jump,'' in which he excelled; George's was wrestling, and never found an Indian who could put him on his back. As the Indians did not take defeat very good naturedly, Jacob would sometimes permit them to win; but George with less diplomacy declined to accede to Jacob's advice for him to sometimes let the Indians throw him. Abraham Baughman, his wife and three of their five sons are buried in the Perrysville cemetery.

By 1812, a number of families had been added to the Blackfork settlement, prominent among them being Rev. James Copus, Frederick Zeimer, Captain Ebenezer Rice, Judge Peter Kinney and Captain James Cunningham. Abraham Baughman and Captain Cunningham lived on adjoining farms, and Mr. Baughman's son, Jacob, married Captain Cunningham's daughter Elizabeth, and they were the parents of A. J. Baughman, the author of this work.

The Blackfork of the Mohican river enters the township from its western border and flows in a southeasterly course until it reaches Loudonville, in Hanover township, a distance of about ten miles. The low banks and sluggish ~ current of this stream renders its water-privileges, of but little value. There are however two dams in Green township. One of these runs the two pairs of buhrs and one saw and was formerly owned by Mr. Beachley, and the other, formerly known as the Stringer mill, but later owned by A. A. Taylor and ran three pairs of buhrs. The valley of this stream is generally broad, and its fertility is not excelled elsewhere in Ohio.

Upon the Clearfork of the Mohican, which runs only about a mile through the corner of Green township, there is a dam that furnishes power for running a gristmill with three pairs of buhrs and one saw. These mills were formerly the property of Thomas W. Calhoun.

Honeycreek has its source in the Quaker springs in Vermillion township and pursues a southwesterly course through Green, a distance of about five miles, and empties into the Blackfork at the farm once owned by the late

Center Street, Ashland

The first case of ague in Green township is given by a writer, as follows: William Hunter, who came from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, to Green township, in 1818, with his wife and eight children and settled on the north half of section 36, was an Irishman and had been an officer in the Federal service in the whiskey insurrection in Pennsylvania. Mr. Hunter returning from a trip to the mills at Newville became ill, and laid himself down before the wide fireplace so close to the embers on the hearth that his feet were partly imbedded in the warm ashes. His trembling limbs created a great dust, which added to his chattering teeth, despite their warm sympathy for their father's affliction, provoked mirth from the younger children, which so annoyed the father that he raised himself up and demanded to know if they had no better manners than to laugh at the miseries of a dying man, and made an effort to give the children a ''brush.'' Hig illness proved to be a hard ague chill - the first of which he or his family had had any experience, and which in about three months resulted in his death.

The country in those early days was more beautiful than any pen can describe. The valley of the Blackfork was very densely covered with a low, matted growth of small timber, while, close to the creek, the ground was rankly covered with long grass, and the interlacing vines of the wild morning-glory, plumy willows, and the dark, thick growth of Alder. The hills were crowned with giant oaks, and the fragrant winds were healthful as the breezes of the ocean. Wild game abounded, even great ferocious wild hogs, with their foamy, white tushes gleaming out and looking frightful.

On page 358 in Knapp's History of Ashland county, gotten out in 1863, is the following paragraph relative to the first family in Green township.

''The family of Abraham Baughman was the only one residing in the township when Messrs. Tannehill commenced their improvement. This place became afterward known as 'the Guthrie farm,' and is now occupied by John Castor. There was also an unmarried man named John Davis, keeping 'bachelor's hall' upon the farm now owned by William Irvin, being the southwest quarter of section 30. In the fall of 1811, Melzer Tannehill, Sr., (father of Charles and Bazel,) removed his family to Green township.''

Upon Hull's surrender at Detroit the settlers considered that the peace and publie welfare demanded immediate additions to the military force for the purpose of resisting anticipated Indian invasions in Ohio, and volunteers were enlisted for that service and placed under the command of Major Kratzer, of Mt. Vernon. Soon thereafter a body of troops on a scouting expedition discovered a vaceted camp in the vicinity of New Haven, Huron county. The camp had the appearance of having been a few hours previously occupied by the Indians. It was afterwards ascertained that the night previous the militia and the Indian encampments were not over a mile apart. But this fact was not known until the following day, which gave the Indians a day's start of our On the day Copus was killed, five militiamen were sent to the relief of the settlers on the Blackfork, as it was supposed the Indians contemplated an attack upon that settlement. They were led to this conclusion from the fact that Zeimer and Ruffner had been killed a few days previously.

Arriving near the Ruffner place, they met the remaining troops, (seven in number,) who had been engaged in the battle at Copus's having in charge the surviving members of the Copus family. These troops had also, since the battle, been joined by about one hundred others belonging to the same command, (that of Major Krebs, of Tuscarawas county.) The united force on that night encamped in the vicinity of the Copus cabin, and, on the next morning, Mr. Tannehill and party took leave of the Tuscarawas militia, and pursued their way to the deserted village of Greentown. Near that place, at the cabin of Abraham Baughman, (which was also found deserted,) Mr. Tannehill separated from his companions and continued his way homeward. Near Perrysville, he overtook John Coulter and Harvey Hill, who were urging forward some cattle at ''double quick,'' and from whom he had learned that the settlement had heard the tidings of the last battle, and that they formed the rear guard of the settlers who were fleeing to Samuel Lewis's blockhouse, on the Clearfork.

On the day following, the men returned and erected a blockhouse on the place of Thomas Coulter, which afforded security for a greater portion of the Blackfork settlement of Green township during the remainder of the war.

During the excitement that pervaded the community at the blockhouse, on the evening after the attack upon the Copus family, the male inmates of the fortress, including boys and men, assembled, in the dusk of the evening, in the vicinity of the fort, and near the apprehended point of attack, for military drill. There were no regular soldiers, and it was a parade of the militia. Such as had bona fide rifles and muskets shouldered them, and those who had not, substituted wooden or Quaker guns. The roll was called and the men would respond for themselves, and the boys, and a multitudinous number of mythical persons - thus leaving the impression upon the minds of the concealed foe, if such were in sight and hearing, that an immense force was defending the blockhouse.

From the date of the first settlement of the township until about 1816, the wants of new immigrants created a good demand and good prices for all the surplus produce the farmer eould raise; but in the year above mentioned, a surplus beyond the wants of the settlement was produced, and prices fell to a very low figure. This made it peculiarly hard upon the first settlers who had leased Virginia Military District School lands, as the interest on their purchases fell due about this time. Corn, which had in the previdus years since the first settlement, found ready sale at seventy-five cents per bushel, could not be sold at any price; and wheat, which had formerly sold for one dollar and twenty-five cents per bushel and even higher, was now reduced to thirty-seven and a half cents and even twenty-five cents per bushel.. Five bushels of wheat were exchanged by Mr. Tannehill for one bushel of salt. The first market was at Portland, or Sandusky City. The first trip which Mr. Tannehill made, in 1819, occupied ten days..

At an early day, John Coulter and Captain Rice took the job of cutting a road from Ashland to Mansfield. They contracted to cut ten miles for ninety dollars, and the place of beginning was specified then ag the Trickle farm. The

Trickle family had left their poor little home on account of the Indians, and gone to Wooster for safety. The father of the family died the day the men commenced their job of cutting.

After the roads were cut, or laid out through the woods ready to work on, Philip Seymour was made one of the first supervisors. His district extended from Perrysville up the Mansfield road, almost to Lucas. One time when they were laboring on the road and felling trees on the Mohawk Hill, one fell aslant and broke one of Richard Conine's legs. |The men made a comfortable restingplace for him against a tree, and then started John Oliver off to borrow Peter Kinney's old gray mare to carry Dicky home. John had five miles to walk through the woods; it was growing late when he returned, and Dicky suffered extremely. His father rode and took him on behind, and there he was all that weary ride of rough miles, his leg dangling and the broken bones grating together and paining him intensely. Solomon Hill and Judge Coulter attended to the binding up and splintering and fixing his poor limb that night, as the family were in poor circumstances, and no doctor nearer than Mt.. Vernon. It was many weeks before Richard could get around, and as soon as he could walk, he limped out on crutches to look at the young pigs in the pen, and before he got back to the house he slipped and fell and broke it over again; and then the two men were sent for, and the dreadful performance unskillfully gone through with another time. Then, before he wholly recovered, the settlers had to flee to the blockhouse for safety from the Indians; and there, within its dreary, lonesome walls, Dicky's young mother died, with no physician near to save or help; none but hardy and sympathizing men and weeping and pitying women.

Dr. Hill, in his history of Ashland county, says it was possibly as early as 1807. In a paper written by the late Hon. John Coulter in 1858 and published some years since in the Loudonville Advocate, Mr. Coulter said: ''I came to Green township in 1810, in company with my father, Thomas Coulter, and Jonathan Palmer, Joseph Gladden, Otho Simmons, Melzer Tannehill and George Crawford. We landed at Abraham Baughman's about the 25th of August. He was the only white man on the Black Fork, 'from one end to the other.' We were all from Pennsylvania. Mr. Baughman and myself felled the first tree on my quarter section, for bees in August, 1810.'' Therefore, according to this statement, Abraham Baughman was the only white man living on the Black Fork ''from one end to the other'' when the Coulter party arrived in 1810. The settlement. was in Green township, Ashland county, then a part of Richland.

Graham, in his history of Richland county says, that inasmuch as Abraham Baughman had an improved farm when the Coulter party came in 1810, that

In Knapp's history of Ashland county is the following statement: "*The family of Abraham Baughman was the only one residing in Green township when the Messrs. Tannehill commenced their improvements in 1810."'

Abraham Baughman married Mary Katherine Deeds, and removed from Cumberland to Washington county, Pennsylvania, and then to Richland county, this state. His brother, George, also came to Ohio and located at what is now Gahanna, in Franklin county. Abraham Baughman and wife were the parents of eight children, five sons and three daughters. When they came to the Black Fork their two younger children, Jacob and George, were single and lived with their parents.

Jacob Baughman was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, February 19, 1792. While the family resided in western Pennsylvania, Jacob, then in his early 'teens, had worked with an apple-mill maker. After the Baughman family had lived two or three years on the Blackfork and had their farm well cleared and improved, Jacob received an offer to return to Pennsylvania and finish his trade. Their postoffice was then at Wooster, fifteen miles east of which Jacob's brother John had settled and for whom a township was named.

Money was then very searee, and while they could grow what they needed for their sustenance prices were so low that but little cash could be realized on the sale of farm products, and in fact there was but little, if any, market for them. A family council was held and it was decided that Jacob should ''buy his time,'' - the two years he lacked of his majority, - accept the offer and remit quarterly installments to his father, which would furnish him money with whieh to pay his taxes, and so forth.

With his clothing tied up in a bandana handkercheif, Jacob set off alone on foot on his long journey. His pathetic parting with his mother he often feelingly deseribed. The war coming on, he returned te Ohio before his two years were completed. Mrs. Baughman died in August, 1820, and her husband the January following. On their gravestones in the Perrysville cemetery is the inscription, '*' Pioneers of 1810.'' as the exact date or year is not known.

Mr. Coulter, in the paper referred to, also speaks of the cordial reception they received ''at the hospitable home of Mr. Baughman.'' Hospitality was & prominent characteristic of the pioneers. The latchstring was always out in a literal as well as Im a figurative sense. To fasten a door would have been considered an insult to society - a reflection on the honesty of the neighbors.

John Davis, an unmarried man, kept ''bachelor's hall'? on a farm adjoining the Baughman place. Davis had been a soldier in the war of the Revolution and died soon after he came to Ohio. while upon a trip to Chillicothe to many his pension. His death left Abraham Baughman and family the only white residents of the Greentown country for several years, with the Indians as their only neighbors. Mr. Baughman has been described as a large, fearless, power: ful man, who lived in peace with the savages.

By 1812, a number of families had been added to the Baughman settlement, prominent among which were James Copus. Frederick Zeimer. Captain Ebenezer Rice, Judge Peter Kinney and Captain James Cunningham. Abraham Baughman and Captain Cunningham lived on adjoining farms. Mr. Baughman's son, Jacob, married Captain Cunningham's daughter, Elizabeth. and they were the parents of A. J. Baughman and the author of this volume.

Pioneer Incidents

Abraham Baughman, grandfather of the writer of this work, the earliest settler in Green township, Ashland county, bought a calf of an Indian, paying him the price he asked. A year later the Indian demanded an additional sum of money because the calf had grown and was bigger than when he sold it. Baughman paid the amount demanded to avoid trouble, and the next year an additional sum of money was demanded, and paid under protest. To prevent the animal from getting bigger still with an additional supplemental price being paid every year, the animal was slaughtered for beef..

One evening when Baughman and wife were at a neighbor's, two Indians called at the Baughman cabin and finding the two boys, Jacob and George, then in their teens, in bed ordered them to get up and give them something to eat. After luncheon the Indians ordered Jacob to go to the stillhouse, as distilleries were then called, and get them whiskey. They held George, the younger boy, as a hostage, threatening to scalp him if Jacob delayed or gave the alarm. For want of a more suitable vessel, Jacob took his mother's tea canister in which to carry the whiskey. He made the trip as expeditiously as possible, and upon his return the Indians smelled cautionsly at the whiskey, and detected a peculiar odor, which they mistook for poison, they became enraged and flourished their tomahawks furiously. They then made the boys drink of the whiskey and awaited to see the result upon them, but as no bad effects developed, the Indians accepted the boys' explanation and proceeded to drink the contents of the tea canister and were howling drunk when the parents returned.

Vermillion township was surveyed in 1807 and was organized in 1816, by the commissioners of Richland county. The first settlement in the county was made in 1811, by George Eckley. He built a cabin in the locality later known as Goudy's mills. There were no towns at that time nearer than Wooster and Mansfield. Ashland had not made its appearance, and the village of Hayesville did not exist even in the mind of the most hopeful pioneer of the locality. There were two Indian villages, Jerometown and Greentown - nearer Mr. Eckley's than were Wooster and Mansfield. Jerometown was the residence of the notorious Captain Pipe.

In 1815, the first public road was laid out through what is now Vermillion township. It ran from Wooster to Mansfield, and was quite a help to the settlement, as it was a direct route from the eastern portion of the state to the western. The lands along the road were bought and settled in a short time. Emigrants traveling west had to camp out at night, as there was no hotel then, and that condition continued until 1817, at which time a public house was established by Linus Hayes, at Hayes' cross roads, who provided food for man and beasts. At that time there was neither schools nor churches in the township.. In 1816, a small church building was erected by Mr. Eckley, which was the first building for that purpose and at the same place and about the same time a graveyard was laid out, and Constance Lake was the first person buried in it. The church

In the year 1829, a town was projected by Robert Williams, two miles west of the present village of Hayesville and the name of Williamsburg was given it. But it did not thrive and no building marks the place formerly occupied by its plat.

Sterling G. Bushnell, Sr

Was borne in Hartford county, Connecticut, in 1770, and emigrated to Trumbull county, Ohio, in 1806. He left Connecticut in December, 1805, and journeyed on sleds with his wife and five children. On the route he was joined by a number of other families. The most of the route was through the forest of eastern and northern New York. He passed directly to Albany, and thence to near Buffalo, on the lake. He and his traveling companions generally camped by the wayside at night, scraping the snow aside and erecting a sort of tent or screen of bedquilts to protect their families against the storms and eold. The forests were infested by large numbers of ferocious wolves. To protect himself against these animals, he generally encamped near a dead tree, which he set on fire. When they reached the HIudson the ice was somewhat weakened by a thaw. Fearing to cross it with his teams, he took the sled and children and hauled it by hand to the western side, leaving his wife and horse to follow.

After he had landed she mounted and followed, and when about midway of the stream, the ice broke with a tremendous roar. He stood appalled at the sight, expecting to see his wife and horse disappear beneath the floating ice. Fortunately, she floated on a large piece of ice which drifted to the western shore, some distance below him. Watching its approach to land, when it touched the bank, she applied her whip vigorously to the sides of the horse on which she was seated, and aided by this stimulus, it gave a great leap, fastened upon and ascended the bank in safety. Great was his joy over the providential escape. From near the city of Buffalo the whole party kept up the lake shore. By examination they found that the ice was sufficiently strong to bear their teams, and hence, followed it until they reached the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, when they learned from an old Indian chief of the Senecas where they were, and the proper route from there to Trumbull county, Ohio. | When he arrived at the residence of his brother, William Bushnell, who had preceded him one year, his wife gave birth to a child about two hours after his arrival - Jonathan Bushnell. Mr. Bushnell resided in Trumbull county about fifteen years.

In May, 1821, he emigrated to near the present site of the town of Hayesville in Vermillion township. | When he arrived he was fifty-one years old. The township was sparsely settled, and he entered upon pioneer life in earnest, purchasing eighty acres of-land, upon which his son, Thomas Bushnell, now resides, of Joseph Lake, of Wooster, for forty dollars. It proved to be a fine bargain.