Ashland City (part 9 of 57)

The boys often found wild turkeys' nests in the woods, and would bring home the eggs, and place them, to be hatched, under a trusty old hen, in an outside chimney corner, where they could assist the hen in defending the eggs and brood from the opossum or hawk. A flock of turkeys sometimes originated in this way, but more often, as they grew to maturity, they would fly away into the woods and never reappear. This grandest of birds is identical in civilized and savage life, and is the peculiar production of America. The wild ones were always a dark brown, like the leaves of their native woods, but when tamed, or "civilized" the diversity of color becomes endless.

When cornbread and milk were eaten for breakfast, hog and hominy for dinner and mush and milk for supper, there was little room for tea and coffee; and at a time when one bushel of wheat for a pound of coffee and four bushels for a pound of tea, were considered a fair exchange, but little of these very expensive articles was used.

Next to water, the drink of the pioneers was whiskey - copper-still rye whiskey. Everybody drank it. It was supposed to be indispensable to health, to strength and endurance during the labors of the day, and to sleep at night. It was supposed to be absolutely indispensable to warmth and animation in cold, chilly winter weather. It was the sacrament of friendship and hospitality; it was in universal use; yet there was probably less drunkenness in those days

At a little later time, say from 1820 to 1840, the pioneers were living a little easier. Their farms were partially cleared, many of them were living in hewed log houses and many in frame, and even brick houses. Most of them had barns and innumerable out-houses. They generally had cattle, horses, sheep, hogs and poultry, and were living in comparative comfort. Their neighbors were near, and always dear. Their schools and churches had improved somewhat, yet even at a later day there were hundreds of log schoolhouses and churches. About three months in a year was all the schooling a farmer's boy could get. He was sadly needed at home from the age of five years, to do all sorts of chores and work on the farm. He was wanted to drive the cows to water and to pasture; to feed pigs and chickens and gather the eggs. His duties in the summer were multifarious; the men were at work in the field harvesting, and generally worked from early morning until late at night, and the boys were depended on to "do the chores;" hence it was impossible to spare them to attend school in summer. There was no school in spring and fall. In winter they were given three months' schooling. Their books were generally anything they happened to have about the house, and even as late as 1850, there was no system in the purchase of school books.

Parents purchased for their children whatever book pleased their fancy, or whatever the children desired them to purchase. A geography was a geography, and a grammar a grammar, regardless of who was the author. This great confusion in school books made trouble for the teacher, but that was of small moment. He was hired and paid to teach whatever branches, out ofwhatever books the parents thought were best. The branches generally taught in the early schools, however, were reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic, and later, geography and grammar. Boys attending school but three months in a year made but little progress.

There were always three or four classes in spelling, and this exercise was the last before school was dismissed in the evening. The old books were conned over year after year, until they were worn out and the children grew up to manhood and womanhod, and never knew, and perhaps do not know to this day, what was in the back part of them. This was the kind of a start many a great man had.

There was always much competition in the spelling classes as to who should get the "head mark." In the later schools it was the custom that the best speller might stand at the head until he missed, when the one who spelled the word correctly should take his place, and he then stood next to the head; but they did things differently in the earlier schools; the head of the class once gained and held until the last spelling at night, the headmark was received and the lucky scholar then took his place at the foot of the class, to again work his way gradually to the head. These classes sometimes contained thirty or forty scholars, and it was something of an undertaking to get from the foot to the head. Spell ingschools were the beauty and glory of school-days. The scholars were always coaxing the teacher to appoint a night for a spell ingschool, and were usually gratified one or two nights in a month or oftener. A night was chosen when the moon shone, and the sleighing was good, and then the entire neighborhood and perhaps the adjoining neighborhood would turn out to the spellingschool ; whole families came on the great two-horse sled, including the old lady and gentleman, all the children, little and big; even the baby and the dogs came. Schools in adjoining districts sent their best spellers to try and carry off the honors.

Upon the theory that the traditions of a place are a part of its history, we give the traditions of the locality in the eastern part of Ashland county known as Katotawa, copying the following from the Times:

"Your correspondent has received numerous inquiries as to the correct pronunciation and spelling of Katotawa. My own way of spelling is as I have always spelled it and pronounce it Ka-tot-a-waw. There is no real authority for spelling the word and every one can spell it his own way if he chooses. Will give some of the numerous ways of spelling: Catotaway, Katatawa, Katotowa, etc. or if you wish you can grind it out thus ; Cha-tacht-a- waugh and still be correct. Believing with Josh Billings that the easiest way of spelling a word is as it is pronounced I think my way as near correct as any other. Perhaps a sketch of the tradition of Katotawa will be interesting to the readers of the Times. Old Katotawa was a chief of one of the many tribes of Indians that once populated this - then wilderness. Through our valley runs a small stream which has its source near Polk and flows southward, unites with the creeks east of Ashland and flows into what is called Jeromefork. On the banks of the former stream Qld Katotawa or ' Cha-tacht-a- waugh ' often pitched his tent and fished in its waters which are always cool being fed by fresh water springs and small tributaries, and once well stocked with river trout. When advancing civilization reached this point, as usual, the 'noble red man' was significantly pointed toward the setting sun and given Horace Greeley's advice 'Go West.' The - Indians were steadily crowded back from the frontier but not however, without several desperate fights of which the History of Ashland county gives sketches. Katotawa, then a very old man, remained alone in his hut on the banks of the stream, the few remaining days of his life. Some say that he was killed - beheaded; and the superstitious claimed that his ghost - the ghost of a headless body wandered along the river on dark and foggy nights. Your correspondent never had the pleasure of seeing his royal ghostship or any one who ever did; yet this is part of the tradition of Katotawa. The stream has ever since been known by that name which it is said was given by this old sachem and the prosperous valley along the Katotawa stream we call the Katotawa valley. ' 9

There are traditions that are not historically correct. For years past, it has been generally believed in these parts that Lyons' Falls were named for the old Indian chieftain, Captain Tom Lyons.

It may seem like uncalled-for iconoclasm to dispel belief in such a mythical personage as Lily Pipe, or to rob Lyons' Falls of Indian traditions. But history should be accurately given, and its correct narration is more instructive and can be as entertainingly told as though its warp were woven with the woof of fiction.

Lyons' Falls are situated about fifteen miles southeast of Mansfield. There are two falls, and the place, which has been a noted picnic resort for many years, is wild in its primitive forest and grand in its rugged picturesqueness. During the past summer a party of ladies and gentlemen, whose names are conspicuous on the list of Mansfield's "400," took a day's outing at these falls, and a grave was pointed out to them as that of the ' ' noted Lyons, ' ' and like many others they inferred that the Lyons buried there was the celebrated Indian chieftain of that name. Upon their return to Mansfield they told entertainingly of the wooded hills and sylvan dell, of the overhanging rocks and of the eighty-foot leap of the waters from the edge of the precipice to the basin at the bottom of the chasm, casting its sprays into the cool grottos which the hand of nature chiselled out of the everlasting rocks. And the further fact that the party had seen the grave of a great warrior, lent additional interest to the story and to the locality.

With such allurements it was not long until another detachment of the "400" also visited these noted falls, and the gentlemen of the party fired volleys over the grave, danced a war-dance and gave Indian funereal whoops and came home satisfied that they had held suitable commemorative ceremony over the earthly resting place of the body of an Indian chieftain.

Tom Lyons, the Indian, who took a prominent part in the Wyoming massacre (1778), and was afterwards a noted character in the early history of Richland county, was killed by a young man named Joe Haynes, to avenge the murder of a kinsman and he buried the old chief in Leedy's swamp in the southern part of Jefferson township.

The Lyons buried at the falls was Paul Lyons, a white man. He was not a hermit, as one tradition states, for he took to himself a wife, who bore him a son, and he did not particularly shun his neighbors, although he did not admit them into his confidence.

What Paul Lyons' object and motives were for leaving the civilization of the east and seeking a home amid the rocks and hills of that wild country are matters only of conjecture, for he never gave his antecedents, and refused to explain or to give reasons for hiding himself away in the forest and leading such a retired life. He had 'squatted' on land too rough to till, and never attempted to clear off the timber nor to cultivate the rocky soil. He simply built a cabin amid the trees and passed his time principally in hunting and fishing, but as the country became settled around him, and farmers needed help to harvest their crops, he often assisted them in such work. He never made any exhibition of money, yet always paid cash for what he bought. He has been described as a large man, and that he had ability and education is shown by the statement of a lady now living, who says that he was an intelligent and entertaining conversationalist and that at the funeral of a neighbor he read a chapter and sang a hymn, and that was the best reading and singing she had ever heard.

The late Rosella Rice had a headboard, painted and lettered, put up at the grave, but visitors shot at the board until it was riddled into slivers by bullets, and later the body was exhumed and the skeleton mounted by a physician. A slight depression in the ground is the only sign showing where the body had been interred.

Lyons' wife was not an intellectual woman and it is said that she was sent away and died in an asylum. It is also reported that the boy was taken to an eleemosynary institution after his father's death, and that when he grew to manhood he went west and prospered.

The most noted personage for the past twenty-five years in the region of the falls was Lewis M. Lusk, the fiddler who played for hundreds of dances. In past seasons there were dancing floors at the falls, and Lusk furnished the music with his "fiddle and his bow," while the dancers kept step to its enlivening strains.

Mr. Lusk is now dead, but tourists will long remember seeing him sitting in the door or in the yard of his cabin, playing his fiddle, while the ripples of the waters of the Mohican seemed to echo the refrain of the music as the current of the stream swept around its graceful bends in front of the humble dwelling, the rugged rocks forming a rustic background to the picture framed by the encircling hills, all combined to impress the passerby with the thoughts, how sweet is the music, how dear is home and how inspiring is all the handiwork of the Creator.

Old Tom Lyons

Tom Lyons, an old Indian of an infamous character, who had taken a bloody part in the Wyoming massacre, (1778), was killed in the southern part of Ashland county in about 1820, by a young man named Joe Haynes to avenge the murder of a kinsman. The killing occurred on the outskirts of the Leedy swamp, in the southern part of Jefferson township, Richland county. He was an ugly looking savage, and was known to all the pioneers.

On a few occasions he related his achievements. He had been in many battles on the border, and had taken many scalps. He related some of his acts of extreme cruelty, and a few of his barbarities inflicted upon the wives and children of the border settlers. He was with the other Greentown and Jerometown Indians in the battle of the Fallen Timbers.

An Indian Hunter

John McConnell was called an Indian hunter as well as a beast hunter, for the reason that his kindred had suffered more from the murderous assaults of Indians than from the wild beasts of the forests, had an encounter with a couple of Indians on the Wabash which is worthy of record. At an Indian camp he was visiting, his hunter's knife had attracted their attention, and he was importuned to sell it. When he positively declined their propositions, his wary eye detected mischief in their looks. He took his leave of them, and had not traveled many miles, before he became convinced that he was being pursued by the Indians. To confirm his suspicions, he suddenly quit the trail after crossing a prairie, and took observations from behind a tree - the result being to fully establish in his mind that their designs were against him. This was in the afternoon of the day, and he resumed the trail and pushed forward rapidly until the shades of night began to gather, and he had left his pursuers some distance in the rear. Again quitting the trail he hastily kindled a fire, a few rods distant, within a few feet of the fire he arranged an effigy on a log by adjusting his blanket in such a manner as would lead one to suppose that it covered its owner; and then concealing himself at a proper distance, awaited the progress of events. He had not long remained in this situation before a rifle ball from a concealed foe entered his blanket, and soon the two Indians were hurrying towards the effigy with uplifted tomahawks. The progress of the larger Indian was instantly arrested by a ball from McConnell's unerring rifle; and the smaller Indian reversed his movement and escaped in the woods before McConnell could reload his gun.

Simon Girty

The notorious renegade, Simon Girty, was the son of a notorious drunkard, who had emigrated from Ireland. The old man was beastly intemperate, and nothing ranked higher in his estimation than a jug of whiskey. His sottish ness turned his wife's affections, and she yielded her heart to another, who knocked Girty on the head, and bore off the trophy in his prowess. Four sons remained behind, Thomas, Simon, George and James. The three latter were taken prisoners in Braddock's war, by the Indians. George was adopted by the Delawares, and died in a drunken fit. James was adopted by the Shawnees, and became a bloody villain. Simon was adopted by the Senecas, and became an expert hunter. In Kentucky and Ohio, he distinguished himself as an unrelenting barbarian. It was his constant wish that he might die in battle. This was gratified. He was cut to pieces, by Colonel Johnson's mounted men, at Proctor's defeat.

Joiinnycake And His Wife

The Indian was well known to the early settlers by the* above name. He was a tall, wellbuilt, finelooking man, of gonial temper, good moral habits, and enjoyed much the society of his friends.

TTis wife was a half-breed - the daughter of a white woman who had been taken prisoner by the Indians, near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Her mother, after having endured several years of captivity, made her escape, and returned to her white friends, leaving her little daughter among the Indians. This infant child remained among the Indians - attained the condition of womanhood - married - and became an exemplary and faithful wife and mother, and remarkable for shrewdness and tact.

Mr. Knapp refers to the residence of Johnnycake in Clear Creek township at a late date. In 1824, in the spring, Johnnycake had a wigwam in the vicinity of the present site of Savannah.

Johnnycake died on the Delaware reservation, in Kansas, leaving two or three sons. In the war of the Rebellion of 1861-5, three grandsons of Johnnycake served in Company M, Sixth regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry, under Captain John W. Duff. Their .names were: John, Benjamin and Philip Johnnycake. Captain Duff says they were excellent soldiers.

A Pioneer Talk

There is a vast store of rich material almost untouched lying waiting for some writer who will hold the mirror up to nature and give us pictures of the people and the manners and customs of early times. What a royal book could be made ! We grow so weary of politics, the sham side of religion ; the ruthless clambering after high places; the desperate struggles for riches and fame and honor ; men standing on other men 's necks to elevate themselves. Oh, sometimes, if it were not so sentimental and so like twaddle, or the talk of whispering lovers we could cry out in the language of Moore :

There is not half the material nowadays for the manufacture of readable stories and sketches there was in pioneer times. We are surprised when we the field over. How fresh and charming and breezy were the stories written by Eggleston, the only writer who has ever ventured into this broad and beautiful field.

The stories that are the simplest and most natural and that cuddle the closest to Nature's great warm, true heart are the best. Their narration brings the quick, hearty laugh and the sudden mist of tears the soonest. Bret Harte may, in his strange, bold way, bring out wonderful words, pictures of heroism, history may tell of great men who sacrificed their lives in a fury of enthusiasm, forgetting everything only fame that was to follow after. But in our own humble opinion we do believe God and the angels have looked down and beheld the truest heroes in the lowliest walks of humble life. Oh, we bare our heads in the presence of our grandees; we bow graciously, we smile and fawn upon them because they are great. The richest carpet is spread for them to walk upon from the doorway to the glittering carriage in the street; we beg for their autographs ; we look after them adoringly and we sigh when they are gone and we read glowing accounts of where they go and how they are received and the honors that are heaped upon them, and our hearts warm with exultation. We call these our heroes. We believe the heroism hidden in the commonest walks of life, and perhaps not known beyond the horizon's rim, not read about, nor sang about, nor talked about, and scarcely known or dreamed of by the nearest neighbors, is the grandest example of brave courage and devotion that there is. In pioneer times such heroes were found in every neighborhood. They were not shrined, neither did they stand on pedestals. They sat on benches at their looms, and on rickety chairs close up to their little wheels, and from early dawn until bedtime they made music ; the music of the flying shuttle and the banging of the lathe, the buzzing of the flyers, and the fine metalic ring of the sharp teeth of the hackle. They dressed in clothing that they had manufactured themselves, and they clad their husbands and their children in the same. The heroism of these wonderfully energetic women will never be known, because they know it not themselves. We may talk of the spirit of our missionary women and laud them, but no need of theirs can compare with the self-denial of these managing, planning, contriving, overtasked, active foremothers of ours. Their creative ability was marvellous. Their generalship was splendid. Their strategy and maneuvers and devices without parallel. And yet, revering their memory as we do, cherishing the bold, brave, beautiful examples they have left us, we cannot but lament the sad heritage they bequeathed likewise.

These noble grandmothers and mothers wrought with hands and brain ; they toiled beyond their strength; they used up the vitality that they should have shared with us - their defrauded bodies. They robbed us, and the consequences abide with us today. We have white faces and flabby muscles and are short of health, and we have to coax ourselves to walk up hill, and then we hold a hand on our side and gasp. Instead of springing out of a wagon or off the side saddle, or from the top rail of the fence, we creep down as though we carried a set of china or a basket of imported eggs. They would have run up stairs three steps at a clip if they'd only had the stairs. As it was, they tripped up the ladder that stood in the corner, carrying a bushel of corn or twelve dozen skeins of flax thread with the ease that one of us would carry a glove box. We know one mother who died at middle age with a flush as of roses on her lips and her cheeks and a sunny sparkle in her eyes, and her glossy brown hair smoothed back from her white forehead. She lay down to sleep and to dream at night and the sleep came in the twinkling of an eye, but it was the dreamless slumber of death, and the word went forth that she died of heart disease - a very pretty name by which to designate such sudden calls of death, such untoward freaks of Providence. But her bereft family knew the limits of a life spent in overwork, an energy that knew no boundaries at all. She had said, "Now I will make fifty linen sheets for ourselves and then I will quit spinning and weaving." That was two hundred and fifty yards of linen. Any one who has raised flax and carried it through the stages prescribed, will know what that means. Raising, pulling, spreading, ratting, gathering into bundles, then breaking, scutching, hackling, spinning, boiling the skeins in ashes and water, spooling, warping and weaving. Then comes the bleaching out on the grass in March and April and the web is ready for use. Besides the stores of family and bed and table linen she wanted the fifty homemade linen sheets to lay aside for herself and husband in their old age and after the children were all married and settled in life. Poor, short sighted woman ! She died before half the number were made. Her husband, a young man, was left disconsolate with five little children between the ages of fourteen and four. What an absurd mistake she made ! And the linen sheets. The cold, clinging, clammy things. Well, the daughters-in-law cut them up and Used them for baby linen and tea towels and dish rags, with never a thought of what they cost. And the sons-in-law wipe their bearded faces and tidy about their ears with the towels made out of them, and instead of thinking that the life of a noble but unwisely energetic woman was twisted up into the nicely spun woof and warp, and the fine gold of it beaten up into the flossy fabric, they scrub diligently, thinking of the sharp bargains they make in swapping horses, perhaps getting a good, two year colt for an old crowbait with its bony back thatched over with newspapers.

If there is one thing in this life that we sorroiv over more than another, it is to see energy - that great lever that moves the world - misspent, poured out wastefully. Our possibilities for accomplishing good and great works are wonderful and we have no right to trifle them away and spend our time making overmuch provision for our perishable bodies. Why, the very time devoted to making pies, if spent out in the woods under the gracious roof of gold and green, when days are long and skies are bright, and woods are green and fields are breezy, would tend to make one fresh and active and interesting, and to grow mellow in a kindly way. So many lives dwarfed and disappointed, and in complete owe their failure to the wearing of the shackle that they impose upon themselves. They seem to glory in their manacles. They hug their thralldom. We say to such :

Sometimes we wonder if our own township is an exception in its wealth of story making material. Every old cabin hearth stone holds a story, sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragical and sometimes stranger than fiction. Away off in the woods on our way to and from the school we taught long ago we used to sit and dream and rest awhile on a heap of old hearth stones, the birthplaces of a poor little boy who, when he came up to manhood, received the appointment of Foreign Minister. His father made baskets and trays and half bushels, and his mother spun sewing thread and hackled flax and colored copperas and rocked her babies in a sugar trough.

What to them was poverty? Contentment disarmed of its sting. Their wants were few. There was no aristocracy in those early days. When the women wanted to visit neighbor Prudence and have a good social time and not tax the poor family, they took provisions with them. One would take half a quarter of tea and a pitcher of cream, another a loaf of bread and a roll of butter, another some maple syrup or wild honey, with venison or pork or raised cornbread or doughnuts, always carrying a good deal more than was needed, and then the woman whose honored guests they were could get up a plain meal without any embarrassment whatever.

At the time we used to indulge in these dreams, William was abroad an honor to the nation he represented, and perhaps many a time in his far-away political home, there came up before him the shady little nook in the wildwood, with its rich undergrowth of cool ferns and mosses and leaves mingling in wild luxuriance. Oh, such examples are so encouraging to poor boys. Energy and perseverance with a character based on good sound principles can accomplish anything. And how true and full of exaltation comes to such the ringing song of the sweet minstrel girl, Alice Carey. Her own soul alive with the inspiration that thrilled herself and others when she sang

But one hearthstone there was that could have told a boss story, as the boys say. Just the man and his wife and her sister comprised the family. It was the bleak November time, when the rains seem to have a sobbing sound and the winds cry about the leaves, and the dead vines swing mournfully, and the waters drip like tears from the dead leaves. The husband was away at the mill down at Shrimplins, and would not get home till late that night. The two women sat conversing over the embers. One subject only was in their thoughts, and that was "There will be no dress for the baby." Now did anybody ever hear of a wideawake woman who couldn't see her way through or over or under or around the obstacles in her path? Surely not. The husband came home late, ate his corn bread and milk, buried the glowing coals and went to bed. Away in the night the young wife woke her sister with "Bet, say Bet, I've studied it out. Hark'ee! Early in the morning he will kill Old Nan, for what's the use o' keepin' just one sheep, poor, lonesome creetur', and me and you'll go to work and we'll make a bit o' flannel out o' the fleece, an' that'll be very daddle for a good, warm, soft baby dress. Don't ye see, Bet?" Poor, sleepy Betsy. We don't know whether she saw it or not, but she acquiesced with a drowsy "eh, heh." He killed the sheep bright and early the next morning. The two sisters picked off the wool nicely carded, spun, put the infantile web into the loom and wove it that day and evening, and at night they cut out the dearest little coatie and made it before they went to bed. There wasn't much margin left to boast of, because the next day's dawn found a sturdy little man child taking the tailor out of the brannew coatie. A little sprout of a pioneer with round, red fists and heels that tested the new flannel vigorously. And this was the stuff that pioneer women were made of in the long ago.

Sixty years ago a poor boy in Green township used to get up very early winter mornings, when the snow lay deep and white upon the ground, and as he flipped his homeknit suspenders over his shoulders he peered out between the cracks of his cabin home and whispered through his chattering teeth, "Jinks, do b 'lieve I see tracks ! ' ' Then despite the cold he clad his feet in his father 's old boots and sallied out to hunt rabbits. That boy wanted an education. He needed one of the first requirements - a spelling book. If it had been summer time he could have dug ginseng or columbo roots and sold them. But the winter season locked up this only resource, and all he could do was to catch rabbits and sell the skins for one cent apiece. Forty rabbit skins would buy a spelling book, a nice one with a good wooden back to it. That man died worth one hundred thousand dollars. And this was the stuff that pioneer men were made of. Those were close times when rabbit skins and ginseng roots and wolf scalps and whiskey were currency. We often take down from the top shelf in the library a homely old leathercovered account book of our grandfather's* and father's, and look over the items of trade. In the way of a deal, our dear old ancestors once obtained a barrel of the currency of those times, whiskey, which he used to deal out, we presume, to the best advantage. This was over sixty years ago. One page in a clear, bold, graceful style of penmanship runs thus : Dr. John Smith, dr.

And then the mother and wife came, a palefaced sad woman and her tears stopped the flow of currency. And our heart is glad when we look the old book that not the man who sold it nor one of those who bought it are represented today by one bloated face or pussy form, or red nose, or blear eye. We thank God for that signal favor. If ever our dead grandfather helped to foster the love of strong drink in any one whose tainted blood was inherited today by a weak son or grandson, we'd root out and wash out the foul curse, with our prayers and our tears. The John Smith referred to has three sons, elderly men, and because of the father's bad example, and the mother's tender watchfulness, her careful early training and early teaching, every man of them is a strictly moral man, advocating total abstinence. So we sit down and look the old book over as calmly as we would turn through Watt's hymns; but if he'd had a distillery and one of our beautiful springs hidden in a green gush in a hillside had been perverted to such a base use, its sweet gushing waters made accursed and instrumental to the degredation of his fellowmen, our poor shamed face would have been bowed today with marks of Cain on the forehead.

There always was a charm to us in the relation of the incidents of pioneer life. It is so good to hear about those who have passed away, and are passing away - people, just like ourselves in all their loves and hates, their hopes and fears, their aims and aspirations. How often we hear these people say: "we never were so happy as when we lived in the cabin. I can't make such corn bread as I used to make, and oh how I would like to taste of the nice corn cake I used to bake, on a clean shingle, tilted up before the fire with a flat-iron back of it. What a sweet crisp cake it was and how nutty the fine flavor. ' ' No elegant parlor can have that air of cosiness that had the one room in the cabin home. How high the beds did puff up. How neat the pile of bed clothes looked heaped upon an old arm chair, or box, or something between the windows folded just as evenly as possible. The little mirror was the one nice thing in the . house. Across its top wound a string of the shells of bird eggs, and a spray of asparagus drooped over like dainty mist. Under the glass hung a snow-white towel ironed in the most perplexing and abstruse folds and checks and diamonds and octagons. A very precise pin cushion hung over the white towel so as to show to the best advantage; sometimes the bullet pouch hung inside of it. The dresses and skirts turned best side out hung on pegs around the walls. The old bureau if there was one had a cloth netting and fringe around it, and the bandbox containing the Sunday bonnet held its place of honor on the top of it. The gun lay in hooks upon a joist over head. If there was a fiddle in the family it dozed in a green baize bag from a nail beside the window. The dresser stood in one corner with a scant supply of delf; one whole shelf devoted to the cups and saucers which were ranged in a row, every cup standing on the bottom of a saucer. The ladder stood in the other corner, and a wide fire place filled almost one end of the cabin. Overhead hung bags of seeds and hops and roots, and the poles suspended by leather thongs above the heads of the family, had socks hanging on them, and dried pumpkins and choice seed corn and wallets of dried plums and dried cherries.

Sometimes a knotty branch of a hickory was cut off and hung up and strung full of tallow dips. But you all remember these old time things. Some of you women will recall the satisfied feeling you had at night, after a hard day's work, when you sat with the baby on your lap, swaying in the easy old chair that creaked out a weake-wock-weake-wock, and you sat and sang little aimless odds and ends of camp meeting songs, your thoughts far away and as you looked up and surveyed the little stores, you felt gratified that everything was in order, kept with an eye to economy and neatness. Oh, not riches nor fine clothing, nor grand furniture, nor any of these things can bring back that sweet sense of enjoyment that was yours in your humble little home.

On a birthday occasion, an old pioneer dined with us a few years ago. We were telling what roused our anger soonest, and with a gurgling musical laugh, the old man said, ' ' nothing ever made me madder than when I used to plow out in the clearings. My shins were all bundled up with bits of sheep skins so I could endure the blows of the little roots that spring up with such vengeful force when cut off by the plow share, and yet many and many a time I swore in spite of me. I was called a good Methodist and the Lord knows I tried to be a Christian and a good man. I had a great deal of very substantial praying to do for myself." On the same pleasant occasion, another old pioneer related a funny incident on himself. He was a young farmer who held the position of drum major in the militia. He didn't know every thing. The crows were very troublesome, pulling up his corn. One day when he was plowing it, he ''shooed" at them and waved his hat, and threw clods, and finally a master idea entered his mind: he could get his drum and drum them away. He could sling it over his shoulder and carry it with him, and how much nicer that would be, and so genteel, too, and such a patriotic way of protecting his crop. When opportunity offered he turned his back to the old horse and struck up the strain of Yankee Doodle, just as if he were at general muster. The result was that the horse didn't concur with this new departure, and kicking up its heels it ran off and broke the plow and the harness and helped to scare away more crows than did the man with the new idea. The narrative of this incident was never drusick, but once, and then he was out on the creek in a canoe with his friends and fell overboard. The splash in the water roused him a little and he felt a touch of shame and humiliation and tried to take his own part, when they dragged him back in the canoe. He fumbled around and found one of his suspender buttons was gone. ' ' There, ' ' said he, ' ' ding it all, how could a fellow help failin' in right backwards, when his gallus give way suddent?" We used to visit at his home a good deal. Such boisterous boys and girls we never saw to play blackman, and ball, and shinny, and silly bang, and poison, and steal partner. The mother would let us all turn summersaults on her bed, and the father would let us slide all in a row down the sides of the straw stacks, no matter if the straw all scooted down to the ground. And they would let us boil chestnuts in the tea kettle, and roast potatoes in the ashes, after night, and have all the nice butter we wanted to eat with them. And in improvising plays and theatricals they allowed us the use of all the wearing apparel the house afforded. The old mare was free for any four of us to ride at one time, out on the race course, which was round and round the house. How we longed to exchange mothers with the jolly little ones of this favored family. She scolded frequently to be sure, and declared that the terrible racket would kill her, but her husband, the drum major, assurred us in homely language that "her bark was wuss nor her bite."

How the little mother would scold sometimes. She'd say: "Andre Jackson you and Thomas Jefferson and Jonathan Edwards git right down off o' that table! or Peter Cartright you're swingin' on that trammel again; first thing you know down it'll come and hurt Martha Washington or Molly Stark, or John Wesley; or Mary Magdelene, that's not the first time I kitehece you eatin' crout by the handful right out'n the bar'l."

When the little woman died a dozen years ago, we were glad the old drummer didn't ask us to write an obituary. No language could have expressed our thoughts. We loved her dearly. We are indebted to her.

A few days ago the men who were working with plow and scraper removing the gravelly little knoll on the bank of the creek at the edge of our village, brought to surface some human bones. There was the sturdy thigh bone, the arm, the ribs and finally the bold square jaw of the resolute old red man, the teeth worn down as though for a century he had eaten his tough venison seasoned with sand. And then came a shelly bit of a woman's skull, and her jaw tight and more delicately fashioned by far than was that of the old slumberer who had shared her dreamless couch for so many, many years. This incident impressed us forcibly. The fine quality of gravel in which lay for so long the bones of these unknown savages, was discovered to be just the thing needed on the principal streets in our village. No doubt the old chieftain selected that breezy knoll, on the banks of the then beautiful and freely flowing stream under the magnificent trees that crowned its summit, for at that time the fertile valley had not been trodden by the foot of the bold pioneer. Whoever selected that spot had an eye for the beautiful in nature, and had the same thought that comes to us when we meditate on the last sad and closing scenes. Who knows! may be the poor old chieftain loved that pretty knoll as we did in our early years, and he may have dreamed there in saddened mood of the tide of civilization that was slowly coming nearer and nearer to crowd aside his people even as they had obliterated the mound builders, and in turn possess their vast hunting grounds.

So the little knoll is profitable and according to one of nature's immutable laws, the Indian's grave and its mouldering contents will live anew in a highway to be trodden under foot of man and hereafter whoever drives down main street, may grind his carriage wheels upon bones that are turning to dust. And the old chieftain's yellow teeth way be picked up any day and find a lodgment in the pocket of the little Arab's ragged jacket.

It is related that an apple tree planted on the grave of Roger Williams, the founder of the state of Rhode Island, who died in 1683, that the roots of the tree struck down and spread out into the shape and figure of the man, following his arms and legs and trunk. So that learned men familiar with the mysteries of nature and her strange metamorphoses, declare that Roger Williams passed into an apple tree, and lives again on this earth in another form, that of redcheeked juicy apples.

The statue of Sir Robert Peel, a very eminent British statesman, was melted over to make one for Lord Palmerston. We need not shudder at these things, for nature set the first example. With her there is no death, no decay, nothing repulsive. Where Hamlet spoke of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a beer barrel, he spoke the naked truth. The heathen gods, even vaguely, penetrated this great mystery, as those familiar with mythology will remember. But at first when the old mound was opened and its sacred treasures brought to the surface by plow and scraper, 'we' almost rebelled. We woke in the morning after, and walked out under the pines and looked down that lovely sweep of picturesque valley below us and we sighed as the words of the old quaker poet Whittier came, as though borne to us on the breath of the serene summer's dawn.

The words followed us about our work ; they seemed so sad ; they expressed so much. We thought of the poor old pioneers who had beheld this vast wilderness, its grandeur of woods and waters, until now it blooms like unto the gardens of the gods. How beautiful the labor of their hands ! How much we owed them ! But the olden time, with its white crowned patriarchial heads is passing away. The glory of one age is dimmed in the golden glory of the age succeeding it. Change stamps its seal upon all things. The trail of the redman will soon be lost in the net work of the railroad, that l^ke great arteries stretch themselves among our beautiful hills and smiling valleys. The green graves mulitply. The old graves dimple the quietest corners of our cemeteries. And still the words, full of prophecy that makes us sadder, abide with us, and burn with our thoughts:

Miss Rosella Rice

The following sketch of Miss Rosella Rice, late of Perrysville, Ashland county, was written by Colonel Sullivan D. Harris, and appeared in William T. CoggeshalUs Poets and Poetry of the West a work which appeared in 1860.

Rosella Rice is a native of Ashland county, Ohio. Her father Alexander Rice, was among the early settlers of Perrysville, and Rosella has always resided at the old homestead, where she was born, about the year 1830. Miss Rice is a born poet, and has nursed her strange wild fancies amid the equally wild hills and glens and rocky caves which she has haunted with a devotion that has amounted to a life passion. Meeting with but few associates who could appreciate the depths of her passions for such communings her spirit was wont to retire within herself except when it was called forth by the presence of the sylvan gods which she worshiped. Her early contributions to the county papers are marked by her own rude, but genuine original characteristics. Coming but little in contact with the world at large, she built upon ideal models, wherever she departed from her own original. Miss Rice has read much and well, and within the last few years she has visited the wide world considerably. She has contributed to Arthur's Home Magazine, Philadelphia, and to several of the Cleveland, Columbus and other Ohio papers. Her prose writings always attract attention and secure a wide circulation from their peculiar original vigor and directness.

In addition to the foregoing from Mr. Harris, the author adds that Miss Rice was on the regular staff of Arthur's Home Magazine for at least a quarter of a century. Miss Rice died June 6, 1888.

Early Day Sports

It may be interesting to the younger as well as to the older class of people, to recall some of the sports and pastimes of the early settlers of Ashland county.

A commendable feature of pioneer sports was that utility was blended with amusement, social gathering being cabin and barn raisings, logrollings, cornhuskings, woodchoppings and quilting parties. Rich and poor then met upon lines of social equality and the old and the young mingled alike in these oldtime sports.

The people of those early days were helpful to each other not only in "raisings'' and "rollings" requiring a force of men, but also in many other ways. If a man was incapacitated by sickness or other causes his neighbors set a day and went in force and plowed his corn, harvested his grain or cut his wood for the winter, as the season required. And when a pig, or a calf, or a sheep was killed in the summer a piece of the meat was sent to each family in the neighborhood, who reciprocated in kind, and in this way all had fresh meat the greater part of the season.

Cornhuskings were gala occasions. Frequently the ears were stripped from the stalks and hauled to a favorable place, where the unshucked ears were put in parallel or semi-circular windrows. Moonlight nights were usually chosen for husking occasions, and when the company gathered in the evening, captains were selected and the men chosen into two platoons, which competed in the husking work, each platoon trying to finish its pile or row first. At the finish the captain of the winning squad would be carried around on the shoulders of his men, amid their triumphal cheers, after which the bottle would be passed.

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

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

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

The pioneers were industrious people. The situation required the men to chop and grub, and clear the land ere they could plow and sow and reap. And the women had to spin and knit and weave and sew in addition to their household work. Upon one occasion a minister's wife was telling about her day's work, that in addition to making a pair of pantaloons and a bed-tick, "I've washed and baked and ironed six pies today. ' '

Wool had to be carded into rolls by hand, and after it was spun into yarn and the yarn woven into cloth, the flannel had to be thickened or fulled to make it heavier for men's wear. This necessitated "fulling" or "kicking" parties, an enjoyable line of amusement. Upon such occasions the web of flannel was stretched out on the puncheon floor and held loosely at each end, while men with bared feet and rolled up trousers sat in rows at each side. Then the women poured strong hot soapsuds on the web, while the men kicked it vigorously, making the white foam of the suds fly over both kickers and attendants. This pouring and kicking lasted an hour or two, after which supper was served after the fashion of the times.

Carding and fulling mills and spinning and weaving factories came later, served their purpose, and their time, and now they, too, are gone, and now people can go to stores and get "hand-me-down" suits, without asking or caring where or how they were made.

While there were many social amusements in the early times, religious devotions were not neglected. As there were but few church buildings, camp meetings were frequently held during the summer months. While the Methodists and "Brethren" took the lead in these outdoor gatherings, the Christians (Disciples) held similar convocations, one of which was at the Bently spring, south of Mansfield. At that meeting Captain James Cunningham was baptized by immersion by Elder McVay. This was the first baptism by that denomination in Ashland county.

Camp meeting trips were enjoyable to both old and young. The roads to these "camps" often ran by sequested farms and through shady woodlands, where the rays of the sun shimmered through the leafy treetops, and the fragrance of the June flowers sweetly perfumed the morning air.

At last glimpses of white tents could be seen, forming a semi-circle and surrounding an amphitheatre of rude seats in front of a pulpit canopied by the boughs of trees. At the camp, visitors were received with cordial greetings, for the "campers" had the warmth of friendship in their hearts and of Christian zeal in their souls, and their frank, unstudied manners and winsome ways were favorable preludes to the services that were to follow.

At these camp exercises some of the worshipers became quite demonstrative for the personal manifestations of joy or devotion differ as much as our natures differ. No two persons give expression in precisely the same terms to any human experience; the law of temperament forbids it. Religion can come to you only in accordance with your nature, and you can respond to it only in the same way.

Singing was a prominent feature of the religious services. It was the old-fashioned singing, such as our dear old mothers sang, and although faulty, perhaps, in note, came from the heart and went to the heart. The singing of today may be more artistically rendered, but it is the old-time tunes that comfort us in our sorrow and sustain us in our trials, as they come back to us in sweet remembrance from the years that are past.

A Salt-Boiling Incident

Tn the early history of Ohio salt boiling was conducted wherever there were saline springs. Generally two or three men would join fortunes, erect a rough cabin and build a furnace near a saline spring, and there spend weeks, perhaps months, boiling salt in the wilderness.

One of these establishments was owned and operated by a rough, mischievous fellow by the name of Miller, who was always ready for a joke, no matter how severe, or at whose expense. While Miller and his two associates in the enterprise were seated around the great roaring furnace one morning, a stranger, lean and lank, having every symptom of a genuine Vermonter, approached on horseback, and asked permission to leave his pack saddle and other traveling appendages in their care, while he should spend the day in hunting. The favor being cheerfully granted, he dismounted, left his saddle, and wandered olf in quest of deer.

As soon as the new comer was fairly out of sight, Miller, who looked upon him as an intruder, determined to annoy him; and as a convenient method of testing the calibre of the stranger he threw his pack saddle into the furnace, where it was soon reduced to ashes. Towards evening the hunter returned, and on very deliberately making, inquiry for his saddle was told the less he said about that the better, otherwise he might share the same fate. The remark was accompanied by a significant look towards the fire, which instantly suggested to the indignant stranger the whereabouts of his saddle. However, he said nothing and was soon on his homeward way.

In a few days he returned once more, seeming in a fine humor, and brought a new pack saddle, which he left in Miller's care, as before, charging him emphatically not to burn that one, or else there would be a noise about it. Of course the warning not to touch the saddle was more than Miller was willing to bear, and he resolved to repeat the experiment as soon as the stranger should start on his day's hunt. No sooner had he turned his back upon the furnace than Miller called after him, ' ' Look-a-here, mister ! I 'll show you who 's a goin ' to do the orderin' round here," and into the fire went the saddle with a will ! But in a moment the huge kettles, the walls of the furnace, and everything thereunto pertaining, were scattered in one universal wreck, the hot fluid sprinkling freely over the unsuspecting heads of the salt boilers, and the clouds of hissing steam completely blinding them for awhile, thus affording the revengeful stranger opportunity to make good his escape, which he did without the formality of bidding his victims good bye! The truth flashed upon Miller's mind about as soon as the hot ashes flashed in his face : the pads of the new pack saddle had been stuffed with gunpowder.

Facts Versus Fiction

The book entitled "Philip Seymour, or Pioneer Life in Richland County," written by the Rev. James F. McGaw, is a work of fiction and is not a history. It only claims to be a "romance founded on facts." The Rev. McGaw was a minister of the Wesleyan denomination and at the time of writing that romance was a resident of Washington village, Washington township, Richland county. The story was written for the old Mansfield Herald newspaper, and appeared as a serial in 1857. The events narrated in the work are true in the main, but the characters introduced are partly mythical, while others are given fictitious

In 1799 Frederick Zeimer came with his family, wife and seven children, from Maryland to Ohio and entered one-half of section 27, in Washington township, Pickaway county. He was a man of means and after getting considerable land upon which he established his married sons, he removed to Richland county, with his wife, youngest son, Philip, and daughter Kate, and entered a quarter section of land in the Blackfork valley, now in Mifflin township, Ashland county, where the terrible tragedy, narrated in this work, occurred September 10, 1812. At the close of the war of 1812, Philip returned to his former home in Pickaway county, and later sold the Richland county land to Michael Culler, the deed for which was executed May 1, 1815, before Thomas Mace, a justice of the peace in and for the county of Pickaway, Ohio.

On the 2d day of April, 1815, Philip Zeimer was married to a Pickaway county girl named Betsy Valentine, whose family was a prominent and numerous one of that county. Their marriage is recorded in the probate court records at Circleville. Philip and Betsy Zeimer were the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters, all now deceased. Philip's wife died in 1836, aged forty-eight years and seven months. Philip died August 8, 1850, aged sixtyfive years. The foregoing are facts from historical records, from the muniments of their estates and from monuments erected to their dead.

The man who was said to be engaged to Kate Zeimer was Jedediah Smith, who came and entered land in Washington township, Richland county, Ohio, in 1812. Mr. Smith, in looking for land, as McGaw's story goes, was directed by Johnny Appleseed to the Zeimer cabin, where he met and fell in love with Kate. McGaw gives Mr. Smith in his romance the name of Henry Martin. Mr. Smith was at his old home in Washington county, Pennsylvania, when the Zeimers were killed by the Indians, and did not return to Ohio until 1816 ; he married some years later and lived to an advanced old age.

The Billy Bunting in the McGaw story was Levi Bargahiser, who became a wealthy farmer in Sharon township, Richland county, where he died December 26, 1868, aged seventy-seven years. While he may have had some peculiarity of speech, he did not lisp as McGaw represented, and neither did he marry an Indian. His wife's maiden name was Susanna Eshelman, whose family lived in Licking county, Ohio. A daughter of Mr. Bargahiser married the late J. C. Sidles, at one time a commissioner of Richland county. Some of the Bargahisers yet live near Shelby.

McGaw 's work was a very interesting one and in book form passed through three editions. The copyright for the same is owned by A. J. Baughman, of Mansfield. The story is a very absorbing one, as it graphically depicts and portrays pioneer life and conditions, but it should not be taken seriously as a history of the county.

Early Incidents

There are many incidents which are difficult to classify and yet which were events that left their impress upon the history of the county and deserve to find a permanent place in the early records. One of these was

The Copus Massacre

As the dawn of Tuesday morning, September 15, 1812, approached, the nine soldiers, true to their promise, left their couches of hay at the barn and went to the cabin. As they grouped around the door, amber streaks darted into golden rays in the eastern sky, heralds of the coming day. The troops, no doubt, recalled the red-flamed sky of the preceding sunset and were thankful that the night -was being succeeded by the glorious light of another day, so beautiful in its aerial aspect that one might have imagined it presaged the resurrection and looked for angels to appear and proclaim that ' ' Time was, time is, but time shall be no more," but it was the angel of death that was soon to claim four of that little band.

Mr. Copus, still apprehensive of danger, cautioned the soldiers to be on their guard, but they laughed at his fears and, leaning their muskets against the cabin, went to the spring, a few rods from the house, but ere they had finished their lavations the Indians came upon them with demoniacal yells, and - "On the right, on left, above, below, sprung up at once the lurking foe."

And forty-five painted savages, armed with muskets, tomahawks and scalping knives rushed upon the unarmed soldiers and a scene of carnage, of butchery and death ensued. When the attack was made Mr. Copus hastily seized his rifle and went to the door and as he opened it, a ball fired by an advancing savage passed through the leather strap that supported his powder horn and entered his breast, inflicting a wound from which he expired within an hour.

When fired upon, being unarmed, the soldiers fled in different directions; two attempted to reach the forest upon the hillside for protection, but were pursued by the Indians, were overtaken, murdered and scalped. Their names were John Tedrick and George Shipley. A third, named Warnock, was shot through the bowels, but went some distance and, becoming weak from loss of blood, sat down by a tree and died. He had stuffed his handkerchief into the wound to stop the flow of blood. His body was found several weeks afterward in a sitting posture.

Five of the soldiers who were nearer the cabin got inside safely, but the sixth, named George Dye, was not so fortunate and was shot through the thigh as he entered the door and George Launtz was shot in the arm, a short time later, while removing a chink to make a port hole in the wall.

The scene within the cabin was pathetically dramatic. He, who an hour before stood as the protector of the family, now lay in the throes of death, his grief -stricken wife and seven children grouped about the bedside and as the spirit of this just man took flight, the mother, as the center of that little band of mourners, was seen to gaze upward, heavenward, as if in prayer commending her fatherless children to Him who tempers the winds to the shorn lamb and who alone can bind up the broken heart.

- But they had to soon turn from the dead and assist the soldiers in their defence of the cabin. Early in the contest, Nancy Copus, aged fifteen, was shot above the knee, inflicting a painful wound. The children were then placed upstairs for greater safety and that was but poor, for a number of the Indians were upon the hillside in front of the house and kept up an incessant firing upon the roof of the cabin, until the clapboards, it was said, afterwards presented almost a sieve-like appearance. And nearly all that forenoon the battle raged and the deadly lead was fired not only upon the roof, but upon the walls, windows and door of that home and the yells of the murderous savages were enough to daunt the bravest heart.

The few soldiers within made a heroic defence. They fired through portholes and their aim was often unerring as a number of the redskins were seen to fall to rise no more. After five long hours of murderous assault from outside and of valiant defence from within, the awful contest ended by the Indians retreating, taking their dead with them, and firing a parting volley into a flock of sheep which had huddled together in terror near the barn.

After the Indians had disappeared, one of the soldiers got out upon the roof of the cabin and cautiously glanced around and, seeing no foe, climbed down and went to the Beam blockhouse for assistance. About one o'clock Captain Martin and his squad of soldiers, who had been expected the night before, arrived upon the scene two hours after the battle had ended, but before assistance had time to come from the blockhouse. Captain Martin, not seeing any Indians in his reconnoitre the day previous and not expecting any trouble at the Copus home had bivouacked for the night at the Ruffner cabin, near where Mifflin now stands and three and a half miles north of the Copus settlement.

During the forenoon, Captain Martin thought he heard firing, but supposed the troops below were at target practice. When Martin and his troops arrived at the scene of the tragedy, they were appalled at the horrible spectacle that met their view. Attention was given to the wounded and the dead were buried.

An attempt was made to track the Indians and it was thought they went east, but as they had three hour 's start they were not pursued. The bodies of Copus, Tedriek and Shipley were buried in one grave a few rods from the cabin and a monument now marks their grave.

Stretchers were made upon which to carry the wounded and the march of the whole party to Beam's blockhouse was commenced. As it was late in the day when the start was made, they only went a short distance until they stopped for the night. By that time the number of the party had increased to about a hundred, and pickets were thrown out to guard against surprise. The march was resumed the next morning', the route being up the valley to Mifflin, thence west along a trail now known as the Mansfield-Wooster road, and then down to the Beam blockhouse, the distance being about thirteen miles, where they arrived in safety in the evening.

Several weeks afterwards a squad of soldiers, accompanied Henry Copus, a son of James Copus, to the cabin, and on the way, some distance from the house, they discovered the missing soldier (Warnoek) sitting against a tree dead. They buried him near where he was found. They also found the bodies of two Indians, which were left to their fate.

Mrs. Copus and children remained in the blockhouse about two months and were then taken to Guernsey county where they lived until the close of the war, when they returned to their home on the Blaekfork and where Mrs. Copus reared the family and lived to a good old age, beloved and respected by her neighbors and friends. Sarah Copus, the daughter, became Mrs. Yail, and lived to be present at the unveiling of the monument, September 15, 1882, erected to the memory of her father and the soldiers who were killed in that awful tragedy at that humble cabin in the wilderness, September 12, 1812.

Among the incidents of the fight, it is stated that Copus and an Indian fired at each other simultaneously, the former receiving a mortal wound and the latter being killed instantly. Copus did not fall when he was shot, but staggered back across the room to a table, from which he was assisted to the bed. He told his wife that he could not live and that she would have to rear the children as best she could.

A number of times while the battle lasted the savages tried to take the cabin by storm, but the soldiers had taken the precaution to barricade the door and windows with puncheons removed from the floor.

George Launtz, the soldier who had an arm broken by a bullet, caught sight of an Indian peeping around a tree and, taking deliberate aim, fired and had the satisfaction of seeing the savage bound into the air and then roll down the hill, dead. Another redskin, who had been shot, fell in the yard. His groans were heard as he attempted to crawl away, but a well directed bullet from the cabin put an end to his suffering.

Forty-five scoopouts where fires had been were afterwards found in the cornfield, where the Indians had roasted corn and from that it was taken that there had been forty-five savages in the assault. Of that number nine were carried away by the Indians when they retreated, which, with the two bodies found later, made their loss eleven killed and wounded.

The same day of the Copus battle, the cabins of Newell, Cuppy and Fry, farther east, were burned and the Indians, who attacked the Copus family, were supposed to have been the incendiaries, as they went in that direction. Those families were at the Jerometown blockhouse.

After the close of the war a number of Indians returned to this county. Sarah Copus, the girl who had seen the Indians lurking around the day before the attack was made on their home, did not seem to be in favor with the savages.

History Of Ashland Counts

Going- to the hill beyond the spring one day after the family had returned from Guernsey county, she saw one hiding behind a tree. She ran towards the house, the Indian pursuing her almost to the door. They said the girl "knew too much" was too observant of them and their actions.

Tom Lyon, an ugly old redskin of the Delaware tribe, in a conversation with Mrs. Copus in 1816, admitted he knew all about the attack on their cabin, but denied that he took part in it.

After the times became more secure the settlers returned to their homes, but affairs were more or less troublous until the close of the war.

Story Of Kanotche

The principal object of the Indians in killing the Zeimers was plunder. Frederick Zeimer was wealthy, as wealth was rated in the pioneer times, and it was supposed that he kept considerable money in the house. The news of the massacre soon spread over the country. Although there was neither telegraph nor telephone in those days, yet news spread and flew -

In the clanish days of Scotland, whenever a chieftain, upon a sudden emergency, wished to summon his clansmen, a swift and trusty bearer was sent with a "fiery-cross" and ran with it to the next hamlet, and it was from there taken by relays until the news and summons were spread from district to district. Ways and means to send news from one place to another have been devised and used in all ages of the world, and the pioneers were as resourceful in this respect as they were vigilant and brave in the defense of their country and their homes, and the news of the Zeimer massacre flew as upon the "wings of the wind," and the settlers were soon aroused to a sense of the dangers which environed them.

Upon news being received at Wooster that three suspicious-acting Indians had been seen in the vicinity of Odell's Lake going eastward, with the Tuscarawas county as their probable destination, Captain Mullen's militia company was ordered out and pursued them, and arrived at New Philadelphia the day after the Indians had been captured.

Soon after the report of the Zeimer massacre had been received at New Philadelphia, it was learned that three Indians, supposed to be the Zeimer murderers, had been seen going down the Shoenbrun trail, whereupon Captain McConnell called out the New Philadelphia militia, and traced and followed the redskins down to Fern Island, where they were captured and taken to New Philadelphia and lodged in jail.

As Captain Mullen's Wooster company was approaching NeAV Philadelphia from the west, John C. Wright, then a Steubenville lawyer, rode into town on horseback from the east. He saw an excited crowd of people on the public square, and upon inquiry, Sheriff Henry Laffer explained the situation to Mr. Wright, that the Indians who had murdered the Zeimers were confined in the jail, and that a company of militia from Wooster was then coming down High street to wreak vengeance upon his prisoners. Judge Wright, looking at the case from a legal standpoint, declared that the prisoners should not be punished without a trial. He suggested to Sheriff Laffer that an alarm be sounded and the citizens called out. To this Sheriff Laffer replied that the people were so excited and exasperated over the news of the massacre that he feared they would side with the soldiers and put the Indians to death. ''Is there no one to stand by you to prevent such a murder?" inquired Judge Wright. "None but Captain McConnell, who captured them," replied the sheriff. He also added that one of the Indians, Kanotche, had admitted that he was the slayer of Kate Zeimer, which had still further incensed the people against the prisoners. The three men, Wright, Laffer and McConnell, took their stand at the jail door and declared if the prisoners were taken, it would be over their dead bodies. Parley, threats, entreaty and remonstrance ensued, but the men retained their position. Finally, Captain Mullen ordered his men to fire upon them, but this they refused to do. The militia company finally gave way and abandoned the project of lynching the murderers.

The Indians were kept in jail until Governor Meigs instructed Lieutenant Shane, then recruiting for the United States army, to take the Indians with his men to the rendezvous at Zanesville. From Zanesville, the Indians were taken to the western part of the state, where under the terms of a cartel, they were released as prisoners of war, the charge of murder not being placed against them. While enroute from Zanesville to the west, the Indians and their military escorts stopped over night at Newark, where an attempt was made to poison the prisoners. On account of the atrocities and murders committed by the redskins, an avenging feeling had been aroused against them. The attempt to poison them at Newark was made principally on account of Kanotche, the avowed slayer of Kate Zeimer.

John C. Wright, who figured so conspicuously in this New Philadelphia incident, was later a judge of the supreme court of Ohio, and served in congress from 1823 to 1839. He died in February, 1861, while a delegate to the peace congress in Washington. Judge Wright was for several years the editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. He wrote an interesting account of the capture of the Indians at Fern Island and the subsequent attempt to release and lynch them at New Philadelphia.

"A short distance from the house they met Billy, who had come to see if help was needed, and took him a prisoner, but he escaped from them one night and by accident met Philip, who, after burying the body of his parents, sister and friends, had gone in search of revenge.

"Shortly after he had gone into the woods he met Kate's betrothed on his way to claim his bride. Deep indeed was his grief at the death of his love. He too, vowed vengeance. On the same night that Billy came to them they saw a light shining up from a deep ravine and on stealing up they saw three Indians sitting by the fire. Each took his man, Billy taking the center one, for two of them were at the Seymour massacre and this one had tried to tomahawk him when he was taken prisoner. They fired together. Two fell over camp. The wounded Indian knew them and told Philip he had helped to kill his parents. The other of the two was the one who had killed Kate. On his finger was her ring and by his side was her scalp."

A Moses who attempts to lead the public through a wilderness of history should be better informed and not flounder in a sea of inaccuracies. The above quotation shows that the writer is as ignorant of the facts as he is of the orthographer of the name Zeimer. If Kanotche had been killed, as stated by the writer of the article from which the quotations are taken, the New Philadelphia and Newark incidents could not have occurred. Judge Wright's statement is correct beyond a doubt and is fully substantiated by other historical accounts.

Billy Bunting remained at the Ruffner cabin all night the night of the Zeimer massacre, and when neighbors went to look for him the next morning they found him milking the cow, unaware that Mr. Ruffner had been killed. No Indians were killed in that vicinity, except the two at Zeimer 's and those who fell in the Copus battle a week later, and Billy Bunting was not there at that time. "Billy Bunting" was Levi Bargaheiser, who afterwards became a prominent citizen of Sharon tofynship, where he died December 26, 1868, aged seventy-seven years.

The man who was said to be engaged to Kate Zeimer - called Henry Martin by McGaw was Jedediah Smith, who came to Richland county and entered land in Washington township in the spring of 1812. A month or more before the Zeimer massacre, Mr. Smith had gone to his home in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and did not return to Ohio until 1816, and therefore could not have killed the slayer of Kate, as he was not here at the time.

As two of the five Indians were killed by Martin Ruffner at the time of the massacre, and three were captured a week later at Fern Island, none of the party was left in the Blackfork valley, and no Indian was killed there during the interim between the Zeimer massacre and the Copus battle.

While confined in the jail at New Philadelphia, Kanotche gave the particulars of the Zeimer massacre to Judge Wright and Sheriff Laffer. Kanotche had wonderful descriptive powers, considering his limited knowledge of the English language, and narrated the incidents of the bloody tragedy with dramatic effect. He was one of the most cruel, revengeful and vindictive of his tribe. Instead of feeling remorse over his bloody deeds, he took delight in narrating them. After the removal of the murderous trio to the west, it was stated that Kanotche met his death by the hands of one of his own race.

The Campaign And Sad Fate Of Colonel William Crawford

The Rev. Joshua Crawford, now pastor of the Methodist church at Perrysville, contributes the following sketch of the campaign and cruel death of his late kinsman, Colonel William Crawford.

"My attention has been called to an article concerning the exact spot where stood the stake at which Colonel William Crawford was burned by the Indians in 1782. I can throw no new light on the subject and only know it was by the Big Tymochtee, near a grove. I have never visited the place, but presume the grove has long since disappeared and every landmark save the lay of the land and the stream. It is reasonable, however, that those who from long residence nearby have kept a tab on the spot should make a much better guess than those unfamiliar with it. I am not a descendant of Colonel Crawford, but belong to his kindred, the family lines coming together in his grandfather five generations back of myself. His tragic death has been much talked of in the numerous Crawford circles. There are a few legendary tales of the battle which are somewhat different from written history, especially from 'Dodridge's Notes' as transcribed in Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio. There were several members of the Dye and Leet families among the troops who intermarried with the Mclntires and Bradens, ancestors of my mother, and some of whose descendants yet live southeast of Gabon; and also with the Hiskeys, who once resided south of Lexington, in Richland county. It is said that Major Leet differed with the other officers of the council of war held the night the retreat commenced. He proposed that instead of returning over the same route they had come they should cut through the enemy's lines, go southward to a point somewhere in the present Marion county, then turn eastward and strike the Owl Creek trail and take that to the forks of the Muskingum, now Coshocton, and from thence over the route of Bouquet's army to Mingo Bottom. The council decided against him. Leet was self-willed unto stubbornness and when the retreat was ordered, his command being a part of the rear, he, with ninety men, broke away from the main body, carried out his project and reached the place of rendezvous before the others. Young John Crawford, the son for whom the Colonel went back to search was with this ninety and got home safely.

' 'If this be true it solves the mystery of how Crawford and Knight were soon lost from the army for he kept on expecting to meet other troops and thus went too far. It is not known where Crawford was captured, but it was not, as some conjecture, near the place where the battle of the Olentangy was fought. It would have been sure death for them to have followed in the wake of the army, hence, after proceeding northward for a few hours they turned, going eastward in a straight line as nearly as possible. They may have been captured somewhere in Vernon township, Crawford county. It is probable one more day of travel would have brought them to the track of the returning troops. They would have struck the old trail leading from Mohican Johnstown to Mohican Johns Lake, ( Lake Odell) near which the main body encamped on the night of the 7th of June.

"For many years public opinion has done Crawford and his army great injustice, seeming to regard the expedition as a wild and reckless raid without other motive than revenge and bloodshedding. To say that these brave men, 'hoped to murder the Moravian Indians before their beligerent friends could take up arms in their defense, ' is false. To say that ' it was rash and undertaken and conducted without sufficient forces to encounter with any prospect of success the Indians of the plains, ' is a reflection on the wisdom of those who planned the campaign.

had the management of the war against our Revolutionary Fathers saw fit to hire savages to annoy our frontier and even condescended to pay a stipulated price for American scalps. They made Detroit a center to supply the Indians with arms and all other munitions of war and kept there a body of tropps under Major De Peyster whose only purpose was to aid their savage allies. Under this inhuman stimulus the Indians made the whole frontier from Oswego, New York, to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, Virginia, red with the blaze of burning cabins and the blood of innocent and peaceable settlers. There was scarcely a mile in that long stretch that had not witnessed some horrid deed of massacre. The fagot and scalping knife were spreading terror everywhere. Something had to be done to relieve this dreadful situation. An unauthorized foray had gone to Gnadenhutten and wreaked a bloody revenge on those Christian Indians. It was wrong and I blush at the shameful cruelty of the affair, and yet I assert that these Indians were not half as innocent and lamblike as some prejudiced writers try to make them appear. The village was full of treacherous spies and even blood stained garments of massacred people were hidden there, and some of them died defiantly singing war songs instead of Christians hymns.

"The stronghold of Indians, (paid allies of Great Britain) was the region of Upper Sandusky. It was a strategetical point, because it was at the head of canoe navigation of both the Ohio river and the Great Lake regions. Supplies could be transported from Detroit through the lakes and up the Sandusky to a point where the portage was only two miles from thence over the Scioto to all the waters of the Ohio. The Crawford campaign was planned by General Irvine and submitted to General George Washington and received his approval. The design was to surprise and destroy or force a treaty from the Indians of this region before English help could reach them and thus put a check upon their cruel forays. That Gnadenhutten might not be repeated Colonel Crawford was chosen leader, with the understanding that the troops be permitted to vote for a leader, but if their vote had given it to Williamson the militia would have been sent home and the expedition temporarily abandoned. It was planned in secret and here was the fatal mistake. There were Tory sympathizrs on the frontier and even before the troops gathered at Mingo Bottom, British spies had carried the news to Indian runners posted along the border who hurried to every Indian village of the northwest and to Detroit. General Irvine had not calculated on the swiftness of these Indian runners nor the promptness of England to send aid to her savage allies.

"When Crawford reached the Upper Sandusky country there were not less than five hundred Indians and one hundred and fifty British troops ready to meet him and others pouring in every hour. Simon Girty, an ingrate white man but an* Indian commander of no mean ability, and Captain Caldwell of the British army were on hand to plan the battle. A wooded knoll, since called Battle Island, was the key of the situation which was captured by Crawford's men after a sharp conflict. The enemy made several strenuous attempts to retake it but were sorely repulsed.

' ' I shall not describe the battle for you readers are familiar with the details. It's Crawford legends of which I wish to write. There are many tales of the losses on each side. Captain Caldwell reporting to Major De Peyster, says: 'My lossess were very inconsiderable, one ranger killed and myself and two others wounded, and four Indians killed and eight wounded.' He estimated the American losses in killed and wounded at two hundred and fifty. Let me say right here that Crawford's army consisted of four hundred and eighty men, the finest marksmen in America.

"Being militiamen, they may have lacked in military consistency but they were not wanting in cool headed bravery, knowledge of Indian warfare and perfect marksmanship. They were not defeated nor demoralized. The only time of confusion was during the first few hours after the retreat commenced, when Indians and British opened a rapid fire in both front and rear. The fact that they fell back in two bodies one of ninety and the other of three hundred men, is evidence that they were not panic stricken and the enemy did not capture any except isolated parties and these isolations were probably due to Leo's disobedience of orders. The total loss of the Americans did not exceed seventy men and members of the troops even contended that they inflicted a heavier loss on the enemy than their own.

"Leet, a scout, (not the Major) who had afterward married a Dye, told his children many times that when Battle Island was first taken fifteen dead Indians were found; and he further said the next day he saw Girty riding back and forth among the Indians greatly excited while they were carrying away the dead and wounded. He also said that during the retreat when Butler's rangers and some mounted Indians were making dashes to cut out stragglers he saw three white men fall from their saddles who did not rise again. When the last dash was made near the Olentangy when Lieutenants Rose and Gunsaulus had placed a body of Americans in ambush and had sent out a few men to act as stragglers and decoy the foe, when the enemy came dashing up, he said in all his war experience he had never seen so many saddles emptied in so short a time. The last little fight so severly punished the enemy that they did not fire another shot at the main body but contented themselves with picking up stray parties.

" I do not know what percent of the Dye, Leet and Braden tales are exaggeration but I am sure that when the British and Indians undertook to retake the position they had lost that the unerring marksmen of the frontier did not send them back unpunished. Neither would they allow themselves to be hectored from daylight until two or three p. m. by an exulting foe and not occasionally empty a saddle. Crawford's men never admitted that they were defeated in battle and boasted that they would have made short work of the one thousand Indians, but it was the certainty of four hundred English bayonets and the boom of coming artillery that convinced them of the necessity of retreat.

''Another story I have heard is that in 1806 when the surveyors were busy laying off the lands of Wayne and Richland counties, Mrs. Hannah Crawford, widow of the colonel, visited the spot where her husband was burned and at that time there was no grass growing upon it. Her guide was Billy Crawford, said to be a nephew of her husband. My informant says she stayed over night with his grandmother, Mrs. Allison, in Harrison county, and a man by the name of McBride was her escort from there home.

"Another legend claims that friends and relatives of Colonel Crawford swore uncompromising revenge against every Indian who helped handle the fagots that tortured him and that they carried this oath out to the letter. That they were with Harmer, St. Clair and Wayne marking these Indians and shooting them at every opportunity and even made a hunt on the banks of the Sandusky for this bloody purpose. It is said the last one was shot in Holmes county in time of peace. Here is the Story :

"An Indian once came to a tavern in Killbuck, where under the influence of liquor he boasted that he was present at the burning of Colonel Crawford and said that after the Big White Chief had fallen that he and several other Indians jumped on him and cut his heart out and he had eaten a piece of the raw heart, and, smacking his lips, said it tasted good. Billy Crawford heard this boast and when the Indian left he followed him. Billy afterward admitted that he had killed him near Holmesville and buried the body and gun in a pile of stone. Years afterward the body was found, but such was the sympathy of the people for those who suffered from Indian outrages that nothing was ever thought about it.

"Society in those days had been worked up to a fearful spirit of revenge. Men had suffered under Indian outrages until their natures became fierce and drove out that high sense of human love taught by the Savior, and they went forth, guns in their hands, to hunt and shoot Indians as though they were wolves or bears."

The Zeimer Massacre

At the northern limit of Blackfork settlement in the year 1812 there lived a Pennsylvania German named Martin Ruffner. The Ruffner cabin stood about a mile northwest of Mifflin and about a half mile west of Staman sawmill on the Ruffner run. Ruffner had in his employ a German boy who is known by the historical sobriquet of "Billy Bunting."'

The Zeimer cabin was further down the valley and nearer the old Indian village of Greentown. The cabin stood on an elevation near a fine spring of pure water and a clear babbling stream. All was forest then except the clearings in which the cabins stood. The Zeimer family at that time consisted of Frederick Zeimer and wife, their son Philip and their daughter Kate.

A few days after the burning of Greentown, a party of Indians was seen by Billy Bunting sitting on a log between the Ruffner and Zeimer cabins. They inquired if Ruffner and Philip were at home. Billy told them that Ruffner was at home and that Philip was at his home. The Indians started toward the Zeimer cabin, and Billy hastened to inform Ruffner what had transpired. Ruffner took his rifle and deployed around the Indians, reaching the Zeimer cabin in advance of the savages. A consultation was held. Philip suggested that he had better go and inform the settlers further down the valley and secure their assistance. Ruffner first objected to this, thinking that if Philip remained and they were attacked they could kill the savages themselves. Finally, it was agreed that Philip should go and inform James Copus, John Lambright and other settlers of the approach of the Indians and ask them to return with him. As the settlers lived several miles apart, it took Philip some time to make the trip. As the Indians were afraid of Ruffner, it was not thought they would attack the family while he was there.

Soon after Philip had left the house the Indians arrived, and seemed surprised at finding Ruffner there. The Indians had frequently been at Zeimer's, especially Kanotche, who had tried to shoot Philip the day before, claiming he was shooting at a bear. The savages seemed sullen, evincing that their call was not a friendly one. For some time a desultory conversation was held at intervals, but finally the actors to the impending tragedy sat and eyed each other in silence, conflicting emotions, no doubt, passing through the mind of each. Ruffner, the valiant German, sat like a Trojan soldier between the helpless family and their savage foes. They seemed to suspect the cause of Philip 's absence, and would cast glances at each other and then at Ruffner, who had his eyes riveted upon them, watching them closely.

Finally, when suspense could be bourne no longer, the Indians sprang to their feet with a yell of demoniacal fury, and made a rush at the brave Ruffner, who shot his foremost assailant dead, and clubbing his rifle, felled another prostrate to the floor. As he struck at the third, he accidently hit the stock of his rifle against a joist, and the Indians, taking advantage of the mishap, fired upon him, two shots taking effect, either of which would of itself have been fatal. They dragged the body of the dying man into the yard, and inhumanly removed his scalp ere he expired.