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M. U
GENEAL.03Y COLLECTION
/^^(uxJLJ^A^^^
A Standard History
of
Williams County^ Ohio
An" Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Educational, Civic and Social Development
Prepared under the Editorial Supervision of
HON. CHARLES A. BOWERSOX
Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors
VOLUME I
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1920
PREFACE '^'^
"A study and survey of the county in its historical, institutional,,
economic and social elements and activities is the primary object of this
work." The prospectus issued when the work was first proposed con-
tained these words with a general and somewhat more detailed outline of
contents.
In process of fulfilment the work has been in the hands of experienced
and able writers, and in placing "a Standard History of Williams County"
before the citizens the publishers can conscientiously claim that they have
carried out the plan as outlined in the prospectus.
In the "Editorial Announcement" Judge Bowersox said: "As editor
my task will be to direct the collection of all historical material that
should have a permanent place in the historical records of this county
and to insure as far as possible an impartial and accurate treatment of
this material according to the outline herein proposed." The publishers
acknowledge the invaluable aid extended by him and his advisers to insure
the success and worthy character of the undertaking. The chief labors
of collecting and compiling the general history devolved upon Mr. R. L.
Whitson, a veteran newspaper man and author. While the final judges
and critics of the work are the citizens of Williams County, the publishers
have the gratification of knowing, before the books are issued from the
press, the favorable editorial estimate placed on the work of the historian
by Judge Bowersox, who in a letter and opinion on the manuscript says :
"I have looked over his manuscript, the subjects as he has presented them,
the quotations he has made, the information he has obtained, and the
manner of his presentation in the manuscript. I am clearly of the opinioa
that he has excelled in the care with which he has presented his Views
and the information he has gained. I think he has taken up the town-
ships, the villages, the cities and all matters that ought to be very valuable
in a history of this kind. He has presented the matter in paragraphs or
chapters, and in such a way as that the same will be very acceptable to
the people and very attractive to its readers. While I am not intending
to exceed the ordinary statements which I ought to make, I feel confident
that I may with no impropriety, but with perfect propriety, commend
the work of the gentleman, and I feel confident that when the books are
published they will meet the very best approval of our citizens. He has
been careful not to offend, or to treat one community to the exclusion
of another, but in every respect has done his work with unusual fidelity."'
Charles Bowersox.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Under the French and British Rule 1
CHAPTER n
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 12
CHAPTER HI
The Revolutionary Period 27
CHAPTER IV
Simon Girty and His Brothers 39
CHAPTER V
The Harmar and St. Clair Campaigns 50
CHAPTER VI
The Campaign of "Mad Anthony" Wayne 65
CHAPTER VII
Fallen Timbers and the Greenville Treaty.
CHAPTER VIII
Ohio Becomes a State 96
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
A Year of Disasters 107
CHAPTER X
A Year of Victories 121
CHAPTER XI
Ohio-Michigan Boundary Dispute 139
CHAPTER XII
The Passing of the Red Man 155
CHAPTER XIII
The Prehistoric Age 184
CHAPTER XIV
In the Lap of a Century 190
CHAPTER XV
From Savagery to Civilization 198
CHAPTER XVI
The Temple of Justice in Williams County 205
CHAPTER XVII
Official Roster of Williams County 215
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER XVIII
The Bench and the Bar in Williams County 221
CHAPTER XIX
Agriculture, Willlams County's Oldest Occupation 227
CHAPTER XX
Dairy Farming and Agriculture 237
CHAPTER XXI
Williams County Agricultural Associations 242
CHAPTER XXII
Supplemental Williams County Farm Organizations 246
CHAPTER XXIII
Co-operative Live Stock Shipping Survey 253
CHAPTER XXIV
The House of the Lord in Williams County 256
CHAPTER XXV
The Sunday School in Williams County 266
CHAPTER XXVI
Educational Opportunities in Williams County 268
CHAPTER XXVII
The Newspapers in Williams County 280
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVIII
Transportation, Commerce and Manufacturing in Williams
County 291
CHAPTER XXIX
The Evolution of the Highway in Williams County 301
CHAPTER XXX
Finance — Wealth of Williams County Today 306
CHAPTER XXXI
The Evolution of the Postal System in Williams County 309
CHAPTER XXXII
Temperance Movements That Have Touched Williams County. 313
CHAPTER XXXIII
The Williams County Home 320
CHAPTER XXXIV
The "Medicine Man" in Williams County 322
CHAPTER XXXV
Williams County Fire Fighters 327
CHAPTER XXXVI
Secret Orders in Williams County 330
CHAPTER XXXVII
Public Utilities in Williams County 333
CONTENTS K
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Musical Life of Williams County 336
CHAPTER XXXIX
Williams County in the Wars 341
CHAPTER XL
The Intellectual Life of Williams County 353
CHAPTER XLI
Left-Over Stories — The Omnibus Chapter 362
CHAPTER XLII
Northwest Township and Columbia 379
CHAPTER XLIII
Bridgewater Township and Bridgewater Center 383
CHAPTER XLIV
Madison Township, Pioneer and Kunkle 386
CHAPTER XLV
Millcreek Township, Alvordton and Hamer 389
CHAPTER XLVI
Florence Township and Edon 391
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER XLVII
Superior Township and Montpelier 394
CHAPTER XLVni
Jefferson Township and West Jefferson 399
CHAPTER XLIX
Brady Township and West Unity 401
CHAPTER L
St. Joseph Township and Edgerton 404
CHAPTER LI
Center Township and Williams Center 407
CHAPTER LH
Pulaski Township, Pulaski and Bryan 410
CHAPTER LHI
Springfield Township and Stryker 414
CHAPTER LIV
Yesterday and Today in Williams County 417
CHAPTER LV
God's Acre — ^Williams County Cemeteries 429
INDEX
."Advance, The," I, 289
Aerial mail service, I, 310
Agricultural Association, Williams
County, I, 243
Agricultural associations, 1, 242
Agriculture, I, 227
Air Line Railroad, I, 294; I, 415
Airship at the Homecoming (illustra-
tion, I, 299
Airships, I, 298
Allison, Byron, II, 309
Allman, John, II, 227
Alspaugh, J. E,, II. 66
Alvord, H. D.. I, 290
Alvordton, I, 389 ; mail service, I, 310
Alvordton Farmers' Exchange, I, 2S4
"Alvordton News," I, 290
"Alvordton Progress." I, 290
Alwood, R. R., I, 322
Ames, Albert W., II, 347
Ames, Charles R., II, 344
Anderson, James, I, 273
Andre (Major), Capture of (illustra-
tion), I, 195
An eccentric in Jefferson Township, I,
365
An incident gleaned from an old church
book, I, 262
Antebellum educational institution, I, 273
Anti-saloon League, I, 318
Arctic Shipping Association, I, 255
"Ariel," I, 286
Armstrong mower, I, 231
Arnold, John P., II, 388
Arnold, Joseph P., II, 61
Arnold Post No. 284, I, 350
Arrowsmith, William, I, 207
Auditorium, Bryan (illustration), I, 412
Auditors, I, 218
Augustine, Daniel, II, 300
Automobile Club, I, 304
Automobiles, I, 298
Bachelors, tax on, I, 370
Back, Albert W., I, 322
Baker, Randolph, II, 175
Ball park, Bryan, I, 244
Banks, I, 307
Baptists, The. I, 261
"Barometer, The," I. 280
Barrett, Cyrus, I, 367; I, 386
Barstow, C. M., I, 322
Bates, Joseph, I, 401
Batterson, Hiram E., II, 97
Battle flags, I, 346
Battles of Maumee (map), I, 83
Bayes, Henry, II, 306
Bayview Reading Circle, Bryan, I, 358
Beach, Carl, II, 169
Beach, Fred E., II, 261
Bean Creek, I, 400 ; I, 404
Bear, I. 367 ; I, 372
Bear story, Hamilton Township, I, 364
Bear were numerous in the early days
(illustration). I, 374
Beaubice. I, 383
Beaver Creek, I, 400
Bechtol, Evans, I, 348
Bee trees, I, 367 ; I, 391
Beek, Frederick W., H, 384
"Beer cellar hill," I, 314
Beerbower, J. C, II, 138
Beerbower, Jesse W., II, 106
Behne, William, I, 220 ; I, 285
Bell, James A., II, 295
Bench and Bar in Williams County, I,
221
Benner, George M., II, 118
Benner, W. W.. II, 333
Bennett. Orlando, I, 220
Besancon. Alfred F., H, 335
Beyerle, Nellie T., I, 355
Biddle, Glen, II, 123
Bill-covered building, old jail in Bryan
(illustration), I, 212
Billings, William, I, 380
Billingstown, I, 382
Binns, T. Eliel, II, 6
Birdseve view. West Unity (illustra-
tion), I. 402
Blair, Franklin, II, 232
Blair, Wilson. II, 235
Blaker, Thomas H., I, 281
Blakeslee cemetery, I. 433
Blakeslee Co-operative Shipping Asso-
ciation, I, 255
Blakeslee ; mail service, I, 310
Blakeslee, Schuyler E., I, 220
Bloom, C. A., II, 121
Bloom, George G., 11, 120
Blosser, J. E.. II, 289
Blue, Dayton M., II, 99
INDEX
Bohner, C. J., II, 256
Boone, C. H., II, 14
Boone, Daniel, I, 31
Boone Lumber Company, I, 397
Boothman, Melvin M., I, 220
"Border Alliance," I, 287
Border difficulties, I, 202
Bordner, Ralph L„ II, 235
Bostater, Thos. R:, II, 221
Boundary dispute, I, 139
Boundary stone ( illustration), I, 202
Bowen, Charles L., II, 94
Bowen, O. H., II, 117
Bowersox, Charles A., I, 214; I, 220;
I, 404; II. 397
Bowersox, J. E., II, 205
Bowersox, John W., 11, 204
Boyer, Charles E., II, 197
Boynton cemetery, I, 433
Boynton, Horace D., II, 85
Boy scouts, I, 371
Bradstreet expedition, I, 24
Bradstreet, John, I, 24
Brady Farmers' Co-operative Company,
I, 253
Brady Township, I, 401
Brandon, Elsworth P., II, 195
Brandon, Thomas, II, 196
Brannan, Harvey J., II, 359
Bratten, William D., II, 241
Bridgewater Center, I, 383
Bridgewater Township, I, 383
Brim, George A., II, 101
Brim, J. M., II, 345
Briner, I. K., I, 395
British claims, I, 2
Brognard, Ulysses P., II, 187
Brown, Aaron C, II, 342
Brown cemetery, I, 433
Brown, Eli, II, 373
Brown, Harvey P., II, 39
Brule, Etienne, I, 6
Bruns, P. M., II, 8
Bruns, H. P., II, 8
Brunswick, The, I, 370
Brush Creek, I, 389
"Brush Creek Herald," I, 287
Bryan, I, 410; I, 411 ; county seat, I, 206;
naming of, I, 207 ; court first convened
at, I, 207; first school teacher, I, 209;
first house in, I, 209; first courthouse,
I, 210; first schoolhouse in, I, 271 ; first
postmaster, I, 309 ; mail service, I,
310; fire department, I, 328; water
supply, I, 363 ; wild gooseberries on
the streets of, I, 363; first tavern in,.
I, 370; hotels, I, 370; water system, I,
411
Bryan Auditorium, I, 278; (illustra-
tion), I, 412
Bryan ball park, I, 244
Bryan band, I, 339
Bryan, before the days of automobiles
(illustration), I, 427
Bryan Business Men's Association, I, 412
"Bryan Democrat," I, 285
Bryan, Eliza Ann, I, 206
Bryan, John A., I, 206; I, 410
Bryan Manufacturing Company, I, 413
Bryan Normal School, I, 274
Bryan noted corner (illustration), I,
303
Bryan Pattern and Machine Company,
I, 413
Bryan "Press," I, 283
Bryan Show Case Company, I, 412
Bryan Woman's Federation, I, 321
Buckeye Corners, I, 388
Bucklen's Arnica Salve, I, 297
Buell, Frank L, II, 266
Bunce, Emery, II, 231
Burke, Edmund, I, 167
Burke, The, I, 370
Burkhart, Prank, II, 216
Burkhart, Joseph, II, 16
Burning Colonel Crawford, I, Zl
"Business Bulletin, The," I, 283
Butler, Charles, I, 206
Byall, Howard M., II, 131
Cabots, The, I, 2
Calvin, Emmet E., II, 43
Calvin, Harry B., II, 42
Calvin, Ora E., II, 290
Cameron, M. M., II, 82
Campbell Lumber Company, I, 413
Campbell, W. D., II, 183
Capital of Ohio, locating of, I, 205
"Capture of Major Andre," I, 197; (il-
lustration), 195
Carlin, Edmond C, II, 51
Carnation Literary Club, West Unity, I,
359
Carnegie library, Bryan, I, 353; (illus-
tration), I, 354
Carolus, O. W, II, 276
Carter, Francis M., I, 220
Carter's Corner, I, 302
Cartier, I, 2
Carvin, Theodore S., I, 220
Case, Charles, I, 282
Case, John, I, 391
Casebere. Wesley, II, 19
Cass, Lewis, I, 110
Castor, George Z., II, 98
Caulkins, Daniel, I, 355
Celeron, I, 15
Cemeteries, I, 429
Census reports, I, 192 ~|
Center Township, I, 407
Centralized school, I, 278 ' '
Ceremonies, Indian, I, 180
Champlain, Samuel de, I, 3
Chance, Mahlon, I, 315
INDEX
Chaney, Chas. W., II, 317
Charles E. Arnold Post No. 284, I, 3S0
Charpiot, Leon P., II, 137
"Christian Messenger," I, 287
Christman, Rolland J., II, 353
Christman, The, I, 370
Christy, John W., II, 301
Churches, I, 256
Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw Rail-
road, I, 296
Cincinnati Northern Railroad, I, 296
Civic Club, Montpelier, I, 321
Civil war, soldiers of, I, 344
Clark, Byron W., II, 78
Clark, Chester T., II, 273
Clark, George R., I, 31
Clark, Harley R, II, 93
Claudon, Daniel H., II, 160
Clear Creek, I, 381
Clearwater Fork, I, 387
Clemens, Clifford, II, 38
Clerk of the court, I, 217
Clinton airtight cookstove, I, 404
Cold winter, I, 365
Columbia, I, 382
Comer, Cornelia A. P., I, 355
Commerce, I, 291
Commissioners, I, 218
Common pleas court. Judges of, I, 215
Congressmen from Williams County, I,
220
Connin, John, I, 340
Constitutional Convention, first in Ohio,
I, 194; I, 203; second and third, I,
203
Cook, C. C, II, 186
Cook, Isaac E., II, 272
Cook, Lyman O., II, 92
Co-operative Livestock Shipping and
Marketing Association, I, 243
Co-operative livestock shipping survey,
I, 253
Copeland, Frank. II, 91
Corduroy road, I, 303
Cornell, John, I, 272
Cornerstone, courthouse. I. 214
Corn (illustration), I, 418
Corn pone, I, 418
Corn shocks, I. 232
Corn, seed famine, I, 249
Coroners, I, 219
Country Life Club (illustration), I, 247
County agent, I, 248
County commissioners. I, 218
County fair of today, Williams County,
I, 244
County fairs, I, 244
County government, I, 215
County jail, I, 212
County officers, I, 217
County seat, locating of, I, 206; at
Bryan, I, 206
Coureurs de bois, I, 4; (illustration), I, S
Courthouse, built of brick, I, 211; sec-
ond building, I, 211; wrecking of old,
I, 213; present, I, 213
Courthouse fight, I, 206
Courts, first in county, I, 223
Cows in pasture (illustration), I, 240
Cox, James, I, 278
Crawford, Frank C, II, 316
Crawford (Colonel), torture and death
of, I, Z7
Crawford, William, I, 34
Crimes, I, 224
Crocker, Volney, I, 209; I, 411
Culbertson, Ernest E., II, 60
Cummins, Nelson, II, 284
Curl, George R.. II, 288
Custar, George W., II, iZ
Custer, B. E., II, 125
Dairy farming, I, 237; I, 390
Dairy herd (illustration), I, 238
Daniels hotel, I. 370
Day, John T., II, 313
Daylight saving, I, 292
de Champlain, Samuel, I, 3
Deer, I, 367 ; I. 375 ; I, 394
Deer Lick, I, 311
Deer shooting contest, I, 407
Defiance Moraine. I, 186
Deisler, Joseph, II, 190
de La Salle, Chevalier, I, 3
Delawares. I, 6; I, 12
Delphian Club. Montpelier, I, 258
"Democrat Standard," I, 281
Denman. Elisha G., I, 220
Denman, William M., I, 220; II, 142
Denmark, first school in, I, 272
Deucher, E. M., I, 345
Devore. J. A., II, 369
Dick, George F., II, 371
Dietsch, Charles A., II, 245
Dietsch, Henry, II, 255
Dirigible, relation of to Williams
County, I, 298
Distilleries of years ago. I, 314
Dixon, Samson, II, 206
Dodge, Mary M., I, 355
Doty, David, II. 206
Doty, Eli, II, 205
Drainage. I, 303
Dudley massacre, I. 130
Dunlap, WilHam M., II, 80
Dustin, C. Rome, II, 129
"Eagle, The," I, 283
Earliest Methodist county, I, 263
Early day household utensils (illustra-
tion), i. 198
Early schools. I. 268
Early school teachers, I, 272
East side courthouse square, 1869, Bryan
(illustration), I, 213
INDEX
Eckis, Lucy H., I, 323
Edgerton, Alfred P., I, 206; I, 220; I,
405
Edgerton, mail service, I, 310; hotels,
I, 370
"Edgerton Earth," I, 289
"Edgerton Herald," I, 288
Edgerton Milling Company, I, 406
Edgerton street scene (illustration), I,
405
"Edgerton Weekly," I, 288
Edon, I, 391 ; I, 392 ; mail service, I, 310
Eden and Florence Township cemetery,
I, 433
"Edon Advertiser," I, 289
Edon Farmers' Co-operative Company,
1, 255
Edon street scene (illustration), I, 392
Educational opportunities in Williams
County, I, 268
Ehrmin, John A., II, 325
Ehrmin, Wyatt S., II, 146
Elkhart Stamping and Tool Company,
I. 397
Elliott, George P., II, 184
Elliott, Matthew, I, 39
Ellis, Henry W., II, 13
England's claims. I, 2
Epidemics, I, 325
Equal rights, I, 282
Essi, Roger, II, 337
Evans, E. J., I. 345
Evans Post, G. A. R., I, 348
Ewan, O. E., II, 367
Ewing, Orlando, II, 174
Exchange, The, I, 370
Exemplary church years ago, I, 262
Faber, Jacob A., II, 90
Fair grounds. I. 435
Family Visitor. The. I, 282
Farlee, George W., II, 214
Farlee. Samuel. II. 349
Farm Bureau, I, 243; I, 248; roster, I,
252
Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Com-
pany, I. 413
Farmers' institutes. I. 252
Feildner, Carl G., I, 248; tribute to, I,
250
Felger. William. II. 26
Fever of 1838, I, 324
Fickle, Benjamin. I, 342
Figgins, Clinton O., II, 315
Finance. I, 306
Fire department, Bryan, I, 328
Fire fighters, I. 327
First court of Williams County, I. 223
First courthouse, I, 210
First destructive fire in Bryan, I, 329
First election, I. 414
First Grange in Williams County, I, 247
First postmaster in Bryan. I, 309
First tavern in Bryan. I, 370
First territorial legislature, I, 97
Fish creek, I. 404
Fisher, B. H., I, 345
Fisher, John P., II, 298
Fisher, William W., II, 381
Five Nations, I, 7
Fix, Edward L., II. 141
Fix, Henry D., II, 387
Flickinger, Frank C. II. 20
Floral Grove cemetery, West Unity, I,
433
Florence Township, I, 391
Forestry, I, 425
Fort Defiance, I, 75 ; I, 206 ; as it appears
today, I, 76
Fort Industry, I, 102
Fortnightly Study Club, I, 358
Fort Meigs, I. 123; 1, 132; 1812 (illus-
tration), I, 124
Fort Miami. I, 4; I. 85; as it is today
(illustration), I, 85
Fort Recovery. I, 64
Fort Sandoski, I, 14
Fort Stephenson, I. 133
Foster, Edward, I, 220
Fountain City Band. I. 339
"Fountain City News, The," I, 283
Fountain City House, The, 1, 370
Fountain Grove cemetery, I. 430; I, 432
Fountain Grove mausoleum, I, 432
Franklin Vigilance Committee, I, 46
Frappier, Edward. II, 84
Fraternal societies. I. 330
Frazier, F. M., I, 322
French cemetery. I, 433
French claims. I, 2
French trails, I. 301
"Frost is on the pumpkin and the fod-
der's in the shock" (illustration), I,
231
Frosts, I, 234
"Fuddletown." I, 384
Fusselman, Elnora E.. II. 354
ke. Charles A., II, 321
'ke, Wilbur M., II, 58
Gardner. Curtis D.. II. 4
Gardner. William H.. II, 72
Garver. John A.. I. 435
Garver. M. D., I. 435
Garver Park Gateway, Bryan (illustra-
tion), I, 435
Gateway to Garver Park, Bryan (illus-
tration), I. 435
Cause Manufacturing Company. Mont-
pelier. I. 397
"Gazette. The." I. 284
Gearhart. Jacob W.. II. 285
Geauque. E. A., II. 394
Gentit, George F., II, 121
INDEX
Geology, I, 184
Gibbs, W. A. L.. 11, 274
Girty, Simon, I, 39
Girty's Island, I, 39
Gist, Christopher, I, IS
Glacial periods, I, 184
Glacier grooves, I, 185
Goll, George F., Sr, II, 350
Goll, Henry L., I, 220
Good Templars, I, 316
Goodwin, Aaron B., I, 379
Gooseberriees, I, 363
Gordon, Leroy M., II, 182
Government, county, I, 215
Graetz, Herold A., II, 179
Grand Army of the Republic, I, 348
Grange, I, 243 ; I, 246
Grannis, Francis W., II, 155
Greek, Joseph, II, 230
Greenville treaty, signatures to (illustra-
tion), I, 91
Grisier, Wendell P., II, 310
Groff, Lewis E., II, 208
Grose, Orville U., II, 292
Gump, Frank, II, 281
Guthrie, James, I, 242; I, 379; I, 404;
I, 414.
Guthrie, Rachel, I, 414
Gymnasium, I, 278
Hagerty, Blair, I, 220
Haines, Lewis E., II, 199
Haines, Walter L., II, 211
Hamer, I, 389
Hamilton County in 1792 (map), I, 66
Hamilton Township bear story, I, 364
Harding, Warren G., I, 305
Harmar and St. Clair campaigns, I, 50
Harmar, Josiah, I, 54
Harris Line, I, 145
"Harris Line," 1834. I, 140
Harrison Boulder, I, 185
Harrison, William H., I, 98; I, 105; (il-
lustration), I, 113
Harter, William M., II, 361
Hathaway, Albert, I, 322; II, 193.
Hathaway, Calvin, II, 12
Hause, Albert C, II, 135
Hause. Charles E., II, 133
Haviland, Ward G., II, 164
Hawkins, Alpheus, II, 75
Hawkins, William, II, 75
Heidley, August, I, 372
Held, Fred, II, 220
Heller (W. C.) Company, I, 397
Heller, John B., II, 254
Heller. William C. II. 253
High School. Bryan (illustration). I, 272
High School, Edgerton (illustration), I,
High School, Edon (illustration), I, 270
High School, Pioneer, 1, 277
High schools, I, 275
Highway, evolution of, I, 301
Hillis, Abigail, I. 270
Hiram Louden Post, G. A. R., I, 347
Hodson, John M.. II. 88
Hodson. Martin T., II, 10
Hogue, Warren L., II, 293
Hole, Harry W., II, 181
Hollington, John A.. II, 264
Holton, Samuel, I, 404
Home Culture Club, Edgerton, I, 359
Horsethief society, I, 246
Hospitals, I, 326
Hotel Burns, I, 370
Hotel Jefferson, I, 370
Hotels: Bryan, 1, 370; Montpelier, I,
370: Edgerton, I, 370
Houlton, Jessie H.. II. 12
Houlton. Leland S., II, 12
Howard, George H., II, 328
Howe, Henry, I, 212; I, 259
Hull, William, I, 108
Hunter, S. L.. I, 284
Hunter, William A., I, 282
Hurons, I, 12
Illustrations : Coureur de bois, I, 5 ; In-
dians in canoes. I. 13; Pontiac. I, 18;
Torture and death of Colonel Craw-
ford. I. 37 ; Maumee towns destroyed
by General Harmar. I. 55 ; Major Gen-
eral Arthur St. Clair, I. 59 ; Major
General Anthony Wayne. I, 69; Gen-
eral Wayne's route along the Maumee,
I, 71 ; Fort Defiance as it appears to-
day. I. 76; Fort Miami as it is today,
I. 85 ; Signatures to the Greenville
treaty, I, 91; Little Turtle, I, 94; Te-
cumseh, I, 104 ; General William
Henry Harrison. I, 113; Fort Meigs,
1812. I. 124 ; Goodbye to the old hunt-
ing grounds, I, 156; Indians and pio-
neers, I, 158; Indian arrowheads, I,
162; Indian portage, I, 165; Wigwams,
I, 175 ; Capture of Major Andre, I,
I 195 ; Pioneer fireplace, showing early
I day household utensils, I, 199 ; Boun-
dary stone, I, 202 ; Williams County
courthouse, I, 204 ; Pioneer woodchop-
per, I. 209; Old courthouse. I, 210;
Bill-covered building, old jail in
Bryan. I. 212; East side Courthouse
Square. 1869. Bryan. I. 213; Pioneer
cabin. I. 227; Old-time rail fences. I,
229: Threshing scene. I, 230; "The
frost is on the pumpkin and the fod-
der's in the shock," I, 231 ; Dairy
herd, I, 238 ; Cows in pasture, I, 240 ;
Williams County Country Life Club, I,
247; Williams County foremost in
poulry production, I, 249 ; Tractor plow,
I, 254; West Unity schoolhouse, 1874,
I, 269; High school, Edon, I, 271;
INDEX
High school, Bryan. I. 272; High
school, Edgerton, I, 275; Public school,
Stryker, I, 276; High school, Pioneer,
I, 277 ; The airship at the Homecoming,
I, 299; One-time the most noted cor-
ner in Bryan, I, 303; Hiram Louden
Post No. 155, G. A. R., I, 347; Car-
negie Library, Bryan, I, 353; Wolves
were the menace of the settlers, I, 368 ;
"Where are the wolves and the dogs ?"
I, 369; Bear were numerous in the
early days, I, 374; Rattlesnakes
abounded in pioneer times, I, 384;
Wild turkey plentiful and costing
nothing but shot, I, 387; Street scene,
Pioneer, I, 388; Street scene, Edon, I,
392; Street scene, Montpelier, I, 396;
Birdseye view. West Unity, I, 402;
Street scene, Edgerton, 1. 405; Re-
clamation of swamp land, I, 408; Au-
ditorium, Bryan, I, 412; Street scene,
Stryker, I, 414; Corn, I, 418; Pioneer
log cabin, I, 421 ; "When there were
no automobiles in Bryan," I, 426;
Gateway to Garver Park, Bryan, I,
435.
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, I,
331
Indian arrowheads (illustration), I, 162
Indian captives, I, 165
Indian ceremonies, I, 180
Indian collection at Pioneer, I, 365
Indian Jim, Legend of, I, 362
Indian missions, I, 171
Indian portage (illustration), I, 165
Indian relics, I, 365
Indian traders, I, 9
Indian trails, I, 301
Indian treaties, I, 178
Indian tribes, I, 12
Indians and pioneers (illustration), I,
158
Indians: Wyandots, Delawares, Shaw-
nees, I, 6; Senecas, Iroquois, I, 7;
Miamis, Wyandots, Hurons, Iroquois,
Delawares, Ottawas, Sioux, Senecas,
Shawnees. I, 12; total number of in
Ohio, I, 155; passing of, I. 155; re-
moved to reservations, I, 181.
Indians in canoes (illustration), I, 13
Indians leaving "old hunting grounds"
(illustration). I, 156
Ingram, John S., II, 35
Intellectual life, I, 353
Interchurch World movement, I. 258
Interchurch World religious survey, I,
256
Iroquois, I, 7; I, 12
Isenhart. David W., II. 189
Jail. old. in Brvan (illustration), I, 212
Jefferson, I, 399
Jefferson Hotel, I, 370
Jefferson Township. I. 399
Jerger. George, II. 226
Jesuit Fathers, I, 4
Johnson, Charles W., II, 332
Johnson, Elmer S., I, 251 ; II, 395
Johnson. Emory O., II, 191
Johnson, Solomon, I. 220; I, 355
Joice, George, II, 236
Toliet, Louis. I, 3
Jordan, Daniel M., I, 383
Joy, G. R., I, 387
Judges, common pleas court, I, 215
Junction road, I, 293
"June frost," I, 234
Juvenile court, I, 217
Kaiser, John G., II, 383
Kaiser, Samuel D., II, 222
Kansas. I, 407
"Kant-Break-'Em-Toys," I, 397
Kaufman. John, I. 207
Keiser, Ora A., II, 100
Keller, Frank J., II, 242
Kelley, Abbie B., I, 372
Kelly Construction Company, I, 413
Kenton, Simon, I, 31 ; I, 44
Kiess. David T., II, 251
Kimble Cheese Factory, Pulaski Town-
ship, I, 365
Kimmell, J. B., I, 271
Kintigh. Grant S., II, 22
Kissell, John G., I, 282
Kissinger, Samuel J., II, 244
Knabenshue, A. Roy. I. 298
Knapp, Horace S.. I, 333
Knecht, Franklin, II, 23
Knepper, Guy H.. II, 149
Knepper, William H., II, 352
Knight, James, I, 381
Knights of Pythias, I, 331
Knipe, Malinda, I, 414
Koch, Frank, I, 320
Koch, Oscar F., II, 104
Krider, A. L., II. 279
Krill, Henry, II, 286
Kunkle, I, 388
Kunkle, mail service, I, 310
Kunkle Farmers' Co-operative Associa-
tion, I, 253
Kunkle. Levi B.. II, 62
Kurtz, William M., II, 17
Ladies' Historical Society, I, 358
Lafayette, I, 410
Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, I, 294
Lake Shore Line free ride to Toledo
on, I, 295
Lake Shore Railroad, first conductor on,
I, 295
Land values, I. 232
Landmark tree, I. 388
INDEX
Landon, Theron, I, 389
Lane, Ebenezer. I, 216
Lantz, Frank, II, 343
Lantz, Fred, II, 358
La Salle, I, 3
Law library. I, 226 ; I, 353
Leatherwood Creek, I. 400
Leavy, John A., II, 73
Lees, Fay E., II, 211
Lees, Zeph, II, 96
Legal profession, I, 221
Legend of Indian Jim, I, 362
Leland, Erastus H., I, 220
Leslie, Dwight O., II, 54
Lesnet, George W.. II, 282
Letcher. William. I, 220
Leu, Del A., II, 373
Lewis, Samuel, I, 404
Liberty bond sales, I, 306
Liberty Loan, I, 382
Lick Creek, I, 407
Lingle, Benjamin T., II, 225
Lingle, C. C, II, 173
Lingle, William C, II, 173
Little Turtle, I, 81; I, 94; I, 162; (illus-
tration), I, 94
Lockport, I, 401
Log cabin (illustration), I, 421
Log jail, I, 212
Lonabarger, William, II, 154
Long, Hiram, II, 258
Long, James W., I, 322
Long, John W., I, 322
Louden hotel. I. 370
Loutz, J. P., I, 243
Madison Township, I, 386
Makeshift sidewalk in Bryan, I, 364
Mammoth tree, I, 373
Maneval, William M., II, 52
Manning. Ora R., II, 128
Manufacturing, I, 291
Maple Lawn cemetery, Edgerton, I, 433
Maps: United States in 1783, I, 35;
United States, northwest of Ohio
River, 1787, I, 52; Military posts, etc.,
I. 56; Hamilton County in 1792, I, 66;
Battles of Maumee, I, 83; Wayne
County, organized 1796, I, 97; Ohio
counties, 1799, I, 98; Ohio counties,
1802, I, 100; "Harris Line," 1834, I,
140
Marquette, I, 4
Martin, John R., II, 329
Martin, Richard D., II, 165
Masons, I, 330
Mastodon, I, 187
Matthews, Thomas B., II, 243
Matthews, Wesley C, II, 263
Mauerhan, Arthur C, II, 260
Mauerhan. Gottlob C, Jr., II, 192
Maumee glacial lake, I, 186
Maumee towns destroyed by General
Harmar (illustration), I, 55
"Maumee Valley Prohibitionist, The,"
I, 286
Mayflower, I, 192
McCov, Wilton D„ II, 319
McCrillus, Marv, I, 270
McDaniels, Arv'illa, I, 394
McDaniels. Robert, I, 394
McGaw, Thomas, I, 315
McGill, Daniel W., II, 246
McGuire, M. C, II, 250
McKee, Alexander, I, 39
McKelvey, Hiram, II, 247
McTaggart, Daniel C, II, 57
Meigs, Return J., Jr., I, 108
Melbern, I, 407
Mettler, David J., II, 21
Metzler, Solomon, I, 271
Mexican war, soldiers of, I, 343
Miamis, I, 12; I, 160
Mick, J. R., I, 248
Mignin, Guy, II. 69
Mignin, Lewis P., II, 101
Military posts, etc. (map), I, 56
Milk, old-time market for, I, 365
Milk tests, I, 241
Mill Creek, I, 389
Millcreek Township, I, 389
Miller, G. M„ I, 262
Miller, H. Cortez, II, 49
Miller, James H., II, 379
Miller, John, II, 172
Miller, Levi, II, 33
Mills, Fred O., II, 218
Mineral baths, I, 416
Ministers' salary, I, 259
Mississippi Company, The, I, 27
Mitea, I. 383
Mizer, Frederick, I, 407
Montpelier, I, 395; claims for county
seat, I, 208 ; mail service, I, 310 ; ho-
tels, I, 370
Montpelier Civic Club, I, 321
Montpelier Commercial Association, I,
397
Montpelier Creamery, I, 397
"Montpelier Enterprise." I, 288
Montpelier Fair Association, I, 244
"Montpelier Leader," I. 289
Montpelier Library, I, 354
"Montpelier Republican." I, 289
Montpelier street scene (illustration),
I, 396
Moog, Charles W., II, 390
Mooney, George W., I, 220
Mooney. William, I, 220
Moore, David. I, 295
Moraines, I, 185
Morrison, Thomas S. C, I, 220
Morrison. T. S. C. I, 282
Morrow, Walter S., II, 145
INDEX
Moss, William, II, 229
Moundbuilders, I, 228
Mounds, I, 187
Mud, I, 302
Musical life of Williams County, I, 336
Mykrantz, Charles W., I, 274
Mykrantz Normal School, I, 274
Myers, Elias S., II, 110
Neff. Benjamin F., II, 63
Neff & Son, I, 413
Neil. James A„ II, 209
Nelson, John, I, 8
Nelson, John W., I, 220
Nettle Lake, I, 371 ; I. 381
Newcomer, A. Earl, II, 115
Newcomer, Melissa C, II, 308
Newcomer, Neri B., II, 308
Newspapers, I, 280
New York Central Railway Company,
I, 294
Nihart, John H., II, 249
Nihart, Orrin H., II, 236
Nihart, Walter K., II, 360
Nihart. William A., II, 2S0
Noble, Calvin L.. I, 220
Normal School, Williams Center, I, 273
Norrick, Elizabeth J., II, 349
Norris, A. F., I, 387; 11,339
Norris, Philetus W., I, 220
Northwest. I, 382
Northwest Township, I, 379
Northwestern Territory, I, 1
"Northwestern, The," I, 281
Number of churches in the county, I,
257
Oak Manufacturing Company, I, 406
Oberlin, Roy E., II, 68
O'Bryan, James T., II, 381
"Observer, The," I, 288
Official roster, first, Williams County,
I, 203
Official roster of county, I, 215
Ogle, Robert, I, 220
Ohio : becomes a state, I. 96 ; total num-
ber of Indians in, I, 155; first consti-
tutional convention. I, 194; first con-
stitutional convention, I, 203
Ohio Art Company, I. 413
Ohio Company. The. I. 27
Ohio controversy, I, 149
Ohio counties, 1799 (map), I. 98
Ohio counties, 1802 (map), I, 100
Ohio Gas Company, I, 335
Ohio-Michigan boundary. I. 201
Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute, I, 139
"Old Britain," I, 15
Old courthouse (illustration), I, 210
Oldfield, Hattie, I, 354
Old-time market for milk, I, 365
Old-time rail fences (illustration), I, 229
Olive Literary Society, I, 359
Olmstead, Henry E., II, 311
Ordinance of 1787, I, 96
Organization of county, I, 190
Original map of Williams County, I, 361
Orontony, I, 14
Orton, William T., II, 202
Ottawas, I, 12; 1, 160
Owen, Selwyn N., I, 216
"Parochialblatt," I, 286
Parochial school, I, 276
Partee, Alexander, I, 327
Passing of the Red Man, I, 155
Patrons of Husbandry, I, 246
Patton, Homer H., II, 330
Peck, Homer, II, 215
"People's Advocate," I, 288
Perkins, Isaac, I, 243
Perkins, John, I, 399
Perkins, Lewis T., II, 103
Perky, George W., I, 365
Peugeot, Carl E.. I, 372
Pew, Joseph, I, 394
Physicians, I, 322
Pilgrim Fathers, I, 192
Pioneer cabin '^illustration), I, 227
Pioneer, I, 386; mail service, I, 310; In-
dian collection at, I, 365 ; cemetery, I,
433
Pioneer Farmers' Exchange Company,
1,254
Pioneer fireplace, showing early day
household utensils (illustration), I, 199
Pioneer log cabin (illustration), I, 421
Pioneer schools, I, 270
Pioneer street scene (illustration), I, 388
Pioneer woodchopper (illustration), I,
209
Pioneers and Indians (illustration), I,
158
Piper, Ed, II, 116
Plank road, I, 303
Planson, Fred, II, 28
Planson, H. F., II, 55
Poast. Hezekiah. II. 44
"Political Abolitionist, The," I, 283
Pontiac, I, 17; (illustration), I, 18
Pontiac's conspiracy, I, 19
Poole, Harlan L., II, 259
Population in 1820, I, 191
Portage. Indian (illustration), I, 165
Postal system, I, 309
Pottawatomie village in Madison Town-
ship, I, 387
Poultry production (illustration), I, 249
Powell, Harriet. I. 271
Powers. Stephen A.. II, 240
Prehistoric age. I. 184
Prehistoric man, I. 187
Presbyterian church, I, 262
Press, I, 280 I
INDEX
"Press and Leader. The," I, 284
Pressler, Archibald, II, 151
Probate judge. I. 216
Probation officer, I, 217
Profit and Pleasure Club, Pioneer, I, 359
Progress Club of Bryan, I, 358
Progress Club. Pioneer, I. 359
Prosecuting attorneys, I, 216
Public utilities. I, 333
Pugh, F. H., I, 322
Pulaski, I, 410
Pulaski Farmers' Elevator Company, I,
255
Pulaski Mission, I, 262
Pulaski Township, I, 410
Quidort, Alva H., II, 374
Rabbit industry. I. 235
Rail fences. I. 230
Railroads, coming of, I, 291
Railway stations in Williams County, I,
299
Ramsey, Eva M., I, 280
Randefs, Harry W., II, 269
Rattlesnakes. I, 383
Rattlesnakes abounded in pioneer times
(illustration). I. 384
Reagle, J. A., II, 326
Reclamation of swamp land (illustra-
tion), I. 408
Recorders, I, 217
Red man, passing of, I, 155
Reed, Ella F.. II, 363
Reed, Stephen H., II, 363
"Republican Standard. The," I, 283
Revolutionary period, I, 27
Revolutionary soldier, I, 342
Reynolds, Franklin A., II, 336
Ridgway, H. E., II, 393
Riggs, J. U., I. 322
Riley, William E., II, 124
Rings, George C, II, 147
Rings Post. G. A. R.. I. 348
Rittenour, William. II, 77
Riverside cemetery, Montpelier, I, 433
Roads. I. 301 ; expenditure for, I, 305
Roe, Carleton S.. II. 332
Rogers, James A., I, 386
Roode. Charles A.. II. 112
"Running the gauntlet," I. 164
Rural free delivery. I, 309
Rural schools. I, 275
Ruth, The, I, 370
Salamonie Moraine. I, 186
Salter, W. A., I, 276
Sanford, Horace D.. II. 302
Sanford. Nathaniel B.. II, 386
Saunders, W. A., I, 274
Sawmill. I. 384
Schartzer, Leroy, II, 297
Schools, I, 268 ; first teacher in Bryan, I
209 ; superintendent of county, I, 220
subscription, I, 268 ; pioneer, I, 270
first in Denmark village, I, 272 ; popu-
lation. I, 274 ; survey of county, I, 274
number of in Williams County, I, 276
parochial. I, 276 ; accredited high
schools, I. 277 ; manual training and
domestic science, I, 278 ; first central-
ized public, Stryker, I, 415
Schoolhouse, description of pioneer, I,
273
Scott, Christ L.. II, 341
Scott, Hugh W., II. 368
Scott. William H., II. 303
Second Constitutional Convention, I, 203
Secret orders, I, 330
Seed-corn famine, I, 249
Seemans. John B.. I, 280
Senecas. I, 7 ; I, 12
Shaffer. David, II, 34
Shaffer, Silas, II. S3
Shakespeare Club. Bryan, I, 357
Sharp, Herbert, II, 270
Shaull. Charles E., II, 188
Shawnees. I. 6 ; I, 12 ; I, 159
Sheline. Eli R.. II. 65
Sheridan. William, I, 220
Sheriffs, I, 217
Sherwood, Isaac R., I, 220; I, 284; I, 345
Sherwood. Kate B., I. 355
Shinn, William H., I, 220 ; I, 289 ; I, 397 ;
11,24
Shook. C. F., II. 148
Shorthill tavern, I. 370
Shorthill, Thomas, I, 309
Shouf, Van Buren, I, 283
Siders, William E.. II, 157
Signatures to the Greenville treaty (il-
lustration). I. 91
Silcox. Charles M., II, 180
Simon, Carie O.. II. 376
Simon. Johann A., I. 271
Singer. David, I, 391
Sioux, I, 12
Six, Harry, I. 366
Sixth Regiment Band, I, 339
Sky Pilots. I. 261
Slaughter Post, G. A. R.. I, 348
Sloan, John W., II. 109
Slocum, Charles E., I, 187
Slough, J. F., II, 158
Smith, Daniel. I. 383
Smith hotel. I. 370
Smith. Malcolm, II, 277
Smith. Reuben J.. II, 391
Smith, William J., I, 272
Snyder. Alva E., I. 322 ; II, 40
Snyder, Jesse G., II, 108
Soldiers of Civil war, I, 344
Soldiers of 1812, I. 343
Soldiers of Mexican war, I, 343
INDEX
Soldiers of Spanish-American war, I,
349
Soldiers of World war, I, 349
Some attractive spots in Williams
County, I, 434
Some unexpected church visitors, I, 261
Southern Michigan & Northern Indiana
Railroad Company, I, 294
Spangler Manufacturing Company, I,
413
Spanish-American war, soldiers of, I,
349
Spanish claims, I, 1
"Spirit of the Age, The," I, 282
Sprague, Sidney S., I, 220
Springfield Township, I, 414
"Squatters," I, 242
St. Clair, Arthur (illustration), I, 59
St. Joseph River. I, 395
St. Joseph-St. Marys Moraine, I, 186
St. Joseph Township, I, 404
St. Joseph Valley Railroad, I, 297
Stahl, G. Grant, II, 126
"Star of the West, The," I, 283
"Star route frauds," I, 311
Star route mail carriers, I, 311
Star, The, I, 288
Starr, Emanuel W., II, 105
Starr, Oscar W., II, 168
Starr, Robert, I, 220
State Farmers' Institute, I, 32
State representatives from Williams
County, I, 220
State senators from Williams County, I,
220
Steele, William H., II, 233
Stenger, Edwin, II, 143
Stevens, W. A., I, 281
Stine & Son Lumber Company, I, 413
Stiving, Arthur L., II, 346
Stoddard, Elijah, I, 430
Stoddard, Israel, I, 272
Storrer Brothers Mill, I, 397
Stough, Henry W., I, 355
Strayer, Eli E., II, 48
Strayer, Emery E., II, 392
Street scene, Edgerton (illustration), I,
405
Street scene, Edon (illustration), I, 392
Street scene, Montpelier (illustration),
I, 396
Street scene. Pioneer (illustration), I,
388
Street scene, Stryker (illustration), I,
414
Stryker, I, 414; I, 415; mail service, I,
310; first centralized public schools, I,
415.
Stryker Boat Oar Lumber Company, I,
416
Stryker, John, I, 415
Stryker street scene (illustration), I, 414
Stryker Tile Factory, I, 416
Stryker Urban Power and Light Com*
pany, I, 416
Stubbs, John H., I. 338; I, 366
Sugar camp, I, 415
Sunday School Association, I, 266
Sunday schools, roster, I, 266
Superintendent of Williams County pub-
lic schools, I, 220
Superior Farmers' Co-operative Asso-
ciation Company, I, 254
Superior Township, I, 394
Surveyors, I, 219
Swamp land, reclamation of (illustra-
tion), I, 408
Swamps, I, 407
Taine Club, I, 353 ; I, 357
Tamarack swamps, I, 407
Tavern, first in Bryan. I, 370
Tax on bachelors, I, 370
Tax rate, I, 307
Taxable property, total valuation of, I,
307
Taxes, I, 306
Taylor, E. S., II, 255
Teachers, early, I, 272
Tecumseh, I, 129; (illustration), I, 104
Telegraph, I, 333
Telephone, I, 334
Temperance movements, I, 313
Temperance Society, I, 315
Temperance warfare, I, 317
Terminal moraines, I, 185
Territorial legislature, first, I, 97
Third Constitutional Convention, I, 203
Thompson, Charles W., II, 242
Thompson, William W., II, 365
Threshing scene (illustration), I, 230
Throne, H. A., II, 47
Thursby Exchange, I, 370
Tiffin River, I, 404; I. 415
Timber, I, 303; I, 423
"Tol-Chi" pike, I, 298
Toledo and Indiana Electric Railway,
I, 292; I, 335
Tomlinson, Walter S., 11, 29
Topography, I, 184
Torture and death of Col. Crawford
(illustration), I, Z1
Total number of Indians in Ohio, I, 155
Tractor, I, 235; I, 253
Tractor plow (illustration), I, 254
Traders, Indian, I, 9
Trails, I, 301
Transportation, I, 291
"Traveler's Home," I, 384
Traxler, Benjamin H., II, 167
Treasurers, I, 218
Treaty of Greenville. I, 90
Tree, mammoth, I, 373
INDEX
Tressler, A. J., I, 209 ; I, 271
Trevitt, Lucinda, I, 206
Trevitt, William, I, 206
Tribute to Carl G. Fieldner, I, 250
"Tri-State Alliance," I, 287
Troxel, Martin, II, 76
Truck service in Williams County, I, 298
Tubbs, F. A., I, 339
Tubbs' Municipal Band, I, 339
Tucker, Jesse, I, 395
Twentieth Century Club, Bryan, I, 358
Unger, Walter S., II, 139
Union Agricultural Society, I, 243
"Union Press," I, 284
United States in 1783 (map), I, 35
United States, northwest of Ohio River,
1787 (map), I, 52
"Unity Eagle," I, 287
Vail Cooperage Company, I, 413
Vail, Joseph M., II, 81
Valuation of taxable property, Williams
County, I, 307
Van Camp Packing Company, I, 237; I,
413
Van Fossen. Thomas S., II, 238
Van Wye Glove Company, I, 406
Van Wye, William E., II, 207
Varner, Martin 'W., II, 324
Vernier, E. E., II, 70
"Yidette, The," I, 286
Virginia claims, I, 32
Wabash and Erie Canal, I. 291
Wabash Railroad, I, 296 ; I, 396
Waggoner Talking Machine Company,
I, 397
Wallace, William D.. II, 161
Walt, Alice M., I, 354
Walt, Susan, I, 295
Walz, Jacob, II, 221
War of 1812, I, 107; soldiers of, I, 343
Wars, I, 341
Water supply in Bryan, I, 363
Water system, Bryan, I, 411
Waterston, Frank L., I, 220; II, 162
Watson, Frank N., II, 113
Wayne, Anthony, I, 65 ; (portrait) I, 69
Wayne County, organized 1796 (map),
I, 97
Wayne's route along the Maumee (illus-
tration), I, 71
W. C. Heller Company, I, 397
Wealth of Williams County, I, 306
Weaver, Grover, I, 360
Weaver, J. Arter, II, 3
Weaver, Rufus H., II, 379
Weber, George, II, 267
"W^eek's News, The," I, 290
Weidner, George W.. II. 323
Weigle, Weldon G., II, 355
Weigle, W. Wier, II, 355
Weitz, Joseph A., II, 200
Welcome to Bryan, I, 364
Wells, William, I, 11
Welsh, James, I, 271
Wertz, Harry W., II, 86
West Bethesda, I, 262
West Buffalo, I, 392
Weston, I, 392
West Unity, I, 401 ; claims for county
seat, I, 208; mail service, I, 310
West Unity, Birdseye view, I, 402
West Unity Library, I, 355
"West Unity Reporter," I, 287
West Unity School House, 1874 (illus-
tration), I, 269
Whaley, George W., II, 357
Wheat, I, 250
"When there were no automobiles in
Bryan" (illustration), I, 427
"Where are the wolves and the dogs?"
(illustration), I, 369
White, John B., II, ill
Whitney, Waldo P., II, 304
Wieland, Wesley J., II, 278
Wigwams (illustration), I, 175
Wilber, Olive, I, 354
Wild gooseberries on the streets of
Bryan, I, 363
Wild honey, I, 367
Wild turkey plentiful and costing noth-
ing but shot (illustration), I, 387
Willett, Meredith R., I, 220
William A. Waggoner Talking Machine
Company, I, 397
William Cullen Bryant Thursday Club,
I, 359
Williams, A. O., II, 212
Williams, Byron S., II, 129
Williams Center, I, 407 ; Normal School,
I, 273
Williams Countv: organization of, I,
190; named for, I, 195; first official
roster, I, 203; official roster of, I, 215;
in the wars, I, 341 ; original map, I,
361 ; first election, I, 414
Williams County Agricultural Associa-
tion, I, 243
Williams County Automobile Club, I, 304
Williams County Court House (illustra-
tion), I, 204
"Williams Countv Democrat," I, 281 ;
I, 283
Williams County Fair, I. 244
Williams County Fair Grounds, I, 244;
I, 435
Williams County Farm Bureau, I, 248
Williams County foremost in poultry
production (illustration), I, 249
"Williams County Gazette," I, 283
Williams County Home, I, 320
Williams County "Leader," I, 284
INDEX
Williams County Country Life Club
(illustration), I, 247
Williams County Medical Society, I, 322
Williams County Red Cross work, I, 359
Williams County Sunday School roster,
I, 266
Williams County Tax Duplicate, I, 307
Williams County Temperance Society, I,
315
Williams, David, I, 195
Williams-Defiance County line, I, 201
Williams, Joseph W., I, 220
Willis, William J., II, 364
Wineland, Charles O., II, 176
Wineland, H. J., II, 89
Wineland, Samuel S., II, 320
Wireless operator, I, 372
Wirtz, Lewis P., II, 153
Wise, George J., II, 36
Wisman, Arvilla, I, 270
Wisman, George, I, 394
Wisman, Guy, II, 136
Wolves, I, 367
Wolves were the menace of the settlers
(illustration), I, 368
Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
I, 316; I. 359
Woman's Federation, Bryan, I, 321 ; I,
358
Woman's Relief Corps, I, 351
Wood ashes, income from, I, 375
Woodworth, Hannah, I, 389
Woodworth, Josiah, I, 389
World war, soldiers of, I, 349
Wright, Tobias, I, 356
Wyandots, I, 6; h U; I, 156
Wyandt, J. W., I, 278
Yates, Owen. I, 360
Yates, William, I, 411
Youse, Albert L., II, 46
Yunck & Son Manufacturing Company,
I, 413
Zimmerman, John M., II, 170
History of Williams County
CHAPTER I
UNDER FRENCH AND BRITISH RULE
No section of the United States has experienced more changes of
sovereignty than Northwestern Ohio, and none has been the theater of
more interesting historical events than this same division. Spain, France
and England in turn laid claim to sovereignty over this wilderness, for
such it was in those early days. There was no political organization, and
it formed but an indistinct part of the trans-i\llegheny wilds. After it
was definitely conceded to the United States it became a part of that vast
empire designated as the Northwestern Territory. The northern border,
comprising a part of Lucas, Fulton and Williams counties, brought on a
near-war between Ohio and Michigan. In its local jurisdiction this sec-
tion has been included within the boundaries of a number of different
county organizations. Fulton was the last county to be organized. It was
not created until 1850. Williams County had been created thirty years
earlier, although a considerable portion was detached in the formation
of Defiance and Fulton counties.
Spain asserted her claim to all of Ohio by right of discovery of the
continent. Not having occupied or made settlements therein, however,
her claim was not considered valid by the other contending and ambitious
nations. Her soldiers and sailors conquered IMexico and South America,
while Ponce de Leon and De Soto roamed over the Florida peninsula.
So far as records go, the foot of the Spanish conquistador never trod
the region of the Great Lakes, and the forests never echoed to his foot-
fall. She also based her right on a "concession in perpetuity" made by
Pope Alexander VI.
By authority of Almighty God, granted him in St. Peter, and by
exalted office that he bore on earth as the actual representative of Jesus
the Christ, Pope Alexander had granted to the kings of Castile and Leon,
their heirs and successors, all of North America and the greater part of
South America. These sovereigns were to be "Lords of the lands, with
free, full and absolute power, authority and jurisdiction." This famous
decree is one of the most remarkable documents in history. It was a
deed in blank for all the lands that might be discovered west and south
of a line drawn from the Pole Arctic to the Pole Antarctic, 370 leagues
west of the Cape Verde Islands. The rest of the undiscovered world,
east of that line, was similarly bestowed upon Portugal. These decrees
were based upon the theory that lands occupied by heathen, pagan, infidel
Vol. I— 1 J
2 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and unbaptized people had absolutely no rights which the Christian ruler
was bound to respect. Such human beings as the Indians were mere
chattels that ran with the land in the same way as the wild game of
the forests. To Spain and Portugal was designated the exclusive right
of hunting and finding these unknown lands and people. The Spanish
king thus became the most powerful potentate in the whole world.
Francis I, king of France, disputed the claims of Spain and Portugal
to "own the earth." He inquired of the Spanish king whether Father
Adam had made them his sole heirs, and asked whether he could produce
a copy of his will. Until such a document was shown, he himself felt
at liberty to roam around and assume sovereignty over all the soil he
might find actually unappropriated. The exact date when the white man
first appeared in Ohio has not been definitely established. It is fairly
well settled, however, that it was in the Maumee Valley where the first
attempts at settlement were made. It was on or about the year 1680 that
some hardy French established themselves along that historic stream and
built a stockade not far from its mouth. It is certain that the French
preceded the British in this territory by at least a half a century.
Jamestown was founded just one year before Champlain sowed the
seeds of the fleur-de-lis on the barren cliffs of Quebec. These two
little colonies, a thousand miles apart, were the advance stations of the
Latin and the Anglo-Saxon races, which were destined to a life and
death straggle in the New World. In the history of mankind this
struggle was no less important than that between Greece and Persia,
or Rome and Carthage, in the long ago. The position of Canada, with the
St. Lawrence opening up the territory adjacent to the Great Lakes,
invited intercourse with this region, for it provided a vast extent of
inland navigation.
The claims of both French and British to this region we now occupy
were extremely shadowy. Charters nominally conveying principalities
were lavished upon courtiers and favored subjects. The sovereigns and
their courtiers possessed only the vaguest ideas of the lands they were
pretending to parcel out. England's claims to dominion over North
America were based upon the reports of the discoveries of the Cabots
while searching for a passage to Cathay. The reports are very indefinite
and not convincing. The original claim of France was based on the
discovery of the St. Lawrence by the brave buccaneer Cartier, in 1534.
He had sailed up a broad river, which he named St. Lawrence, as far as
Montreal and called the country Canada, a name applied to the surround-
ing region by the Iroquois. The appellation was afterward changed to
New France. The first grant of American soil was a patent from
Henry IV, in 1604, conveying to De Monts the lands between the fortieth
and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude, which would include our ter-
ritory. Hence this is the earliest real estate conveyance affecting extreme
Northwestern Ohio. It was under this grant that Quebec was founded
and fortified.
With equal assurance and no greater regard for the rights of others
we find King James, of England, conveying to a syndicate of merchants
American territory between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 3
north latitude, which also affected the title to every foot of soil in this
region. It was upon this grant that the claims of Virginia were founded.
The later explorations by Champlain, La Salle, Joliet, and others
simply confirmed and expanded the original claim of France. She main-
tained the view that to discover a river established a right to all the ter-
ritory drained by that river and its tributaries. The waters of the
Maumee being tributary to the St. Lawrence, the valleys became a part
of the vast domain known as New France, with Quebec as its capital.
This claim France was ready to maintain with all the resources and
power at her command.
It is interesting to trace the gradual growth of geographical knowl-
edge of French cartographers by a study of the maps made by them in
the last half of the seventeenth century. Even after all the Great Lakes
are known to them in a general way, the outlines and the relations of
one to the other are at first indefinite and very far from being correct.
This is probably due to the fact that the explorers took much of their
general knowledge from' the indefinite statement of the aborigines. In
Champlain's map, published in 1632, the lake is shown as very small.
Lake Huron, called Mer Douce, is several times as expansive, and spreads
out from east to west rather than from north to south. The first map in
which Lucas Erius appears in anything like a correct contour is one
designed by Pere du Creux, in the year 1660. In this map we see the
first outline of the Maumee, although no name is there given to it. In
Joliet's map of 1672, the Ohio River is placed only a short portage from
the Maumee, and not far from Lake Erie. The increasing correctness
of these maps, however, reveals the fact that priests, traiders and explor-
ers were constantly threading these regions and bringing back knowledge
of the lakes, rivers and smaller streams, which aided the cartographers
in their important work.
Samuel de Champlain, in the early part of the seventeenth century
explored much of the Great Lakes region. He founded Quebec in 1608.
He visited the Wyandots, or the Hurons, at their villages on Lake
Huron and passed several months with them in 1615. This tribe had
not yet settled in Ohio. It is quite likely that he traveled in winter along
the southern shores of Lake Erie, for the map made by him of this
region shows considerable knowledge of the contour of the southern
shores of this lake. Louis Joliet is credited with being the first European
to plow the waters of our fair lake, but this historic fact has never been
satisfactorily settled.
It is generally believed by some historians that Chevalier de La Salle
journeyed up the Maumee River and then down the Wabash to the Ohio
and the Mississippi in the year 1669, although this fact has not been posi-
tively established, for some of La Salle's journals were lost. For a period
of two years his exact wanderings are unknown. There are a number of
routes with only short portages by which he could have journeyed from
the lake region to the great O-hi-o. But he is generally credited as the
first white man to discover the Ohio, even though the route by which he
reached it is unsettled. Through the dense forests, in the midst of blind-
ing storms, across frozen creeks and swollen streams, fearless alike of
4 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the howling wolves and painted savages, the little band of discoverers
picked its way across the unchartered Ohio Valley. We do know that
he traversed Lake Erie from one end to the other in the "Griffin," a
boat which greatly astonished the natives who saw it. She bore at her
prow a figure of that mythical creature with the body of a lion and the
wings of an eagle. This vessel was a man-of-war as well as a passenger
boat, for five tiny cannon peeped out from her portholes. He also built
the first Fort Miami, near the site of Fort Wayne, on his return overland
from this trip. It was a rude log fort, and a few of his followers were
left there to maintain it.
It was in the year 1668 that the official representative of France, on
an occasion when representatives of many Indian tribes were present by
invitation, formally took possession of our territory at Sault Ste. Marie.
A cross was blessed and placed in the ground. Near the cross was reared
a post bearing a metal plate inscribed with the French royal arms. A
prayer was offered for the king. Then Saint-Lusson advanced, and
holding his sword aloft in one hand and raising a sod of earth with the
other, he formally, in the name of God and France, proclaimed posses-
sion of "Lakes Huron and Superior and all countries, rivers, lakes and
streams continuous and adjacent thereunto, both those that have been
discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, in all their
length and breadth, bounded on one side by the seas of the north and
west and on the other by the South Sea" ; etc.
The Jesuit fathers penetrated almost the entire Northwestern Terri-
tory and their reports, called the "Relations," reveal tales of suffering
and hardships, self-sacrifice and martyrdoms, that are seldom paralleled
in history. But their zeal has cast a glamour over the early history of
the country. One of the most renowned of the Jesuits was Father
Marquette," who, with Joliet, navigated the upper Mississippi and
exhausted himself by privation and perils. As a result of exposure he
perished in a rude bark hut on the shore of Lake Michigan, attended by
his faithful companions. He gazed upon the crucifix and murmured a
prayer until death closed his lips and veiled his eyes. No name shines
brighter for religious devotion, dauntless perseverance, and sacrifice for
the advancement of his country and his religion. Ohio, however, was
not the scene of the Jesuit explorations and missionary efforts. The only
exception was a mission conducted at Sandusky for a time by Jesuit
priests from Detroit.
It is quite likely that the coureurs de bois, who traversed the lakes
and the forests in every direction laden with brandy and small stocks
of trinkets to barter with the aborigines for their more valuable furs,
were among the earliest visitors to the Maumee basin. These men
became very popular with the savages, by reason of their free and easy
manners, and because they introduced to them the brandy which became
one of their greatest vices. As they left no annals and no trace, unless
it be the axe-marks upon the trees, or the rusty relics of guns and
skillets, which occasionally puzzle the antiquarians upon the shores of
Lake Erie, it is impossible to trace their footsteps. The probabilities are
that wherever there were Indian settlements, these nondescripts made
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 5
periodical visits. The records which have been left are exceedingly-
scanty and unflattering. We do know that posts of French traders grad-
ually arose in Northern and Western Ohio, wherever Indians were
congregated.
COUREUR De BoIS
Les coureurs des bois made themselves popular by terrorism. They
were the forerunners of the cowboys of the western plains. Their occu-
pation was lawless, for they refused to purchase trading licenses. They
themselves were half traders, half explorers and almost wholly bent on
6 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
divertissement. Neither misery nor danger discouraged or thwarted them.
They lived in utter disregard of all religious teaching, but the priesthood,
residing among the savages, were often fain to wink at their immorali-
ties because of their strong arms and efficient use of weapons of defense.
Charlevoix says that "while the Indian did not become French, the
Frenchman became savage." The first of these forest rovers was Etienne
Brule, who set the example of adopting the Indian mode of life in order
to ingratiate himself into the confidence of the savages. He became a
celebrated interpreter and ambassador among the various tribes. Hun-
dreds, following the precedent established by him, betook themselves to
the forest, never to return. These outflowings of the French civilization
were quickly merged into the prevalent barbarism, as a river is lost in
the sands of one of our western deserts. The wandering Frenchman
selected a mate from among the Indian tribes, and in this way an infusion
of Celtic blood was introduced among the aborigines. Many of them
imbibed all the habits and prejudices of their adopted people. As result,
they vied with the red savages in making their faces hideous with colors
and in decorating their long hair with characteristic eagle feathers. Even
in the taking of a scalp they rivaled the genuine Indian in eagerness and
dexterity.
The coureur de bois was a child of the woods, and he was in a
measure the advance agent of civilization. He knew little of astronomy
beyond the course of the sun and the polar star. That fact was no
impediment, for constellations can rarely be seen there. It was the secrets
of terrestrial nature that guided him on his way. His trained eye could
detect the deflection of tender twigs toward the south. He had learned
that the gray moss of the tree trunks is always on the side toward the
north ; that the bark is more supple and smoother on the east than on
the west ; that southward the mildew never is seen. Out on the prairie,
he was aware that the tips of the grass incline toward the south, and
are less green on the north side. This knowledge to an unlettered savant
was his compass in the midst of the wilderness. Release a child of civili-
zation amidst such environments and he is as helpless as an infant ;
utterly amazed and bewildered, he wanders around m a circle helplessly
and aimlessly. To despair and famine he quickly becomes an unresisting
victim. There are no birds to feed him like the ravens ministered to the
temporal wants of the prophet Elijah. Not so with the coureur de bois.
To him the forest was a kindly home. He could penetrate its trackless
depths with an undeviating course. To him it readily yielded clothing,
food, and shelter. Most of its secrets he learned from the red man of
the forest, but in some respects he outstripped his instructor. He learned
to peruse the signs of the forest as readily as the scholar reads the
printed page.
The French made Detroit the great gathering place for the Indians of
the West. The expected happy result did not follow, while dissensions
constantly arose which frequently caused murders. A general shifting
of the Indian population gradually developed. The Wyandots entered
Ohio from Michigan. There was an exodus of the Delawares and Shaw-
nees from Western Pennsylvania, many of them coming into North-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 7
western Ohio. Some of the Senecas also found their way hither. Most
of them were at first bitterly hostile to the British, partly because they
had been persecuted by the Iroquois, the only Indian tribe with which the
British had established friendly relations. At last the English became
convinced of the value of the trans-Allegheny territory. But the British
were less politic in dealing with the untutored children of the wilderness
than the French. The haughty bearing of the British officials disgusted
the Indian chiefs. In short, all the British Indian affairs at this time
were grossly mismanaged. It was only with the fierce fighters of the
Five Nations that the English made much headway. These warriors,
who carried shields of wood covered with hide, had acquired an implaca-
ble hatred of the French. Their hatred had much to do with the final
course of events. It compelled French expansion toward the west and
southwest. In their practical system of government, their diplomatic
sagacity, their craftiness and cruelness in warfare, the Iroquois were
probably unequaled among the aborigines. If they did nothing else they
compelled the French to make their advance to the west rather than to
the south. The French laid claim to all of the vast empire of the North-
western Territory, confirmed by the treaty of Utrecht. They had estab-
lished a series of strategic stockades extending from Fort Frontenac, at
the exit of Lake Ontario, to the Mississippi River. Nevertheless the
English continued their pretensions to all the continent as far west as
the Mississippi River, and as far north as a line drawn directly west
from their most northerly settlement on the Atlantic coast. Thus we
find that Fulton and Williams, as well as the adjacent counties, were
a part of the disputed territory.
We read in the report of a governor of New York, in the year 1700,
as follows:
"The French have mightily impos'd on the world on the mapps they
have made of this continent, and our Geographers have been led into
gross mistakes by the French mapps, to our very great prejudice. It
were as good a work as your Lordships could do, to send over a very
skillful surveyor to make correct mapps of all these plantations and that
out of hand, that we may not be cozen's on to the end of the chapter by
the French."
As a result of this recommendation official maps began to appear in
a few years. In Evans' map (1755) the Maumee River and some of its
tributaries are pretty well outlined. Over Northwestern Ohio is printed
the following: "These Parts were by the Confederates (Iroquois)
allotted for the Wyandots when they were lately admitted into their
league." In Mitchell's map, drawn in the same year and published a
score of years later, very little improvement is shown, although the out-
lines vary considerably from that of Evans. The extreme northwestern
section of the state is marked as occupied by the "Miammees" and the
Maumee is called the "Miamis." The best map of the period that we
have preserved is the one drawn by Thomas Hutchins in 1776. In this
map the Maumee is designated the "Miami," and for long afterwards it
was called the Miami-of-the-Lake, to distinguish it from the Miami in
Southern Ohio. No settlement is indicated except "Maumi Fort," where
8 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Fort Wayne now stands. The originals of all these maps are preserved
in the Congressional Library at Washington.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century a man by the name of
John Nelson, who had spent many years among the French in America,
made a report to the Lords of Trade concerning the difference in the
English and French method of dealing with the natives, of which the
following is a part: "The Great and only advantage which the enemy
(French) hath in those parts doth consist chiefly in the nature of their
settlement, which contrary to our Plantations who depend upon the
improvement of lands, &c, theirs of Canada has its dependence from the
Trade of Furrs and Peltry with the Aborigines, soe that consequently
their whole study, and contrivances have been to maintaine their interest
and reputation with them; * * * The French are so sensible, that
they leave nothing unimproved * * * as first by seasonable presents ;
secondly by choosing some of the more notable amongst them, to whom
is given a constant pay as a Lieutenant or Ensigne, &c, thirdly by
rewards upon all executions, either upon us or our Aborigines, giving a
certaine sume pr head, for as many Scalps as shall be brought them;
fourthly by encouraging the youth of the Contrey in accompanying the
Aborig\nes in all their expeditions, whereby they not only became
acquainted with the Woods, Rivers, Passages, but' of themselves may
equall the Natives in supporting all the incident fatigues of such enter-
prises, which they performe."
After the English once became aroused to the opportunity it was not
long until their explorers, cartographers, and traders began to infiltrate
into the Ohio country from across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Clashes
soon afterwards occurred between the French and the British, or between
the dusky allies of the one and the allies of the other. As early as 1740
traders from Virginia and Pennsylvania went among the Indians of the
Ohio and tributary streams to deal for peltries. The English "bush-
lopers," or wood-rangers, as they were called by the Eastern colonists,
had climbed the mountain heights and had threaded their way through
the forests or along streams as far as Michilimackinack. They sought
favor with the dusky inhabitants by selling their goods at a lower price
than the French traders asked, and frequently ofifered a better price for
the peltries. It was a contest for supremacy between the British Lion
and the Lilies of France. These two emblems were to contend for the
greater part of a century over the incomparable prize of the North
American continent.
England based her claims on the discoveries of the Cabots in 1498,
which antedated those of Cartier. She did not follow up her discoveries
in this northwest territory by actual settlement, however, for a century
and a half. She also made further claims to this region by reason of
treaties with the Iroquois Indians, who claimed dominion over this ter-
ritory because of their conquest of the Fries, who had inhabited it. Sir
William Johnson reported as follows: "They (the Six Nations) claim
by right of conquest all the country, including the Ohio, along the Blue
Mountain at the back of Virginia, and thence to the Kentucky River
and down the same to the Ohio above the rifts; thence northerly to the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 9
south end of Lake Michigan ; thence along the east shore to Michihmack-
inack ; thence easterly along the north end of Lake Huron to Ottawa
River and Island of Montreal."
Peace had scarcely been concluded with the hostile tribes than the
English traders hastened over the mountains. Each one was anxious to
be first in the new and promising market thus afforded. The merchandise
was sometimes transported as far as Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) in wagons.
From thence it was carried on the backs of horses through the forests of
Ohio. The traders laboriously climbed over the rugged hills of Eastern
Ohio, threaded their way through almost impenetrable thickets and waded
over swollen streams. They were generally a rough, bold, and fierce
class, some of them as intractable and truculent as the savages themselves
when placed in the midst of primeval surroundings. A coat of smoked
deerskin formed the ordinary dress of the trader, and he wore a fur
cap ornamented with the tail of an animal. He carried a knife and a
tomahawk in his belt, and a rifle was thrown over his shoulder. The
principal trader would establish his headquarters at some large Indian
town, while his subordinates were sent to the surrounding villages with
a suitable supply of red cloth blankets, guns, and hatchets, tobacco and
beads, and lastly, but not least, the "firewater." It is not at all surpris-
ing that in a region where law was practically unknown, the jealousies of
rival traders should become a prolific source of robberies and broils, as
well as of actual murders. These rugged men possessed striking con-
trasts of good and evil in their natures. Many of them were coarse
and unscrupulous ; but in all there were those warlike virtues of unde-
spairing courage and fertility of resource. A bed of earth was frequently
the trader's bed. A morsel of dried meat and a cup of water were not
unfrequently his food and drink. Danger and death were his constant
companions.
While the newly transplanted English colonies were germinating along
the narrow fringe of coast between the Alleghenies and the sea, France
had been silently stretching authority over the vast interior of the
North American continent. The principal occupation of the Englishman
was agriculture, which kept him closely at home. Every man owned his
own cabin and his own plat of ground. The red man probably chose
wisely when he placed his allegiance with the Frenchman, for his hunting
grounds were more secure. The Frenchman did not covet the soil for
itself. He only desired the profit from trade. With his articles of traffic
the Frenchman traversed the rivers and forests of a large part of the
continent. A few nobles owned the entire soil. It was, in a sense, the
contest between feudalism and democracy. The English clergymen
preached the Gospel only, to the savages within easy reach of their set-
tlements, but the unquenchable zeal of the Catholic Jesuit carried him to
the remotest forest. In fact, had it not been for the hope of spreading
the Christian faith like a mantle over the New World, the work of
colonization would doubtless have been abandoned. "The saving of a
soul,'' said Champlain, "is worth more than the conquest of an empire."
The establishment of a mission was invariably the precursor of military
occupancy. While the English were still generally acquainted only with
10 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the aborigines of their immediate neighborhood, the French had already
insinuated themselves into the wigwams of every tribe from the Great
Lakes to the Gulf. In actual military occupation of the territory the
French far greatly antedated their more lethargic competitors. They
had dotted the wilderness with stockades before the English turned their
attention toward the alluring empire beyond the mountains.
Had France fully appreciated the possibilities of the New World, the
map of North America would be different than it is. She sent more men
to conquer paltry townships in Germany than she did to take possession
of empires in America larger than France itself. The Frenchman of that
day was shortsighted — he did. not peer into the future. The glory of
conquest today seemed greater than a great New France of a century
or two hence. Most nations are blind to the possibilities of the future.
If they do vision the opportunity they are unwilling to make the sacrifice
of the present for the good of their grandchildren and their children's
children. England visioned the possibilities here better than the other
nations ; and yet much of her success was doubtless due to fortunate
blundering rather than deliberate planning.
Northwestern Ohio at this time was a region where "one vast, con-
tinuous forest shadowed the fertile soil, covering the land as the grass
covers a garden lawn, sweeping over hill and hollow in endless undula-
tion. Green intervals dotted with browsing deer, and broad plains black-
ened with buffalo, broke the sameness of the woodland scenery. A vast
lake washed its boundaries, where the Indian voyager, in his birch canoe,
could descry no land beyond the world of waters. Yet this prolific
wilderness, teeming with waste fertility, was but a hunting ground and a
battlefield to a few fierce hordes of savages. Here and there, in some
rich meadow opened to the sun, the Indian squaws turned the black mould
with their rude implements of bone or iron and sowed their scanty stores
of maize and beans. Human labour drew no other tribute from the
inexhaustible soil." It is no wonder that the savage perished rather than
yield such a delectable country, and that the white man was so eager to
enjoy a land so richly endowed. Today the richest farms in Ohio are
found in this same region and an air of prosperity marks the entire scene.
Iji those days, however, so thin and scattered were the native population
that a traveler might journey for days through the twilight forest with-
out encountering a human form.
At the opening of the eighteenth century the Maumee River had
already assumed considerable importance. Its broad basin became the
first objective in the sanguinary struggle of the French and British to
secure a firm foothold in Ohio, because of its easy route to the South
and Southwest. The favor of the Indians dwelling along its hospitable
banks was diligently sought by both the French and English. The French
Post Miami, near the head of the Maumee, had been built about 1680-86,
It was rebuilt and strengthened in the year 1697 by Captain de Vincennes.
It is also claimed that the French constructed a fort a few years earlier,
in 1680, on the site of Fort Miami, a few miles above the mouth of the
Maumee.
In 1701 the first fort at Detroit, Fort Pontchartrain, was erected.
Many indeed were the expeditions of Frenchmen, either military or trad-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 11
ing, that passed up and down this river. They portaged across from
Post Miami to the Wabash and from there descended to Vincennes, which
was an important French post. At the beginning of King George II's
war, M. de Longuevill, French commandant at Detroit, passed up this
river with soldiers and savages on their way to capture British traders
in what is now Indiana. As early as 1727 Governor Spotswood of Vir-
ginia requested the British authorities to negotiate a treaty with the
Miamis, on the Miami of the Lakes, permitting the erection of a small
fort, but this plan was not carried out.
The feeble forts erected by both French and English as outposts of
empire were indeed dreary places. The men thus exiled from civili-
zation lived almost after the manner of hermits. Time ever hung heavy
on their hands whether in winter or summer, because of the absence of
diversion. With its long barrack rooms, its monotonous walls of logs,
and its rough floor of puncheon, the frontier fort did not provide luxury
for the occupants. There was no ceiling but a smoky thatch, and there
were no windows except openings closed with heavy shutters. The
cracks between the logs were stuffed with mud and straw to expel the
chilly blasts. An immense fireplace at one end from which the heat was
absorbed long before it reached the frosty region at the opposite end,
supplied the only warmth. The principal fare was salt pork, soup, and
black bread, except when game was obtainable. This was eaten at greasy
log tables upon which was placed a gloomy array of battered iron plates
and cups. When a hunter happened to bring in some venison or bear
meat, there was great rejoicing. Regardless of these drawbacks, it is said
that these men, exiles from every refinement, were fairly well contented
and generally fairly thankful for the few amenities that came their way.
"Their resources of employment and recreation were few and meagre.
They found partners in their loneliness among the young beauties at the
Indian camps. They hunted and fished, shot at targets and played at
games of chance ; and when, by good fortune a traveller found his way
among them, he was greeted with a hearty and open-handed welcome,
and plied with eager questions touching the great world from which they
were banished men. Yet, tedious as it was, their secluded life was sea-
soned with stirring danger. The surrounding forests were peopled with
a race dark and subtle as their own sunless mazes. At any hour, those
jealous tribes might raise the war-cry. No human foresight could predict
the sallies of their fierce caprice, and in ceaseless watching lay the only
safety."
As a rule the Indian savages usually encamped around the forts when
peace prevailed. They willingly partook of the bounty of both English
and French. They settled themselves down to the enjoyment of the
white man's brandy and tobacco, besought his ammunition and the guns
which made the chase so much easier, and in some instances they even
accepted his religion.
CHAPTER II
THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC
According to the best information coming down to us, there were no
native Ohio Indian tribes. All of the Indians residing here at the oncom-
ing of the white man were migrants from other portions of the country.
We know not how many changes of tribal ownership or occupancy there
may have been in prehistoric times. The numbers living here are also
difficult to ascertain. If the total fighting strength of the Ohio warriors
was from 2,500 to 3,000, as has been estimated, then the Indian popula-
tion doubtless ranged from 12,000 to 15,000. Of this number the ]\Iiamis
mustered nearly one-third of the total. The Ohio country, rich in game
and threaded by water courses navigable for the light canoes, was a fight-
ing ground between the Iroquois tribes and the western stock, which were
generally allied to the Algonquins.
The Miamis play a large part in the early history of Ohio. They
are usually designated by the early writers as the Twightwees, meaning
"the cry of the crane." They were subdivided into several bands, of
which the Weas and the Piankashaws figure most largely in our history.
It is because of the Miami occupancy that the Maumee and the other
Miamis received their names. They were rather above the other tribes
in intelligence and character. The Wyandots were late comers into this
territory. They were survivors of the Hurons, who had nearly been
exterminated by the Iroquois. Some of them settled along the Maumee,
but greater numbers sought the Sandusky region. A few Delawares had
come over the Alleghenies and settled near the Wyandots, with whom
they established friendly relations. The Ottawas were caught between
war parties of Sioux and Iroquois in the Michigan peninsula, and driven
south. A few small bands found lodgment along the Maumee and its
affluents. A detached group of the Senecas also reached this region. The
Shawnees, who will command considerable attention, were great rovers.
It was doubtless Shawnees who met Capt. John Smith. They were a
party to the famous Penn Treaty. They regarded themselves as superior
to all others of the human race. The Ohio Shawnees, who finally made
their homes along the Auglaize, had drifted in from the Carolinas and
Georgia, having been expelled by the other tribes because of their queru-
lous and imperious dispositions.
The Maumee basin was a delightful home and a secure retreat for
the red men. Upon the banks of the Maumee and -its connecting streams
were many Indian villages. The light canoes of these children of the
forests glided over the smooth waters which were at once a convenient
highway and an exhaustless reservoir of food. The lake gave them ready
access to more remote regions. The forests, waters and prairies pro-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
13
duced spontaneously and in abundance, game, fish, fruits, and nuts — all
the things necessary to supply their simple wants. The rich soil responded
promptly to their feeble efforts at agriculture.
In this secure retreat the wise men of the savages gravely convened
about the council fires, and deliberated upon the best means of rolling
back the tide of white immigration that was threatening. They dimly
foresaw that this tide would ultimately sweep their race from the lands
of their fathers. From here their young warriors crept forth and,
stealthily approaching the homes of the "palefaces," spread ruin and
desolation far and wide. Returning to the villages their booty and savage
trophies were exhibited with all the exultations and boasts of primitive
Indians in Canoes
warriors. Protected by almost impenetrable swamp and unchartered for-
ests, their women, children and property were comparatively safe during
the absence of the war parties. Thus it was that the dusky children of
the wilderness here enjoyed perfect freedom and lived in accordance with
their rude instincts, with the habits and customs of the tribes. "Amid
the scenes of his childhood, in the presence of his ancestors' graves, the
red warrior, with his squaw and papoose, surrounded by all the essentials
to the enjoyment of his simple wants, here lived out the character which
nature had given him. In war, it was his base line of attack, his source
of supplies, and his secure refuge ; in peace, his home."
It was in Northwestern Ohio that two of the most noted conspiracies
against the encroachments of the invading races were formulated and
inaugurated. One of these, directed against the French, was led by
14 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Chief Nicholas ; the other was the more noted conspiracy of Pontiac,
which had for its object the annihilation of British power. In the third
great Indian conspiracy, that of Tecumseh- and the Prophet, the same
region was the theater of much of the conspiracy and many of the lead-
ing events. This one was directed against the Americans who had suc-
ceeded both French and British.
Orontony was a noted Wyandot chief, who had been baptized under
the name of Nicholas. He devised a plan for the general extermination
of the French power in the West. Nicholas was "a wily fellow, full of
savage cunning," who had his stronghold and villages on some islands
lying just above the mouth of the Sandusky River. It was he who
granted permission to erect Fort "Sandoski" at his principal town, in
order to secure the aid of the British. The crafty Nicholas conceived the
idea of a great conspiracy which should have for its object the capture
of Detroit and all other French outposts, and the massacre of all the
white inhabitants. He succeeded in rallying to his aid the Ottawas,
Chippewas, Pottawattomis and Shawnees, as well as some more distant
tribes. The Miamis and Wyandots were to exterminate the French from
the Maumee country ; to the Pottawattomis were assigned the Bois Blanc
Island, while the Foxes were to attack the settlement at Green Bay.
Nicholas reserved to himself and his followers the fort and settlement
at Detroit. Premature acts of violence aroused the suspicions of the
French, and reinforcements were hurriedly brought in. Like the later
one of Pontiac, it failed because of a woman. While they were in coun-
cil, one of their squaws, going into the garret of the house in search of
Indian. corn, overheard the details of the conspiracy. She at once
hastened to a Jesuit priest, and revealed the plans of the savages. Eight
Frenchmen were seized at Fort Miami (Fort Wayne) which was
destroyed, and a French trader was killed along the Maumee. In 1748,
Nicholas and his followers, numbering in all 119 warriors, departed for
the West after destroying all their villages along the Sandusky, and
located in the Illinois country.
The activities of the British in the western country thoroughly aroused
the French authorities. Under the direction of the Governor of Canada
an expedition under the command of Capt. Bienville de Celeron proceeded
to the Ohio in the spring of 1749, and descended it, pre-empting the ter-
ritory for France by suitable formalities, in order to forestall the English.
It was conducted with all the French regard for theatrical ceremonials.
He took possession of the country in the name of his sovereign and
buried leaden plates at intervals asserting the sovereignty of France. It
was a picturesque flotilla of twenty birch-bark canoes that left Montreal
in that year. The passengers were equally as picturesque, including as
they did soldiers in armor and dusky savages with their primitive
weapons. They successfully accomplished their journey and buried their
last plate at the mouth of the Great Miami River. Each plate proclaimed
the "renewal of the possession we have taken of the said River Ohio,
and of all those which empty into it. and of all lands on both sides as
far. as the sources of the said rivers." As a "clincher" a tin sheet was
also tacked to a tree certifying that a plate had been so buried.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 15
Changing his course, Celeron turned the prows of his canoes north-
ward, and in a few days the party reached Pickawillany (Pkwileni), near
Piqua. During the weeks' stay they endeavored to win the Miamis to
their cause, but were not very successful, even with a plentiful use of
brandy. There was much feasting and revelry, but the cause of France
was not advanced. From here they portaged to the French post called
Fort Miami (Fort Wayne). Celeron himself proceeded overland to
Detroit, while the majority of his followers descended the Maumee. The
expedition traveled "over 1,200 leagues," but added little to French
prestige or dominion.
As soon as the British heard of Celeron's journey George Crogan
was dispatched to undo any prestige that the French had gained. From
now on they busied themselves with this great trans-Allegheny country.
In order to gain a better knowledge of the country, Christopher Gist was
dispatched to the Ohio country in 1750. Being a practical surveyor, he
was ordered to draw plans of the country he traversed and to keep a
complete journal of his travels. His journal is unusually explicit and
most entertaining. He was well received everywhere by the Indians,
whose sympathy seemed to be with the English. He conducted religious
services at times among them and possibly conducted the first Protestant
service within the state. The nearest approach that Gist made to this
section was Pickawillany of which he writes: "This town consists of
about 400 families and daily increasing, it is accounted one of the strong-
est Indian towns upon this part of the continent." He was kindly
received and from here he began his return journey. He added much to
the geographical knowledge of the Ohio country. In the following year
Christopher Gist accomplished his memorable journey through Ohio, and
at Pickawillany entered into treaty relations with the Miamis or Twight-
wees, as the English called them. At the same time French emissaries
were dismissed and their presents refused. The chief of the Piankashaws
was known as "Old Britain" by the English, as "La Demoiselle" by the
French because of his gaudy dress.
During the long wars between the French and the British and their
Indian allies, which extended over a period of half a century or more,
and only ended in 1760, there were no battles of any consequence between
these two contending forces in Northwest Ohio. There were, however,
many isolated tragedies that occurred. The expedition of French and
Indians under Charles Langlade, a half-breed, which captured and
destroyed Pickawillany, came from Detroit and ascended the Maumee
and the Auglaize on their journey. It was composed of a considerable
force of greased and painted Indians, together with a small party of
French and Canadians. It was on a June morning, in 1752, that the
peaceful village was aroused by the frightful war whoop, as the painted
horde bore down upon the inhabitants. Most of the warriors were absent,
and the squaws were at work in the fields. Only eight English traders
were in town. It was the work of only a few hours until Pick-
awillany was destroyed and set on fire. This was one of the many tragic
incidents in the French and Indian war. "Old Britain" himself was
16 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
killed, his body being boiled and eaten by the victors. The Turtle, of
whom we are to hear much, succeeded him as chief.
The English began to arrive in increasing numbers, following the
French along the water courses to greater and greater distances. They
paid increased rates for furs, and they sold their goods at lower prices.
They sold rum much cheaper than the French sold brandy, and the Indian
learned by experience that it took less rum to provide the delectable state
of intoxication that he delighted in. They paid as much for a mink's
skin as the French did for that of a beaver, and the mink were much
more plentiful. In this the English traders began to undermine the
French prestige. But the poor Indian was in a quandary. At an old
sachem meeting Christopher Gist is reported to have said : "The French
claim all the land on our side of the Ohio, the English claim all the land
on the other side — now where does the Indian's land lie?" Between the
French, their good-fathers, and the English, their benevolent brothers,
the aborigine seemed likely to be left without land enough for even a
wigwam, leaving out of consideration the necessary hunting grounds.
The English were at first loth to offer any premium for the scalps
of their whue enemies, but their repugnance to this was eventually over-
come. The authorities had evidently profited by the reports of their
emissaries, concerning the success of the French in placing a bonus upon
scalps, for we discover them engaged in the same nefarious business at
a little later date. If the British inflicted less injury than they experi-
enced by this horrible mode of warfare, it was less from their desire than
from limited success in enlisting the savages as their allies. Governor
George Clinton, in a letter dated at New York, April 25, 1747, wrote to
Col. William Johnson as follows : "In the bill I am going to pass, the
council did not think proper to put rewards for scalping, or taking poor
women or children prisoners, in it ; but the assembly has assured me the
money shall be paid when it so happens, if the natives insist upon it."
On May 30th, Colonel Johnson wrote to the Governor: "I am quite
pestered every day with parties returning with prisoners and scalps, and
without a penny to pay them with. It comes very hard upon me, and
is displeasing to them I can assure you, for they expect their pay and
demand it of me as soon as they return."
Governor Clinton reported to the Duke of Newcastle, under date of
July 23, 1747, the following: "Colonel Johnson who I have employ'd
as Chief Manager of the Aborigines War and Colonel over all the
natives, by their own approbation, has sent several parties of natives into
Canada & brought back at several times prisoners & scalps, but they
being laid aside last year, the natives were discouraged and began to
entertain jealousies by which a new expense became necessary to remove
these jealousies & to bring them back to their former tempers; but unless
some enterprise, which may keep up their spirits, we may again lose
them. I intend to propose something to our Assembly for this purpose
that they may give what is necessary for the expense of it, but I almost
despair of any success with them when money is demanded."
It would be a tedious task, and is entirely unnecessary, to follow all
the events in the desperate efforts of the Indians to adapt themselves to
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 17
the new situation. The French were far more aggressive, and many
complaints came to the British authorities because of their delay in heed-
ing the appeals of the savages. These delays afforded the time to the
French authorities to erect new forts and rebuild others. With Brad-
dock's defeat in 1755 it seemed to the Indian mind that the English
cause was weakening, and many of the tribes, heretofore British in sym-
pathy, began to waver in their allegiance. William Johnson wrote : "The
unhappy defeat of General Braddock has brought an Indian war upon
this and the neighboring provinces and from a quarter where it was least
expectant, I mean the Delawares and Shawnees." The English indeed
began to think that "the Indians are a most inconsistent and unfixed set
of mortals." It was just such events that made possible a federation of
the Ohio tribes, together with others farther west and north, to drive the
English from the western country.
In making a study of the history of Northwest Ohio, we learn that
this most remarkable section of our state has produced many great and
notable white men ; men who have enlivened the pages of our national
history and helped to establish her destiny. But we must not forget that
this same territory has produced at least two of the greatest chiefs of
Indian annals, Pontiac and Tecumseh. The greatest of these was born
near the banks of the Maumee, on or near the site of the City of Defiance,
the county seat of Williams County, before it was diminished by the
creation of Defiance and Fulton counties. This makes his career of
unusual interest to our readers. The Maumee Valley was his home and
stronghold. It was here that he planned his treacherous campaign, and
it was here that he sought asylum when overwhelmed by defeat.
Pontiac was the son of an Ottawa chief while liis mother was an
Ojibway (Chippewa), or Miami, squaw. The date of his birth is vari-
ously stated from 1712 to 1720. He was unusually dark in complexion,
of medium height, with a powerful frame, and carried himself with a
haughty mien. Judged by the primitive standards of the savages, Pontiac
was one of the greatest chiefs of which we have any record. His intellect
was broad, powerful and penetrating. He possessed far more than the
ordinary intelligence, ambition, eloquence, decision of character, power
of combination and energy. In subtlety and craft he was unsurpassed.
He was not only one of the greatest of his race but one of the regnant
figures in Indian history. In him were combined the qualities of an astute
leader, a remarkable warrior, and a broad-minded statesman. His ambi-
tions seemed to have no limit, such as was usually the case with the sav-
age. His understanding reached to higher generalizations and broader
comprehensions than the Indian mind usually attained. Judged from the
Indian standpoint he was a true patriot — having only the good of his peo-
ple at heart. He sought to shield them from the inevitable destruction
which threatened if the white men were not checked before it became
too late.
Although Pontiac had become a commanding personage among the
savages some years earlier, and is believed to have taken a part in
Braddock's defeat, the first place that we read of him is in an account
of Rogers' Rangers, in the fall of 1760. Rogers himself writes of his
18
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
encounter with this Indian chief : "We met a party of Ottawa Indians
at the mouth of the Chogaga (Cuyahoga) River, and that they were under
'Pontaeck', who is their present King or Emperor. * * * He puts on
an air of majesty and princely grandeur, and is greatly honored and
revered by his subjects." Pontiac forbade his proceeding for a day or
two, but finally smoked the pipe of peace with Rogers and permitted the
expedition to proceed through his country to Detroit, for the purpose of
superseding the French garrison there. This was the first assertion of
British authority over this immediate region. His object was accom-
plished without any sanguinary conflict. He has left a journal of his
expedition which affords most interesting descriptions of the lake region.
He recounts the wonderful profusion and variety of game.
It was the fierce contest between the French and the English forces
that afforded Pontiac the opportunity which always seems necessary to
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 19
develop the great mind. It was with sorrow and anger that the red
man saw the Fleur-de-Hs disappear and the Cross of St. George take its
place. Toward the new intruders the Indians generally maintained a
stubborn resentment and even hostility. The French, who had been the
idols of the Indian heart, had begun to lose their grip on this territory.
The English, who were succeeding them in many places, followed an
entirely different policy in treating with the aborigines. The abundant
supplies of rifles, blankets, and gunpowder, and even brandy; which had
been for so many years dispensed from the French forts with lavish hand,
were abruptly stopped, or were doled out with a niggardly and reluctant
hand. The sudden withholding of supplies to which they had become
accustomed was a grievous calamity. When the Indians visited the forts,
they were frequently received rather gruffly, instead of being treated with
polite attention, and sometimes they were subjected to genuine indignities.
Whereas they received gaudy presents, accompanied with honeyed words
from the French, they were not infrequently helped out of the fort with
a butt of a sentry's musket or a vigorous kick from an officer by their
successors. These marks of contempt were utterly humiliating to the
proud and haughty red men.
The fact that French competition in trade had practically ended
doubtless influenced English officials and unscrupulous tradesmen in their
treatment of the Indians. Added to these official acts was the steady
encroachment of white settlers following the end of the French and
Indian war. which was at all times a fruitful source of Indian hostility.
By this time the more venturesome pioneers were escaping from the con-
fines of the Alleghenies and beginning to spread through the western
forests. It was with fear and trembling that the Indian "beheld the
westward marches of the unknown crowded nations." Lashed almost
into a frenzy by these agencies, still another disturbing influence appeared
in a great Indian prophet, who arose among the Delawares. He advocated
the wresting of the Indian's hunting grounds from the white man,
claiming to have received a revelation from the Great Spirit. Vast
throngs were spellbound and his malicious statement aroused the fierce
passions of the red men to fury. The common Indian brave simply
struck in revenge for fancied or actual wrongs. But the vision of the
great Pontiac assumed a wider scope, for he saw farther. If he did not
originally instigate the uprising that immediately arose, he at least
directed and personally commanded the movement which became almost
universal among the tribes of the Middle West. RecogTiizing the increas-
ing power of the British, he realized that unless France retained her
foothold on the continent the destruction of his race was inevitable. It
therefore became his ambition to replace British control with that of
France. The result was that far-reaching movement in history known as
Pontiac's Conspiracy. It was in the same year that the Seven Years'
war was officially ended by the peace concluded at Fontainebleau, which
probably surpasses all other treaties in the transfer of territory, including
our own section. By it the Lily of France was officially displaced by the
Lion of Great Britain in the Maumee basin. The war belt of wampum
was sent to the farthest shores of Lake Superior, and the most distant
20 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
delta of the Mississippi. The bugle call of this mighty leader Pontiac
aroused the remotest tribes to aggressive action.
"Why do you suffer these dogs in red clothing to enter your country
and take the land the Great Spirit has given you ? Drive them from it !
Drive them ! When you are in distress I will help you." These words
were the substance of the message from Pontiac. That voice was heard,
but not by the whites. "The unsuspecting traders journeyed from village
to village ; the soldiers in the forts shrunk from the sun of the early
summer, and dozed away the day ; the frontier settlers, resting in fancied
security, sowed his crops, or, watching the sunset through the girdled
trees, mused upon one more peaceful harvest, and told his children of the
horrors of the ten years' war, now, thank God, over. From the Alle-
ghenies to the Mississippi the trees had leaved and all was calm life and
joy. But through the great country, even then, bands of sullen red men
were journeying from the central valleys to the lakes and the eastern
hills. Ottawas filled the woods near Detroit. The Maumee Post, Presque
Isle, Niagara, Fort Pitt, Ligonier, and every English fort, was hemmed
in by Indian tribes, who felt that the great battle drew nigh which was
to determine their fate and the possession of their noble lands."
The chiefs and sachems everywhere joined the conspiracy, sending
lofty messages to Pontiac of the deeds they would perform. The
ordinary pursuits of life were practically abandoned. Although the fair
haired Anglo-Saxons and darker Latins had concluded peace, the war-
riors, who had not been represented at the great European conclave,
danced their war dance for weeks at a time. Squaws were set to work
sharpening knives, moulding bullets and mixing war paint. Even the
children imbibed the fever and incessantly practiced with bows and
arrows. While ambassadors in Europe were coldly and unfeelingly dis-
posing of the lands of the red men, the savages themselves were planning
for the destruction of the Europeans residing among them. For once in
the history of the American aborigines thousands of wild and restless
Indians, of a score of different tribes, were animated by a single inspira-
tion and purpose. The attack was to be made in the month of Rlay, 1763.
"Hang the peace pipe on the wall —
Rouse the nations one and all !
Tell them quickly to prepare
For the bloody rites of War.
Now begin the fatal dance.
Raise the club and shake the lance,
Now prepare the bow and dart —
'Tis our fathers' ancient art ;
Let each heart be strong and bold
As our fathers were of old.
Warriors, up ! — prepare — attack —
'Tis the voice of Pontiack."
The conspiracy was months in maturing. Pontiac kept two secre-
taries, the "one to' write for him, the other to read the letters he received
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 21
and he manages them so as to keep each of them ignorant of what is
transacted by the other." It was also carried on with great secrecy, in
order to avoid its being communicated to the British. Pontiac reserved
to himself the beginning of the war. With the opening of spring he
dispatched his fleet-footed messengers through the forests bearing their
belts of wampum and gifts of tobacco. They visited not only the pop-
ulous villages, but also many a lonely tepee in' the Northern woods. The
appointed spot was on the banks of the little river Ecorces, not far from
Detroit. To this great council went Pontiac, together with his squaws
and children. When all the delegates had arrived, the meadow was
thickly dotted with the slender wigwams.
In accordance with the summons, "they came issuing from their
cabins — the tall, naked figures of the wild Ojibwas, with quivers slung
at their backs, and light war-clubs resting in the hollow of their arms;
Ottawas, wrapped close in their gaudy blankets; Wyandots, fluttering
in painted shirts, their heads adorned with feathers, and their leggings
garnished with bells. All were seated in a wide circle upon the grass,
row within row, a grave and silent assembly. Each savage countenance
seemed carved in wood, and none could have detected the deep and fiery
passions hidden beneath that immovable exterior. Pipes with ornamented
sterns were lighted and passed from hand to hand." Pontiac inveighed
against the arrogance, injustice, and contemptuous conduct of the Engli.sh.
He expanded upon the trouble that would follow their supremacy. He
exhibited a belt of wampum that he had received from their great father,
the King of France, as a token that he had heard the voices of his red
children, and said that the French and the Indians would once more fight
side by side as they had done many moons ago.
The plan that had been agreed upon was to attack all the British out-
posts on the same day, and thus drive the "dogs in red" from the country.
The first intimation that the British had was in March, 1763, when
Ensign Holmes, commandant of Fort Miami at the head of the Maumee.
^was informed by a friendly Miami that the Indians in the near villages
had lately received a war belt with urgent request that they destroy him
and his garrison, and that they were even then preparing to do so. This
information was communicated to his superior at Detroit, in the following
letter to Major Gladwyn :
"Fort Miami,
"March 30th, 1763.
"Since my Last Letter to You, where I Acquainted You of the
Bloody Belt being in this Village, I have made all the search I could
about it, and have found it out to be true. Whereon I Assembled all
the Chiefs of this Nation, & after a long and troublesome Spell with
them, I Obtained the Belt, with a Speech, as You will Receive Enclosed.
This Affair is very timely Stopt, and I hope the News of a Peace will
put a stop to any further Troubles with these Indians, who are the
Principal Ones of Setting Mischief on Foot. I send you the belt with
this Packet, which I hope You will Forward to the General."
One morning an Indian girl, a favorite of Ensign Holmes, the com-
manding officer of the Fort Miami mentioned above, appeared at the
22 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
fort. She told him that an old squaw was Ij'ing sick in a wigwam, a short
distance away, and beseeched Holmes to come and see if he could do
anything for her. Although Holmes was suspicious of the Indians, he
never doubted the loyalty of the girl, and readily yielded to her request.
A number of Indian lodges stood at the edge of a meadow not far
removed from the fort, but hidden from it by a strip of woodland. The
treacherous girl pointed out the hut where the sick woman lay. As
Holmes entered the lodge, a dozen rifles were discharged and he fell dead.
A sergeant, hearing the shots, ran out of the fort to see what was the
matter, and encountered a similar fate. The panic-stricken garrison, no
longer possessing a leader, threw open the gates and surrendered without
resistance.
On the 16th day of May, Ensign Pauli, who was in command at
Fort Sandusky, near the present city of that name, which had been rebuilt
and reoccupied, was informed that seven Indians were waiting at the
gate to speak with him. Several of these were known to him, as they
were Wyandots of his neighborhood, so that they were readily admitted.
When the visitors reached his headquarters, an Indian seated himself
on either side of the ensign. Pipes were lighted, and all seemed peaceful.
Suddenly an Indian standing in the doorway made a signal by raising his
head. The savages immediately seized Pauli and disarmed him. At the
same time a confusion of yells and shrieks and the noise of firearms
sounded from without. It soon ceased, however, and when Pauli was
led out of the enclosure the ground was strewn with the corpses of his
murdered comrades and the traders. At nightfall he was conducted to
the lake, where several birch canoes lay, and as they left the shore the
fort burst into flames. He was then bound hand and foot and taken to
Detroit, where the assembled Indian squaws and children pelted him with
stones, sticks, and gravel, forcing him to dance and sing. Happily an old
squaw, who had lately been widowed, adopted him in place of the deceased
spouse. Having been first plunged into the river that the white blood
might be washed away, he was conducted to the lodge of the widow, but -
he escaped from such enforced matrimonial servitude at the earliest
opportunity.
It would not be within the province of this history to describe in
detail the prolonged siege which was undergone by the British garrison
at Detroit against a host of besieging savages. At every other point
the conspiracy was a success, and for the British there was only an
unbroken series of disasters. The savages spread terror among the
settlers throughout all the Ohio country. Cabins were burned, defense-
less women and children were murdered, and the aborigines were aroused
to the highest pitch of fury by the blood of their numerous victims. It
was not until a letter reached Pontiac from the French commander,
informing him that the French and English were now at peace, that the
Ottawa chief abandoned hope. He saw himself and his people thrown
back upon their own slender resources. For hours no man nor woman
dared approach him, so terrible was his rage. His fierce spirit was
wrought into unspeakable fury. At last he arose and, with an imperious
gesture, ordered the frightened squaws to take down the wigwams. In
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 23
rage and mortification, Pontiac, with a few tribal chiefs as followers,
removed his camp from Detroit and returned to the banks of the Maumee
River to nurse his disappointed expectations.
Following the withdrawal of the Indians, comparative quiet prevailed
for several months. Pontiac was still unconquered, however, and his
hostility to the English continued unabated. He afterwards journeyed to
the Illinois country, where the French still held sway, in order to arouse
the western tribes to further resistance. His final submission was given
to Sir William Johnson, at Oswego. That official, "wrapped in his scarlet
blanket bordered with gold lace, and surrounded by the glittering uniforms
of the British officers, was seen, with hand extended in welcome to the
great Ottawa, who standing erect in conscious power, his rich plumes
waving over the circle of his warriors, accepted the proffered hand, with
an air in which defiance and respect were singularly blended." Like the
dissolving view upon a screen, this picturesque pageant passed into history
and Pontiac returned to the Maumee region, which continued to be his
home. Here he pitched his lodge in the forest with his wives and children,
and hunted like an ordinary warrior, although he yielded more and more
to the seduction of "firewater." There is probably no section of the
extreme northwestern part of our state where his moccasined feet did
not at some time tread.
For a few years the records are silent concerning Pontiac. In 1789,
however, he appeared at the post of St. Louis. He remained there for
two or three days, after which he visited an assemblage of Indians at
Cahokia, on the opposite side of the river, arrayed in the full uniform of a
French officer, one which had been presented to him by the Marquis of
Montcalm. Here a Kaskaskia Indian, bribed by a British trader, buried
a tomahawk in his brain. Thus perished the Indian chief who made him-
self a powerful champion of his ruined race. His descendants continued
to reside along the Maumee until the final removal of the remnant of his
once powerful tribe beyond the Mississippi. His death was avenged in a
truly sanguinary. The Kaskaskias were pursued by the Sacs and
Foxes, and were practically exterminated for this vile deed. Their
villages were burned, and their people either slain or driven to refuge in
distant places.
Pontiac's vision of the ruin of his people was prophetic. The Indian
has disappeared, together with the buffalo, the deer, and the bear. His
wigwam has vanished from the banks of the streams. Today, mementoes
of his lost race, such as the rude tomahawk, the stone arrowhead, and
the wampum beads, when turned up by the plow of the paleface farmer,
become the prized relics of the antiquary or the wonder of youth. But his
prophetic eye went no further. Little did he dream that within the short
space of a few human lives the blue lake over which he ofttimes sailed
would be studded with the ships of commerce; that gigantic boats pro-
pelled by steam would replace the fragile canoe ; that populous cities and
thriving villages would arise by the score upon the ruins of the pristine
forests; that the hunting grounds of his youth, and old age as well, in
the Maumee region, would become a hive of industry and activity, and
the abode of wealth surpassed by no section of this or adjoining states.
24 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
In the early spring of the year following the collapse of Pontiac's
conspiracy, the British commander-in-chief decided to send two expedi-
tions to the western country. One of these was to invade the lake region
and the other to visit the Delaware and Shawnee settlements in South
Ohio. Bouquet did not reach our region, but the successful results of
his efforts had a large influence in the greater peace that followed during
the next few years. A great conference was held with the Ohio savages
along the Muskingum at which treaties were entered into and many
captives released by the Indians. The number is estimated to exceed two
hundred. Many heart rending scenes occurred. In a number of instances
the dislike of the Indians to leave their white companions was almost
equalled by their reluctance to return to civilization. Several white
women were almost forced to quit their painted spouses.
The second expedition was commanded by Colonel John Bradstreet, a
man whose reputation exceeded his exploits. Embarking in small boats at
the foot of Lake Erie in the summer of 1764, the expedition set sail,
numbering more than two thousand soldiers and helpers. It required a
large flotilla to convey so large a party. Bradstreet had orders to attack
the Indians dwelling along the Sandusky. He camped there for a time
on his outward journey, but was misled by the Indian subtlety, and sailed
away without either following his orders to chastise these Indians or
completing the fort which he began. The Indians promised "that if he
would refrain from attacking them, they would follow him to Detroit
and there conclude a treaty." At Detroit the troops were royally wel-
comed. An Indian council was at once summoned, and Montresor reports
it as follows: "Sat this day the Indian council. Present, the Jibbeways,
Shawanese, Hurons of Sandusky and the five nations of the Scioto, with
all the several nations of friendly Indians accompanying the army. The
Pottawattomies had not yet arrived. Pondiac declined appearing here
until his pardon should be granted. * * * fl^l^ day Pondiac was
forgiven in council, who is at present two days march above the Castle on
the Miami River called la Roche de But, near Waterville, with a party
of sixty or more savages." The Indians agreed to call the English king
"father," the term formerly applied to the French sovereign. After
several weeks spent at Detroit, Bradstreet once more embarked for the
Sandusky, where they arrived in a few days. A number of prominent
and lesser chiefs visited him here, but nothing was accomplished. Their
subtlety was too deep for the English commander. He camped where
Fremont is now located and began the work of erecting a fort. This was
finally abandoned and the expedition returned to Fort Niagara.
An interesting incident in connection with the Bradstreet expedition
was a journey undertaken by Captain IMorris, of which he kept a complete
and interesting journal. Under instructions from his superior, he "set
out in good spirits from Cedar Point (mouth of the Mauniee), Lake Erie,
on the 26th of August, 1764, about four o'clock in the afternoon at the
same time the army proceeded for Detroit." He was accompanied by
two Canadians and a dozen Indians, who were to accompany him "to
the Rapids of the Miami (Maumee) River, and then return to the army."
There were also W'arsong, a noted "Chippeway ciiicf, and .\ttawang an
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 25
Uttawa (Ottawa) chief." The party proceeded up the Maumee to the
headquarters of Pontiac, "whose army consisting of six hundred savages,
with tomahawks in their hands," surrounded him. Pontiac squatted
himself before his visitor, and behaved in a rather unfriendly fashion.
The greater part of the Indians got drunk, and several of them threatened
to kill him. After the savages had become more sober, Pontiac permitted
the party to resume its journey up the river.
At the site of Fort \Vayne, another rabble of Indians met the ambassy
in a threatening manner, but Morris remained in a canoe reading "The
tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra," in a volume of Shakespeare which
had been presented to him by the Indian chief. This was undoubtedly
one of the strangest circumstances under which the works of Shakespeare
were ever perused. The journal of Morris reveals a keen insight into the
Indian nature. While Bradstreet was being deceived by their duplicity,
Morris recognized their real character and said: "I wish the. chiefs were
assembled on board a vessel, and that she had a hole in her bottom.
Treachery should be paid with treachery; and it is worth more than
ordinary pleasure to deceive those who would deceive us." When he
reached Detroit again, Bradstreet had already departed on his journey
to Sandusky.
The British continued their eiTorts to establish friendly relations with
the Indians of the western country. In the spring of 1765 another small
expedition was dispatched under Major George Croghan, who had visited
the Indians on several previous occasions and thoroughly understood
them. He floated down the Ohio and in May he was at the mouth of the
Wabash, which he spells Ouabache. He says: "August 1st, we arrived
at the carrying place between the Miames and the Ouabache, which is
about nine miles long in dry seasons, but not above half that length in
freshets. * * * Within a mile of the Twightwee village, I was met
by the chiefs of that nation, who received us very kindly. The most part
of these Indians knew me, and conducted me to their village, where they
immediately hoisted an English flag that I had formerly given them at
Fort Pitt. * * * The Indian village consists of about forty or fifty
cabins, besides nine or ten French houses — a runaway colony from
Detroit. * * * All the French residing here are a lazy, indolent
people, fond of breeding mischief, and spiriting up the Indians against
the English, and should by no means be suffered to remain here.
"On the sixth day of August, we set out for Detroit, down the Miames
River in a canoe. This river heads about ten miles from hence. The
river is not navigable until you come to the place where the St. Joseph
joins it, and makes a considerably large stream. Nevertheless, we found
a great deal of difficulty in getting our canoe over the shoals, as the
waters at this season were very low. * * * About ninety miles
from the i\Iiamcs or Twightwee, we came to a large river that heads
in a large lick, falls into the Aliame River (probably the Auglaize).
The Ottawas claim this country, and hunt here, where game is very
plenty. From hence we proceeded to the Ottawa village. * * * Here
we were compelled to get out of our canoes, and drag them eighteen
miles, on account of the rifts, which interrupt the navigation. At the
26 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
end of the rifts we came to a villlage of the Wyandots, who received us
very kindly, and from thence we proceeded to the mouth of this river,
where it falls into Lake Erie. From the Miames to the lake it is com-
puted 180 miles, and from the entrance of the river into the lake at Detroit,
is sixty miles — that is forty-two miles upon the lake, and eighteen miles
up the Detroit river to the garrison of that name." Croghan's expedition
had been very successful in accomplishing its purposes.
CHAPTER III
THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
The Indians had at last become convinced that no more reHance could
be placed upon the French, and that their interests would best be served
by remaining on friendly terms with the British. The acquiescence of
Pontiac and his late associates gave the English an opportunity to secure
possession of the Ohio country as far as the Mississippi, and the oppor-
tunity was not neglected. This expansive stretch of country was still
almost an unbroken wilderness, in which the red men were the only human
dwellers.
It became increasingly difficult for the British authorities to hol(J
back the threatening tide of Caucasian invasion into the trans-Allegheny
country. The marvelous reports of the abounding fertility of the soil
enthused some. The abundance of game and fur-bearing animals and
the natural call of the wild excited a still greater number. The Indians
had hoped to retain all the region northwest of the Ohio, and in fact
vague promises had been made by government representatives. A treaty
was entered into with the Five Nations, but some of the Ohio tribes did
not consider this treaty binding. They denied the authority of those
tribes to dispose of the lands claimed and occupied by themselves. The
Quebec Act, promulgated in 1763 by the King of England, had expressly
forbid settlements in the Ohio country. The express purpose was to
make this northwestern territory where we now live a great Indian reser-
vation. This act was not wholly unselfish, for it seemed advisable in
order to ensure the colonies from danger of Indian uprisings.
The famous Ohio Company had been formed as early as 1748, in the
interests of Virginia. The Washington brothers, Lawrence and A.ugus-
tine, Thomas Lee, and others, had been given a grant of half a million
acres, with certain conditions. Two hundred thousand acres were to be
located at once, provided the company succeeded in placing a colony of
one hundred persons and building a fort sufficient to protect the settle-
ment. This act had its part in causing the French and Indian war.
During the progress of that sanguinary struggle the project lay dormant.
At its close it was revived. Other companies were formed. One of these
was the Mississippi Company, the articles of which are in the handwriting
of the "Father of his Country". He foresaw the future of this promising
country. The craving for the western land reached London, for the Earl
of Selbourne, Secretary of State, wrote as follows : "The thirst after
the lands of the Aboriginies is become almost universal, the people who
generally want them are either ignorant of or remote from the conse-
quences disobliging the Aboriginies, many make a traffic of lands and few
or none will be at any pains or expense to get them settled, conse-
28 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
quentlv thev cannot be losers by an Aborigini War, and should a Tribe
be driven to despair, and abandon their country, they have their desire
tho' at the expense of the lives of such ignorant settlers as may be upon it.
* * * The majority of those who get lands, being persons of conse-
quence (British) in the Capitals who can let them lye dead as a sure
Estate hereafter, and are totally ignorant of the Aboriginies, make use of
some of the lowest and most selfish of the Country Inhabitants to seduce
the Aboriginies to their houses, where they are kept rioting in drunkenness
till thev have effected their bad purposes."
The character of the immigrants at this time is revealed by an excerpt
from a report by Sir William Johnston: "For more than ten years past,
the most dissolute fellows united with debtors, and persons of wandering
disposition, have been removing from Pensilvania & Virginia & into
the Aborigine Country, towards & on the Ohio it a considerable number
of settlements were made as early as 1765 when my Deputy (George
Croghan) was sent to the Illinois from whence he gave me a particular
account of the uneasiness occasioned amongst the Aborigines. Many of
these emigrants are idle fellows that are too lazy to cultivate lands, &
invited by the plenty of game they found, have employed themselves in
hunting, in which thev interfere much more with the Aborigines than if
they pursued agriculture alone, and the Aborigine hunters (who are
composed of all the Warriors in each nation) already begin to feel the
scarcity thi= has occasioned, which greatly increases their resentment."
Asa proof that this Nofthwestern countrv was becoming of greater
importance than formerly, we find that in 1767 a post, or mart, was
suggested for the Maumee River, as well as one for the W^abash, whereas
formerly it was thought that Detroit was sufficient for this entire territory.
In his report to the Secretary of State in that year, the superintendent
said among other things : "Sandusky which has not been re-established
is not a place of much consequence of Trade, it is chiefly a post at which
several Pennsylvania Traders embarked for Detroit. St. Joseph's (near
Lake Alichigan) and the Miamis at Fort W^ayne have neither of them
been yet re-established, the former is of less consequence for Trade than
the latter which is a place of some importance. * * * At the Miamis
there may be always a sufficiency of provisions from its vicinity to Lake
Erie, and its easiness of access 'by the River of that name at the proper
season, to protect which the Fort there can at a small expense be
rendered tenable against any Coup du mains * * * this would
greatly contribute to overcome the present excuse which draws the
traders to rove at will and thereby exposes us to the utmost danger."
To meet the advances of the whites the Ohio Indians formed a great
confederacy on the Pickaway Plains, in July, 1772, in which the Shawnees.
Wyandots, Miamis, Ottawas, Delawares, and even western tribes had
united for mutual protection. They denied the right of the Six Nations
to convey a title to the English for all the hunting grounds south of the
Ohio. They demanded compensation for themselves in the event settle-
ments were insisted upon. For this attitude the Ohio Indians cannot be
blamed. The purpose of this alliance was not only to hurl back from their
frontiers the white invaders, but also to surpass the Iroquois both in
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 29
strength and prowess. The Shawnees were the most active in this
confederation, and their great chief Cornstalk was recognized as the
head of this confederation. In the year 1774 many inhuman and revolting
incidents occurred. In the battle with the forces of Lord Dunmore, in
what is known as Lord Dunmore's war, the power of this confederation
was broken. The peace pipe was again smoked, but the armistice was not
of long duration. When the war finally broke out between the colonies
and the mother country the Ohio Indians, as soon as they learned of the
significance of the struggle, aligned themselves on the side of the British,
being partly lured to that decision by promises of the military authorities.
This decision of the savages to remain loyal to the British was destined
to cost the American colonists many hundreds of additional lives, and an
untold amount of suft'ering during the several years of bitter struggle
for independence from the mother country. Previous to this time the
colonies had already lost some thirty thousand lives, and had incurred
an expense of many millions of dollars in their efforts for protection
against the French and their Indian allies. Of this sum only about one-
third had been reimbursed to them by the British Parliament. Hence it
was that a large indebtedness had accumulated, and the rates of taxation
had become exceedingly burdensome.
The war against the savages was almost without cessation. The
campaigns were more nearly continuous than consecutive, and they seldom
rose to the dignity of civilized warfare. In most instances it is difficult
to tell when one Indian war ended and another began. Incursive bodies
of whites and retaliatory bodies of Indians, or vice versa, kept this
section of the state in an almost interminable turmoil. An attack was
immediately followed by reprisal, and an invasion was succeeded by
pursuit and punishment. IMost of the encounters rose little above massa-
cres by one or both belligerents. The killing of some of the family. of
the Mingo chief, Logan, is an instance of white brutality. Bald Eagle,
a Delaware chief, and Silver Heels, a friendly Shawneen chief, were also
brutallv murdered. It is no wonder that the Indians began to ask : "Had
the Indian no rights which the white men were bound to respect?" In
Northwest Ohio the strength and aggressiveness of the savages was
greater than in any of the other part of the state, because of the nearness
to the British outposts and the consequent incitations of the British
agents.
Under the French regime, and under the British also, until the Revolu-
tionary war, the commandant of the military post at Detroit, to which
Northwestern Ohio was tributary, exercised the fimctions of both civil
and a military officer with absolute power. The criminal law of England
was supposed to be the ruling authority, but as a matter of fact the
supreme law was generally the will of the commandant or the official of
his appointing. !Many times the official proved cruel and remorseless, and
as a result the greatest of dissatisfaction arose. When the office of
Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent of Aborigine afifairs was created
for Detroit and the surrounding country, including this section, Henry
Hamilton was appointed and arrived at his post in December, 1775. He
proved to be not only tactful but also cruel and remorseless. The equip-
30 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
merit of war parties of savages was absolutely in the hands of the British
officials, and everywhere war parties of these savages were thoroughly
equipped and frequently commanded by British officers themselves, and
sent out over this territory, as well as other sections. In one report we
read that fifteen war parties had been sent out from Detroit under British
officers and rangers, many of the savages coming from the Maumee region.
They brought in twenty-three American prisoners and one hundred and
twenty-nine scalps. The white men who accompanied the savages were
frequently as cruel and debased as the red men themselves. All the scalps
brought in by the savages were paid for. A scalp brought varying prices
from fifty dollars upwards. The Indians were known to take an unusually
large scalp, cut it in two parts, and attempt to secure two awards.
Frequently the commandant himself encouraged the savages by singing
the war song and by passing the weapons through his own hands, in
order to show his full sympathy with them in their murderous work. On
their return to Detroit they were sometimes welcomed by firing the
fort's cannon.
The following is one instance of a presentation of scalps from the
Indians to the commandant at Detroit: "Presenting sixteen scalps, one
of the Delaware chiefs said. Listen to your children, the Delawares who
are come in to see you at a time they have nothing to apprehend from the
enemy, and to present you some dried meat, as we could not have the
face to appear before our father empty."
During the first couple of years of the Revolutionary war, the Ohio
Indians were inactive. As yet they scarcely knew with which side to
affiliate, and thev could not understand the quarrel. But their sympathies
were undoubtedly with the British. Governor Hamilton at Detroit lost
no opportunity to attract them to his cause. He danced and sang the
war-song and mingled with them freely. Soon after his arrival he
reported that "the Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots and Pottawattomies.
with the Senecas would fall on the scattered settlers on the Ohio and its
branches." Detroit became the great center for the Indian gatherings.
All of the materials of war were supplied to them there. "They were
coaxed with rum, feasted with oxen roasted whole, alarmed by threats
of the destruction of their hunting ground and supplied with everything
that an Indian could desire." One report shows that 17,520 gallons of
the "firewater" were distributed in a single year. The Americans practi-
cally ignored them at this time. Then came the brutal murder of Corn-
stalk and his son Ellinipsico, in 1777, when on an errand of friendship
for the colonists. The death of this brave and magnanimous chief was
the signal for the Ohio tribes to go on the warpath. As there were rio
white settlements in Ohio as yet, their depredations were committed in
Kentucky and on the Virginia border. Hence it was that this year is
known as the "bloody year of the three sevens." Standing in the midst
of a long series darkened by ceaseless conflict with the savages, it was
darker than the darkest. It was bloodier than the bloodiest. The
Shawnees, Ottawas, Wyandots, together with a few Delawares and
Senecas, all took a part in the disturbances. The policy of hiring Indians
by paying bounties on scalps was on a par with British employment of
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 31
mercenary Hessians. Hamilton at Detroit became known among the
Americans as "the hair bu\-er." Many scalps and prisoners were taken
down the Maumec to Detroit by parties of savages. They were assisted
by a group of renegade Americans, Simon Girtv, Alexander McKee, and
Matthew Elliott.
A number of noted white prisoners who had been captured were
taken to Detroit. One of these unfortunates was Simon Kenton whose
career so excites the minds of youth. When the noted prisoner Simon
Kenton reached the Upper Sandusky town, the Indians, young and old,
came out to view him. His death was expected to take place here.
As soon as the grand court was organized, and ready to proceed to
business, a Canadian Frenchman, one Pierre Druillard, who usually went
by the name of Peter Druyer * * * made his appearance in the
council. * * * He began his speech by stating: "the Americans
were the cause of the present bloody and distressing war — that neither
peace nor safety could be expected, so long as these intruders were
permitted to live upon the earth." He then explained to the Indians:
"that the war to be carried on successfully, required cunning as well as
braverv — that the intelligence which might be extorted from a prisoner
would be of more advantage, in conducting the future operations of the
war, than would be the lives of twenty prisoners. Under these circum-
stances, he hoped they would defer the death of the prisoner till he was
taken to Detroit, and examined by the commanding general." He next
noticed, "that they had already a great deal of trouble and fatigue with
the prisoner without being revenged upon him ; but that they had got
back all the horses the prisoners had stolen from them, and killed one of
his comrades : and to insure something for their fatigue and trouble, he
himself would give one hundred dollars in rum and tobacco or any
other article they would choose, if they would let him take the prisoner
to Detroit, to be examined by the British General." The Indians, without
hesitation, agreed to Captain Druyer's proposition, and he paid down the
ransom. As soon as these arrangements were concluded. Druyer and a
principal chief set off with the prisoner for Lower Sandusky. From this
place they proceeded by water to Detroit, where they arrived in a few
days. With Kenton's escape was terminated one of the most remarkable
adventures in Ohio history.
Another noted American who became acquainted with this region as a
captive was Daniel Boone. While making salt at the Blue Licks he was
taken captive by some Miamis and taken to Detroit. Governor Hamilton
offered the savages one hundred pounds for Boone, but the ofifer was
refused. They brought him back to Ohio and he was adopted into the
tribe. Not long afterwards, however, he escaped from them and success-
fully made his way back to Kentucky and continued to maintain his reputa-
tion as an Indian fighter.
It was in the year 1778 that jNIajor George Rogers Clark gathered
together four small companies of brave men and headed an expedition
into the Illinois country. His force boated down the Ohio to the falls
and then proceeded overland. On the fourth of July they captured
Kaskaskia and a few days later Cahokia was yielded without a struggle.
32 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The British were dumbfounded to find colonial forces in this western
country. The French usually welcomed the prospect of a change. They
expelled the British at Vincennes and hoisted the American flag. Although
he did not reach this region in person, the good effect of his successful
campaign was felt all over the western country. Later in the same
year the British organized a large expedition, consisting of fifteen large
bateaux and several smaller boats, which were laden with food, clothing,
tents, ammunition, and the inevitable rum, together with other presents
for the savages. At the outset the forces consisted of one hundred
seventy-seven white soldiers, together with a considerable number of
Indians. This expedition started from Detroit with a destination of
Vincennes. Oxen carts and even a six-pounder cannon were sent along
on shore, together with beef cattle. The expedition encountered severe
storms in crossing Lake Erie, and, because of the low stage of the water,
it required sixteen days to make the journey from the mouth of the
Maumee to its head. This force was attacked by American troops under
Colonel Clark, and they were defeated. The governor, Henry Hamilton,
and all of his officers were made prisoners, and conducted to Virginia,
where they were closely confined and put in irons. The supplies of the
expedition were also captured by the Americans, and they proved very
useful in the work which was laid out before them.
It was in 1778, that the legislature of Virginia organized the North-
western Territory into the county of Illinois. Following Clark's suc-
cesses, a court of civil and criminal procedure was established at
Vincennes. Col. John Todd, Jr., was named as military commandant
and county lieutenant. The various claims of the Eastern states to the
territory west of the Alleghenies was the cause of friction between these
colonies for years. These claims were based on the colonial charters and
upon treaties with the Aborigines, and were generally very indefinite
regarding boundaries, because the greater part of the region had never
been surveyed. It was finally advocated that each state should cede her
claims to the newly organized Union. Congress passed an act in 1780
providing that the territory so ceded should be disposed of for the benefit
of the United States in general. This act met a ready response from
New York, which assigned her claim in 1781, but the other states did not
act for several years. Virginia ceded to the United States all her right,
title, and claim to the country northwest of the Ohio River in 1784. The
following year the Legislature of Massachusetts relinquished all her
assertions to this territory, excepting Detroit and vicinity. In 1786,
Connecticut waived all her assertions of sovereignty, excepting the section
designated as the Western Reserve, and opened an office for the disposal
of the portion of the Reserve lying east of the Cuyahoga River. This
cession cleared Northwest Ohio of all the claims of individual states.
The claim of Virginia was based upon her charter of 1609 in which her
boundaries were described as follows : "Situate lying and being Jn that
part of America called Virginia from the point of land called Cape or
Point Comfort all along the sea coast to the northward two hundred
miles, and all that space or circuit of land lying from sea to sea, west
and northwest." Virginia statesmen and jurists interpreted this charter
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 33
as granting all that vast territory bounded on these Hnes and extending
to the Pacific Ocean as included within that colony. Jurisdiction was
exercised over it from the very beginning. Early in the eighteenth
century her pioneers had crossed the Allegheny Mountains. It was at
first a part of Spottsylvania County, which was afterwards sub-divided
into Orange County, which included all of the present site of Ohio, as
well as much more. This immense domain was afterwards sub-divided,
our region became a part of Augusta County. Later, as heretofore men-
tioned, this section of the country was included in Illinois Coimty. which
embraced all the territory within the border limits of Virginia, northwest
of the Ohio River, and east of the JMississippi. Thus it remained, so far
as governmental relations were concerned, until Virginia ceded to the
general government all her rights to the dominion northwest of the
Ohio River.
Notwithstanding the intense fighting between the colonists and the
British, and the need of every able bodied man in the revolutionary
armies, many families continued to enter the trans-Allegheny coimtry.
In the spring of 1780, 300 large family boats loaded with emigrants
arrived at the Falls of the Ohio, near Louisville. Although many of
these were attracted by the lauded fertility of the soil, some undoubt-
edly fled with the hope of escaping conscription into the armies.
In this same year a larger expedition than usual was gathered together
to attack the isolated settlements of Americans now being established
throughout Ohio. It was under the command of Capt. Henry Bird, with
the three Girtys as guides and scouts. These Indians were well equipped
and it is said had pieces of artillery, which was very unusual, if not
without precedent among those people. These Indians passed up the
Maumee River to the mouth of the Auglaize, and then traversed" that
river as far as it was navigable. They numbered about one thousand
men when they reached Ruddell's Station, in Kentucky. Ruddell's
Station yielded, and was followed by Martin's Station a few miles distant.
Several hundred captives were taken. Captain Bird tried to save the
captives, but many were massacred, and the expedition returned to
Detroit by the way of the Alaumee. It was the most successful foray
undertaken by the British against the Kentucky settlements.
Under date of July 6, 1780, Governor De Peyster wrote: "I am
harried with war parties coming in from all quarters that I do not know
which way to turn myself." * * * Qj^ jj^g 4^j^ q£ August he
again reported to Colonel Bolton, his superior officer on the lakes, that
"I have the pleasure to acquaint you that Captain Bird arrived here this
morning with about 150 prisoners, mostly Germans who speak English,
the remainder coming in, for in spite of all his endeavors to prevent it
the Aborigines broke into the forts and seized many. The whole will
amount to about 350. * * * Thirteen have entered into the Rangers,
and many more will enter, as the prisoners are greatly fatigued with
traveling so far, some sick and some wounded. P. S. Please excuse the
hurry of this letter — the Aborigines engross my time. We have more
here than enough. Were it not absolutely necessary to keep in with them,
they would tire my patience."
34 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
A few months after the surrender at Yorktown, and before peace was
officially declared between England and the Colonies, there occurred a
tragedy in this western country which startled the entire new nation. It
was really a part of the revolutionary struggle, for the passions had been
kept alive by British agents and the savages were still entirely pro-
British. This tragic event took place within sixty miles of Wauseon
and Bryan. No incident in the Indian warfare exceeds the burning of
Col. William Crawford and the slaughter of his followers in bloodthirsti'
ness and absolute cruelty. It proves to us that the bloodcurdling war
cry of the savage had not yet ceased to break the stillness of the forests
and prairies of the Maumee country. Children were still snatched into
captivity by dark hands thrust out from secret places. The failure of the
formidable expedition against the Indian stronghold in Northwestern
Ohio fell like a thunderbolt from a clear sky upon the eastern settle-
ments, where a feeling of serenity had succeeded the news of the success
of the Revolution. For those dwelling west and north of the Ohio River,
it seemed to portend ruin and disaster.
The Indians of this western country were aroused to fury by the
massacre of the peaceful Moravians at Gnadenhutten. Even those red
men to whom the Christian religion made no appeal were horrified at the
thought that their people, after listening to the seductive words of white
preachers, were now cold in death, and they only waited an opportunity
for vengeance. Hence when word reached them of the approaching
expedition under Colonel Crawford, they resorted to every wile to waylay
the whites and were prepared to administer the most horrible punishment
upon any captive.
It was on the twenty-fifth day of May, 1782, that the Crawford expedi-
tion set out from Mingo Bottom for the Sandusky region miles distant.
The instructions were to destroy if possible the Indian town and settlement
of Sandusky. The shortest route was adopted and precautions taken
by these experienced men against surprise and ambush. On the ninth
day of March, the men emerged from the dense woods through which
they had been traveling into rolling prairie. On the following morning
the men were stirring and ready for the march before the ascending sun
had illumined the landscape. Throughout the entire camp there was a
noticeable bustle of excitement. The men knew that they were near
their destination, and they felt within themselves that a crisis was
approaching. The guns were carefully examined and fresh charges
placed in them. Packs were readjusted and saddle girths were carefully
tightened. The army was now encamped within the county of Wyandot,
and not many miles distant from the present town of Upper Sandusky.
The army followed a well marked path which led down a diminutive
stream, known as the Little Sandusky. Soon they reached an opening
in the woods where, in a beautiful location, they could see the Wyandot
town, which had been the goal of the expedition. To their intense sur-
prise, however, not a sign of life was visible. The empty huts were silent
and tenantless. The ashes of the camp fires seemed to have been beaten
by many a rain since the hot coals had glowed in their midst.
11S1357
Map of United States in 1783
36 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Upon the discovery of the abandoned Wyandott town, a council of war
was immediately held. Opinion was divided upon the question of advance
or retreat. The very failure to discover Indians led the wise ones to
surmise that some ambuscade or surprise was being prepared. Further-
more, there remained but five days' provisions for the forces. It was,
however, finally decided to continue the progression during the afternoon,
and, in case the enemy was not encountered, that retrogression should be
commenced during the night. In the van of the army rode a party of
scouts, who had not advanced very far ahead of the main army, when
they encountered a considerable body of Indians running directly toward
them. These were the Delawares under The Pipe. One of the scouts
galloped back to inform Crawford of the enemy's whereabouts. The
others withdrew slowly as the savages advanced to the attack. In a
moment the army was ablaze with enthusiasm, and all started forward at
full speed.
The Indians took possession of an island grove in the midst of the
prairie. The military eye of Crawford at once recognized the stragetic
value of this grove of timber, and a quick, forward movement forced
the Indians out. So/me of the Americans climbed trees, and from this
vaiitagc point took deadly aim at the feathered heads of the enemy moving
about in the grass.
The battle was renewed between the contending forces at sunrise on
the following day and several more of the Americans were wounded.
Finally reinforcements were seen approaching. Among these were recog-
nized white soldiers, who proved to be from the British garrison at
Detroit. Some painted Shawnees came galloping across the prairies to
assist their brethren. Then a council of war was held at which it was
decided that the only safe recourse was retreat. It was determined that
the retrogression should begin at nightfall. The dead were buried and
litters made for the wounded. But the enemy were not sleeping. A hot
fire was opened by them and the orderly plan of retreat was thrown into
confusion. The great wonder is that it did not degenerate into an utter
retreat. The party became scattered and Colonel Crawford himself
became detached from his forces. On the second morning he and Doctor
Knight, who had joined him, found themselves only eight miles away
from their starting point. Here it was, at a place in Crawford County,
that they were captured by three Delawares who came upon them
unawares. Crawford and Knight were at once led captive to the camp
of the Delawares. Their capture occurred on Friday afternoon. Great
indeed was the joy of the Indians when they discovered that Crawford
was the "big captain," and word was immediately sent to Captain Pipe.
This important news demanded a grave council of the Delaware chiefs
and it was decided that Crawford should be burned.
Knight and his companions were met by Captain Pipe at the old
Wyandot town. With his own hand this chief painted the faces of all
the prisoners black. While thus engaged he told Knight in very good
English that he would be taken to the Shawnee town to see his friends.
When Colonel Crawford was brought before him, he received him with
pretended kindness and joked about his making a good Indian. But it was
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 17
all a subterfuge. Here was a man upon whom to wreak vengeance, for
Crawford was the official leader of this expedition, which had dared to
invade their precincts. Crawford was taken on June 11th to a place
near what is known as Tymochtee, a few miles north of Upper San-
dusky. Here he found a large fire burning and many Indians were lying
about on the ground. Nevertheless, the dissembling war chiefs, both of
whom well knew Crawford, told him he would be adopted as an Indian
after he had been shaved. When the party conveying Crawford appeared,
the scene of idleness was transformed to one of animation. After The
Pipe had painted him black, a dozen warriors ran forward and seized
him. They tore the clothes from him with eager hands, and he was made
to sit on the ground. Surrounded by a howling mob, he at once became
the object of showers of dirt, stones, and sticks. While some were
Torture .\nd De.^tii of Coloxel Cr.a.wford
engaged in this — to them — sport, others quickly fixed in the ground a
large stake, some fifteen feet long, which had been previously prepared.
Still others ran quickly to and fro, piling up around the stake great piles
of light and dry hickory wood, which has been gathered and prepared
for the occasion.
The account of the burning of Colonel Crawford is related in the
words of Doctor Knight, his companion, who was an unwilling eye-
witness of this tragic scene, near which he stood securely bound and
guarded.
"W'hen we went to the fire the Colonel was stripped naked, ordered
to sit down by the fire, and then they beat him with sticks and their fists.
Presently after I was treated in the same manner. They then tied a
rope to the foot of a post about fifteen feet high, bound the Colonel's
hands behind his back and fastened the rope to the ligature between his
38 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
wrists. The rope was long enough for him to sit down or walk around
the post once or twice and return the same way. Captain Pipe, made
a speech to the Indians, viz., about thirty or forty men, sixty or seventy
squaws and boys.
"When the speech was finished, they all yelled a hideous and hearty
assent to what had been said. The Indian men then took up their guns
and shot powder into the Colonel's body, from his feet as far up as his
neck. I think that not less than seventy loads were discharged upon his
naked body. They then crowded about him, and to the best of my
observation cut off his ears ; when the throng had dispersed a little, I saw
blood running from both sides of his head in consequence thereof.
"The fire was about six or seven yards from the post to which the
Colonel was tied; it was made of small hickory poles, cut through in
the middle, each end of the poles remaining about six feet in length.
Three or four Indians by turns would take up, individually, one of these
burning pieces of wood, and apply it to his naked body, already burnt
black with powder. These tormentors presented themselves on every
side of him with the burning fagots and poles. Some of the squaws
took broad boards, upon which they would carry a quantity of burning
coals and hot embers, and throw on him, so that in a short time, he had
nothing but coals of fire and hot ashes to walk upon. * * * Colonel
Crawford at this period of his sufferings, besought the Almighty to have
mercy on his soul, spoke very low, and bore his torments with the most
manly fortitude. In the midst of his tortures he begged of Girty to shoot
him, but the white savage made no answer. He continued in all the
extremeties of pain, for an hour and three-quarters or two hours longer,
as near as I can judge, when at last, being almost exhausted, he lay down
on his belly ; they then scalped him, and repeatedly threw the scalp in my
face, telling me, that 'That was my great captain.' * * * "
When the news of the torture and death of Colonel Crawford reached
the Shawnee village the exultation was very great. Not so, when the
awful story was repeated in the settlements upon the border. A gloom
was spread over every countenance. Crawford's unfortunate end was
lamented by all who knew him. Heart-rending was the anguish in a
lonely cabin upon the banks of the Youghiogheny. There were few men
on the frontiers, at that time, whose loss could have been more sensibly
felt or more keenly deplored.
CHAPTER IV
SIMON GIRTY AND HIS BROTHERS
The northwestern section of Ohio was not only the home and hunting
ground of noted Indians, but it was the theater of the exploits of the
most notorious of renegades known to American history. The three
noted Girty brothers, Alexander McKee and Matthew Elliott formed a
noted quintet of apostates who spent many years in the Maumee basin
and adjoining territory and contributed largely to the hardships and suf-
ferings of the early settlers of this delectable region. In the channel of
the Maumee, near Napoleon, there is a large island which is still known
as Girty's Island. It is erroneously claimed by some that this island was
the retreat of Simon Girty, but it received its name because George
Girty at one time lived in this vicinity.
Of all historic characters the name of the traitor to his race or to his
country is most hated. His name becomes a byword and a reproach
among the nations of the earth. Whether designated as turncoat, tory,
apostate, or renegade, mankind have for him only universal expressions
of contempt. He lives in the midst of the fiercest passions that darken
the human heart. He is both a hater and the hated. The white rene-
gade, who had abandoned his race and civilization for the company of
the savages of the forest, is abhorred by all. For him there is no charity.
His virtues, if he had any, pass into oblivion. His name is inscribed with
that of Brutus, of Benedict Arnold, and of Judas Iscariot. He may have
been really better than he seems, his vices may have been exaggerated,
but of these things it is difficult to form a correct and impartial opinion,
for the whirlwinds of abuse throw dust into the eyes of the most pains-
taking historian.
The history of our border warfare furnishes us a number of instances
of white men who relapsed into a state as savage as their associates.
Our region has more than its full share of these ingrates. Of all these
known instances of white renegades, none equals the crvielty and abso-
lute baseness of Simon Girty, or Gerty, as it is sometimes spelled. Girty
was an Irishman, who was born in Pennsylvania not a great distance
from Harrisburg. His father, who was also named Simon, was of a
roving disposition and somewhat intemperate. "Grog was his song and
grog would he have." Nothing so entirely commanded his deepest regard
as a jug of fiery liquor. About the close of the year 1751 he was killed
in a drunken frolic by an Indian known as "The Fish." One John Turnet
who had lived with the family avenged the killing of Girty by putting
"The Fish" away from all earthly troubles and received the hand of the
widow as his reward.
The four Girty brothers owed very little to either parent. The mother
had not proved herself of very high character. Thomas, the eldest, was
40 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
born in 1739; Simon, the second, first saw the Hght of day in 1741;
James arrived in this world of trouble in 1743 and George was only two
years younger. The entire family was captured by a marauding party
of French and Indians at Fort Granville in July, 1756. The stepfather
was put to death with horrible torture, all of which the boys and the
miserable mother were compelled to witness. The Indians "tied Turner
to a black post ; danced around him ; made a great fire ; and having heated
gun-barrels red hot, ran them through his body. Having tormented him
for three hours, they scalped him alive, and at last held up a boy with a
hatchet in his hand to give him the finishing stroke." It is difficult to
imagine boys who were compelled to witness such scenes as ever adapting
themselves to such customs. The separatiori of the boys and their
mother followed soon afterwards. James was formally adopted by the
Shawnees, George by the Delawares, and Simon was taken by the Sene-
cas,, whose language he speedily learned. After three years all of the
brothers returned to their friends at Pittsburg, in accordance with a
treaty, and these three returned at a later period, as will appear.
James Girty was not quite so much addicted to intoxication as Simon
and George. He thoroughly adopted the savage life, however, married
a Shawnee squaw, and became a trader with the aborigines in after years.
His principal trading post for years was called Girty's Town, on the
site of the present city of St. Marys. It was he who had the trading
stand at a later period opposite Girty's Island, a short distance above
Napoleon. George married a Delaware woman, who bore him several
children. He died while intoxicated at the trading post of his brother
James. The fourth brother, Thomas, who was the oldest, escaped soon
after his capture, and was the only one of the family to remain loyal to
the United States during all the troubles with the mother country. He
made his home on Girty's Run, which was named after him, where he
raised a respectable family and died in 1820 at a ripe old age. On one
occasion, 1783, in company with his half-brother, John Turner, he
visited Simon at Detroit. John Turner accumulated considerable prop-
erty. For presenting a burial ground to the citizens of the locality in
which he lived. Turner was known as "the benefiactor of Squirrel Hill."
The adventures of the three Girty renegades have furnished the
material for many a volume of traditional and thrilling fiction. Whether
plausible or not, readers have been inclined to accept at their face value
the most absurd statements regarding their reputed activities. The
Indian name of Simon Girty was Katepakomen. For a number of years
after his return from captivity, Simon remained loyal to the American
cause and attained considerable influence. He took part in Dunmore's
war in 1774, with the Virginia forces, acting as guide and interpreter.
It was during this campaign he became a warm friend and bosom com-
panion of Simon Kenton, also one of the scouts. During these years he
also made the acquaintance of Col. William Crawford, to whom he was
indebted for favors. He repaid these afterward by refusing the mercy
shot begged for by that officer when in his deepest sufifering.
Simon Girty was commissioned a second lieutenant of the militia at
Pittsburg for his services on behalf of Virginia. "On the 22nd of Feb-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 41
ruary, 1775, came Simon Girty in open court and took and subscribed
the oath * * * to be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty
King George the Third."" He is included in a special list of loyal subjects
by Lord Dunmore in a report to his government. In 1775 he accompanied
James Wood, a commissioner to the Indians, on a long trip through the
Ohio wilderness, as guide and interpreter, at a salary of 5 shillings a
day. The trip took them to the Wyandots, the Shawnees, and other Ohio
tribes, and he performed his duties faithfully. His sympathies at this
time were strongly with the colonies. But his loyalty to the colonial
cause ended shortly after his return from this journey. Wood's com-
mand was disbanded shortly after his return and Girty lost his commis-
sion as lieutenant. He was employed in one other expedition dispatched
to the Six Nations, but was dismissed "for ill behavior," after three
months' service. Just what the unsatisfactory conduct was is not now
known, for the records do not reveal it.
It is said that jealousy over the fact that he was not named as a
captain, which commission he expected as a reward for his services, was
the real reason for his desertion of the American cause in 1778. He was
made a second lieutenant in a company, but did not go to the front
with the organization. He remained in Pittsburg on detached duty. On
one occasion he was arrested for disloyalty, but was acquitted of the
charge. He was again sent to the Senecas with a message. George Girty
was likewise considered loyal and joined a company of patriots, being
commissioned as a second lieutenant. He took part in at least one expedi-
tion against the British. At this time there was a British representative
and Indian trader by the name of Alexander IMcKee whose actions had
become so suspicious that he was under constant surveillance. It was
believed by the colonial authorities that he was preparing to join the
British in the western country. Their suspicions were correct. It was on
the night of March 28, 1778, that Simon Girty, in company with Matthew
Elliot, Alexander McKee, Robert Surphlit, a man named Higgin, and
the two negro servants of McKee, departed from Pittsburg for the Indian
country on their way to Detroit. It is needless to say that great con-
sternation followed the departure of so many well-known characters. No
other three men, such as McKee, Girty, and Elliot, could have been found
so well fitted to work for and among the aborigines.
The little band of traitors stopped for a brief time with the Moravian
Indians by the Tuscarawas, and from there proceeded to the headquarters
of the Delawares, near the present site of Coshocton. Their intrigue
with this tribe nearly changed its peaceful policy into one of open hos-
tility against the Americans. General Washington had been killed, they
said, and the patriot army cut to pieces. They represented that a great
disaster had befallen the American forces, so that the struggle was sure
to end in a victory for Great Britain and that the few thousand troops
yet remaining were intending to kill every Indian they should meet,
whether friendly or hostile. Leaving the Delawares, Girty and two com-
panions went westward to the villages of the Shawnees. That the
Indians were not entirely fooled by Girty is shown by a message which
the principal chief of the Delawares sent to the Shawnees. "Grand-
42 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
children !" so ran the message, "ye Shawnese ! Some days ago, a flock
of birds, that had come on from the east, Ht at Goshhochking (Cosh-
octon), imposing a song of theirs upon us, which song had nigh proved
our ruin ! Should these birds, which, on leaving us, took their flight
toward Scioto endeavor to impose a song on you likewise, do not listen
to them, for they lie !" It was here that they met James Girty, who
was easily persuaded to desert his country. He went to Detroit a few
weeks later, and was employed as interpreter to remain with the Shaw-
nees. A proclamation was afterwards, and in the same year issued by
Pennsylvania publicly proclaiming Alexander McKee, formerly Indian
trader, Simon Girty, Indian interpreter, James Girty, laborer, and
Matthew Elliot, Indian trader, as aiding and abetting the common
enemy and summoning them back for trial. It was not until the follow-
ing year that George Girty joined his brothers, thus completing the trio
of renegade brothers. He was immediately engaged by the British Indian
department as an interpreter and dispatched to the Shawnees, where he
acted as disbursing agent in dealing out supplies to that tribe.
Simon Girty and Alexander McKee reached Detroit by the middle of
June. It is needless to say that both were welcomed by "Hair Buyer"
Hamilton, the commandant of the post. McKee was made captain and
interpreter of the Indian department. Girty was also employed at a
salary of about $2.00 per day as interpreter, and sent back to Sandusky
to encourage the savages there in their warfare upon the Americans. He
formally took up his residence with the Wyandots in 1781, and his
influence soon began to be felt among all the Indian tribes all over this
region. With his perfect knowledge of the Wyandot, Delaware, and other
Indian tongues, he was indeed an invaluable aid to the British. He
became almost as cruel and heartless as the most hardened savage.
He joined the Wyandots, the Shawnees and the Senecas in their murder-
ous forays against the border settlements, and was always recognized as
a leader. He exercised great influence over the Half King, the head
chief of the Wyandots. His name became a household word of terror
all over what is now the State of Ohio, for with it was associated every-
thing that was cruel and inhuman. The only redeeming trait seems to
have been a scrupulous honesty. In the payment of his debts he is said
to have been punctilious and to have fulfilled his obligations to the last
cent.
According to the records that come down to us Girty participated in
many noted instances of border warfare, some of them extending down
into the bloody battle-ground of Kentucky. In fact, his first maraud was
into that country. Ruddle's Station was surrounded after Girty had been
admitted and made seductive promises that the captives would be pro-
tected from the Indians. After the surrender they were either treacher-
ously killed or made prisoners of the Indians. At Bryan's Station he
sought to intimidate the garrison by telling them who he was and elabor-
ating upon what would happen if they did not surrender. He had
almost succeeded so we are told when one young man, named Aaron
Reynolds, seeing the effect of this harangue, and believing this story, as
it was, to be false, of his own accord answered him in the tone of rough
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 43
banter so popular with backwoodsmen : "You need not be so particular
to tell us your name ; we know your name and you too. I've had a vil-
lianous untrustworthy cur-dog this long while, named Simon Girty, in
compliment to you; he's so like you — just as ugly and just as wicked. As
to the cannon, let them come on ; the country's roused, and the scalps of
your red cut-throats, and your own too, will be drying on your cabins in
twenty-four hours." This spirited reply produced good results. Girty
in turn was disheartened and soon withdrew.
The building of Fort Laurens in Ohio awakened Hamilton to the
courage and audacity of the Americans. It was in January, 1779, that
Girty was dispatched at the head of a small party of Indians to recon-
noiter and take some scalps. After securing some scalps and important
papers, he returned to Detroit only to find Hamilton had himself been
captured. He had also succeeded in securing some loyalty of some more
bands of Indians. He became the directing genius in the famous siege
of Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas River. Implacable in his hatred
and tireless in his movements, he was recognized as one of the chief
agents of the British. To judge from the varied information we have of
him. he seems to have been anything but a loafer, but was constantly
engaged in some form of activity. Although classed on British records
only as an interpreter, he seems frequently to have acted as a sub-agent
in his dealings with the aborigines. Of Girty's cruelty on this occasion,
Col. John Johnson, the Indian agent frequently mentioned, said : "He
(Simon Girty) was notorious for his cruelty to the whites, who fell into
the hands of the Indians. His cruelty to the unfortunate Col. Craw-
ford is well known to myself, and although I did not witness the tragedy,
I can vouch for the facts of the case, having had them from eye-wit-
nesses. When that brave and unfortunate commander was suffering at
the stake by a slow fire in order to lengthen his misery to the longest
possible time, he besought Girty to have him shot tO' end his torments,
when the monster mocked him by firing powder without ball at him."
He had evidently received this information from the Wyandots. George
Girty was just as cruel as his more noted brother. In company with forty
warriors he took Slover, one of Crawford's party, and tied him after
stripping him and painting him black. He then cursed him, telling Slover
he would now get what he had deserved. He seemed to take a delight in
knowing that death was to be his doom. A sudden storm came up,
however, after the Indians had tied the prisoner to the stake, and Slover
escaped.
When the Moravian Indians were captured by the Wyandots and
brought to Sandusky, Simon Girty seemed to take delight in treating the
Christian Indians and the white missionaries with cruelty. Just before
he started on an expedition with a war party, Girty commissioned a
Frenchman by the name of Francis Levallie, from Lower Sandusky, to
conduct the missionaries to Detroit, and drive them all the way by land
as though they were cattle. The Frenchman, however, was more humane
and treated them kindly. He sent word to Detroit for boats to be sent
to Sandusky to carry the missionaries to Detroit. Before the boats
arrived, however, Girty returned and according to Heckwelder, "behaved
44 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
like a madman, on hearing that we were here, and that our conductor
had disobeyed his orders, and had sent a letter to the commandant at
Detroit respecting us. He flew at the Frenchman, who was in the room
adjoining ours, most furiously, striking at him, and threatening to split
his head in two for disobeying the orders he had given him. He swore
the most horrid oaths respecting us, and continued in that way until
after midnight. His oaths were all to the purport that he never would
leave the house until he split our heads in two with his tomahawk, and
made our brains stick to the walls of the room in which we were ! Never
before did any of us hear the like oaths, or know any one to rave like
him. He appeared like an host of evil spirts. He would sometimes come
up to the bolted door between us and him, threatening to chop it in pieces
to get at us. How we should escape the clutches of this white beast in
human form no one could foresee. Yet at the proper time relief was at
hand ; for, in the morning, at break of day, and while he was still sleep-
ing, two large flat-bottomed boats arrived from Detroit, for the purpose
of taking us to that place. This was joyful news !"
It was in the book of fate that Simon Kenton and Simon Girty should
meet once more under far dififerent circumstances than when both were
in the American service. This was due to the unfortunate capture of
Kenton by his implacable enemies. Kenton had been captured by the
Shawnees, and was sentenced to be burned at the stake. Girty had
just returned from an expedition into Kentucky and came to see the
prisoner, who was sitting upon the floor silent and dejected with his
face painted black, which was the custom among the Indians when
captives were doomed to the stake. Hence it was that he did not
recognize Kenton until the latter spoke to him.
"What is your name?" Girty asked.
"Simon Butler," answered Kenton for that was the name he then
bore.
Never did the enunciation of a name produce more electrical effect.
As soon as he heard his friend's name Girty became greatly agitated.
Springing up from his seat he threw himself into Kenton's arms, call-
ing him his dear and esteemed friend. "You are condemned to die,"
said he, "but I will do all I can — use every means in my power to save
your life." It was due to his efforts that a council was convened, at
which Girty made a long and eloquent speech to the Indians in thei'-
language. He entreated them to have consideration for his feelings in
this one instance. He reminded them that three years of faithful serv-
ice had proved his devotion to the cause of the Indians. "Did I not,"
said he, "bring seven scalps home from the last expedition? Did I not
also submit seven white prisoners that same evening to your discretion?
Did I express a wish that a single one should be saved? This is my first
and shall be my last request. From what expedition did I ever shrink?
What white man has even seen my back? Whose tomahawk has been
bloodier than mine?" This council decided against him by an over-
whelming majority but a later one at Upper Sandusky, through the
skillful manipulation of Girty, consented to place Kenton under his
care and protection. Girty took him to his own wigwam and clothed
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 45
him anew. For several weeks his kindness was uniform and inde-
fatigable. As a result he was taken to Sandusky and thence to Detroit,
from whence he made his escape in safety to Kentucky. Kenton ever
afterwards spoke of Girty in grateful remembrance. Girty told Ken-
ton that he had acted too hasty in deserting his country, and was sorry
for the part he had taken. It is the only expression of regret that is
recorded of the renegade.
For a number of years now, very little is mentioned concerning the
life of this noted desperado. He remained among the Indians, how-
ever. His last expedition against the Americans had been in 1783, when
he led a band of red men to Nine Mile River, within five miles of Pitts-
burg. Here it was he first learned that hostilities had ended, but he did
not place credence in the rumor. He remained as an interpreter in the
British Indian Department on half pay, practically a pensioner. His
headquarters were at first at Detroit. This leisure gave him time to
think of something else besides fighting, and he resolved to marry." The
object of his affections was Catherine Malott. then a prisoner among
the Indians, and much younger than himself. They were married in
August, 1784. in Canada, near the mouth of the Detroit River, and
here they took up their abode in the neighborhood of the present town
of Amhertsburg. His wife is said to have been a very comely maiden,
and she probably married the renegade to escape from her position as
prisoner among the Indians. At the time of her marriage she was not
more than half the age of her husband. His daughter. Ann, was born
in 1786. a son. Thomas, another daughter, Sarah, and a second son,
Prideaux, the last one being born in 1797.
After Great Britain had acknowledged the independence of the Col-
onies, Simon Girty was one of the leading agents in keeping the savages
loyal to the British. For the succeeding decade he stands out as a very
prominent figure throughout not only Northwest Ohio, but practically
the entire Northwestern territory. There is probably not a countv in
this section of our state where there is not some record of his activities.
His harangues had potent influence with the savages. He no longer
lived with the red men, but constantly visited them as British emis-
sary. He played his part well. Of this we have the testimonv of Gen-
eral Harmar himself. When Girty attended an Indian council at the foot
of the Maumee Rapids, in 1788, he was received into the conference
by the Indians as one of them. He was the mouthpiece of McKee who
had established a store tiiere.
The last time that James Girty joined in an expedition against his
countrymen, so far as is known, was in 1782. The point where the
portage at the head of the St. Marys began was an ideal place for the
establishment of a trading post. It was then a small Indian village, but
is now occupied by the city of St. Marys. Girty had married a Shawnee
w-oman, known as Betsey by the whites. He established himself there in
1783 as a trader, and it soon became known as Girty's Town. For a
number of years he enjoyed a practical monopoly of the Indian trade.
He shipped his peltry down the St. Marys to the Maumee. At every
report of the approach of the Americans, James became alarmed, and
46 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
on several occasions had his goods packed for immediate flight. Upon
the approach of General Harmar, he moved to the confluence of the
Maumee and Auglaize. Here he occupied a log cabin.
An incident is related of Oliver M. Spencer, who took dinner at
Girty's home after being released from Indian captivity. While regal-
ing himself Girty came in and saw the boy for the first time. The latter
said to him: "So, my young Yankee, you're about to start for home?"
The boy answered: "Yes, sir; I hope so." Taking his knife, he said
(while sharpening it on a whetstone) : "I see your ears are whole yet;
but I'm greatly mistaken if you leave here without the Indian earmark,
that we may know you when we catch you again." Spencer did not
wait to prove whether Girty was in jest or in downright earnest, but
leaving his meal half finished, he instantly sprang from the table,
leaped out of the door, and in a few seconds took refuge in the house of
a trader named Ironside.
When Wayne approached in 1794, James Girty packed up his goods
and fled to Canada, but came back once more to again trade with the
Indians along the Maumee. Trade was not so profitable as before,
and he returned to Canada. His last trading place in Ohio was at
Girty's Point, near Girty's Island. Like his brother Simon, he was also
too old and infirm to participate in the War of 1812. He died on the
15th of April, 1817. He was thrifty and had accumulated considerable
property. His wife died first, and two children survived him. James and
Ann. He was temperate in his habits, but fully as cruel as his brothers.
He would boast, so it is said, that no woman or child escaped his toma-
hawk, if he got within reach of the victim.
George Girty, after the battle of Blue Licks, in 1782, returned to
the upper waters of the Mad River. It is known that he continued to
reside with the Delawares. but gave himself so completely up to savage
life that he practically lost his identity. He is heard of occasionally in
Indian forays. He married a Delaware squaw, and had several chil-
dren. During his latter years he was an habitual drunkard and died
during a spree at the cabin of James, near Fort Wayne, but his family
remained with the tribe.
When war broke out between the United States and the Indians
in 1790, Simon Girty again fought with the Indians against the Ameri-
cans. The last battle in which he was known to have been actually
engaged was at the defeat of St. Clair, in Mercer County, where he
fought most courageously. Here he captured a white woman. A
Wyandot squaw demanded the prisoner, on the ground that custom
gave all female prisoners to the squaws accompanying the braves. Over
Girty's objection this was done, and he was furious. He was present
at the grand council held in October, 1792, at the Auglaize. (Defiance.)
McKee, Elliot, and other whites were also there, but Simon Girty
was the only white man admitted to the deliberations. Well had he
earned the confidence reposed in him. It was no doubt a proud moment
in his life, and one upon which he afterwards reflected with pleasure.
At Fallen Timbers Girty, Elliot, and McKee were all present, but they
kept at a respectable distance near the river and did not take a part
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 47
in the fighting. All three made good their escape. After this he and
McKee assisted in furnishing food to the Indians, whose crops had been
destroyed by General Wayne. This event practically ended his wild
career in the Ohio country. On only one other occasion, a few months
later, did he appear as a British emissary among the Ohio Indians.
Nevertheless his influence remained strong for a long time. He con-
tinued to visit Detroit occasionally. He happened to be there when
the American troops approached, but fled precipitately to the opposite
bank. He could not wait for the boat, but plunged his horse into the
river and swam to the opposite shore. He never again crossed to the
fort, except during the War of 1812, when the British troops again
occupied It. For sixteen years he did not step foot on American soil.
In his later years Girty seems to have made an efl-'ort to command
a degree of respect as a decent citizen. The British government granted
him some land in the township of Maiden, Essex County, Canada.
He was abhorred by all his neighbors, however, for the depravity of his
untamed and undisciplined nature was too apparent. After the birth
of the last son, Simon and his wife separated because of his cruelty
toward her when drunk. In the War of 1812 he was incapable of active
service, because his sight had almost left him. He is said, however, to
have rallied a band of Wyandots to the standard of Tecumseh. When
the British army returned he followed it, leaving his family at home.
When General Harrison invaded Canada, Girty fled beyond his reach,
but his wife remained at the home and was unharmed. ' In 1816, after
peace was concluded, he returned to his farm, where he died on the
18th of February, in the year 1818. He actually gave up liquor for a
few months prior to his dissolution. He is said to "have been very peni-
tent, as the end drew nigh. He was buried on his farm. A squad of Brit-
ish soldiers attended the funeral, and fired a parting salute over his
grave. His youngest son was on one occasion a candidate for parlia-
ment, but was defeated. He became a man of considerable influence
and finally moved to Ohio, where he died. All of his children lived
and married. Thomas died before his father, but left three children.
The widow of Simon survived him for many years, and did not die
until 1852. All of her children enjoyed unsullied reputations.
One of the most interesting narratives of Indian captivity that has
been handed down to us is one by Oliver M. Spencer. He was taken
captive not far from Cincinnati, but most of his captivity was spent in
the Maumee region in Ohio. While at Defiance, the old Indian priestess,
Coo-coo-Cheeh, with whom he lived, took him to a neighboring Shaw-
nee village called Snaketown. on the site of Napoleon. There* he saw
the celebrated chief. Blue Jacket, and Simon Girty, of whom he speaks
as follows: "One of the visitors of Blue Jacket (the Snake) was a
plain, grave chief of sage appearance; the other, Simon Girty, whether
it was from prejudice, associating with his look the fact that he was
a renegade, the murderer of his own countrymen, racking his diabolic
invention to inflict new and more excruciating tortures, or not ; his dark
shaggy hair, his low forehead, his brows contracted, and meeting above
his short flat nose; his gray sunken eyes, averting the ingenuout o-aze ;
48 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
his lips thin and compressed, and the dark and sinister expression of
his countenance, to me, seemed the very picture of a villain. He wore
the Indian costume, but without any ornament; and his silk handker-
chief while it supplied the place of a hat, hid an unsightly wound in
his forehead. On each side, in his belt, was stuck a silver-mounted pis-
tol, and at his left hung a short broad dirk, serving occasionally the uses
of a knife. He made of me many inquiries; some about my family,
and the particulars of my captivity: but more of the strength of the
different garrisons: the number of American troops at Fort Washing-
ton, and whether the President intended to send another army against
the Indians. He spoke of the wrongs he had received at the hands of
his countrymen, and with fiendish exultation of the revenge he had
taken. He boasted of his exploits, of the number of his victories, and
of his personal prowess; then raising his handkerchief and exhibiting
the deep wound in his forehead (which I was afterwards told was
inflicted by the tomahawk of the celebrated Indian chief, Brandt, in a
drunken frolic) said it was a sabre cut, which he received in battle at
St. Clair's defeat; adding with an oath, that he had 'sent the d d
Yankee officer' that gave it 'to h 1'. He ended by telling me that I
would never see home ; but if I should turn out to be a good hunter and
a brave warrior, I might one day be a chief. His presence and conver-
sation having rendered my situation painful, I was not a little relieved
when, a few hours after ending our visit, we returned to our quiet
lodge on the bank of the Maumee."
Girtv's one great fear was of capture by the Americans, and he
always endeavored to ascertain from prisoners what might be in store
for him should he be captured by them. It seemed as though the idea
of falling into the hands of his countrymen was a terror to him.
"The last time I saw Girty," writes William Walker, "was in the
summer of 1813. From my recollection of his person, he was in height
five feet six or seven inches: broad across the chest; strorig, round,
compact limbs; and of fair complexion. To any one scrutinizing him,
the conclusion would forcibly impress the observer, that Girty was
endowed by nature with great powers of endurance." Spencer was
not favorably impressed with his visage, and leaves us the following
picture: "His dark shaggy hair, his low forehead; his brows con-
tracted, and meeting above his short, flat nose ; his gray sunken eyes,
averting the ingenuous gaze; his lips thin and compressed; and the
dark and sinister expression of his countenance; — to me seemed the
very picture of a villain."
"No other country or age," says Butterfield, "ever produced, perhaps,
so brutal, depraved, and wicked a wretch as Simon Girty. He was saga-
cious and brave ; but his sagacity and bravery only made him a greater
monster of cruelty. All of the vices of civilization seemed to center in
him, and by him were ingrafted upon those of either. He moved about
through the Indian country during the war of the Revolution and the
Indian war which followed, a dark whirlwind of fury, desperation and
barbarity. In the refinements of torture inflicted on helpless prisoners,
as compared with the Indians, he 'out-heroded Herod.' In treachery
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 49
he stood unrivaled. There ever rankled in his bosom a most deadly
hatred of his country. He seemed to revel in the very excess of malignity
toward his old associates. So horrid was his wild ferocity and savage-
ness, that the least relenting seemed to be acts of positive goodness —
luminous sparks in the very blackness of darkness."
Of Girty's bravery there is ample testimony. He became involved
in a quarrel at one time with a Shawnee, caused by some misunderstand-
ing in trade. While bandying hard words to each other the Indian by
innuendo questioned his opponent's courage. Girty instantly produced
a half-keg of powder, and snatching a firebrand, called upon the savage
to stand by him. The latter, not deeming this a legitimate mode of
settling disputes, hastily evacuated the premises.
The last picture that we have of Simon Girty is shortly before his
death. "I went to Maiden," said Mr. Daniel, "and put up at a hotel
kept by a Frenchman. I noticed in the bar-room a gray-headed and
blind old man. The landlady, a woman of about thirty years of age,
inquired of me: 'Do you know who that is?' On my replying 'No,'
she replied, 'it is Simon Girty.' He had then been blind about four
years."
This ended the career of the last of the three notorious Girty broth-
ers, the ablest of the three and the one who caused more suffering among
the hardy pioneers than the other two together. A large part of his
history belongs to us, but it is not a record of which we can be proud.
CHAPTER V
THE HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR CAMPAIGNS
Although the war with the mother country was practically ended by
the 'Yorktown surrender in October, 1781, the Paris treaty was not
officially signed until the 3d of September, 1783. About four months
later Washington resigned his commission and retired to private life.
The boundaries of the new republic were Florida on the south, the Mis-
sissippi River on the west and the middle of the Great Lakes on the
north. "The federal republic is born a pygmy, but a day will come
when it will be a giant, even a colossus," said the Spanish representative
at the Paris negotiations. His statement has proved to be really
prophetic.
East of the Alleghenies the war actually ended, but in the great
trans-Allegheny country it continued in a desultory way for a dozen
years. At times this conflict was most sanguinary. Great Britain had
specifically promised to withdraw her troops from Detroit and the Mau-
mee country, as well as her other posts, but she neglected and refused to
comply. When demand was made of her commanders, refusal was
made, claiming that possession was being retained to compel payment of
the claims of loyalties against the colonies. The real purpose was
undoubtedly to retain the loyalty of the savages in the hope that the
new government might not prove lasting. It was true that some of the
southerners had attempted to offset the value of slaves impressed into
the British service against claims due from them.
The Indians were undoubtedly apprehensive of their future. The
Quebec Act of 1774, with its provisions prohibiting white settlements
within this region, had always been objected to. The new American
government, with its hands occupied by many serious questions, was very
reluctant to enter into a struggle with the Indians of the Northwest
Territory of which Ohio was then a part. But the frontier was grad-
ually advanced westward by venturesome backwoodsmen and the gov-
ernment was drawn in by the necessity of supporting them. There was
no well developed plan. Many of the leaders were averse to spreading
westward; they were as strong anti-expansionists as is our American
today. They were quite content to permit the red men to rove the for-
ests in peace. They did not covet the lands of the Indians. They
endeavored to prevent settlers from encroaching upon them. But back-
woodsmen are naturally aggressive. They revert in a sense to primeval
conditions. Rough, masterful, aggressive, and even lawless, they feared
not the red man nor were they intimidated by the wrath of the govern-
ment. Once established in a location, they freely appealed to the govern-
ment for help. Then it was that the men east of the Alleghenies, whose
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 51
fathers or ^grandfathers had also been frontiersmen, rather grudgingly
came to their help.
Small bands of Wyandots and Shawnees in particular continued to
invade Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania with the loaded rifle and
uplifted tomahawk. British emissaries, and especially the renegades
heretofore mentioned, were the chief instigators of these war parties
of savages. With all these provocations the American government still
hesitated to make open war against the Indians of Ohio. Although the
Northwestern Territory, "a vast empire larger than any country in
Europe save Russia," had become the public domain of the confederated
states, the aboriginal inhabitant, and the one actually in possession, had
still to be dealt with. This must be done either by purchase or conquest.
The Iroquois claim to these lands, which was disputed by the Ohio
Indians, was extinguished by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1785. This
treaty caused great dissatisfaction among the Ohio Indians, for they
refused to acknowledge that the Six Nations could deed away the lands
occupied by them. An American commissioner, by the name of Eph-
raim Douglas, was sent to the Indians residing in Ohio in 1783 to con-
clude treaties with them. Carrying a white flag of peace he passed some
days with the Delawares on the Sandusky River, and then journeyed
to the Wyandots, Ottawas and Miamis along the lower Maumee. This
was in the month of June. From there he passed to Detroit, where he
met representatives of many other tribes. Long talks were indulged in
to convince them that the war was over. These Indians were perfectly
willing to give their allegiance to whichever nation promised them the
most presents, so it appeared, .^.s the Americans at this time had not
learned how to deal with these simple inhabitants of the forests, their
allegiance was still retained by the British in most instances, and many
lives were sacrificed as a consequence.
It now remained for the American government to make settlement
with the Ohio tribes and this was what it was attempted to do in the
council held at Fort Mcintosh in January, 1785. By a treaty entered
into between LTnited States Commissioners and the chiefs and sachems
of the Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa, and Wyandot Indians at Fort
Mcintosh on the Ohio River below Pittsburg, the limits of their terri-
tory as agreed upon were the Maumee and Cuyahoga rivers, on the
west and east respectively. Within this territory the Delawares, Wyan-
dots, and Ottan'as were to live and hunt at their heart's pleasure. They
these exempt lands. "The Indians may punish him as they please," was
the exact language of the treaty. On their part the Indians recognized
all the lands west, south, and east of these lines as belonging to the
United States, and "none of their tribes shall presume to settle upon the
same or any part of it." Reservations were exempted by the United
States as a tract six miles square at the mouth of the Maumee, for a
military post. Three chiefs were to remain with the Americans as
hostages until all American prisoners were surrendered by the savages,
were authorized to shoot any person other than an Indian, whether a
citizen of the United States or otherwise, who attempted to settle upon
In a treaty made the following year at Fort Finney, at the mouth of
52 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the Great Miami, the Shawnees appeared in their "war paint and feath-
ers" and assumed a rather bellicose attitude. They finally recognized
the sovereignty of the United States and accepted an allotment of lands
between the Great Miami and the Wabash rivers. This treaty, as have
others among the white races, proved to be merely a scrap of paper, for
the Shawnees immediately disregarded it.
It was some time after the independence of the Colonies was achieved
before a definite government was adopted for the Northwestern Terri-
toTy. Army officers and discharged soldiers were clamoring for the lands
which had been promised them. Thomas Jefferson evolved a scheme
for the creation of the vast territory into a checkerboard arrangement
of states, to which fanciful names were assigned. Our region narrowly
escaped being a part of Metropotamia. Some of its neighbors would
have been Cherronesus, Assenisipia, lUinoia, Pelisipia, Polypotamia, and
Michigana. The ordinance was passed by never really went into eflfect,
for it was soon afterwards superseded by the famous Ordinance of 1787.
The main factor in the passage of this measure was the famous Manas-
seh Cutler, representing the Ohio Company. This ordinance in its wise
provisions ranks close to the Constitution, being preferred by the con-
vention at the same time. The most marked and original feature in its
provisions was the prohibition of slavery after the year 1800. On July
27, 1887, Congress passed the ordinance by which the Ohio Company
was granted a million and a half acres, and a little more than twice as
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 53
much was set aside for private speculation, in which many of the most
prominent personages of the day were involved. This was the Scioto
Company. They paid two-thirds of a dollar an acre in specie or certifi-
cates of indebtedness of the government.
The Ohio Company was the first real attempt to settle Ohio, and this
company had its full share of troubles. The lands granted were on the
Ohio and Muskingum rivers. As Senator Hoar has said: "Never
did the great Husbandman choose his seed more carefully than when
he planted Ohio ; I do not believe the same number of persons fitted for
the highest duties and responsibilities of war and peace could ever have
been found in a community of the same size as were among the men
who founded Marietta in the spring of 1788, or who joined them within
twelve months thereafter." Many of the settlers were college graduates,
bearing classical degrees from Harvard and Yale. Arthur St. Clair
was appointed the first governor of this new territory, and Winthrop
Sargent was named as secretary. The ordinance required that the gov-
ernor, to be appointed by Congress, must reside in the district and must
be the owner of 1,000 acres of land. Governor St. Clair came of a
distinguished Scotch family and had a distinguished career in the Revo-
lution. He did not actively enter upon his duties until the summer
of 1788.
The continued influx of white settlers and the creation of settlements
was most unpleasing to the tribesmen of the Ohio country. With unerr-
ing intuition the chiefs realized that this encroaching tide of whites
meant the eventual displacement of the red men. The settlers lived
in constant fear of their depredations because of the small number of
soldiers stationed in the country. They numbered less than one-tenth of
the warriors that could be assembled by the Ohio tribes. They paid
scant adherence to the treaty obligations assented to by them. They
watched the Ohio River with especial care, since most of the immi-
grants entered by that avenue. A great council of the tribes was held
at Detroit in the summer of 1788 at which the Six Nations gathered
with the western Indians to devise means for mutual defense. The
tribes of the Maumee region were here represented, together with other
Ohio tribes. But nothing seems to have been definitely determined at
this gathering.
The American authorities were aroused by the threatening condi-
tions and hastened to make new treaties with the Indians, the matter
being left to the discretion of Governor St. Clair. Some two hundred
delegates of the delegated tribes accepted invitations to assemble at
Fort Harmar in the autumn of 1788, but it was not until January that
the treaty was completed. Much complaint was made of the actions of
the Thirteen Fires, as the Colonies were called, as to the ways in which
the red men had been deceived and cheated. Among the chiefs signing
the treaty were Dancing Feather, Wood Bug. Thrown-in-the-Water, Big
Bale of a Kettle, Full Moon, Lone Tree, Falling Mountain and Tearing
Asunder. It was signed by the Wyandots, Delawares, and Ottawas,
among others. But they were not the head chiefs. The Shawnees
and Miamis remained away. They were even at that time committing
54 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
depredations. A considerable sum of money was paid to the Indians
as a consideration for certain concessions. It required only a few
weeks, however, to demonstrate the insincerity and treachery of the
Indians, for their maraudings began anew with the opening of another
spring. Gen. Josiah Harmar, with a small body of troops, made a
detour of the Scioto River, destroying the food supplies and huts of the
hostile savages wherever they were found. Only four of the Indians,
so he reported, were shot, as "wolves might as well have been pursued."
Recourse was finally had to Antonine Gamelin, a French trader, who was
highly esteemed by these aborigines. His long intercourse, honest deal-
ing and good heart had given him universal popularity among the tribes.
Much as they liked him, and always avowing their faith in him, the
Indians passed him on from tribe to tribe, with no answer to the speech
of invitation until he arrived on the Maumee among the Miamis. Here
the chiefs were outspoken. "The Americans," they said, "Send us noth-
ing but speeches, and no two are alike. They intend to deceive us.
Detroit was the place where the fire was lighted ; there is where it ought
first to be put out. The English commander is our father since he
threw down our French Father; we can do nothing without his appro-
bation." When Gamelin returned he reported the situation as hope-
less. Other traders arriving brought the information that war parties
were on the move. The ultimate results were three formidable cam-
paigns against the Indians of the Maumee region. They thus become of
intense interest to those residing in that section today.
General Harmar reported to General St. Clair many raids and mur-
ders by the savages, and it was agreed between them, at a meeting held
at Fort Washington, on July 11th, that Harmar should conduct an
expedition against the Maumee towns, which were reported to be the
headquarters of all the renegade Indians who were committing the
depredations. Troops from Kentucky, New York, and from the back
counties of Pennsylvania, were ordered to assemble at Fort Washington
(now Cincinnati) on the 15th of September, 1790. The object of this
expedition was not only to chastise the savages, but also to build one
or more forts on the Maumee and to establish a connecting line of refuge
posts for supplies, from which sorties could quickly be made to intercept
the savages. Actuated by what might be termed by the "peace at any
price" partisans, a commendable spirit, but which we now know was the
sheerest folly and really suicidal, St. Clair forwarded word of this
expedition to the British commander, to assure him that no hostile
intentions were held towards Detroit "or any other place at present in
the possession of the troops of his Britannic Majesty, but is on foot
with the sole design of humbling and chastising some of the savage
tribes, whose depredations have become intolerable and whose cruelties
have of late become an outrage, not only on the people of America, but
on humanity."
The army under General Harmar, who was the highest ranking
officer in the army, marched northward from near Fort Washington on
the 4th of October, 1790. It was composed of almost fifteen hundred
soldiers, of whom about one-fifth were regulars, and included an artil-
^sasate -& a^'iSi
56
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
lery company with three light brass cannon. The rest of his troops
were volunteer infantry, many of whom were raw soldiers and unused
to the gun or the woods, and some of them were indeed without guns
that could be used. Between the "regulars" and the militia jealousy
seemed to exist from the very start of the expedition. General Harmar
was much disheartened, for at least half of them served no other pur-
pose than to swell the number. They were poorly clad and almost
destitute of camp equipment. Some of the men were too old and infirm
for the contemplated duties. We have a detailed account of the march
from day to day in Ebenezer Denny's Military Journal. It shows the
hardships endured from the muddy roads, marsh lands, and lack of
provender for the horses. The troops averaged nearly ten miles a day.
On the twelfth day, says Denny, "passed New Chillicothe, at which
Girty's home, on Glaze Creek (Auglaize) or Branch of the Omee (Mau-
mee) one hundred and twenty-five miles." On the 17th a scouting
detachment encountered a body of Indians, and quite a number of the
Americans were killed. This was the first serious incident of the cam-
paign. The rout was due "to the scandalous behavior of the militia,
many of whom never fired a shot, but ran off at the first noise of the
Indians and left a few regulars to be sacrificed — some of them never
halted until they crossed the Ohio."
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 57
The Harmar expedition eventually reached a place near the head
waters of the Maumee, and not far from Fort Wayne, Indiana. A large
village of the Indians was destroyed, and the army then proceeded on.
"The chief village," says Denny, "contained about eighty houses and
wigwams, and a vast quantity of corn and vegetables hid in various
places, holed, etc." Other nearby towns comprised a hundred or more
wigwams with gardens and adjacent fields of corn. On the represen-
tation by Colonel Hardin that he believed the town was again occupied
by the aborigines, as soon as the army passed on, a detachment of
"four hundred choice militia and regulars" was sent back on the night
of the 2Ist. They encountered the Indians in strong force and, ov/ing
to the unreliability of the militia, were overwhelmingly defeated. Gen-
eral Harmar then lost all confidence in his troops and started for Fort
Washington, which fortress they reached about ten days later. Of his
troops one hundred and eighty-three had been killed and thirty-one
wounded. The loss of the savages must have been severe for they did
not annoy the expedition on its retreat. One of the officers wrote that
"a regular soldier on the retreat near the St. Joseph's River, being sur-
rounded and in the midst of the Indians, put his bayonet through six
Indians, knocked down the seventh, and the soldier himself made the
eighth dead man in the heap." The numbers of the savages were so
great, however, that "while the poor soldier had his bayonet in one
Indian, two more would sink their tomahawk in his head." The Indians
were led by Chief Little Turtle, of whom much will be heard now. It
was indeed a sad march for General Harmar back to Fort Washington.
So severe was the adverse criticism of the conduct of this expedition
by its commander that President Washington appointed a board of
officers to act as a Court of Inquiry. Although the verdict of this court
was an acquittal, the incident proved to be General Harmar's undoing
The real causes of the disaster probably were the incompetence of some
of the officers and bickerings among others which caused distrust and
disorder, and the general lack of discipline among the militia. As a
result of this disaster General Harmar resigned his commission, but after-
wards rendered good service as Adjutant-General of Pennsylvania in
furnishing troops for General Wayne's campaign.
Another natural result of this defeat was an increase of anxiety
and dread among the frontier settlers. They feared the over pacific
policy of sending embassies to placate the savages, instead of strong
military expeditions to crush them if they would not yield. The savages
greatly rejoiced that they had been able to administer such a decisive
defeat upon trained troops. They became bolder in their operations in
the Maumee as well as in other parts of the Northwestern Territory.
The year 1791 was ushered in with a sanguinary beginning. A horrible
massacre was perpetrated by the Indians along the Muskingum at Big
Bottom settlement. The frontiersmen again appealed for protection.
The headwaters of the Maumee (Fort \\'ayne) had for several years
appealed to Washington as the site for a fort to protect the surrounding
country. This splendid location had been the chief seat of the Miami
nation almost from time immemorial. It now became the paramount
58 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
purpose to build a fort here and a chain of fortified posts between there
and Fort Washington. In pursuance of this object St. Clair appointed
a major general and received some general instructions as to what was
expected from the new expedition of which he was placed in charge.
From the government standpoint the expedition was not necessarily hos-
tile, so that the pipe of peace was carried along in the same wagon as
the grape and canister. And yet it was intended to be irresistible. In
taking leave of his old military comrade, President Washington wished
him success and honor and added this solemn warning:
"You have your instructions from the secretary of war, I had a
strict eye to them and will add but one word, — Beware of a surprise I
You know how the Indians fight. I repeat it Beivare of a surprise."
Many delays happened to St. Clair before his army and supplies were
assembled for the advance. He had planned to advance on the 17th of
September, 1791. The army, as finally assembled, was about equal to
that under General Harmar. This army of 2,300 "effectives," as they
were called, was fairly well provisioned, and had some courageous offi-
cers ; but it was sadly deficient in arms and the necessary accoutrements.
In its personnel it was almost as poor as that of Harmar. Fort Hamil-
ton was established near the site of the present city of that name. Fort
Jefferson was created in Darke County, about six miles south of
Greenville.
Cutting its way through the forests and building bridges over streams,
the army advanced slowly, making not more than five or six miles a day.
Although signs of Indians were frequently encountered, the army was
not properly safeguarded against surprise in a country of such dense
forests. St. Clair did not seem to realize the extreme danger of his posi-
tion so far in the enemy country. By the time the footsore and bedrag-
gled army reached the eastern fork of the Wabash about a mile and a half
east of the Ohio-Indiana line, in Mercer County, it had dwinded to about
1,400 men. Here the army camped on the night before the battle, while
"all around the wintry woods lay a frozen silence". Signs of Indians
were now unmistakable. During the night there was picket firing at
intervals, and the sentinels reported considerable bodies of the aborigines
skulking about the front and both flanks. To the officers this was a
matter of great concern, and scouting parties were sent out in the early
morning. A light fall of snow lay upon the ground. The army lay in
two lines, seventy yards apart, with four pieces of cannon in the center
of each. Across the small stream, probably twenty yards wide, a band of
300 or 400 militia were encamped. These men met the first brunt of
the battle.
There was no time for the terror-stricken soldiers to properly form
to meet the impending onslaught of the savages, who quickly encircled
the entire camp of the Americans. Protected by logs and trees, they
crowded closer and closer. The heavy firing and the blood-curdling
whoops and yells of the painted enemy threw the militia into hopeless
disorder. They broke and fled in panic to the body of regulars, thus
spreading confusion and dismay everywhere. The drum beat the call
to arms at the first shots, and the volleys brought many casualties among
msH:
'iir!riif^-:_x:ir^fFa:j:j^sm
^,
p, i
. V
Gen. Arthur St. Clair
60 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the Indians, but their onward rush soon surrounded the entire camp
and the outlying guards and pickets were driven in. Only now and then
could fearful figures, painted in red and black, with feathers braided
in their long scalp-locks, be distinguished through the smoke. "They
shot the troops down as hunters slaughter a herd of standing buffalo."
Instead of being frightened by the thunder of the artillery, the Indians
made the gunmen special objects of their attacks. Man after man was
picked ofif until the artillery was silenced. The Indians then rushed for-
ward and seized the guns. It is doubtful if there ever was a wilder
rout. As soon as the men realized that there was some hope of safety
in flight, they broke into a wild stampede. Intermixed with the soldiers
were the few camp followers, and the women who had accompanied the
expedition. Neither the commands of the officers nor their brave exam-
ple seemed to have the slightest effect.
From a report made by Ebenezer Denny, who was adjutant to
General St. Clair, I quote as follows : "The troops paraded this morn-
ing (4 November, 1791) at the usual time, and had been dismissed from
the lines but a few minutes, the sun not yet up, when the woods in
front rung with the yells and fire of the savages. The poor militia, who
were but three hundred yards in front, had scarcely time to return a
shot — they fled into our camp. The troops were under arms in an
instant, and a smart fire from the front line met the enemy. It was
but a few minutes, however, until the men were engaged in every quar-
ter. The enemy from the front filed off to the right and left, and com-
jpletely surrounded the camp, killed and cut off nearly all the guards and
approached close to the lines. They advanced from one tree, log, or
stump to another, under cover of the smoke of our fire. The artillery
and musketry made a tremendous noise, but did little execution. The
Aborigines seemed to brave everything.
"As our lines were deserted the Aborigines contracted theirs until
their shot centered from all points and now meeting with little opposi-
tion, took more deliberate aim and did great execution. Exposed to a
cross tire, men and officers were seen falling in every direction ; the dis-
tress, too, of the wounded made the scene such as can scarcely be
conceived — a few minutes longer, and a retreat would have been impos-
sible— the only hope left was, that perhaps the savages would be so
taken up with the camp as not to follow. Delay was death ; no prepara-
tion could be made ; numbers of brave men must be left a sacrifice, there
was no alternative. It was past nine o'clock when repeated orders were
given to charge toward the road. The action had continued between
two and three hours. Both officers and men seemed confounded, inca-
pable of doing anything; they could not move until it was told that a
retreat was intended.
"During the last charge of Colonel Darke," says Major Fowler, "the
bodies of the freshly scalped heads were reeking with smoke, and in the
heavy morning frost looked like so many pumpkins through a cornfield
in December." It is no wonder that green troops, unused to scenes of
carnage, became panicky before such horrible sights.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 61
General St. Clair behaved gallantly through tlie dreadful scene. He
was so tortured with gout that he could not mount a horse without
assistance. From beneath a three-cornered cocked hat, his long white
locks were seen streaming in the air as he rode up and down the line
during the battle. He had three horses shot from under him, and it is
said that eight balls passed through his clothes, and one clipped his gray
hair. He finally mounted a pack horse and upon this slow animal, which
could hardly be urged into a trot, joined the army in the retreat which
became almost a rout.
Guns and accoutrement were thrown away by hundreds in their
frantic haste. For miles the march was strewed with fire-locks, cart-
ridge-boxes, and regimentals. The retreat proved to be a disgraceful
flight. Fortunate indeed was it that the victorious savage followed them
only a few miles and then returned to enjoy the spoils of the battlefield.
This was rich, indeed, for they secured great quantities of tents, guns,
axes, clothing, blankets, and powder, and large numbers of horses — the
vel-y thing that the savages prized highest. "A single aborigine," wrote
Denny, "might have followed with safety on either flank. Such a panic
had seized the men that I believe it would not have been possible to have
brought any of them to engage again." The number of savages actually
engaged and their losses has never been learned. Simon Girty is said to
have told a prisoner that there were 1,200 in the attack. Good authori-
ties place the number at 2,000. Little Turtle was again the acknowl-
edged leader and Blue Jacket was next in authority. It is quite likely
that Tecumseh was also an active participant. The principal tribes
engaged were Delawares, Shawnees, \\'yandots, Miamis and Ottawas,
with a few Chippewas and Pottawatomies.
"Oh 1" said an old squaw many years afterwards, "my arm that night
was weary scalping white men."
There were many individual instances of heroism and marvelous
escapes. None were more thrilling than those of William Kennan, a
young man of eighteen. Becoming separated from his party, he saw a
band of Indians near him. McClung, in his "Sketches of Western
Adventures" says:
"Not a moment to be lost. He darted off with every muscle strained
to its utmost, and was pursued by a dozen of the enemy with loud veils.
He at first pressed straight forward to the usual fording-place iii the
creek, which ran between the rangers and the main army; but several
Indians who had passed him before he rose from the grass threw them-
selves in the way and completely cut him off from the rest By the most
powerful exertions he had thrown the whole body of pursuers behind
him, with the exception of one chief who displayed' a swiftness and per-
severance equal to his own. In the circuit wh'ich Kennan was obliged
to take the race continued for more than 400 yards. The distance
between them was about eighteen feet, which Kennan could not increase
nor his adversary diminish. Each for the time put his whole soul into
the race.
"Kennan as far as he was able, kept his eye upon the motions of
his pursuer, lest he should throw the tomahawk, which he held aloft in
62 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
a menacing attitude. * * * As he slackened his pace for a moment
the Indian was almost in reach of him when he recommenced the race;
but the idea of being without arms lent wings to his feet, and for the
first time he saw himself gaining ground. He had watched the motions
of his pursuer too intensely, however, to pay proper attention to the
nature of the ground before him, and he suddenly found himself in front
of a large tree which had been blown down, and upon which brush and
other impediments lay to the height of eight or nine feet.
"The Indian (who heretofore had not uttered the slightest sound)
now gave a short, quick yell, as if secure of his victim. Kennan had
not a moment to deliberate. He must clear the impediment at a leap
or perish. Putting his whole soul into the effort he bounded into the
air with a power which astonished himself, and clearing limbs, brush
and everything else, alighted in perfect safety upon the other side. A
loud yell of astonishment burst from the band of pursuers, not one of
whom had the hardihood to attempt the same feat. Kennan, as may be
readily imagined, had no leisure to enjoy his triumph, but dashing into
the bed of the creek (upon the banks of which his feat had been per-
formed), where the high banks would shield him from the fire of an
enemy, he ran up the stream until a convenient place offered for cross-
ing, and rejoined the rangers in the rear of the encampment, panting
from the fatigue of exertions, which have seldom been surpassed. No
breathing time was allowed him, however. The attack instantly com-
menced, and, as we have already observed, was maintained for three
hours with unabated fury."
The prediction of General Harmar before the army set out on the
campaign that defeat would follow was founded upon his own experi-
ence and particular knowledge. He saw the poor material that the bulk
of the army was composed of. They were men collected from the
streets and prisons of the cities, who were hurried out into the enemy's
country. The officers commanding them were totally unacquainted with
the business in which they were engaged, so that it was utterly impos-
sible that they could win against a wily foe. Besides, not any one
department was sufficiently prepared; both the quartermaster and the
contractors were extremely deficient. It was a matter of astonishment
to General Harmar that the commanding general St. Clair, who was
acknowledged to be a perfectly competent military officer, should think
of hazarding with such people and under such circumstance his reputa-
tion and life, and the lives of so many others, knowing as he did the
enemy with whom he was going to contest.
In this overwhelming defeat General St. Clair's army lost 593 pri-
vates killed and missing; thirty-nine officers were killed, and the artil-
lery and supplies, consisting of clothing, tents, several hundred horses,
beef cattle, etc., together with muskets and other equipment, were thrown
away and gathered up by the savages. It was a greater loss than that
incurred by Washington in any battle of the Revolution, even if the
numbers do seem insignificant when compared with the terrible sacri-
fices during some of the prolonged battles of the Great war. The cas-
ualties exceeded half of the forces actually engaged. Many women were
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 63
along, which would look as though no serious opposition had been
expected. The cause of the disaster is variously stated, but its complete-
ness is the one overwhelming and undisputed fact that stands out clearly
on the page of history. The war department had been negligent in send-
ing supplies, and it had become necessary to detach one regiment, the
real flower of the army, to bring up provisions and military stores. It
was during its absence that the conflict occurred. Mistakes had also
been made in the labeling of boxes. A box marked "flints" was found
to contain gun-locks. A keg of powder, marked "for the infantry"
was cannon powder so damaged that it could be scarcely ignited. The
army was on practically half rations during the entire campaign. The
undisciplined character of the soldiers and the inexperience of the offi-
cers in border warfare undoubtedly had a great deal to do with it. The
one glaring fault that might be charged to the commanding general was
that he failed to keep scouting parties ahead in order to prevent the
ambush against which he had been warned by his commander-in-chief.
It was toward the close of a winter's day in December that an officer
in uniform was seen to dismount in front of the President's house, in
Philadelphia. Handing the bridle to his servant, he knocked at the door
of the mansion. Learning from the porter that the President was din-
ing he said that he was on public business, having dispatches which he
could deliver only to the commander-in-chief. A servant was sent into
the dining-room to give the information to Tobias Lear, the President's
private secretary, who left the table and went into the hall where the
officer repeated what he had said. Mr. Lear replied that, as the Presi-
dent's secretary, he would take charge of the dispatches and deliver them
at the proper time. The officer made answer that he had just arrived
from the western army, and his orders were explicit to deliver them with
all promptitude, and to the President in person ; but that he would await
his directions. Mr. Lear returned, and in a whisper imparted to the
President what had passed. General Washington rose from the table
and went to the officer. He was back in a short time, made a word of
apology for his absence, but no allusion to the cause of it.
General Washington's hours were early, and by 10 o'clock all the
company had gone. Mrs. Washington left the room, soon afterwards,
the President and his secretary remaining. The nation's chief now paced
the room in hurried strides and without speaking for several minutes.
Then he sat down on the sofa by the fire, telling his secretary to sit
down. He rose again, and, as he walked backward and forward,
Mr. Lear saw that a storm was gathering. In the agony of his emotion,
he struck his clenched hands with fearful force against his forehead,
and, in a paroxysm of anguish, exclaimed :
"It's all over! St. Clair's defeated — routed; the officers nearly all
killed — the men by wholesale — that brave army cut to pieces — the rout
complete ! too shocking to think of — and a surprise in the bargain !"
Washington's agitation was indeed intense. After uttering some
more expressions of his disappointment, he became calmer. Then he
said in a tone quite low:
64 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through the
dispatches — saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will
hear him without prejudice, he shall have fully .justice ; yet, long, faith-
ful, and meritorious services have their claims." And absolute justice
was accorded him. One of the strongest records in St. Clair's favor is
the fact that he retained the undiminished esteem and good opinion of
President Washington. The popular clamor was tremendous and Gen-
eral St. Clair demanded a court of inquiry. This request was complied
with, and the court exonerated him of all blame. He followed the
example set by General Harmar and resigned his commission.
About a year later General Wilkinson visited this battlefield, with
his command. They found scattered along the way the remains of many
Americans, who had been pursued and killed by the savages, or who had
perished of their wounds while endeavoring "to escape. The field was
thickly strewn with remains showing the horrible mutilations by the
bloodthirsty savages. Limbs were separated from bodies and the flesh
had been stripped from many bones, but it was impossible to tell whether
this had been the work of wolves or the Indians. It was at this time
that Fort Recovery was erected upon the site of the disaster. The defeat
was indeed a staggering blow to the new government at the head of
which was the "Father of his Country."
CHAPTER VI
THE CAMPAIGN OF "MAD ANTHONY" WAYNE
The Maumee Valley is justly entitled to the appellation of "The Bloody
Ground." It has possibly been the theater of a greater number of san-
guinary battles and has caused the expenditure of more treasure than
any equal extent of territory in the United States. It was in this region
that the Iroquois won their most complete victories over the Miamis and
other Ohio tribes which caused them to claim sovereignty over the Ohio
country. The Indian conspiracy of Pontiac, with its bloody accompani-
ments together with the decisive defeats of Generals Harmar and
St. Clair have heretofore been described. Other decisive engagements
will follow in the course of the history.
As a matter of fact the Revolutionary war had never ceased in this
western country. There had not been a single year of absolute peace.
The Indians continued their hostilities against the Americans, aided and
abetted by the British authorities. Detroit had been retained. The
Maumee basin had remained under their control through the influence
exerted with the powerful Indian tribes residing along its banks and
those of its affluents. It remained for "Mad Anthony" with his army of
impetuous soldiers to break the power of the Indian confederacy at
Fallen Timbers. The Revolutionary war which began in New England
had its ending along the Maumee River. Hence it is that this epochal
campaign deserves extended mention. By it peace was secured from
savage raids which lasted for seventeen years, or until the outbreak of
the conspiracy formed by Tecumseh and his brother. The Prophet.
Me-au-me was the way the French explorers understood the Indians
of the Maumee basin to pronounce the name of their tribe. Hence it
was that the French recorded the name as Miami. On account of this
tribe having a village by the upper waters of this river, the French
referred to it as the River of the ]\Iiamis. As the same name had been
bestowed upon a river emptying into the Ohio River, this northern Miami
became familiarly known as the Miami of the Lake. The peculiar and
rapid pronunciation of the three syllables as Me-au-me led the English
settlers who located in this basin to pronounce it in two syllables, and so
it was that the name finally fixed as Maumee. It is also occasionally
referred to or written as Omi or Omee, which was evidently another
misspelling of the French designation. No definite Indian name of the
great river has descended to us, although the Shawnees sometimes
referred to it as Ottawa Sepe, and the Wyandots referred to it as
Was-o-hah-con-die.
That the civil authorities of the newly-organized Northwestern Ter-
ritory had no intention of yielding this splendid region to the red men
66 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
is shown by the establishment of Hamilton County in February, 1792, by
Governor St. Clair. It included the greater part of Northwestern Ohio
and its boundaries extended northward to Lake Huron. Its authority
was only nominal, however, for the red men were in actual possession.
Closely following the rout of St. Clair, the Maumee Valley was the
theater of many tragic occurrences. Previous to the defeat of General
Harmar's army, the savages did not court peace; much less were they
inclined to welcome the overtures made to them for peace after that
disaster and the equally serious repulse of St. Clair. They rallied all
the available warriors of the neighboring tribes — the Miamis under Little
Turtle, the Delawares under Buckongehelas, the Shawnees under Blue
Jacket, and bands of Wyandots, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Kickapoos, and
other small and insignificant tribes. The great number of scalps and
^
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other rich booty secured filled their savage breasts with the greatest joy,
and everything seemed ominous of final victory in driving the hated
Americans from this bountiful country. As a local poet expressed it:
"Mustered strong, the Kas-kas-kies,
Wyandots and the Miamis,
Also the Pottawatomies,
The Delawares and Chippewas,
The Kickapoos and Ottawas,
The Shawnees and many strays.
From almost every Indian nation.
Had joined the fearless congregation.
Who after St. Clair's dread defeat.
Returned to this secure retreat."
As almost daily reports of savage outrages reached the national
capital. General Washington and his advisors decided that another cam-
paign must be undertaken against the Maumee region. Unusual care
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
67
mil s andTere in ;h'"°P' '°"" *\^ "^^^ °" ^'-^^ ^oats about wenty
ever undertaken by our Federal GoitrnLt , In ecame^r^fcursT
GrJZT'SlrZ' '^""P' """^''^'^^ '>• ^'^^ United States dSng he
wnicn was in any degree calculated for the purpose" Here th^!^
remained several months before permission was granted to proceed tj
etc A length they reached Fort Jefferson ^'
In April of this year (1793) General Wilkinson sent two messengers
with a peace message to the Miamis of the Maumee, and two other mes
oneTf the": fouf al 'V\' "'^ "'^^"" ^° P°'"^^ farther nonh N^i
68 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
instead of being killed, he was sold as a slave to the British. After serv-
ing them for several months in the transportation service between Detroit
and the lowest Maumee rapids, where Alexander McKee maintained a
large supply house for firearms and ammunition, he finally succeeded in
escaping and made a report to General Wayne at Pittsburg.
From the sworn testimony of Mr. May, it was learned that there
had gathered in the summer of 1792 by the Maumee River, at the mouth
of the Auglaize, which was then the headquarters of neighboring tribes,
more than 3,000 warriors of many nations, all of whom were fed with
rations supplied by the British from Detroit. These had been seen by
May himself, and he reported that others were arriving daily. This is
said to have been the largest council of the aborigines ever held in
America.
"Up and down the great Maumee.
The Miami of the Lake,
O'er the prairie, through the forest.
Came the warriors of the nations.
Came the Delawares and the Miamis,
Came the Ottawas and the Hurons,
Came the Senecas and Shawnees,
Came the Iroquois and Chippewas,
Came the savage Pottawatomies,
All the warriors drawn together
> By the wampum for a council
At the meeting of the waters.
Of the Maumee and the Auglaize,
With their weapons and their war-gear
Painted like the leaves of autumn.
Painted like the sky of morning."
To the British who looked upon the scene with anxious eyes from
their post at Detroit, it seemed as though the fruition of their hopes
and schemes was about to come. The only friends of the American were
Corn Planter and forty-eight other chiefs of the Six Nations. All of the
Ohio tribes were present in numbers and there were representatives
assembled from nations so distant that "it took them a whole season to
come ; and twenty-seven nations from beyond Canada." This is accord-
ing to the report of Corn Planter to General Wayne.
A like council was called for the following year — 1793 — at the foot
of the Maumee Rapids. Runners had been sent to the most remote
tribes summoning them to this council. President Washington decided
to have representatives present and appointed Gen. Benjamin Lincoln of
Massachusetts, Beverly Randolph of Virginia and Timothy Pickering
of Pennsylvania as his representatives. They proceeded to Fort Niagara
and from there embarked on a British sloop and were taken to Detroit,
where they remained for several weeks. At this time the great council
was in progress at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, but these commis-
"Mad Anthony" Wayne
70 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
sioners were not allowed to attend it. In its place, a deputation of some
twenty Indians, with the notorious Simon Girty as interpreter, proceeded
to Detroit to see them. They presented a brief written communication
from the council, of which the most important part was this : "If you
seriously design to make a firm and lasting peace, you will immediately
remove all your people from our side of the river" (the Ohio). This
was undoubtedly directly instigated by the British agents. The commis-
sioners had received reliable information that all of the tribes represented
at this council, with the exception of the Shawnees, Wvandots, Miamis,
and Delawares, were favorable to peace, and that many others were
chafing at the long delays. Owing to these commissioners not being able
to visit the council, and probably to unfaithful translations by the inter-
preter, which was not an uncommon occurrence, they were unable
to make any progress. They, therefore, presented a long statement
in defense of the American settlements on the ground that they were
absolutely justified by previous treaties with the aborigines. As the
British still refused to allow the commissioners to proceed to the Maumee,
they announced that negotiations were at an end and returned to Fort
Erie. They then reported to General Wayne.
It became the firm conviction of General Wayne that it was useless to
make any further delay in his proposed expedition. Although his forces
were not so numerous as he expected, he decided to advance, and so left
Fort Jefferson. The first blood was shed near Fort St. Clair, south of
Hamilton, where a detachment was attacked and a number of men killed.
The savages also carried ofT about seventy horses. This demonstrated
to Wayne that his advance was likely to be contested step by step. A lit-
tle later he established Fort Greenville, on the present site of the town of
that name, which he named in honor of his friend of the Revolutionary
war. Gen. Nathaniel Green. This encampment was about fifty acres in
extent, was fortified, and a part of the army passed the winter at the
stockade. The fixed determination of this man, known as "Mad
Anthony," is shown by a report in which he says : "The safety of the
Western frontiers, the reputation of the legion, the dignity and interest
of the nation, all forbid a retrograde manoeuvre, or giving up one inch of
ground we now possess, until the enemy are compelled to sue for peace."
Regular drill and teaching of the devices known to backwoods warfare
were continued during the entire winter. A detachment under Maj. Henry
Burbeck was dispatched to the battlefield of General St. Clair's defeat
and instructed to erect a fortification there. They reached the site of
this tragedy on Christmas Day, 1793. The stockade enclosure with
blockhouse erected by them was given the name of Fort Recovery. A
reward was ofifered for every human skull discovered, and several hun-
dred were thus gathered together and interred.
The Indians watched with apprehension the steady advance of the
troops of General Wayne toward their retreat hitherto so secure. The
building of the various stockades were reported to them promptly by
their watchful observers. The chiefs kept in close communication with
the British officials at Detroit and with McKee, who was in charge of
a trading post and supply station at the rapids near the present village
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72 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of Maumee. The British were gradually changing from passive to active
hostility. They told the Indians that the peace with the United States
was only a temporary truce, and at its expiration "their great fathers
would unite with them in the war, and drive the long knives (as they
called the Americans) from the lands they had so unjustly usurped from
his red children."
On April 17th we read as follows in a communication from Detroit:
"We have lately had a visit from Governor Simcoe ; he came from
Niagara through the woods. * * * He has gone to the foot of the
(Maumee) rapids and three companies of Colonel England's regiment
have followed him to assist in building a fort there." This fort was a
veritable stronghold, and it was named Fort Miami. One official wrote
that this fort "put all the Indians here in great spirits" to resist the Amer-
icans. It was situated on the left bank of the Maumee River, within the
limits of the present village of Maumee, which was a long advance into
United States territory. He reported with the greatest pleasure the rapid
growth of the warlike spirit among the redskins. "This step," referring
to Fort Miami, said he, "has given great spirit to the Indians and
impressed them with a hope of our ultimately acting with them and
affording a security for their families, should the enemy penetrate to
their villages." Guns, gun-locks, flints, and the other necessities of war-
fare of the best design were freely supplied through this post. McKee's
agency house was one mile and a half above this fort and near the foot
of the lowest rapids. Fort Miami received regular reports of the advance
of General Wayne's command, and the fort was strengthened and fur-
ther garrisoned to meet the anticipated conflict. The Indians reported
that the army marched twice as far in a day as St. Clair's, that his troops
marched in open order ready for battle, and that the greatest precaution
was exercised at night by breastwork of fallen trees, etc., to guard against
ambush and surprise.
On July 7, 1794, General Wayne reported that a few days previously
one of his escorts had been attacked by a numerous body of the aborigines
under the walls of Fort Recovery, which was followed by a general
assault upon that fort and garrison. The enemy was soon repulsed with
great slaughter, but immediately rallied and continued the siege for sev-
eral days, keeping up a very heavy and constant fire at a respectable
distance. They were ultimately compelled to retreat, however, at a
considerable loss, and the Upper Lake Indians were so disheartened that
they began to return home. The American loss was twenty-two killed,
thirty wounded, and three missing. The loss of horses was very large,
for the savages were very anxious to gain mounts. It was apparent that
the Indians were reinforced by a considerable number of the British ; like-
wise they were armed and equipped with the very latest style of firearms,
and seemed to be provided with an abundance of ammunition. "There
was a considerable number of armed white men in the rear," said
General Wayne in his dispatch, "whom they frequently heard talk in our
language, and encouraging the savages to persevere in the assault; their
faces generally blacked."
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 71
It seems as though the attack upon Fort Recovery was not a part
of the British and Indian program. The trader McKee wrote to Detroit
as follows:
("Maumee) Rapids, July 5, 1794.
"Sir: — I send this by a party of Saganas (Saginaws) who returned
yesterday from Fort Recovery where the whole body of Aborigines,
except the Delawares who had gone another route, imprudently attacked
the fort on Monday, the 30th of last month, and lost 16 or 17 men
besides a good many wounded.
"Everything had been settled prior to their leaving the fallen timber,
and it had been agreed upon to confine themselves to take convoys and
attacking at a distance from the forts, if they should have the address
to entice the enemy out ; but the impetuosity of the Mackinac Aborigines
and their eagerness to begin with the nearest, prevailed with the others
to alter their system, the consequences of which from the present
appearance of things may most materially injure the interests of these
people. * * *
"The immediate object of the attack was three hundred pack horses
going from this fort to Fort Greenville, in which the Aborigines con-
pletely succeeded, taking and killing all of them. Captain Elliott writes
that they are immediately to hold a council at the Glaize in order to try
if they can prevail upon the Lake Aborigines to remain ; but without
provisions, ammunitions, &c, being sent to that place, I conceive it will
be extremely difficult to keep them together.
"With great respect, I have the honor to be
"Your obedient and humble servant,
"A. McKee."
On August 13th, McKee again wrote : "A scouting party from the
Americans carried off a man and a woman yesterday morning between
this place and Roche de Bout. * * * They killed a Delaware woman.
Scouts were sent up to view the situation of the armv ; and we now mus-
ter 1,000 Indians."
In the spring General Wayne's forces were increased by about 1,600
Kentucky cavalrymen, until the total number of troops under his imme-
diate command exceeded 3,000. General Wayne and every man under
him keenly realized that this was to be a momentous campaign. If this
third army was defeated, the entire country within the boundaries of the
Alleghenies, the Ohio, and the Mississippi would be completely dominated
by the British, and absolutely lost to the Americans. These men were
not knights in burnished steel on prancing steeds, they were not even
regularly trained troops, but they were determined men who were sturdy
and weather-beaten. Most of them wore the individual costume of the
border. They may not have been drilled in the art of scientific warfare,
as practiced in Europe, but in physical power and patient endurance they
were absolutely unsurpassed in any country. The army broke camp at
Fort Greenville, on July 28, 1794, and proceeded by the way of Fort
Recovery. The route led through what was long known as the Black
Swamp country. It was indeed a tedious progress, for roads had to be
cut, swampy places made passable by throwing in brush and timber, and
74 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
streams bridged with logs. He halted at Girty's Town long enough to
build Fort Adams. Lieutenant Boyer has left us a detailed account of
this expedition, which is most interesting reading. While marching
through this country, so inhospitable for an army, we find the following
entry :
"The weather still warm — no water except in ponds, which nothing
but excessive thirst would induce us to drink. The mosquitos are very
troublesome, and larger than I ever saw. We are informed there is no
water for twelve miles." "Camp St. Mary River, August 2nd, 1794. An
accident took place this day by a tree falling on the Commander-in-Chief
and nearly putting an end to his existence ; we expected to be detained
here for some time in consequence of it, but fortunately he is not so
much hurt as to prevent him from riding at a slow pace. No appearance
of the enemy today, and think they are preparing for a warm attack. The
weather very hot and dry, without any appearance of rain."
"Camp Grand Oglaize, 8th August, 1794. Proceeded in our march
to this place at five o'clock this morning, and arrived here at the con-
fluence of the Miami and Oglaize Rivers at half past ten, being seventy-
seven miles from Fort Recovery. This place far excels in beauty any
in the western country, and believes equalled by none in the Atlantic
States. Here are vegetables of every kind in abundance, and we have
marched four or five miles in corn fields down the Oglaize and there are
not less than one thousand acres of corn round the town. The land is
generally of the fir nature.
"This country appears well adapted for the enjoyment of industrious
people, who cannot avoid living in as great luxury as in any other place
throughout the states. Nature having lent a most bountiful hand in the
arrangement of the position, that a man can send the produce to market
in his own boat. The land level and river navigable, no more than sixty
miles from the lake."
Wayne had planned to surprise the enemy at the junction of the
Auglaize and Maumee. He found the headquarters of the red men abso-
lutely deserted. The vegetables and fruits growing there furnished much
needed food for the weary soldiers, for the corn was in just the stage
of the roasting ear. He sent detachments up and down the river to destroy
the crops and burn the Indian villages. A smoking ruin scene of desola-
tion quickly supplanted what had before been a picture of plenty and
peace. On a prominence overlooking the confluence of the Auglaize
and the Maumee, General Wayne erected a fortress where he could defy
the hostile aborigines and the British. This was the strongest fortifica-
tion constructed by him on this expedition, and he styled it "an important
and formidable fort." He said this location was "the grand emporium
of the hostile Indians of the West." Here began a string of Indian
towns that extended along the banks of "the beautiful Miami of the
Lake." This fort was begun on August 9th and completed on the 17th of
the same month. Thus only eight days were occupied in its building.
"I defy the English, Indians, and all the devils in h 1 to take it,"
said General Wayne after surveying its blockhouses, pickets, ditches and
fascines.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 75
"Then call it Fort Defiance," suggested General Scott, who chanced
at that very instant to be standing at his side.
Hence the name of Fort Defiance affixed itself to this advance outpost
in this wilderness. "Thus, Sir," wrote General Wayne to the Secretary
of War, "we have gained possession of the grand emporium of the hostile
Indians of the West, without loss of blood. The margin of those beauti-
ful rivers in the Miamis of the Lake and Auglaize— appear like one con-
tinued village for a number of miles, both above and below this place;
nor have I ever before beheld such fields of corn in anv part of America
from Canada to Florida."
There was not a great delay at Fort Defiance, for we read in Lieu-
tenant Boyer's diary. "Camp Forty-one miles from Grand Oglaize (Roche
de Bout) 18th August. 1794. The legion arrived on this ground, noth-
mg particular taking place. Five of our spies were sent out at three
o'clock— they fell in with an advanced body of the enemy, and obliged to
retreat ; but May, one of our spies, fell under the enemy's hold. What
his fate may be must be left to future success."
We learn of his fate through a published account of John Brickell,
who was then a captive among the Indians. He says : "Two or three
days after we arrived at the Rapids. Wayne's spies came right into camp
among us. I afterwards saw the survivors. Their names were Wells
Miller, McClelland. May, Mahafify and one other whose name I forgot!
They came into camp boldlv and fired upon the Indians and Miller was
wounded in the shoulder. May was chased by the Indians to the smooth
rock in the bed of the river, where his horse fell, and he was taken
prisoner. The others escaped. They took May to camp where they
recognized him as having been a captive among them, and having escaped
(mentioned earlier), they said: 'We know vou : you speak Indian Ian-
gauge ; you not content to live with us ; tomorrow we take vou to that
tree (pointing to a large oak) we will tie vou fast, and make a mark
on your breast, and we will see which one of us can shoot nearest to it.'
It so turned out. The next day, the day before the battle, they riddled
his body with bullets, shooting at least fifty into him."
Upon his return to this place, after his successful battle with the
enemy, Wayne reinforced Fort Defiance, as a study of the British Fort
Miami had suggested some improvements. At each of the four angles
there was a blockhouse. Outside of the palisades and the blockhouse there
was a wall of earth eight feet thick, which sloped outwards and upwards,
and was supported on its outer side by a log wall. A ditch encircled the
entire works excepting the east side, which was near the precipitous bank
of the Auglaize River. The ditch was some fifteen feet wide and eight
feet deep and was protected by diagonal pickets eleven feet long, secured
to the log walls at intervals of a foot and projected over the ditch. At
one place there was a falling gate, or drawbridge, which was raised and
lowered by pulleys. There was also a protected ditch leading to the river
so that water could be procured from the river without exposing the
carrier to the enemy. How dififerent is the scene today about the con-
fluence of the Maumee and the Auglaize.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 77
Wayne thoroughly understood border warfare and guarded his march-
ing forces carefully against any savage surprise. To the Indians he
became known as the "chief who never sleeps." He constantly main-
tained a body of trained scouts whose duty it was to apprise him of
every move of the Indians. These men became known as his "eyes," and
they were indeed tireless in their vigilance. They were men who had been
cradled in frontier cabins. Some of them had been captives from child-
hood in the wigwams. They thoroughly knew the language, customs, and
habits of these children of the forests. They were husky athletes, fleet-
footed and keen-eyed. They were skilled marksmen and destitute of
fear. To them the yell of the savage had no terror. They were skilled
in the arts of woodcraft, in which the savages were so proficient, and
frequently excelled their preceptors. On their excursions the scouts were
generally mounted on elegant horses, for they had the pick of the stables
and they usually attired themselves in Indian style with their faces
painted. They proved themselves of inestimable service to General
Wayne.
The chief of Wayne's scouts, and the one on whom he depended most,
was William Wells. He was a man of unwavering courage and was
endowed with unusual intelligence. Of his birth we have no record. He
had been captured by the Indians when only twelve years of age, while
an inmate of the family of Nathaniel Pope, in Kentucky. He had spent
his early manhood among the Miamis, was formally adopted into the
tribe, and had espoused a sister of the great chief, Little Turtle. (Some
accounts say his daughter.) He was the father of three daughters and
one son, whose descendants live in and'i around Toledo and Fort Wayne.
One became the wife of Judge Wolcott of Maumee. The Indian name
of Wells was Black Snake. He fought against Harmar and St. Clair,
with the Indians, and he now found himself opposed to his former friends.
For a long time Wells was worried for fear he may have killed some of
his friends or kindred. He recalled the dim memories of his childhood
home, of his brothers and his playmates, and sorrow seemed to fill his
soul. The approach of W'ayne's army, in 1794, stirred anew conflicting
emotions, based upon indistinct recollections of early ties, of country and
kindred on the one hand, and existing attachments of wife and children
on the other. He resolved to make his history known. With true Indian
characteristics, the secret purpose of leaving his adopted nation was,
according to reliable tradition, made known in a dramatic manner. Tak-
ing with him the war chief. Little Turtle, to a favorite spot on the banks
of the Alaumee, Wells said : "I leave now your nation for my own
people. We have long been friends. We are friends yet, until the sun
reaches a certain height (which he indicated). From that time we are
enemies. Then, if you wish to kill me. you may. If I want to kill you,
I may." At the appointed hour, crossing the river. Captain Wells dis-
appeared in the forest, taking an easterly direction to strike the trail of
Wayne's army.
The bonds of aft'ection and respect which had bound these two singu-
lar and highly-gifted men. Wells and Little Turtle, together were not
severed or weakened by this abru]5t declaration. They embraced "and
the large tears coursed down the sun-bronzed cheeks of the chieftian, who
78 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
was unused to manifesting emotion." Captain Wells soon after joined
Wayne's army, and his perfect knowledge of the Indian haunts, habits,
and modes of Indian warfare, became an invaluable auxiliary to the
Americans.
On one of Captain Wells' peregrinations through the Indian territory,
as he came to the bank of the River St. Mary, he discovered a family of
Indians coming up the river in a canoe. He dismounted and concealed
his men near the bank of the river, whilst he went himself to the bank,
in open view, and called to the Indians to come over. As he was dressed
in Indian style, and spoke to them in their own language, the Indians,
not expecting danger, went across the river. The moment the canoe
struck the shore, Wells heard the cocks of his comrades' rifles cry, "nick,
nick," as they prepared to shoot the Indians ; but who should be in the
canoe but his Indian father and mother, with their children ! As his
comrades were coming forward with their rifles cocked, ready to pour in
the deadly storm upon the devoted Indians, \\^ells called to them to hold
their hands and desist. He then informed them who those Indians were,
and solemnly declared, that the man who would attempt to injure one
of them, would receive a ball in his head. He said to his men, that "that
family had fed him when he was hungry, clothed him when he was
naked,. and kindly i^ursed him when he was sick; and in every respect
was as kind and afifectionate to him as they were to their own children."
"Those hardy soldiers approved of the motives of Captain Wells, in
showing leniency to the enemy. They drew down their rifles and toma-
hawks, went to the canoe, and shook hands with the trembling Indians in
the most friendly manner. Captain Wells assured them they had nothing
to fear from him ; and after talking with them to dispel their fears, he
said, 'that General Wayne was approaching with an overwhelming force ;
that the best thing the Indians could do was to make peace ; that the
white men did not wish to continue the war.' He urge^l his Indian
father for the future to keep out of the reach of danger. He then bade
them farewell ; they appeared grateful for his clemency. They then
pushed ofif their canoe, and went down the river as fast as they could
propel her."
On one occasion Wells and his party rode boldly into an Indian village
near Maumee. Dressed in Indian style, as they were, and speaking the
Indian tongue perfectly, their true character was not suspicioned. Pass-
ing through the village the scouts made captive an Indian man and
woman on horseback. With the prisoners they then set of? for Fort
Defiance. Passing by a camp of Indians they decided to attack it. Tying
and gagging their captives, the scouts boldly rode into the Indian encamp-
ment with their rifles lying across the pommels of their saddles. They
inquired about General Wayne's movements and the Indians freely
answered. One Indian was suspicious, however, and Wells overheard
him speaking to another. Wells gave the preconcerted signal, and each
man fired his rifle into the body of an Indian. They then put spurs to
their horses and dashed away. McClellan was shot through the shoulder
and Wells through the arm. Nevertheless they succeeded in reaching
Fort Defiance with their prisoners, and the wounded all recovered.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 79
During Wayne's campaign alone his spies brought in a score of
prisoners and killed an equal or greater number of the enemy. After
the campaign ended Wells settled near the confluence of the St. Mary
and St. Joseph Rivers, on a stream since called "Spy River," where he
was subsequently granted a half section of land by the Government. He
enlisted again during the War of 1812 and was slain at Fort Dearborn
in August, 1812. The Indians are said to have eaten his heart and drunk
his blood, from the superstitious belief that in this way they should imbibe
his warlike endowments.
CHAPTER VII
FALLEN TIMBERS AND THE GREENVILLE TREATY
Although General Wayne was convinced that a conflict was inevitable,
he omitted no effort to conciliate the savages and effect a peace without
bloodshed. In reporting the situation to the Secretary of War, he wrote :
"Should war be their choice, that blood is upon their heads. America
shall no longer be insulted with impunity. To an all powerful and just
God I therefore commit myself and gallant army."
Wayne decided to send one final and formal offer of peace to the
Indians who were assembled near and around Fort Miami, about forty
miles below Fort Defiance. Here the military commander and trade
agents were freely distributing weapons, ammunition and food to their
dusky allies. He warned them not to be misled "by the false promises
and language of the bad white men at the foot of the rapids." The
bearer of this message was Christopher Miller, one of his "eyes." Miller
was a naturalized Shawnee and had been captured only a few months
earlier under most dramatic circumstances, near Greenville. A body of
scouts had been dispatched to bring in a prisoner from whom it was
hoped valuable information might be obtained. Along the Auglaize they
discovered three Indians around a camp fire. Two of the trio were
shot and a dash was made for the third. The Indian was captured and
was sulky, refusing to converse either in English or Indian. When
thoroughly washed he proved to be a white man, but still he refused to
answer any questions. One of the captors was Henry Miller, who had
also been an Indian prisoner, and he began to have suspicions that this
might be his brother. He spurred his horse alongside and called him by
his Indian name. At the unexpected sound the captive was startled and
finally admitted his identity. It was several weeks, however, before he
consented to abandon the savage life and rejoin the whites. His decision
once made, he proved an invaluable acquisition.
As security for Miller's safe return word was sent that several Indians
were being held as hostages. With characteristic impatience Wayne
refused to delay until his messenger returned but began his march down
the river. \Mien ]\Iiller met the advancing command he reported that
the Indians asked ten days' delay, within which time they would decide
for peace or war. It was at the rock known as Roche d' Bouef that the
scout encountered his commander, on the 15th of August, and delivered
his message. This massive rock still rises above the western edge of the
river, about a mile above the village of Waterville. where an electric
railroad now crosses the stream. Here some light works were thrown up
as a place of deposit for the heavy baggage, which was named Fort
Deposit.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 81
Wayne recognized this request for delay as only a savage ruse to
secure delay so that more warriors might be assembled. Hence it was
that he decided to press on with his troops, who now numbered about
3,000 men. One thousand of these men were mounted Kentucky rifle-
men, while the others were regulars, both infantry and cavalry. Through
his spies and captives, Wayne learned that at least 2,000 braves, Shaw-
nees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawattomies, Chippe-
was, and Iroquois, were gathered near Fort Miami. Associated with
them were the infamous trio of renegades, McKee, Girty, and Elliot,
together with some seventy white rangers from Detroit, who were dressed
in Indian costume and could scarcely be distinguished from the savages
themselves. The Indians were in command of Blue Jacket, a Shawnee
chieftain, and Little Turtle, the head chief of the Miamis. As a warrior
Little Turtle was fearless, but not rash ; shrewd to plan, bold and ener-
getic to execute. Xo peril could daunt him, and no emergency could sur-
prise him. Like Pontiac, he indulged in gloomy apprehension of the
future of his people, and had been one of the leaders in the defeat of
both Generals Harmar and St. Clair.
It is said that Little Turtle was averse to battle, and in council said :
"We have beaten the enemy twice under separate commanders. We can-
not expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans
are now led by a chief who never sleeps. The night and the day are alike
to him. During all the time that he has been marching upon our villages,
notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men, we have never been
able to surprise him. Think well of it. There is something whispers me
it would be well to listen to his offers of peace." Blue Jacket leaped up
in the council, however, and silenced Little Turtle by accusing him of
cowardice. Little Turtle then replied : "Follow me to battle."
The Indians swept up through the woods in long columns and estab-
lished themselves in what seemed to them an impregnable position, on
and around Presque Isle Hill, about two miles above iMaumee. Only a
year or two previously a tornado had torn down the forest trees, inter-
lacing them in such a manner as to form a secure covert for the savages,
and rendering it very difficult for cavalry to operate. It was also a rainy
morning. The drums could not communicate the concerted signals with
sufficient clearness, so that some contemplated maneuvers were not
executed. The Indians formed in three long lines, their left resting on
the river and their right extending some two miles into the forest at right
angles to the Maumee. About 8 o'clock in the morning of the 20th
Wayne marched down the river farther, realizing that the Indians were
near and that a battle could not be delayed much longer. As a precau-
tion he sent forward a battalion of the mounted Kentuckians, with
instructions to retreat in feigned confusion as soon as they were fired
upon, in order to draw the Indians out of their covert and increase their
confidence. The order of the advance as stated bv Wayne in his sub-
sequent official report was : "The legion on the right, its right flank cov-
ered by the Miamis (Maumee), one brigade of mounted volunteers on
the left, under Brigadier-General Todd, the other in the rear, under
Brigadier-General Barbie. A select battalion of mounted volunteers
82 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
moved in front of the legion, commanded by Major Price, who was
directed to keep sufficiently advanced, so as to give timely notice for the
troops in case of action, it being yet undetermined whether the Indians
would decide for peace or war."
The Kentuckians kept far enough in advance to give Wayne time to
form his troops in perfect order after the shooting should begin. After
about an hour's march, they received such a hot fire from the Indians
concealed in the woods and high grass as to compel them to retreat.
Wayne immediately drew up his forces in two lines, placing one troop of
cavalry near the !^Iaumee and the other farther inland near the right
flank. He then gave orders to his front line to advance and charge with
trailed arms. They were to rouse the savages from their covert at the
point of the bayonet, to deliver a close and well-directed fire at their
backs, and then to charge before the Indians had a chance to reload.
"General Wayne," said Lieut. William Henry Harrison, then an aide
on that officer's staff, just as the attack was ordered, "I am afraid you'll
get into the fight yourself and forget to give me the necessary field
orders." He knew that in the heat of the battle Wayne was apt to for-
get that he was the general and not a soldier.
"Perhaps I may," replied Wayne, "and if I do, recollect the standing
order for the day is, charge the d — d rascals with the bayonets."
In the face of a deadly fire the American troops dashed upon the
savages among the fallen trees, and prodded them from their hiding
with cold steel. What a sight it was! A host of painted and plumed
warriors, the very pick of the western tribes, with their athletic and agile
bodies decked in their gay strappings, with their coarse raven hair hang-
ing over their shoulders like netted manes, met their white foes face to
face. Each carried his flint, ready for instant use, while hung over his
shoulders were the straps of the powder horn and shot-pouch. The
frontiersmen among Wayne's troops also carried the deadly tomahawk
and scalping knife, as well as their dusky opponents. It was truly a
tragic tableau here among the fallen timbers that nature had prepared
for this historic event.
All the orders of General Wayne were obeyed with promptness and
alacrity. It was not long until the savages and their white allies were
fleeing precipitously from their enemy "who never sleeps." Wayne
heaped encomiums upon all his officers in his official reports, saying that
the bravery and conduct of every officer merited his highest approbation.
They followed up the fleeing and painted savages with such swiftness
and fury, and poured such a destructive fire upon their backs, that but
few of the second line of Wayne's forces arrived in time to participate
in the action. "Such was the impetuosity of the first-line of infantry,"
reported Wayne, "that the Indians, and Canadian militia, and volunteers,
were drove from all their coverts in so short a time, that, although every
possible exertion was used by the officers of the second line of legion,
and by Generals Scott, Todd, and Barbie, of the mounted volunteers, to
gain their proper positions, but part of each could get up in season to
participate in the action, the enemy being drove, in the course of one
hour, more than two miles, through the thick woods already mentioned,
m^3fi
Kfo^'JJ" \J"":I 'P
84 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
by less than one-half of their numbers." Many of the Indians endeavored
to escape by swimming the river, but they were cut down in the midst of
the stream by the cavalry. The woods were strewn for miles with dead
and wounded savages and the Canadian rangers. In the course of one
hour, the whole force of the enemy was driven back more than two miles
through the thick woods.
The shrewd scheme of Wayne had proved most successful. The
sudden and systematic attack from all points stampeded the savage war-
riors, forcing them into a promiscuous flight which their chiefs tried in
vain to check. It is certain that the enemy numbered at least 2,000 com-
batants. The troops actually engaged against them were less than half
that number. The battle was too brief to be sanguinary in its results. The
Americans lost 33 killed and about 100 wounded. The death loss occurred
almost entirely at the first fire of the savages, who took deadly aim as
the Americans swept down upon them. The cavalry galloped boldly
among the Indians, leaping their horses over the fallen logs and dodging
in and out among the trees. They swung their long sabres with telling
efifect among the dismayed and yelling Indians. The loss of the Indians
was far more serious than that of the Americans, but the number has
never been definitely reported. At least a hundred bodies were found
upon the field, but many of the killed and wounded were dragged away
by their friends. The Indian tribes were represented about as follows:
Wyandots 300, Shawnees 350, Delawares 500, Miamis 200, Tawas 250.
There were also small bands of other tribes. The garrison numbered
probably 400 and a couple of hundred other mixed troops under Girty
and his associates who remained at a respectful distance.
A number of instances have been preserved to us showing the
desperate character of the fighting which took place at Fallen Timbers.
Much individual heroism was displayed on both sides. A soldier who
had become detached a short distance from the army met a single
Indian in the woods. The two foes immediately attacked each other,
the soldier with his bayonet, the Indian with his tomahawk. Two days
after they were found dead. The soldier had his bayonet imbedded in
the body of the Indian, the Indian had his tomahawk in the head of the
soldiei".
The victorious Americans pursued the flying savages to the very
palisades of Fort Miami. The Indians evidently expected the British
to throw open the gates of the fortress and admit them to its protec-
tion. To their surprise and indignation, however, the British basely
abandoned them in the hour of their sore defeat, and they were obliged
to scatter in the forest for safety from the American bayonets. The
British looked on with apparent unconcern at this humiliation and
defeat of their late allies. The Indians were astonished at the luke-
warmness of their white allies ; that they had regarded the fort as a place
of refuge in case of disaster was evident from circumstances.
General Wayne had definite instructions from General Washington
to attack and demolish Fort Miami. Seriously contemplating storming
Fort Miami, he rode up with his aides to within a few hundred feet of
it, from which vantage point he surveyed it with his glasses from all
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 85
sides. The extreme danger and narrow escape of the general was
revealed by a British deserter on the following dav. A captain of the
marines, who happened to be in the garrison, resented the approach so
strongly that he seized a gun and trained it upon Wayne. Just as he
was about to apply the fire Major Campbell hoved in sight and threat-
ened to cut him down with his sword if he did not immediately desist
ihe major might have been led to such action by fear for "his own
safety, knowing that the American commander had a large force with
him.
Independent of its results in bringing on a possible war with Great
Britain, Wayne knew that Fort Miami was garrisoned by a force of
several hundred men and mounted ten pieces of artillery. Against this
he had no suitable artillery. Hence he wiselv concluded not to sacri-
FORT M
S IT Is TODAV
fkre his troops and precipitate war between the two countries by making
the attack. The Americans contented themselves with proceeding imme-
diately to burn and destroy all the supplies and buildings without the
i^fuM °L- ^''^' '"'^'"ding the residence of the trader, Alex McKee
While this ravaging and burning was going on, it is said that the British
stood sullenly by their guns and lighted torches, but not daring to fire
we 1 knowing what the result would be. Wayne sent out his cavalry'
and they destroyed the Indian villages for miles up and down the river
A little war of blustering words upon the part of the British com-
mander and tart rejoinders upon the part of the American commander
followed. \o blood was spilled and not a single shot was fired.
"Miami (Maumee) River, August 21st, 1794
Sir :— An army of the United States of America, said to be under
your command, having taken post on the banks of the Miami (Maumee)
86 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
for upwards of the last twenty-four hours, almost within the reach of the
guns of this fort, being a post belonging to His Majesty the King of
Great Britain, occupied by His Majesty's troops, and which I have the
honor to command, it becomes my duty to inform myself, as speedily
as possible, in what light I am to view your making such near approaches
to this garrison. I have no hesitation, on my part, to say, that I know
of no war existing between Great Britain and America.
I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect.
Your most obedient and very humble servant,
William Campbell.
Major 24th Reg't Comd'g a British Post on the banks of the Miami
To Major-General Wayne, etc."
"Camp on the Banks of the Miami,
August 21st, 1794.
"Sir : — I have received your letter of this date, requiring from me
the motives which have moved the army under my command to the posi-
tion they at present occupy, far within the acknowledged jurisdiction
of the United States of America. Without questioning the Authority
or the propriety, sir, of your interrogatory, I think I may without breach
of decorum, observe to you, that were you entitled to an answer, the
most full and satisfactory one was announced to you from the muzzles
of my small arms, yesterday morning, in the action against the horde
of savages in the vicinity of your post, which terminated gloriously to
the American arms ; but, had it continued until the Indians, etc., were
driven under the influence of the post and guns you mention, they would
not have much impeded the progress of the victorious army under my
command, as no such post was established at the commencement of the
present war, between the Indians and the United States.
"I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect,
"Your most obedient and very humble servant,
"Anthony Wayne,
Major General, and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Army.
To Major William Campbell, etc."
On the following day there came a second letter from Major Camp-
bell saying: "I have forborne for these two days past, to resent those
insults you have offered to the British flag flying at this fort, by approach-
ing it within pistol shot of my works * * * should you, after this,
continue to approach my post, * * * the honor of my profession
will oblige me to have recourse to those measures, which thousands of
either nation may have cause hereafter to regret." General Wavne
retorts by requesting him to withdraw his "troops, artillery, and stores
* * * to the nearest post occupied by his Britannic ]\Iajesty's troops
at the peace of 1783." To this Major Campbell replied that his posi-
tion was purely military, that he acted only under orders and could not
discuss the propriety or justness of the British claims or occupation.
Thus the matter ended.
Jonathan Adier, who was at that time living with the Indians, has
given in a nianuscript left by him the Indian account of the Battle of
Fallen Timbers. It is as follows :
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 87
"Now the Indians are very curious about fighting; for when they
know they are going into battle, they will not eat anything just previous.
They say that if a man is shot in the body when he is entirely empty,
there is not half as much danger of the ball passing through the bowels
as when they are full. So they started the first morning without eating
anything, and moving up to the end of the prairie, ranged themselves
in order of battle at the edge of the timber. There they waited all day
without any food, and at night returned and partook of their suppers.
The second morning, they again placed themselves in the same position,
and again returned at night and supped. By this time they had begim
to get weak from eating only once a day, and concluded they would eat
breakfast. Some were eating, and others, who had finished, had moved
forward to their stations, when Wayne's army was seen approaching.
Soon as they were within gunshot, the Indians began firing upon them ;
but Wayne, making no halt, rushed on upon them.
"Only a small part of the Indians being on the ground, they were
obliged to give back, and finding Wayne too strong for them, attempted
to retreat. Those who were on the way heard the noise and sprang to
their assistance. So some were running from and others to the battle,
which created great confusion. In the meantime, the light horse had
gone entirely around and came upon their rear, blowing their horns and
closing in upon them. The Indians now found that they were com-
pletely surrounded, and all that could made their escape, and the bal-
ance were all killed, which was no small number. Among these last,
with one or two exceptions were all the Wyandots that lived at San-
dusky at the time I went to inform them of the expected battle. The
main body of the Indians were back nearly two miles from the battle-
ground and Wayne had taken them by surprise, and made such a slaugh-
ter among them that they were entirely discouraged, and made the best
of their way to their respective homes."
Not long after this defeat a trader met a Miami warrior, who had
fled before the terrible onslaught of Wayne's soldiers.
"Why did you run away?" the trader asked the Indian.
With gestures corresponding to his words, and endeavoring to repre-
sent the efifect of the cannon, the Indian replied:
"Pop ! pop ! pop — boo ! woo ! woo ! — whish ! whish ! boo ! woo ! kill
twenty Indians one time — no good by dam!"
Immediately following the battle of Fallen Timbers, many of the
savages fled to Detroit, the British headquarters. The following winter
was a time of great suffering in the Maumee Valley. Their crops had
been destroyed by General Wayne's army, so that they were rendered
more than ever dependent upon the British, and they were not prepared
for so. great a task. They remained huddled together along the Maumee
River near the mouth of Swan Creek, where much sickness prevailed on
account of exposure, scant supplies, and the want of sanitary regulations.
An entry in Lieutenant Boyer's diary reads as follows : "Camp
Deposit 23rd August, 1794. Having burned everything contiguous to
the fort without any opposition, the legion took up the line of march,
and in the evening encamped on this ground, being the same they
marched from the 20th. It may be proper to remark that we have heard
88 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
nothing from the savages or their allies the Canadians, since the action.
The honors of war were paid to those brave fellows who fell on the
20th, by a discharge of three rounds from sixteen pieces of ordnance
charged with shells. The ceremony was performed with the greatest
solemnity.
"General Wayne remained in the scene of the decisive battle only
three days, after which he started on his return journey to Fort Defiance,
where he arrived on the 27th. Here was a safe camping place and the
cultivated fields afforded plentiful food for both man and beast. So
intent were the soldiers on foraging that several were killed or captured
by skulking savages. This led to very stringent regulations. Any sol-
dier caught half a mile outside the lines of sentinels without a proper
pass was to be treated as a deserter, and the sentry permitting a soldier
to go by without this pass was subject to a punishment of fifty lashes.
The soldiers were much troubled with fever and ague, and these ailments
caused much distress.
"Fort Defiance 4th September, 1794. The number of our sick
increase daily; provision is nearly exhausted; the whisky has been out
for some time, which makes the hours pass heavily to the tune of Roslin
Castle, when in our present situation they ought to go to the quick step
of the Merry Men Down to His Grave. Hard duty and scant allowance
will cause an army to be low spirited, particularly the want of a little
wet. * * * If it was not for the forage we get from the enemy's
fields, the rations could not be sufficient to keep soul and body together."
These statements appear in the diary of Lieutenant Boyer. He was
evidently not one of the "dry" persuasion, for a week later he writes:
"The escort arrived this day about 3 o'clock, and brought with them two
hundred kegs of flour and 'nearly two hundred head of cattle. Captain
Preston and Ensigns Strother, Bowyer, and Lewis, joined us this day
with the escort. We received no liquor by this command, and I fancy
we shall not receive any until we get into winter quarters, which will
make the fatigues of the campaign appear double, as I am persuaded
the troops would much rather live half rations of beef and bread, pro-
vided they could obtain their full rations of whisky. The vegetables
are as vet in the greatest abundance."
That the Tiffin River which flows through Williams and Fulton coun-
ties was also much frequented by the Indians is shown by the testimony
of Antoine Lasselle, a Canadian 'trader captured on the day of the great
battle. He testified that he had lived along the Maumee twenty-one
years; that he had at first lived at the Miami villages and "that he has
since lived chiefly at Bean Creek or Little Glaize (now Tiffin River) at
the Little Turtle's town. * * * That the Delawares have about 500
men including those who live on both rivers — the White River and Bean
Creek." ^ _
From Fort Defiance the major portion of General W^ayne s Legion
marched to the head of the Maumee. This place was reached without
any encounter with the savages. Here Colonel Hamtramck was placed
in charge and he erected a fort which he called Fort Wayne, after the
hero of Fallen Timbers. Some of his Kentucky volunteers were very
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 89
troublesome, for we read : "The volunteers are soon tired of work and
have refused to labor any longer; they have stolen and killed seventeen
beeves in the course of these two days past." This act compelled half
rations for the entire force for several days. A few weeks later Wayne
conducted his troops to Greenville, where they arrived on the 2d of
November. In the three months since his previous visit a vast transfor-
mation in the frontier situation had take place. A feeling of security
now pervaded the settlements.
An interesting light upon army discipline at this time is shown in the
following communication from Colonel Hamtramck :
"Fort Wayne, December 5, 1794.
"Sir: — It is with a great degree of mortification that I am obliged to
inform your excellency of the great propensity many of the soldiers have
for larceny. I have flogged them until I am tired. The economic allow-
ance of one hundred lashes, allowed by government, does not appear a
sufficient inducement for a rascal to act the part of an honest man. I
have now a number in confinement and in irons for having stolen four
quarters of beef. * * * j shall keep them confined until the pleasure,
of your excellency is known."
The disastrous results of Wayne's victory had convinced the savages
that they could not successfully wage war with the Americans when led
by a competent commander. They also recognized the hollowness of the
British promises of assistance when the British crept into Fort Miami
like whipped curs and closed its protecting gates to their red brethren.
Hollow promises did not allay the pangs of hunger as winter crept on.
LTnder these circumstances the Indians began to turn toward the Ameri-
cans who welcomed their advances. Some of their chiefs visited Fort
Wayne and Fort Defiance as well as the general himself at Greenville.
The Wyandots showed the greatest solicitude. One of the chiefs called
upon General Wayne and said : "I live in Sandusky. We Wyandots are
determined to bury the hatchet and scalping knife deep in the ground.
We pray you have pity on us and leave us a small piece of land to build
a town upon. The Great Spirit has given land enough for all to live
and hunt upon. We have looked all around for a piece to move and
cannot find any. We want to know your mind. We intend to build a
stockade (on Sandusky River) and blockhouse to defend ourselves till
we hear from you. We don't know whether we are right or wrong in
doing it. but have pity on us."
The diplomatic warfare waged by these untutored aborigine chiefs
would have reflected credit upon the statesmanship of an enlightened
people. They clung to every vital principle afi^ecting their interests
with the same desperate tenacity with which they had fought their last
battle at Fallen Timbers.
Colonel Hamtramck's correspondence shows that there were almost
daily calls from the Indians at Fort Wayne. On March 5th we read :
"A number of Pottawattomie Indians arrived here from Huron River,
Michigan. * * * i informed them that I was not the first chief,
and invited them to go to Greenville ; to which they replied that it was a
90 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
very long journey, but from the great desire they had to see The Wind
(for they called you so) they would go. I asked them for an explana-
tion of your name. They told me that on the 20th August last you were
exactly like a whirlwind, which drives and tears everything before it."
General Wayne was most diplomatic in all his intercourse with the
chiefs who called upon him. Almost worshipping bravery the Indians
had a wholesome respect for him. On the 1st of January, 1795 he
sent a message to the petitioning Wyandots at Sandusky that the chiefs
of various other tribes would soon visit him at Greenville in the interests
of peace, and inviting them to join the others. The Delawares visited
Fort Defiance and exchanged a number of prisoners. As word reached
General Wayne of the great number of Indian chiefs who were on their
way to visit him, a large council house was constructed at Greenville
for the deliberations. A great quantity of clothing and other useful
articles were obtained for presents, and bountiful supplies were accumu-
lated for the feeding and entertainment of large numbers. The chiefs
began to arrive the first of June. Each day brought new additions, and
the general council was opened on June 16th with a goodly attendance.
In all more than 1,000 chiefs and sachems gathered together. The
tribes represented were the Delawares, Wyandots, Pottawattomies, Shaw-
nees, Chippewas, Miami, Eel River, Weas, Piankeshaws, Kickapoos,
and Kaskaskias. Half a dozen interpreters were kept busy during the
fifty days that the council lasted. The chiefs complained much of the
bad faith of the citizens of the "fifteen fires" — so-called because fifteen
guns were always fired as a salute, one for each state of the Union.
After smoking the Calumet of Peace, an oath of accuracy and fidelity
was administered to the interpreters. The flow of oratory was intermin-
able. A large number of belts and strings of wampum were passed by
the various tribes during the deliberations. Some of these contained a
thousand or more beads of wampum. As many of these beads repre-
sent a day's work each, their value to the aborigines was very great.
The Indians continued to arrive during all the month of June and even
later. Little Turtle was one of the slowest to enter into the spirit of
the meeting, but he gradually became one of its warmest participators,
making many addresses. On the 7th of August, 1795, the famous Treaty
of Greenville was entered into between General Anthony Wayne and the
sachems and war chiefs of the participating nations. The boundary line
established by the treaty were as follows : The general boundary line
"between the lands of the United States and the lands of the said Indian
tribes, shall begin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and run thence
up the same, to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of
the Muskingum; thence down that branch to the crossing place, above
Fort Lawrence (Laurens) ; thence westerly, to a fork of that branch of
the Great Miami River running into the Ohio, at or near which fork
stood Loramie's store and where commences the portage between the
Miami of the Ohio, and St. Mary's River, which is a branch of the
Miami, which runs into Lake Erie; thence a- westerly course to Fort
Recovery, which stands on a branch of the Wabash; thence, south
westerly in a direct line of the Ohio, so as to intersect that river, oppo-
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Signatures to the Greenville Treaty
92 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
site the mouth of the Kentucke, or Cuttawa river." In order to facili-
tate intercourse between the whites and Indians, the tribes ceded to the
United States several tracts of land, one tract "twelve miles square, at
the British fort on the Miami of the Lake, at the foot of the Rapids."
This reached down into the heart of the present city of Toledo. Among
the tracts reserved was "one piece six miles square at the confluence of
the Auglaize and Miami rivers." This is now included within the
present city of Defiance.
"And the said Indian tribes will allow to the people of the United
States a free passage, by land and by water, as one and the other shall
be found to be convenient, through their county, along the chain of posts
hereinbefore mentioned ; that is to say, from commencement of the port-
age aforesaid, at or near Loramie's store, thence along said portage to
the St. Mary's, and down the same to Fort Wayne, and thence down the
Miami to Lake Erie; again, from the commencement of the portage, at
or near Loramie's store along the portage, from thence to the river
Auglaize, and down the same to its junction with the Miami, at Fort
Defiance ; again, from the commencement of the portage aforesaid, to
Sandusky river, and down the same to Sandusky bay and Lake Erie,
and from Sandusky to the post which shall be taken at or near the foot
of the rapids of the Miami of the Lake ; and from thence to Detroit.
And the said Indian tribes will also allow to the people of the United
States the free use of the harbors and mouths of the rivers, along the
lake adjoining the Indian lands, for sheltering vessels and boats, and
liberty to land their cargoes where necessary for their safety."
So pleased were the Indians with their treatment by General Wayne
that each of the more prominent chiefs desired to have the last word
with him. Budk-on-ge-he-las, the great war chief of the Delawares,
seemed to voice the sentiments of all when he said :
"Your children all well understand the sense of the Treaty which is
now concluded. We experience daily proofs of your increasing kind-
ness. I hope we may all have sense enough to enjoy our dawning happi-
ness. Many of your people are yet among us. I trust they will be
immediately restored. Last winter our King (Te-ta-boksh-he) came
forward to you with two (captives) and when he returned with your
speech to us, we immediately prepared to come forward with the remain-
der, which we delivered at Fort Defiance. All who know me, know me
to be a man and a warrior, and I now declare that I will for the future
be as true and steady a friend to the United States as I have heretofore
been an active enemy. We have one bad man among us who, a few
days ago, stole three of your horses; two of them shall this day be
returned to you, and I hope I shall be able to prevent that young man
from doing any more mischief to our Father of the Fifteen Fires."
General Wayne did not long survive to enjoy the great reputation
earned by him during his famous campaign and equally famous treaty.
One of his last acts was to receive, as representing the United States
authority Fort Miami early in 1796, when the British authorities sur-
rendered their northern posts in pursuance of a treaty negotiated by
Chief Justice Jay. On his passage down Lake Erie he was seized with
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 93
a violent attack of the gout and died at Fort Presque Isle on the 15th of
December, 1796, in the tifty-first year of his age.
The numbers of the Indians 'present at the Greenville Treaty are
given as follows: Wyandots, 180; Delawares, 381; Shawnees,' 143;
Ottawas, 45; Chippewas. 46; Pottawattomies, 240; Miamis and Eel Riv-
ers, 72>; Weas and Piankeshaws, 12; Kickapoos and Kaskaskies, 10.
The sworn interpreters were Isaac Zane, Abraham Williams. Cabot
Wilson, Jacques Lasselle. Christopher Miller, M. Morans, Bt Sans
Crainte and William Wells.
The most noted chiefs of this western countrv participated in the
council at Greenville. At the head of the list of Indian signatures, and
directly under that of General Wayne, appears that of Tarhe or The
Crane, head chief of the Wyandots,' the guardians of the Calumet. He
was the greatest chief of the Wyandots within historic times. His wis-
dom in council, as well as his bravery in war, gave him great influence
among all the neighboring tribes. He' seems to have reached the position
of head chief of this nation after the death of Half King, who disap-
pears from history not long after the disastrous Crawford expedition.
His humanity was ever marked. In 1790 he saved Peggv Fleming from
a band of Cherokee Indians at Lower Sandusky and he is credited with
saving a white boy from burning at the same place. He was wounded
in the Battle of Fallen Timbers and shortlv afterwards General W^ayne
addressed a letter to "Tarhe, and all other 'Sachems and Chiefs of San-
dusky," in which he promises to erect a fortification "at the foot of the
rapids at Sanduskv" for their protection against the Indian allies of the
British. ■
Of Tarhe. General Harrison wrote: "I knew Tarhe well. My
acquaintance with him commenced at the treaty of Greenville, in 1795
His tribe was under my supervision in 1810. All the business I trans-
acted with it was through him. I have often said I never knew a better
man. * * . * Tarhe was not only the Grand Sachem of his tribe,
but the acknowledged head of all the tribes who were engaged in the
war with the United States, which was terminated bv the treaty of
Greenville ; and in that character the duplicate of the' original treat}-,
engrossed on parchment, was committed to his custody, as had been the
Grand Calumet, which was the symbol of peace. Tarhe had accompanied
him throughout his entire Canadian campaign, for he was a bitter oppo-
nent of Tecumseh's war policy. He was far in advance of most of his
fellows. He was cool, deliberate, and firm. He was tall and well pro-
portioned, and made a fine appearance. He was affable and courteous
as well as kind and affectionate. It is said that all who knew him.
whether white or red, deeply venerated the character of the old chief'
His attainments seem to have been as a great counselor and wise sachem
rather than as a warrior. This surrounded him with a peculiar dignitv.
Chief Crane died at the Indian village of Crane Town, near Upper
Sandusky, in November. 1818, being at that time seventy-six years of
age."
The Indian figure which stands out most prominentlv on the canvas
of Northwestern Ohio is Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis. We have
94
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
seen that his home for a time was along the old Bean Creek, now Tiffin
River. This name was not given the chief because of his stature for
he was nearly six feet in height. As a warrior the Little Turtle was
bold, sagacious and resourceful, and he was not only respected by his
people, but their feeling almost approached veneration. When fully
convinced that all resistance to the encroaching whites was in vain, Little
Turtle brought his nation to consent to peace and to adopt agricultural
pursuits. Few indeed are the Indian leaders who accomplished so much
abolishing the rite of human sacrifice among their people. He became
very popular and highly esteemed by the whites, among whom he was
known as a man whose word could be depended upon. Furthermore,
Little Turtle
he was endowed with unusual wit, enjoyed good company, and was still
fonder of good eating. During the presidency of Washington he vis-
ited that great man at the capitol, and during his whole life thereafter
spoke of the pleasure which that visit afforded him.
Col. John Johnson speaks of the Little Turtle in the highest terms.
He was, says he, "A companionable Indian, — Little Turtle was a man of
great wit, humor and vivacity, fond of the company of gentlemen, and
delighted in good eating. When I knew him he had two wives living
with him under the same roof in the greatest harmony ; one, an old
woman about his own age- — fifty — the choice of his youth, who per-
formed the drudgery of the house, the other a young and beautiful crea-
ture of eighteen who was his favorite; yet it was never discovered by
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 95
anyone that the least feeHng existed between them. The Little Turtle
used to entertain us with many of his war adventures." Thirty years
after the Treaty of Greenville he died at Fort Wayne, of the gout ( !)
which would seem a marvelous fact, did we not remember that the Turtle
was a high liver, and a gentleman; equally remarkable was it that his
body was borne to the grave with military honors by enlisted troops of
his great enemy, the white man. The muffled drum, the funeral salute,
announced that a great soldier had fallen, and even enemies paid their
mournful tribute to his memory."
CHAPTER VIII
OHIO BECOMES A STATE
The tide of immigration into the territory northwest of the Ohio
began with the settlement of Marietta in 1788. After the efifects of the
Treaty of Greenville began to be felt the stream of immigration increased
each year. Prior to this the only white men in the country were strag-
gling groups of traders, trappers and hunters — men who were a law unto
themselves and set about driving out the Indians. Their dress differed
but little from that of the Indian. Boone and Kenton were men of this
type as was Gen. Duncan McArthur, who afterwards became governor
of Ohio.
The later immigrants were people of a different type. They were men
and women who had been used to civilization. They were attracted by
the opportunity to secure cheap lands and better their fortunes. New
Englanders settled at Marietta and vicinity. Virginians flocked to the
Scioto region. New Jerseyites betook themselves to the Miami country,
while people from Connecticut and New York sought the Western
Reserve. Northwestern Ohio was still considered Indian country and
so avoided by these earlier immigrants, except in isolated instances.
Although there was dross among these settlers, the great majority were
sturdy men and brave »women well worthy to become the founders of a
great state.
By the close of 1796, the year following the famous Wayne treaty, it
was estimated that the number of white people dwelling within the present
limits of the State of Ohio was about five thousand. Most of these were
located along the Ohio River and its tributaries, and within fifty miles
of that stream. When the Maumee country was first organized in that
year, it was made a part of Wayne County, which included all of Mich-
igan, as well as a part of Indiana, Illinois and \Visconsin. It also
extended east to the Cuyahoga River. Detroit was the place for holding
court. The original Wayne County — for it must be remembered that
the outlines of this division were changed several times — was divided
into four townships, of which this basin was in the one named
Hamtramck.
Under the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, a population of "five
thousand free male inhabitants of full age" entitled the territory to rep-
resentative government. Accordingly Governor St. Clair issued a procla-
mation calling for an election in December, 1798, for representatives to
the Territorial Legislature, as it was estimated that the population of the
entire territory then fulfilled that requirement. It was necessary for a
voter to be a freeholder of fifty acres. The man who could not meet
this requirement in that day did not deserve the ballot and could not
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
97
complain of this requirement. The first election in Wayne County was
held at Detroit and one or two other places on the first Monday of
December, according to the proclamation. The three men elected were
Solomon Sibley, Jacob Visgar, and Charles F. Chabert de Joncaire, all
from Detroit and vicinity.
The first Territorial Legislature convened at Cincinnati on Septem-
ber 16, 1799, and at once selected ten names of citizens who were sent
to the President of the United States from whom he was to nominate
a legislative council, or senate, for the territory, to be composed of five
INDIANA \\' ' f
members. This was the inauguration of representative government in
thd Northwest Territory, and it made Cincinnati the capital of an empire
reaching from the Ohio to the ^lississippi, and as large as modern Texas.
Cincinnati was then but a straggling and unprepossessing village. It
was surrounded by the dense forests of the ^liami country. In 1805 it
only numbered 960 inhabitants. There were then 53 log cabins, 109
frame, 6 brick and 4 stone houses. Fort Washington was the most
substantial building and was still occupied by troops. The moral and
social condition was not of the highest type when the assembly convened
there. The armies of St. Clair and Wayne had left a military flotsam
and jetsam which was neither helpful to the community nor elevating
to the morals of the village. "The average soldier was wedded more to
the bottle, dicebox and cards than to his arms, drills or discipline." The
men elected to the assembly, however, were generally men of high char-
acter and acknowledged ability.
The lower house consisted of twenty-two members of whom seven
came from the old French settlements of Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana.
98
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Northwestern Ohio had a single delegate. The Senate, as finally chosen,
consisted of Jacob Burnett and James Findlay of Hamilton, Robert
Oliver of Washington, David Vance of Jefferson, and Henry Vander-
bery of Knox counties. The members of the Legislature v^fere compelled
to carry their provisions and blankets, camp at night, swim their horses
Jx
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,,OHIO COUNTIES
4
across streams, and penetrate the gloomy forests guided only by blazed
trees and the compass. The only roads were bridle paths or Indian
trails. Prior to this time Governor St. Clair and three associate judges
had exercised all the executive, legislative, and judicial powers under the
Ordinance of 1787. The Governor not only was commander-in-chief
of the military forces, but he appointed all the magistrates and civil
officers, and he was the chief executive in the enforcement of law.
William Henry Harrison was selected by the Legislature as the first
delegate to Congress from the vast territory northwest of the Ohio River.
He received twelve votes in joint ballot of the two houses, on October 3,
1799, while Arthur St. Clair, Jr., son of the Governor, received ten votes.
He at once proceeded to Philadelphia and took his seat in Congress, which
was in session in that city. No single event of this period in western
history had so far reaching and so beneficial an influence in the future
welfare of Ohio as this choice. Harrison at this time was only twenty-
six years of age, but he had already established an enviable name for him-
self in the army. He instituted measures for the benefit of this territory
without delay, and succeeded in opening up lands in small tracts of
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 99
sections and half sections, which quickly brought thousands of hardy
and industrious farmers across the Alleghenies. This far-seeing policy
gives him claim to rank among our great statesmen.
The difficulties attending the organization and administration of gov-
ernment for so vast a territory were immediately recognized. A com-
mittee in Congress reported that there had been but one setting of a court
having jurisdiction over crimes, in five years ; and the immunity which
offenders experienced had attracted to it the vilest and most abandoned
criminals, and likewise had deterred useful citizens from making settle-
ments therein. Lawyers from Cincinnati were compelled to attend court
in Detroit. Five or six of them usually traveled together on horseback
and took along a pack horse to carry their provisions and personal effects.
There were no bridges so that each horse was a tried swimmer. The
journey took from eight to ten days through the wilderness. Judge
Burnett of Cincinnati in describing a journey wrote as follows : "On
the outward journey they took the route by Dayton, Piqua, Loramie,
St. Marys, and the Ottawa town on the Auglaize, and thence down this
river to Defiance, thence down the Maumee to the foot of the rapids, and
thence to and across the River Raisin to Detroit. On their return they
crossed the Maumee at Roche de Boeuf by the advice of Black Beard
who lived in that neighborhood and with whom the party breakfasted.
As a matter of precaution they hired his son to accompany them in the
capacity of guide. He led them through a succession of wet prairies
over some of which it was impossible to ride, and it was with great
difficulty they were able to lead or drive their horses through the deep
mud which surrounded them an all sides."
In an effort to better the situation all that part of the Northwest
Territory lying to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio River,
opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky River and then running north to
Fort Recovery and then to Lake Huron was eliminated from this terri-
tory and created into the Territory of Indiana. By this ordinance Wayne
County was reduced to about one-half of its original size. The first post
road between Cincinnati and Detroit was established in 180L For a
couple of years, however, on the north end of this route there was not
a single postoffice, so that the mail was carried as a military or semi-
military express as formerly. It was in 1801 that the first capital building
for Ohio was built at Chillicothe, which city had been designated by
Congress as the seat of government. This first capitol was of hewn logs,
two stories in height and 24 by 36 feet in dimensions. Its grand feature
was fifteen glass windows, each containing a dozen small panes of glass,
which was indeed a degree of splendor for that day. At the first session
of the second general assembly held there, Wayne County was again
represented wholly by delegates from Detroit.
From the very beginning almost the Governor and Legislature clashed.
St. Clair held that he alone had the authority to create new counties and
locate county seats, and in this attitude he ran counter to the pet projects
of some of the members. So many persons both in and without the as-
sembly, were engaged in laying out county seats that a great rankling
ensued. It was the clash of autocracy and democracy. By the time
100
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of the second session of the Legislature the contest had reached a white
heat. To the arbitrary methods of Governor St. Clair was due the inaug-
uration of proceedings to have Ohio admitted as a state. Failing in their
efforts to prevent the appointment of the governor, Edward Tiffin,
Thomas Worthington, and several others set on foot the movement
which finally displaced the disliked governor. These men were adher-
ents of the party of Jefferson, who came into office at this opportune
time. Edward Tiffin, a physician by profession, stood head and shoul-
ders above all the others. Each party used every possible means to fur-
ther its interests, but Tiffin took the lead in the assaults upon the Gov-
ernor, and the latter found him a foeman worthy his steel. President
Jefferson was anxious for more republican states, and welcomed the
opportunity to create another. Congress approved the proposition and,
although there had never been a vote of the people to be affected, that
body passed an enabling act in April, 1802, thus ending a five years
struggle for statehood. There were at that time seven counties in the
entire state. The census of 1800 gave the territory a population of 45-
028, of whom 3,206 lived in Wayne County, but Wayne lay mostly in
what is now Michigan. The majority of these lived in the several
French settlements within this county.
On the fourth of March, 1802, a convention of representatives was
called to frame a constitution for the proposed State of Ohio. No
assembly in any commonwealth ever approached and performed its work
with a greater realization of its responsibility than did this one. In its
ranks were men who afterwards rose to the highest distinction. An
exceedingly democratic constitution was finally agreed upon and signed
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 101
with commendable promptness, the entire session continuing but twenty-
five days. Ohio was admitted into the galaxy of states on the 19th of
February, 1803, being the seventeenth state in numerical order. In
reality it was the first actual addition to the original colonies. Vermont
(1791) had been cut off from New York, while Kentucky (1792) and
Tennessee (1796) had been carved from territory claimed by Virginia.
Ohio was admitted by virtue of her rights under the Ordinance of 1787.
The first election was held on January 11th, and the premier Legislature
under the constitution convened at Chillicothe, on the first Tuesday of
March, 1805. Edward Tifiin was elected the first governor without oppo-
sition.
The public career of Governor St. Clair ended most ignominiously.
The rest of his life was embittered by unrelenting persecution. He was
reduced to direst poverty by the failure of Congress to return to him
money advanced during times of need while he was in the nation's serv-
ice. He undoubtedly erred grievously in the administration of his great
office, his judgment was frequently erroneous, perhaps he was not equal
to the demands made upon him, but he was undoubtedly conscientious
in what he did. His fidelity and devotion to Washington were most
praiseworthy.
At the beginning of statehood the number of white settlers resident
in the Maumee region was very small. A few traders and settlers had
established themselves near the watercourses, but Northwestern Ohio
had no representation in the government until after the organization of
counties in April, 1820. Previous to this it was included in two or
three counties at dififerent times. \A'ayne County disappeared with the
territory. Immediately following statehood it became a part of Hamil-
ton County, but that unit exercised little jurisdiction, if any, over the
settlers because it was still Indian territory. Following statehood the
population of the state, and the southern half in particular, increased
very rapidly. In 1810 the enumeration approached a quarter of a mil-
lion. In the northern part even Cleveland, the most important settle-
ment, was a very small place.
Following the decisive defeat of the Indians at Fallen Timbers, and
the Treaty of Greenville closely following, the Indians remained in
comparative quiet for several years, seemingly being satisfied with the
annuities paid to them by the United States Government. For several
years a number of forts were maintained in the Maumee Valley. There
were Fort Defiance, Fort Adams, Fort Recovery, Fort Loramie, and
Fort Head of the Auglaize, each of which were garrisoned by small
bodies of troops, in order to hold the aborigines in check. Fort Miami
was evacuated by the British, in 1796, and turned over to Colonel Ham-
tramck, but a garrison was not maintained there for long. The report
of Hamtramck is as follows :
"Sir : — On the 7th instant two small vessels arrived from Detroit
in which I sent a detachment of artillery and infantry consisting of
sixty-five men, together with a number of cannon with ammunition, &c.,
the whole command of Captain (Moses) Porter. On the 9th a sloop
arrived from Detroit at Swan Creek, purchased by Captain Henry De
102 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Butts, which carries fifty tons, and which is now loaded with flour, quar-
ter-master's stores and troops. That, together with eleven batteaux which
I have, will be sufficient to take all the troops I have with me, leaving the
remainder of our stores deposited at this place, which was evacuated (by
the British) on this day, and where I have left Captain Marschalk and
Lieutenant Shauklin with fifty-two men, infantry, and a corporal and
six of artillery, that is, including the garrison at the head of the Rapids
(Roche de Bout?). I have endowed Fort Miami with one month's
provision for both the troops and the Shawnees. The latter, you recol-
lect, you promised subsistence until the crops were ripe. The number of
Shawnees is about one hundred and eighty, besides twenty-six or thirty
Ottawas. I shall embark in two hours, with all the troops for Detroit."
Almost at the beginning of the nineteenth century a stockade fort
was built at the confluence of Swan Creek and the Maumee River. The
exact year is not known, but it was not later than 1804. Fort Industry
was placed in charge of Capt. J. Rhea. The remains of this fortifica-
tion were not entirely obliterated as late as 1836. Many early settlers
had distinct recollections of this fort, which, in the natural features of
the country, occupied a prominent position on the bluff, on the site near
the south side of Summit between Jefferson and Monroe streets in
Toledo. In 1805, a treaty was held with the Indians at Fort Industry. At
this conference, there were present chiefs and warriors of the Wyandots,
Ottawa, Chippewa, Delaware, Shawnee, Pottawattomie and Seneca tribes.
By the treaty made here another adjustment of the land question was
made with the natives upon the payment of certain sums of money to
them. None of the territory of Northwestern Ohio was included, but
the Indians ceded all of their claims to the .Western Reserve and the
Firelands.
The next most important treaty with the Indians was eiifected at
Detroit on the 17th of November, 1807. The Chippewas, Ottawas, Pot-
tawattomies and Wyandots here quit claimed to the United States all
their claims to the country north of the middle of the Maumee River,
from its mouth to the mouth of the Auglaize, and thence extending north
as far as Lake Huron. For this territory they received ten thousand
dollars in money and goods, and an annuity of twenty-four hundred
dollars. Certain tracts of land were also reserved for the exclusive
use of the Indians. These reservations within this territory were six
miles square on the north bank of the Maumee, above Roche de Boeuf,
"to include the village where Tondagame, or the Dog, now lives." An-
other reservation of three miles square included what is known as
Presque Isle, and still another of "four miles square on the Miami
(Maumee) Bay including the villages were Meskemau and Waugau now
live." It was furthermore provided that in the event the reservations
could not be conveniently laid out in squares, they should be surveyed
in parallelograms or other figures found most practicable to obtain that
are specified in miles.
By a treaty with the Indians at Brownstown, Michigan, in 1808, a
road one hundred and twenty feet in width was reserved to connect
the fort at the Maumee Rapids with the line of the Connecticut Reserve,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 103
which is the old and much traveled road now running from Perrysburg
to Fremont, then called Lower Sandusky. It also provided for a tract
of land, for a road only, of one hundred and twenty feet in width to
run southwardly from what is called Lower Sandusky to the boundary
line established by the Treaty of Greenville, with the privilege of taking,
at all times, such timber and other materials from the adjacent lands
as may be necessary for making and keeping in repair the said road,
with the bridges that may be required along the same." * * * No
compensation was given the aborigines in money or merchandise for
these roadways, as they were both desirable and beneficial to the Indians
as well as to the United States, reads a clause on the cession. Congress
failed to construct the east and west road, but eventually ceded its right
to the State. The contract was finally let in 1824, and the road was com-
pleted in 1826. For years it was the main thoroughfare over which
thousands passed in their search for a western paradise. Many of the
early settlers of Williams and Fulton counties reached their destinations
by this thoroughfare. In his search for a land flowing with milk and
honey, the pioneer certainly was obliged to undergo torture in crossing
this "black swamp" country. On the desert a traveler can stop almost
anywhere and pitch his tent, but here, in certain seasons, the travelers
were wading all day in mud and water, and could with difficulty find
a dry place where they might rest their weary limbs. On this route,
however, there 'was a tavern for about each mile of road between Per-
rysburg and Lower Sandusky. The right to mud holes was recognized.
A young man started with a wagon and a team of mules for Michigan,
with one hundred dollars in his pocket. He became mired so often, and
was obliged to pay one dollar so frequently to people living near the mud
holes to extricate him from his difficulties, that his money was exhausted
long before his journey had ended. Not discouraged in the least, this
traveler decided that the place to find what you have lost is right where
you have lost it. He accordingly located near a mud hole and remained
there until he had earned his hundred dollars back. Such a good finan-
cier must certainly have accumulated a fortune in his later years. He
certainly exhibited signs of financial genius.
General Harrison, writing to the War Department, says : "An idea
can scarcely be formed of the difficulties with which land transportation
is effected north of the 40th degree of latitude (including our section), in
this country. The country beyond that is almost a continual swamp
to the Lake. Where streams run favorable to your course a small strip
of better ground is generally found, but in crossing from one river to
another the greater part of the way at this season is covered with water.
Such is actually the situation of that space between the Sandusky and
the Miami Rapids, and from the best information that I could acquire
the road over it must be causewayed at least one-half of the way."
Shortly after the opening of the nineteenth century, reports of many
kinds concerning the activities of Tecumseh commenced to reach the
officials in the Northwestern Territory. This chief aimed to repeat the
history of Pontiac, excepting that his conspiracy was directed against
the Americans instead of the British. His reputed brother, Elkswatawa,
104
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
generally known as the Prophet, had gained something of notoriety as a
sorcerer. He began to relate stories of his dreams and visions, which
he claimed were inspired by the Great Spirit, and these greatly aroused
the aborigines. Tecumseh aimed to unite his followers with the British,
in an effort to drive the Americans from this territory. All efforts to
pacify him failed.
Tecumseh was a son of a Shawnee chieftain. He was born in the
Tecumseh
Shawnee village of Piqua, on the banks of the Mad River, in 1768. The
name signifies "one who passes across intervening space from one point
to another," and this well expresses his extraordinary career. He ever
evinced a burning hostility to the Americans. He refused to attend the
council at Greenville. He likewise declined to attach his name to that
treaty and never ceased to denounce it. It was about that time that he
and his followers removed to the White River, in Indiana, but he con-
tinued in close relation with all the tribes of Northwest Ohio. At sev-
eral councils with the Americans, Tecumseh exhibited the remarkable
power of oratory for which he became noted. His brother likewise
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 105
began to come into prominence among the Indians, among whom he was
known as the "Loud Voice." During the course of his revelations he
said that the Great Spirit directed the Indians to cast off the debasing
influence of the whites and return to the customs of their fathers. His
audiences numbered thousands, and many were recalled to the neglected
and almost forgotten practices of their fathers. The Prophet's Town,
as it was called, on the bank of the Tippecanoe, was visited by thousands
of savages, who were roused to the highest pitch of fanaticism. The
two brothers wandered from the everglades of Florida to the headwaters
of the Mississippi and in words of greatest eloquence impressed upon
the natives the necessity of united action against the pale faced intruders.
In 1810 General Harrison summoned Tecumseh and his followers to
Vincennes. Tecumseh rose to the highest pitclyof eloquence, as he set
forth the wrongs of the red men. In the War of 1812 which followed
a short time afterwards, Tecumseh allied himself with the British. With
his death vanished the hopes of the aborigines ever to regain their lost
hunting grounds in Northwestern Ohio.
Bodies of savages were continually passing to and from Maiden,
the British headquarters after the evacuation of Detroit, and they always
returned liberally provided with rifles, powder, and lead. One savage
was found to have been given an elegant rifle, twenty-tive pounds of
powder, fifty pounds of lead, three blankets and ten shirts, besides quan-
tities of clothing and other articles. The British agent addressed a
Miami chief to whom he had made a present of goods, as follows : "My
son, keep your eyes fixed on me ; my tomahawk is now up ; be you ready,
but do not strike until I give the signal." Capt. John Johnson, agent
of the Fort Wayne Trading Post, wrote that "since writing you on the
25th ultimo, about one hundred Sawkeys (Sacs) have returned from
the British agent who supplied them liberally with everything they stood
in want of. The party received forty-seven rifles and a number of fusils
(flintlock muskets) with plenty of powder and lead. This is sending
firebrands into the Mississippi country inasmuch as it will draw numbers
of our Aborigines to the British side in the hope of being treated with
the same liberality."
William Henry Harrison, then governor of Indiana Territory, was
not idle during this time. He instituted preparations for defense, and
was visited by many of the leaders of the hostiles. Tecumseh himself
came on a visit to Harrison at Fort Wayne, accompanied by several
hundred followers. He intended some treachery, but the Americans
were too alert.
Meetings of citizens were held at many places in 1811, and petitions
for protection were forwarded to the national government. Governor
Harrison was allowed additional troops, after which he advanced against
the savages and won his great victory at the battle of Tippecanoe, during
the absence of Tecumseh himself among the southern tribes. This defeat
did not stop the depredations and isolated murders, so that the whole
country was kept under the gravest apprehension. We do not have
absolute record of many murders in Northwestern Ohio, although John
Johnson reported that three Americans had been killed at Defiance. A
106 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
committee of Congress reported to that body that the British had been
working among the savages with the intention of securing them as allies
against the Americans.
Of the movements of Tecumseh, William Wells wrote from Fort
Wayne on the 1st of March, 1812: "In my letter of the 10th ultimo
I informed you that the Indian chief Tecumseh had arrived on the
Wabash. I have now to state to you that it appears he has determined
to raise all the Indians he can, immediately, with the intention no doubt
to attack our fr(^ntiers. He has sent runners to raise the Indians on
the Illinois and the upper Mississippi ; and I am told has gone himself to
hurry on the aid he was promised by the Cherokees and Creeks. The
Prophet's orator, who is considered the third man in this hostile band,
passed within twelve miles of this place on the 23rd ultimo with eight
Shawanese, eight Winnebagoes and seven Kickapoos, in all twenty-four,
on their way as they say to Sandusky, where they expected to receive a
quantity of powder and lead from their father the British."
It is possible that if a more vigorous policy had been undertaken,
the succeeding war might have been less bloody in this section. Had
more and stronger forts been erected and larger garrisons been installed,
the marauding bands could have been arrested and imprisoned and many
American lives saved. The trouble was that the authorities at Washing-
ion could not be fully impressed with the threatening dangers, and when
once convinced they were very slow to act.
CHAPTER IX
A YEAR OF DISASTERS
It was in the year 1812 that Ohio was first called upon to participate
in war. Although disastrous in the beginning and bloody throughout
its continuance, it eventually brought distinguished honor to the com-
monwealth. The state now boasted a population of a quarter of a mil-
lion. Forty counties had been created by the Legislature. The lands in
the Western Reserve and the Firelands were being rapidly sold by the
land commissioners appointed by Connecticut. But the greater part of
the population were living in Southern Ohio along the Ohio River or
its larger tributaries.
That some settlers had established themselves along the Maumee is
proved by the following from the "History of the Late War in the
Western Country" by Robert B. Mc.\fee : "Colonel Cass was sent with
his regiment (June, 1812) to cut the remainder of the road to the Rapids
* * * and in a few days encamped on the banks of' the Miami of
the Lake, opposite the battle ground of General Wayne, and in view of
a small village at the foot of the rapids. Here the army was cheered
with a view of civilized habitations, after a tedious march through a
dreary wilderness (from Urbana). Having delayed a day, they marched
down through the village in regular order, and encamped just below
the ruins of the old British Fort Miami." With the exception of some
people living at Fort Wayne, this was probably the only settlement of
Americans along the Maumee, although there may have been a few
traders near the small stockades called forts.
The war clouds in the new republic, and especially in this western
country, had been growing heavier year after year. Although a formal
declaration of war was not issued until the 18th of June, 1812, Ohio's
governor had issued a call for 1,200 volunteers in April. More volun-
teers responded than could be accepted. "Citizens of the first respecta-
bility enrolled themselves, and prepared for the dangers of the field, con-
tending with each other who should first go into the service of their
country." Thus wrote a contemporary. Duncan McArthur, James Find-
ley and Lewis Cass were elected colonels by their respective regiments.
The osteilsible reason given for the war was the interference with
American trade and the impressing of American seamen into the British
service. But one of the strongest moving causes was the encouragement
given the savages in their attacks upon the Americans, and the main-
tenance of fortified posts upon American soil. This has been called
the real war for independence to distinguish it from the first war which
was the Revolution. In the three decades succeeding Yorktown overt
and hostile actions had at no time wholly ceased. The necessity of such
107
108 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
operations as should wrest from the enemy the command of the upper
lakes and the northwest frontier at once became apparent and was
promptly acted upon. From every American living within that territory
came urgent appeals for protection. It was not fear of the British
enemies that actuated them, but dread of the outrages of their savage
allies.
By Veason of her location on the exposed frontier the young state
of Ohio was placed in a most trying .situation. The war was destined to
be fought largely within or adjacent to her boundaries, and especially
in Northwestern Ohio. Circumstances demanded of her the very best
both in men and money. In no respect did she fail, and Ohio did more
than her full share in this second conflict with Great Britain, generally
known as the War of 1812. It was indeed fortunate that such a vigorous
and able man as Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr-. occupied the gubernatorial
chair at this period. He was one of the type of men who did so much
to lay the foundations of the state. He had had some military experience,
and was a man of unusually strong executive power. In his promptness
and efifectiveness in enrolling troops he was not equaled by the governor
of any other state.
It so happened that William Hull, a superannuated relic of revolu-
tionary days, was territorial governor of the Northwest, with headquarters
in Detroit. He found favor with the Secretary of War in the cabinet
of President Madison and was appointed brigadier-general and com-
mander of the western department. Protests were without avail. It
was said that he was too old, too broken down in body and mind to
conduct such a rigorous campaign. Furthermore, the people resident
there had no confidence in him, and the Indians were said to despise him.
"On the very same day it passed the Senate," says a report, "the poor,
weak, vain old man was seen in full dress uniform, parading the streets
of Washington, making calls." A little later, General Hull arrived at
Dayton, the place of rendezvous, and assumed command of the volun-
teer army assembled there. Governor Meigs congratulated the men on
the fact that they were to serve under a distinguished officer of the
Revolutionary War, and one who was especially fitted both by training
and experience to conduct successfully just such a campaign as they were
about to enter upon. It was a fact that General Hull had won honors
at Stony Point. He addressed his troops as follows: "In marching
through a wilderness memorable for savage barbarity, you will remember
the causes by which that barbarity have been heretofore excited. In
viewing the ground stained by the blood of your fellow-citizens, it will
be impossible to suppress the feelings of indignation. Passing by the ruins
of a fortress, erected in our territory by a foreign nation in times of
peace, and for the express purpose of exciting the savages to hostility,
and supplying them with the means of conducting a barbarous war, must
remind you of that system of oppression and injustice which that nation
has continually practiced, and which the spirit of an indignant people
can no longer endure."
The army of General Hull moved northward on June 1st, to Urbana,
where it was joined by another regiment^ of regulars under Lieutenant
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 109
Colonel Miller, a veteran of Tippecanoe. The army now numbered about
nineteen hundred men. A council was held with a number of Shawnee,
Delaware and Wyandot chiefs to secure their permission to march through
their country. This was readily granted and they were promised every
possible assistance. It was the intention and desire of General Hull to
proceed to Detroit as directly as practicable. He seemed to doubt that
war between the United States and Great Britain would follow. The
course of the army led through an almost trackless forest and impassable
swamp until it reached the ]\Iaumee River. Ague chills shook the sturdy
frames of the pioneer soldiers. Danger lurked by the river bank and on
the trail everywhere. Progress was extremely slow. One regiment was
detailed to cut a road through the woods and to build blockhouses which
should be used as deposit stations and to protect the line of communica-
tions.
In obedience to orders a road was carved out of the primeval wilder-
ness from Urbana to the Scioto River, and there were built two block-
houses connected by palisades, which later received the name of Fort
McArthur after the colonel. The site was about three miles southwest
of Kenton. The fort enclosed about half an acre. One of the block-
houses was in the northwest and the other at the southeast angle. A
part of the pickets were of split timber and lapped at the edges ; others
were of round logs set up end ways and touching each other. The rows
of huts for the garrison were placed a few feet from the walls. It was
a post of danger, and must have been an exceedingly dreary spot. Not a
vestige of the fort now remains, but the graves of sixteen of the garri-
son are adjoining. The road cut by this army, and generally known
as Hull's Trail, was for many years the principal highway from Belle-
fontaine to Detroit.
When the main army arrived at Fort AIcArthur, "Colonel Findlay
was ordered to proceed with his regiment and cut the road as far as
Blanchard's fork of the Auglaize * * * the whole army followes,
except a part of Captain Dill's company, which was left to keep the fort
and take care of the sick. It now rained for several days excessively,
so as to render the road almost impassable for wagons. After marching
only 16 miles, the army halted again, in the midst of a swampy country,
in which the water courses, both of the Ohio and the lakes, have their
sources. A blockhouse was erected here, which was honored with the
name of Fort Necessity. The mud was deep, and from every appearance
the whole army was likely to stick in the swamps." Thus writes McAfee.
This fort was situated near the south line of Hancock County. Here
word was brought by Robert Lucas (afterwards governor) and William
Denny of increased activity among the British and Indians and that their
alliance had a threatening attitude. General Lucas had been present at
a number of councils with the Indians and w-as well informed upon
their attitude. Although war had been declared at this time, it was sev-
eral days afterwards before the news reached the army. After a few
days delay the army advanced, and in a three days march arrived at the
Blanchard River. Here an advance detachment had already nearly com-
leted another palisade enclosure, 150 feet square, with a blockhouse at
no HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
each corner. General Hull bestowed the name of Fort Findlay upon
this fort. The site was within the present city of Findlay, and only a
few squares north of the courthouse. Its service was that of a resting
place and temporary storage of supplies. It was abandoned late in
1814.
Col. Lewis Cass was directed to take his troops and prepare the
road north to the Maumee. In order to move rapidly much of the heavy
luggage was stored at Fort Findlay. After a few days' march the army
arrived at the Maumee, opposite to the field where was fought the Bat-
tle of Fallen Timbers. Fording the rapids the next encampment was
near Fort Miami. So absolutely imbecillic was General Hull that when
he arrived at the Maumee, in the latter part of June, he decided to send
his baggage, stores, and sick by vessel to Detroit. He was warned
against this, but stubbornly refused to heed the advice. He seemed to
treat the probability of war as a joke. Hence it was that on the 1st
of July, he embarked his disabled men and most of his impedimenta on
board a packet which proceeded down the Maumee bound for Detroit.
Thirty soldiers were detailed to guard the vessel. Another open boat
was sent along in which were placed the sick. Complete muster rolls
of every company in the brigade were deposited in a trunk which was
put aboard the larger boat. It is almost needless to say that it was cap-
tured by a British gunboat when opposite Maiden.
Leaving a few men to erect a block house the army advanced on
the 1st of July. When they reached the River Raisin, "on which there
is a handsome village of French inhabitants," information was received
of the capture of the schooner. Definite news of the declaration of war
also arrived. On the fifth the army reached Detroit. Says AIcAfee:
"The town of Detroit contaiiis 160 houses and 700 inhabitants. It is
handsomely situated on the west side of the River Detroit, about nine
miles below Lake St. Clair the opening of which can be seen from the
town. Fort Detroit stands on an elevated spot of ground." A high-
sounding proclamation was at once issued to the "Inhabitants of Canada,"
by the American commander. The wavering of Hull now began. It
was not long until both officers and men had lost all confidence in their
commander. "At one moment he seemed determined to make an obsti-
nate defense, and save his army from disgrace and his Territory from
invasion; then again he would discover symptoms of the greatest fear
and pusillanimity." An advance was m'ade into Canada towards Maiden,
but the men were quickly recalled.
It would not be within the scope of this writing to detail the waver-
ings and cowardice of General Hull, which has been elaborated upon so
frequently. With scarcely a show of resistance Detroit was surrendered
to the British with nearly two thousand American soldiers on the 16th
of August. The white flag of surrender was raised without consulting
his officers. As most of the troops were from Ohio, this state felt the
disgrace and humiliation more keenly than any of the other common-
wealths. It was a terrible loss and gave the British wonderful prestige
with the natives. As a result of this action, Hull was accused of both
treason and cowardice, and was found guilty of the latter.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 111
Capt. Henry Brush and a company of 230 volunteers, with a hun-
dred beef cattle and other suppHes, had been sent by Governor Meigs to
reinforce the army at Detroit. They were restrained by the British from
advancing beyond the River Raisin from the first days of August, without
relief from Detroit. General Hull included this force in his surrender;
but when Captain Elliot, son of the notorious Capt. Matthew Elliot,
came to claim this prize. Captain Brush placed him under arrest and
immediately started his command and supplies southward, deftly con-
ducting them back to Governor Meigs.
The surrender of General Hull exposed all Northwestern Ohio to in-
cursions of the enemy. All eyes turned toward William Henry Harri-
son as the man of the hour. Governor Scott of Kentucky swept aside
technicalities and appointed Harrison to the command of the state troops
being raised to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's surrender. At the head
of these troops Harrison proceeded northward. When just north of
Dayton he received word from Washington that General Winchester
had been appointed to the chief command, but that he himself had been
raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He was naturally disappointed,
and his men were even more chagrined. As immediate action seemed
necessary, and without awaiting either the arrival or orders of General
Winchester, Harrison dispatched relief to Fort Wayne, then being
besieged by the Indians. He accompanied these troops and every precau-
tion was taken against a surprise by the savages. The seige was raised
and the Indian villages in the vicinity destroyed. By this prompt action
another bloody massacre was doubtless averted. General Harrison, under
orders from his superiors, turned over his command to Winchester with-
out a murmur, although it was known that he had much more experience
in Indian fighting than had his successor. Few men understood the
dusky native of the forests as did Harrison. Gen. James Winchester
was a Tennesseean and a revolutionary officer, but he was little known
among the frontier men of this section. In charge of several thousand
troops, most of whom were from Kentucky, he entered upon an exten-
sive campaign in Northwestern Ohio. He was authorized to call upon
Governor Meigs for reenforcements. He soon afterwards asked for
two regiments of infantry to join him at the "Rapids of the IMiami of
the Lake about the 10th or the 15th of October next, well clothed for
a fall campaign."
A volunteer company of spies was organized under Captain Ballard,
Lieutenant Munday and Ensign Liggett. Liggett and four other men
obtained permission to advance as far as the old Fort Defiance. Being
surprised by a Frenchman and eight Indians they surrendered but all
were traitorously murdered. Other spies brought back information of
considerable bodies of hostiles along the Maumee. Many British regu-
lars were also with the savages. Captain Elliot commanded the Indians
while Major Muir was in chief command. General Winchester ad-
vanced cautiously in order to provide against surprise. He found evi-
dence of the recent retreat of British troops at one or two places along
the Maumee, not far from Defiance. In their haste, the British threw
one cannon into the river which was afterwards recovered and used in
112 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the campaign. The march along the Auglaize was made under the most
distressing conditions. The rain fell in torrents. The flat beech woods
were covered with water, and the horses sank up to their knees in the
mud at almost every step. "From Loraine on the south to the River
St. Mary, and then to Defiance at the north, was one continuous swamp
knee deep to the pack horses, and* up to the hubs of the wagons." At
times it was impossible to move a wagon without a ford. Happy indeed
were they who could find a dry log at night in which a fire could be
kindled. ]\lany passed the night sitting in the saddles at the root of
trees against which they leaned, and thus obtained a little sleep.
Late in September, the position of the two officers was reversed, and
General Harrison was given the supreme command of the Northwestern
Army. The letter of notification, which reached him at Piqua, read:
"The President is pleased to assign to you the command of the North-
western Army, which in addition to the regular troops and rangers in
that quarter, will consist of the volunteers and militia of Kentucky,
Ohio, and three thousand from Virginia and Pennsylvania, making your
whole force ten thousand men. * * * Exercise your own discre-
tion, and act in all cases according to your own judgment."
When General Harrison received the notification of his appointment
there were about 3,000 troops at Fort Barbee (St. Marys), a considerable
number of \yhich were cavalry. The cavalry were under the command
of Gen. Edward W. Tupper. This army was at once set in motion
for Defiance with three days ration. Receiving word that the enemy had
retreated, a part of the troops were sent back. General Harrison con-
tinued down the Auglaize with his cavalry. When he reached the camp
of General Winchester, he found a sad state of affairs, as one of the
Kentucky regiments was on the point of mutiny. He ordered a parade
of the troops and addressed them in his characteristic way. He said
that any troops that wanted to retire could do so as he already had sol-
diers to spare. But he likewise spoke of the scoring that would await
them at home. Their fathers would order their degenerate sons back
to the field of battle to recover their wounded honor, while their mothers
and sisters would hiss them from their presence. The mutinous Ken-
tuckians soon subsided and gave three hearty cheers for the popular
commander.
General Winchester immediately issued the following order:
"Camp at Defiance, October 3, 1812.
"I have the honor of announcing to_ this army the arrival of General
Harrison who is duly authorized by the executive of the Federal Gov-
ernment to take command of the Northwestern Army. This officer is
enjoying the implicit confidence of the States from whose citizens this
army is and will be collected and, possessing himself great military skill
and reputation, the General is confident in the belief that his presence
in the army, in the character of its chief, will be hailed with unusual
approbation. j Winchester, Brig.-Gen. U. S. Army."
General Harrison planned a three column march into the enemy's
country. The right wing of his army was to be composed of three
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 113
brigades from Virginia and Pennsylvania, together with some Ohio
troops, and was to proceed down the Sandusky River. General Tupper's
command was styled the center, and was to move along Hull's trail.
The main command devolved upon General Winchester, and was known
as the left wing. It included the United States troops, six regiments of
Ohio and the Kentucky militia. They were "to proceed down the
Auglaize and Miami from St. Marys and Defiance to the Rapids." St.
Marys was intended to be the main supply depot for provisions. They
were also to superintend the transportation of supplies in readiness for
the advance movement.
General Harrison had suggested that General Tupper with all the
cavalry, almost one thousand in number, should be sent down the Maumee
Gen. William Henry Harrison
and beyond the Rapids to disperse any of the enemy found there. They
were to return to Fort Barbee by way of the Tawa towns, on the Blanch-
ard River. These orders were never executed. At first General Tupper
alleged he was waiting until his Indian spies should return with desired
information. He then stated that he would prefer to reverse the route
to the Rapids. Some of the cavalry became so disgusted that they de-
serted. Tupper followed his own course without regard to orders.
He went as far as Urbana where some of his troops were discharged.
He then proceeded towards the Rapids by Hull's Trail. He finally
reached the Rapids where he reported that there were 300 to 400 Indians
and about seventy-five British. His men attempted to cross the river and
attack the enemy but "when nearly two hundred had gone over, the greater
Vol. 1—8
114 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
part of one section were washed off their feet and lost their guns. The
water was waist deep, and ran very swift." The attempt was then aban-
doned and Tupper withdrew because of a shortage of provisions. His
arrest was ordered by the mihtary authorities. McAfee says : "A court of
inquiry was afterwards demanded by General Tupper at Fort Meigs,
when no person acquainted with these transactions was there — he was, of
course, honorably acquitted. The faikire, however, appears to have been
caused chiefly by his want of energy and decision, and in some measures
by the insubordination of the troops, proceeding from a want of confi-
dence in their general."
When the troops under General Winchester reached the confluence of
the Auglaize and the Maumee rivers, they found Fort Defiance in ruins.
Even had it remained in good condition, that stockade would have been
inadequate for the larger army which it wa's now called upon to shelter.
The entire area embraced within the palisades of the fort built by Gen-
eral Wayne almost a score of years earlier, would not exceed one-quarter
of an acre. General Harrison, who had by this time joined the army,
drew a plan for a new fort a dozen times as extensive as Fort Defiance.
A force of men were detailed with axes to cut timber for the buildings
and the palisades. This new fort was named Fort Winchester by Gen-
eral Harrison, in deference to the superseded commander. For a con-
siderable length of time, this fortress was the only obstruction against
the incursions of the British and the aborigines in Northwestern Ohio.
Fort Winchester was located along the high and precipitous west bank
of the Auglaize River, about eighty rods south of Fort Defiance. It was
in the form of a parallelogram, and enclosed three acres or more of land.
There was a strong two-story blockhouse at each corner, and a large
gate midway on each side with a sentinel house above. The whole en-
closure was surrounded by a strong palisade of logs set on end, deep
in the ground', snugly matched together, pointed at the upper ends, and
rising twelve or fifteen feet above ground. A cellar was excavated under
the blockhouse at the northeast corner, from which an underground pas-
sageway was made to the river, where there was also a barrier of logs
in order to protect the water supply of the garrison. It fulfilled its mis-
sion during the war as an important stronghold as a rendezvous for
troops and for the storing of supplies to be boated down the Maumee
River as wanted by the advancing troops.
Shortly after the Tupper expedition to the Rapids, a tragical inci-
dent happened in the army of General Winchester. As a result the name
of an Indian, faithful to the whites, deserves to be recorded high in the
annals of Northwestern Ohio. John Logan was a Shawnee warrior
whose mother is said to have been a sister of Tecumseh. When a boy
this Shawnee lad had been taken prisoner by some Kentuckians, and had
lived for several years with the family of General Logan. Hence the
name Logan, to which the title of "Captain" was eventually attached.
Although he returned to his people, he ever remained a true friend of
the whites who had treated him so kindly. He subsequently rose to the
rank of a civil chief in his tribe. His personal appearance was command-
ing, being six feet in height, and weighing near two hundred pounds.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 115
When General Harrison reached Piqua, he requested Colonel Johnson
to furnish him some reliable spies. It was then that Captain Logan
entered the service of the American commander. In November Harrison
directed Logan to take a small party and reconnoitre the counti-y in the
direction of the Rapids of the Maumee. When near their destination
the three scouts \yere met by a body of the enemy superior to their own,
and compelled to retreat. Logan, Captain Johnny and Bright Horn
effected their escape to the army of General Winchester, who was duly
informed of the circumstances of their adventure. A thoughtless officer
of the Kentucky troops without the slightest ground for such a charge,
accused Logan of giving intelligence to the enemy. Wounded to the
quick by this foul accusation, the red man at once resolved to meet it
in a manner that would leave no doubt as to his loyalty.
"Accordingly on the morning of the 22d," so runs the account, "he
started down the Maumee, attended by his two faithful companions,
Captain Johnny and Bright Horn. About noon, having stopped for the
purpose of taking rest, they were suddenly surprised by a party of
seven of the enemy, among whom were young Elliott, a half-breed, hold-
ing a commission in the British service, and the celebrated Pottawattomie
chief, Winnemac. Logan made no resistance, but, with great presence
of mind, extending his hand to Winnemac, who was an old acquaintance,
proceeded to inform him that he and his two companions, tired of the
American service, were just leaving General Winchester's army, for
the purpose of joining the British. Winnemac, being familiar with Indian
strategy, was not satisfied with this declaration, but preceded to disarm
Logan and his comrades, and placing his party around them, so as to
prevent their escape, started for the British camp at the foot of the
rapids. In the course of the afternoon Logan's address was such as to
inspire confidence in his sincerity, and induce ^^^innemac to restore to
him and his companions their arms. Logan now formed the plan of
attacking his captors on the first favorable opportunity and while march-
along succeeded in communicating the substance of it to Captain Johnny
and Bright Horn. Their guns being already loaded, they had little fur-
ther preparation to make than to put bullets into their mouths, to facili-
tate the reloading of their arms. In carrying on this process Captain
Johnny, as he afterwards related, fearing that the man marching by his
side had observed the operation, adroitly did away the impression by say-
ing 'Me chaw heap toback.'
"The evening being now at hand, the British Indians determined to
encamp on the bank of Turkey Foot Creek, about twenty miles from Fort
Winchester. Confiding in the idea that Logan had really deserted the
American service, a part of his captors rambled around the place of
their encampment in search of blackshaws. They were no sooner out
of sight than Logan gave the signal of attack upon those who remained
behind ; they fired, and two of the enemy fell dead — the third, being
only wounded, required a second shot to dispatch him ; and in the mean-
time the remainder of the party, who were near by, returned the fire,
and all of them 'treed.' There being four of the enemy, and only three
of Logan's party, the latter could not watch all the movements of their
116 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
antagonists. During an active fight, the fourth man of the enemy passed
around until Logan was uncovered by his tree, and shot him through
the body. By this time Logan's party had wounded two of the surviv-
ing four, which caused them to fall back. Taking advantage of things,
Captain Johnny mounted Logan, now suiifering the pain of a mortal
wound, and Bright Horn also wounded, on two of the enemy's horses, and
started them for Winchester's camp, which they reached about midnight.
When the news of the gallant affair had spread through the camp, and,
especially, after it was known that Logan was mortally wounded, it cre-
ated a deep and mournful sensation. No one, it is believed, more deeply
regretted the fatal catastrophe than the author of the charge upon
Logan's integrity, which had led to this unhappy result."
Logan's popularity was very great, and he was almost universally
esteemed in the army for his fidelity to the American cause, his recog-
nized bravery, and the nobleness of his nature. He lived two or three
days after reaching camp, but in extreme bodily agony. His body was
borne by the soldiers to Wapakoneta, where his family lived, and there
he was buried with mixed military honors and savage rites. Previous
to his death he related the particulars of this fatal enterprise to a friend,
declaring to him that he prized his honor more than life. Having now
vindicated his reputation from the imputation cast upon it, he died
satisfied.
A number of ambuscades by the savages occurred around Fort Win-
chester. These generally happened to soldiers who had strayed away
from the fort either to gather food or to shoot game. Five soldiers
were killed and scalped while after the plums that were so plentiful.
"Some breaches of discipline were noted, and their punishment relieved
the monotony of camp life. On the 8th of October Frederick Jacoby, a
young man, was found asleep while posted as guard. He was sentenced
by court martial to be shot. A platoon was ordered to take places before
the paraded army and twenty paces from the prisoner who, blindfolded,
was on his knees preparing for the order to the soldiers to fire. A great
stillness pervaded the army. Just as the suspense was at its height a
courier arrived with an order from General Winchester saving his life
by changing the sentence. This sentence and scene produced a pro-
found effect upon the soldiers. It was their first real view of the stern-
ness of military discipline; and they recognized its necessity and justness
while in the country of the stealthy and savage enemy."
The greatest suft'ering was caused by the lack of provisions and
inadequate clothing. Fort Winchester was completed on the 15th of
October, 1812. Nevertheless a large number of troops continued to camp
outside the enclosure. The longest stay was made at Camp Number
Three, several miles down the Maumee, for here there was an abundance
of firewood, and the ground was dry. Of this place, one who was with
the army said : "On the 25th of December, 1812, at sunrise we bade
adieu to this memorable place, Camp Number Three, where lie the bones
of many a brave man. This place will live in the recollection of all who
suffered there, and for more reasons than one. There comes up before
the mind the many times the dead march was heard in the Camp, and
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 117
the solemn procession that carried our fellow sufferers to the grave ;
the many times we were almost on the point of starvation ; and the many
sickening disappointments which were experienced by the army from
day to day, and from week to week, by the failure of promised sup-
plies.'' Alost of the soldiers were provided only with summer clothing,
and it was well into the winter before any heavier outfitting was
received. Army life was certainly deprived of its glamor. The rations
were constantly short. Some days the rations consisted only of beef
and other days only of flour, or some hickory nuts which were gathered
near the camp. The lack of salt was also greatly felt. It is no wonder
that sickness increased from the inadequate food and the thin clothing
worn by the soldiers. Their weakened conditions made the men an
easy prey to pestilence. Three or four deaths a day with the constant
succession of funeral rites greatly depressed the soldiers. Hunger drove
many away frofn the camp in search of food.
The army contractors were largely to blame for the shortage of neces-
sities, but there were contributing causes. "The roads were bad beyond
description but those who have actually seen the state of the country
seen to have formed a correct estimate of the difficulties to be encoun-
tered. The road * * * to Defiance was one continued swamp, knee-
deep to the packhorses and up to the hubs of the wagons. It was found
impossible in some instances to get even the empty wagons along, and
many were left sticking in the mire and ravines, the wagoners being
glad to get off with the horses alive. * * * fhe only persons who
could be procured to act as packhorse drivers, were generally the most
worthless creatures in society, who took care neither of the horse nor
the goods with which they were entrusted."
General Harrison, from his headquarters in Franklinton, now Colum-
bus, was kept fully informed, and he in turn advised the department,
but communications were slow and the War Department was so demor-
alized that supplies did not reach this outlying fortress. No other
troops operating in this part of the state had to endure such hardships
as befell this army in the fall and early winter of 1812. There was one
attempt to send food which is reported as follows :
"About the first of December, Major Bodley, an enterprising officer
who was quartermaster of the Kentucky troops, made an attempt to
send near two hundred barrels of flour down the River St. Marys in
pirogues to the Left Wing of the army below Defiance. Previous to
this time, the water had rarely been high enough to venture in a voyage
on these small streams. The flour was now shipped in fifteen or twenty
pirogues and canoes, and placed under the command of Captain Jordan
and Lieutenant Cardwell with upwards of twenty men. They descended
the river and arrived about a week afterwards at Shane's Crossing
upwards of one hundred miles by water but only twenty by land from the
place they started. The river was so narrow, crooked, full of logs, and
trees overhanging the banks, that it was with great difficulty they could
make any progress. And now in one freezing night they were completely
ice bound. Lieutenant Cardwell waded back through the ice and swamps
to Fort Barbee with intelligence of their situation. Major Bodley
118 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
returned with him to the flour, and offered the men extra wages to cut
through the ice and push forwards; but having gained only one mile
by two days' labor, the project was abandoned, and a guard left with
the flour. A few days before Christmas a temporary thaw took place
which enabled them with much difficulty and suffering to reach within
a few miles of Fort Wayne, where they were again frozen up. They
now abandoned the voyage and made sleds on which the men hauled
the flour to the Fort (Wayne) and left it there."
General Harrison himself reported to the Secretary of War as fol-
lows : "Obstacles are almost insuperable ; but they are opposed with
unabated firmness and zeal. * * * "phe prodigious destruction of
horses can only be conceived by those who have been accustomed to
military operations in the wilderness during the winter season. I did
not make sufficient allowance for the imbecility and inexperience of the
public agents, and the villainy of the contractors. * * * jf ^^e plan
of acquiring the naval superiority upon the lakes, before the attempt is
made on Maiden or Detroit, should be adopted, I would place fifteen
hundred men in cantonment at Miami Rapids — Defiance would be better
if the troops had not advanced from there."
Following a custom of the day captives were occasionally brought in
to give information. In one official report to Governor Meigs by Gen-
eral Tupper we find as follows :
"Camp, Near McArthur's Block-house,
November 9th, 1812.
"Sir: — I have for some time thought a prisoner from near the Mau-
mee Rapids would at this time be of much service, and highly acceptable
to General Harrison. For this purpose, I ordered Captain Hinkton to the
Rapids, with his company of spies, with orders to take a prisoner if
possible. He had just returned and brought in with him Captain A.
Clark, a British subject, who resides two miles above Maiden, and was
out with a party of about five hundred Indians and fifty British, with
two gunboats, six bateaux, and one small schooner at the foot of the
Rapids, to gather in and carry over to Maiden the corn. Captain Clark
had but just arrived with the van of the detachment. The vessels and
boats had not yet anchored when the spies surprised him as he advanced
a few rods from the shore to reconnoitre, and brought him off undis-
covered ; and this from a number of Indians, who were killing hogs and
beginning to gather corn. At the same time, several of Captain Hink-
ton's spies lay concealed on the bank within five rods of the place where
some of the first boats were landing. Captain Hinkton has conducted
this business with great skill and address. Captain Clark was taken
prisoner on the 7th instant, a little before sun setting. * * *
I am, very respectfully.
Your Excellency's Most Obedient Servant,
Edward W. Tupper,
Brigadier Gen. Ohio Quota."
In a letter, dated January 8. 1813, Harrison wrote to the Secretary
of War : "My plan of operation has been, and now is, to occupy the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 119
Miami Rapids, and to deposit tliere as much provisions as possible, to
move from thence with choice detachment of the army, and with as much
provision, artillery and ammunition as the means of transportation will
allow, make a demonstration towards Detroit and, by a sudden passage
of the strait upon the ice, an actual investiture of Maiden. * * * jt
was my intention to have assembled at the Rapids from 4,500 to 5,000
men, and to be governed by circumstances in forming the detachment
with which I should advance."
General Winchester had been authorized to proceed to the Maumee
Rapids as soon as he had accumulated sufficient supplies to make the
advance safe. On his way from Defiance a dispatch reached him from
Harrison recommending the abandonment of this project. But Har-
rison treated Winchester as an equal and not as an under officer. Hence
Winchester followed his own ideas and continued the march. On the
tenth of January, 1813, he reached a point above the site of the Battle
of Fallen Timbers. He had with him an army of 1,300 men. Here he
established an improvised encampment and storehouse. The soldiers
were able to gather corn from the fields, which was boiled whole and
supplied them with some additional food. Some improvised devices were
made to pound corn into meal. The enemy were encamped in consider-
able numbers around and about the site of Fort Miami, but they retreated.
A number of messengers arrived at his camp from Frenchtown (now
Monroe) representing the danger to which the inhabitants were ex-
posed from the hostility of British and Indians and almost tearfully
begging for protection. These representations excited the sympathies
of the Americans and turned their attention from the main object of
the campaign, causing them to forget to a great extent proper military
precaution. These messengers reported that the Indians had threatened
to kill the inhabitants and burn the town. A council of officers was
called by General Winchester and a majority were in favor of sending
a strong detachment to the relief of Frenchtown.
Col. William Lewis was first dispatched with 550 men on January
17th. A few hours later Col. John Allen followed with 110 men,
and overtook the others at the mouth of the river. Marching along the
frozen borders of the bay and lake they reached there on the afternoon
of the following day. Attacking the enemy who were posted in the
village, they gained possession of it after a spirited engagement. Learn-
ing that the savages were collecting in force. General Winchester became
alarmed and started from the Maumee Rapids on the 19th with all the
troops that he could detach to the relief of that settlement, in all about
250 men. They arrived there on the 20th instant. As soon as
General Harrison received word of Winchester's advance he was alarmed
and made a quick advance to the Rapids. The artillery was ordered to
follow and droves of hogs started. He arrived there on the 20th and
immediately sent a courier to Frenchtown.
Had General Winchester followed the advice of those wiser than
himself, a disaster might have been prevented. But he relaxed him-
self in the good home" of Colonel Navarre, where he was established,
and was not as vigilant as he should have been. He left his troops in
120 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
open ground, and took no precautions against surprise. Scouts reported
that a large body of British and Indians were approaching and would
attack him that night. Other information of a similar nature was brought
in, but he was unmoved by these reports. He seemed to be under an
evil spell. As a result, an attack was made upon him in the early morn-
ing of the 22d. The British and their dusky allies approached entirely
undiscovered. General Winchester attempted to rejoin his troops but
was captured by an Indian and led to Colonel Proctor. Winchester was
persuaded to order his troops to surrender under promise of protection,
but the gallant Major Madison refused until the third request was
received. Only a shortage of ammunition induced them to surrender at
all. Several hundred of his men were killed in battle or afterwards
massacred and the dreaded Indian yell was heard on every side. One
troop of a score of men under Lieutenant Garrett were compelled to
surrender while retreating and were all massacred except the lieutenant
himself. Of another party of thirty which surrendered half were shot
or tomahawked. The remainder of his troops were taken prisoners and
marched to Amherstburg. Most of them were afterwards released upon
parole. General Winchester was kept as a prisoner for more than a
year.
The surrender was doubtless induced by the statement of the British
commander that an Indian massacre could hardly be prevented in case
of continued resistance, and a promise of help to all the wounded. But
the promise was not kept. Only thirty-three of the Americans escaped
death or captivity. This great disaster at the River Raisin was most
lamentable, but it was not without its good results. The loss of the
enemy has never been known, but it must have been heavy. "Remember
the Raisin" became a slogan that spurred many to enlist in the army,
and do valiant service for their country. It had the same elifect upon
them as did "Remember the Alamo" among the Texans. General Har-
rison was blamed by his enemies for permitting the advance and then
for not sending reinforcements. The advance was made without his
knowledge and he arrived too late to be of assistance. If he erred at all
it was in permitting too great a latitude to General Winchester, when he
was the commander-in-chief.
The situation for the Americans did indeed begin to look lugubrious.
For a year there had been only a succession of disasters. All the military
operations in the Northwest had resulted favorably for the enemy.
Mackinac had been surrendered. There had been a bloody massacre at
Fort Dearborn (Chicago) ; General Hull had yielded to cowardice; now
came the overwhelming defeat and massacre of the troops under Gen-
eral Winchester. Nothing had been achieved to mitigate these losses.
The entire frontier was greatly alarmed. From every settlement there
came urgent and almost pitiful appeals for protection. The settlers lived
in daily fear of war parties of the savages. The man who left home
feared he would never again behold his loved ones. Many indeed did
flee to Kentucky to escape the dangers of the Ohio country.
CHAPTER X
A YEAR OF VICTORIES
General Harrison was not dismayed by the disasters that had over-
taken his forces. All the combativeness in his nature was aroused and
he bent his energies to retrieving the Northwestern Army from the year
of disasters for which he was not in any sense responsible. Reinforce-
ments were demanded and precautions taken to prevent any further
unfortunate happenings to the troops under his command. His earliest
efforts were devoted to freeing Northwestern Ohio from the enemy.
General Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War from "headquarters,
Foot of the Miami (Maumee) Rapids, February 11, 1813," as follows:
"Having been joined by General Leftwich with his brigade, and a regi-
ment of the Pennsylvania quota at the Portage River on the 30th ultimo,
I marched thence on the 1st instant and reached this place on the morn-
ing of the 2nd with an effective force of sixteen hundred men. I have
since been joined by a Kentucky regiment and part of General Tupper's
Ohio Brigade, which has increased our numbers to two thousand non-
commissioned officers and privates. I have ordered the whole of the
troops of the Left Wing (excepting one company for each of the six
forts in that quarter) the balance of the Pennsylvania brigade, and the
Ohio brigade under General Tupper, and a detachment of regular troops
of twelve months volunteers under command of Colonel Campbell, to
march to this place as soon as possible.
"I am erecting here a pretty strong fort (Meigs) capable of resisting
field artillery at least. The troops will be placed in a fortified camp
covered on one flank by the fort. This is the best position that can be
taken to cover the frontier, and the small posts in the rear of it, and
those above it on the Miami (Maumee) and its tributaries. The force
placed here ought, however, to be strong enough to encounter any that
the enemy may detach against the forts above. Twenty-five hundred
would not be too many. But, anxious to reduce the expenses during the
winter within as narrow bounds as possible I have desired the Governor
of Kentucky not to call out (but to hold in readiness to march) the
fifteen hundred men lately required of him. * * * Attention will
still be paid to the deposit of supplies for the ensuing campaign. Im-
mense supplies of provisions have been accumulating along the Auglaize
River, and boats and pirogues prepared to bring them down as soon as
the river opens."
The experience of General Harrison in frontier warfare, especially
under General Wayne in this valley, induced him to select as the site of
a, fort in this section the high right bank of the Maumee River, just a
short distance below the lowest fording place and near the foot of the
lowest rapids. The original plan of this fort embraced something over
121
122 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
eight acres of ground, and the irregular circumference of the enclosure
measured about a mile and a third in length. At short intervals there
were blockhouses and batteries, and between these the entire space was
picketed with timbers 15 feet long, from 10 to 12 inches in diameter,
and placed 3 feet into the ground. It was built under the personal
supervision of Capt. Eleazer D. Wood, chief engineer of the army.
As soon as the outlines of the fort were decided upon, the different
branches of labor were assigned to the various corps in the army.
"To complete the picketing," says Captain Wood, "to put up eight
blockhouses of double timbers, to elevate four large batteries, to build
all the storehouses and magazines required to contain the supplies of the
army, together with the ordinary fatigues of the camp, was an under-
taking of no small magnitude. Besides, an immense deal of labor was
likewise required in excavating ditches, making abatis and clearing away
the wood about the camp ; and all this was done, too, at a time when the
weather was inclement, and the ground so hard that it could scarcely be
opened with the mattock and pickaxe."
General Harrison himself was untiring in his movements. He was
kept busy visiting the various camps in his work of supervision, for we
find dispatches dated from various headquarters. About the 1st of
March word reached Fort Meigs that General Proctor had ordered the
assembling of the Canada militia and the Indian allies early in April, pre-
paratory to an attack on Fort Meigs. To encourage the Indians, he had
assured them of an easy conquest, and had promised that General Harri-
son should be delivered up to Tecumseh himself. That Indian chief had
an unquenchable hatred for the American commander since the Battle of
Tippecanoe. The mode of attack, so it was reported, would be by con-
structing strong batteries on the opposite side of the river, to be manned
by British artillerists, while the savages would invest the fort on that
side of the river. "A few hours action of the cannon would smoke the
Americans out of the fort into the hands of the savages," confidently
said one of the officers.
It was a very difficult matter to maintain an effective force on this
frontier owing to the short terms of enlistment and the irregularity of
their expirations. The forces within Fort Meigs were so seriously
weakened by the expiration of the term of the enlistment of many of
the Virginians and Pennsylvanians, that not more than five hundred
eflfective soldiers remained. The Kentucky Legislature passed an act
adding $7.00 a month to the pay of any fifteen hundred Kentuck-
ians already in the service, who would remain until others were sent to
relieve them. General Harrison was almost discouraged at times, for
in one communication he writes : "I am sorry to mention the dismay and
disinclination to the service, which appears to prevail in the western
country." As soon as the ice broke, advantage was taken of the high
water to transport supplies down the river to Fort Meigs from the supply
depots farther up on the Maumee and Auglaize.
The British kept themselves informed of the American preparations
through their savage allies. As Fort Meigs enjoyed comparative quiet
for several weeks, the soldiers gradually became more venturesome. In
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 123
March a small party of soldiers while hunting game near old Fort Miami
were shot at by a British reconnoitering party, and Lieutenant Walker
was killed. Another bullet lodged in a Bible or hymn-book, carried by
a soldier in his breast pocket, saving him from death or a severe wound.
Intense excitement again arose about the first of April over a desperate
encounter of about a dozen French volunteers who, while reconnoitering
by boat in the channels about the large island below the fort, were sur-
prised and violently assailed at close quarters by two boatloads of sav-
ages. In the encounter that ensued only one Indian escaped death, but
several of the Frenchmen were also slain, and only three came away
unscathed.
The Canadian militia assembled at Sandwich on the seventh of April,
pursuant to call. On the 23d of that month General Proctor's army,
consisting of almost one thousand regulars and militia, embarked at
Maiden on several vessels and sailed for Fort Meigs, being convoyed by
two gunboats with artillery. The savages, amounting to fully fifteen
hundred, crossed the Detroit River and made their way to the rendez-
vous on foot, although a few sailed the lakes in small boats. The ves-
sels arrived at the mouth of the Maumee River on the 26th inst., and
a couple of days later the army landed near the ruins of Fort Miami,
about two miles below Fort Meigs, and on the opposite side of the
river.
"Yesterday the British let loose a part of their savage allies upon
the fort from the opposite shore, whilst the former were concerting
plans below. There is little doubt the enemy intends erecting batteries
on the opposite shore. No force can reduce the fort. All are in fine
spirits, anxiously waiting a share of the glory to be acquired over the
British and their savage allies ; though one thing is certain, whilst their
forces are so far superior they cannot be driven from their position on
the opposite shore. Captain Hamilton, who was detached with a discov-
ering party estimated their forces at three thousand — independent of the
Indians lurking in the neighborhood."
The effective force at Fort Meigs at this time numbered about eleven
hundred soldiers, which was really inadequate to cope with such a large,
well trained, and far better equipped army. General Harrison himself
had arrived on the 12th. Most of the savages immediately crossed the
river and began to invest and harass Fort Meigs at every possible point,
filling the air with their hideous yells and the firing of musketry both
day and night. For the purpose of protection the timber had been
cleared from the fort on all sides for about three hundred yards, with
the exception of stumps and an occasional log. Behind these the savages
would advance at night and sometimes disable a picket. These wily foes
also climbed the trees at the rear of the fort, from which vantage points
they were finally routed with far greater losses than they inflicted.
"Can you," said General Harrison in a stirring appeal to his troops,
"the citizens of a free country who have taken arms to defend its rights,
think of submitting to an army composed of mercenary soldiers, reluctant
Canadians goaded to the field by the bayonet, and of wretched naked
savages? Can the breast of an American soldier, when he cast his eyes
124
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
to the opposite shore, the scene of his country's triumphs over the same
foe, be influenced by any other feelings than the hope of glory? Is not
this army composed of the same materials as that which fought and
conquered under the immortal Wayne?"
The news of Harrison's danger had already reached General Clay
and his command of 1,200 men, part of whom were under Col.
William Dudley. They dispatched Leslie Combs and some soldiers,
together with a Shawnee guide, to inform General Harrison of
their approach. Combs and his party began their journey at Defiance
on the first of May. His companions were two brothers named Walker,
two others named respectively Paxton and Johnson, also young Black
Fish, a Shawnee warrior. With the latter at the helm, the other four
engaged with the rowing, and himself at the bow in charge of the rifles
FoET Meigs, 1812
and ammunition, the party pushed ofif from Defiance, amid cheers and
sad adieus, determined to reach Fort Meigs before daylight. The voy-
age was full of danger. Rain was falling heavily, and the night was
intensely black. They passed the rapids in safety, when heavy cannonad-
ing was heard in the direction of the fort. For a moment Combs was
perplexed. To return would be prudent, but would expose his courage
to doubts; to remain until the next night, or proceed at once, seemed
equally hazardous. A decision was soon made by the brave youth. He
went forward with many misgivings, for he knew of the weakness of
the garrison, and doubted its ability to hold out long. Great was his
satisfaction, therefore, when on sweeping around the last bend in the
river he saw the stripes and stars waving over the beleaguered camp.
Suddenly a solitary Indian appeared in the edge of the woods, and a
moment' afterward a large body of them were observed in the gray
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 125
shadows of the forest, running eagerly to a point below to cut the party.
The gallant captain attempted to dart by them on the swift current,
when a volley of bullets from the savages severely wounded Johnson
and Paxton— the former mortally. The fire was returned with effect,
when the Shawnee at the hehn turned the prow toward the opposite
shore. There the voyagers abandoned the canoe and, with their faces
toward Defiance, sought safety in flight. After vainly attempting to take
Johnson and Paxton with them, Combs and Black Fish left them. At
the end of two days the captain reached Defiance, where General Clay
had just arrived, the Walkers were also there, having fled more swiftly,
because unencumbered. Combs and his dusky companion had suffered
terribly.
Excessive rains hindered the British in planting their cannon as they
wished. At times as many as two hundred men and several oxen would
be engaged in the work of pulling a single 24-pounder through the mud.
At first the work was carried on only by night but a little later, owing
to the impatience of the commander, the work was continued by day,
although some of the men were killed by shots from Fort jMeigs. By
the 30th of April they had completed two batteries nearly opposite Fort
Meigs. The first battery contained two 24-pounders, while the other
mounted three howitzers. A third battery of three 12-pounders was
afterwards placed, as well as several mortars, in strategic positions.
General Harrison ordered earthworks to be thrown up to protect the
men from any cannon shots which might be fired at them from
these newly erected batteries. Thus the shots from the enemy's cannon
were opposed by solid walls of earth 12 feet high and 20 feet thick
at the base. Behind there ramparts the defenders were placed, so
that they were fairly well protected from the guns of the enemy. A
few guns were placed by the British on the fort side, and to meet this
new danger other traverses of earth were thrown up. A well was also
dug behind the Grand Traverse, in order to provide a certain supply of
water in case the investment should become close. The British fired
almost incessantly with their cannon at Fort IMeigs on the 1st, 2nd and
3rd of May. Two Americans were killed on the first day, and one man
was so severely wounded ihat he died of tetanus ten days later. No
fewer than five hundred balls and shells were thrown on the first day
so it was estimated.
The supply of balls and shells within the fort was limited, and the
defenders replied only occasionally when a good target oft'ered. In order
to increase the supply a reward of a gill of whisky was oft'ered to the
soldiers for every British ball brought in by them of a size to fit their
guns. At night the soldiers might have been seen outside the stockade
searching around for balls whose location they had noticed during the
day. It is said that more than a thousand gills of whiskey were paid
out as rewards. Before completing their plans, the British constructed
a third battery of three 12-pounder cannon between the two batteries
mentioned above.
One of the militiamen voluntarily stationed himself on the embank-
ment, and gratuitously forewarned the Americans of every approaching
126 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
shot. In this he became so skillful that he could in almost every case
predict the probable destination of the missile. As soon as the smoke
issued from the muzzle of the gun, he would cry out "shot" or "bomb"
as the case might be. Consider the contempt with which a gunner in
the Great War who fired a monster that hurled half a ton or more of
steel and explosive for a distance of twenty-five miles, would regard
these pigmy cannon. It was all these guns could do to heave a six or
eight pound ball across the river, a distance of a quarter of a mile. So
leisurely was its flight that this man from the embankment could gauge
the direction and warn his comrades. It seems like an absurdity to us
today in the light of modern development in the matter of man-killing
machines.
"Hey, there, block-house number one," he cried out. Then the boys
of that defense would promptly duck for cover.
"Main battery, look out," would come his stentorian voice over the
palisades. The men of that battery then had warning to seek shelter and
would follow his advice "now for the meat-house."
"Good bye, old boy, if you will pass by," was the greeting to a wild
shot that missed the fort altogether.
But even these leisurely flying iron balls were deadly, when a human
target interposed in their flight. One day, while he was watching and
jocularly commenting on the course of the balls, there came a shot that
seemed to defy all the militiaman's calculations. He could not gauge
the angle. He stood motionless and perplexed. No word of warning
or jesting came from his lips. His eyes seemed transfixed. But the ball
was approaching nearer and nearer, and in an instant he was swept
into eternity. The gunners had hit their mark.
"The aborigines," says Rev. A. M. Lorraine, who was with the
Americans, "climbing up into the trees, fired incessantly upon us. Such
was their distance that many of their balls barely reached us but fell
harmless to the ground. Occasionally they inflicted dangerous and even
fatal wounds. The number killed in the fort was small considered the
profusion of powder and ball expended on us. About eighty were slain,
many wounded, and several had to suffer amputation of limbs. The most
dangerous duty which we performed within the precincts of the fort was
in covering the magazine. Previous to this the powder had been
deposited in wagons and these stationed in the traverse. Here there was
no security against bombs ; it was therefore thought to be prudent to
remove the powder into a small blockhouse and cover it with earth. The
enemy, judging our designs from our movements, now directed all their
shot to this point (particularly from their 24-pounder battery).
Many of their balls were red-hot. Wherever they struck the raised a
cloud of smoke and made a frightful hissing. An officer passing our
quarters said, 'Boys, who will volunteer to cover the magazine?' Fool-
like away several of us went. As soon as we reached the spot there
came a ball and took ofT one man's head. The spades and dirt flew
faster than any of us had before witnessed."
A white flag approached the fort and the bearers asked for a parley.
A demand was then made for the surrender of the fortress by General
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 127
Proctor. This was answered by a prompt refusal. "I believe I have
a very correct idea of General Proctor's force," said General Harrison.
"It is not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the
contest, whatever shape he may be pleased hereafter to give to it. Assure
the general, however, that he will never have this post surrendered to
him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner
calculated to do him more honor, and to give him larger claims upon
the gratitude of his government, than any capitulation could possibly do."
Things had begun to look dark for the besieged when Capt. Wil-
liam Oliver, accompanied by ^laj. David Trumble and fifteen soldiers
who had evaded the encircling savages, arrived on the night of the 4th
with the welcome news that Gen. Green Clay's command in eighteen
large flatboats, had reached the left bank of the INIaumee at the head
of the grand rapids. The river was so high that the pilot declined to
run the boats over the rapids at night. Captain Hamilton, with a sub-
altern and canoe, was immediately dispatched to meet General Clay and
convey to him this command : "You must detach about eight hundred
men from your brigade, who will land at a point I (Hamilton) will
show, about one or one and a half miles above Fort Meigs, and I will
conduct them to the British batteries on the left bank of the river. They
must take possession of the enemy's cannon, spike them, cut down the
carriages, then return to their boats and cross over to the Fort. The
balance of your men must land on the fort side of the river, opposite
the first landing, and fight their way to the fort through the savages.
The route they must take will be pointed out by a subaltern officer now
with me, who will land the canoe on the right bank of the river to
point out the landing for the boats."
General Clay himself remained in charge of the troops landing on
the right bank of the Maumee. But the subaltern was not at the rendez-
vous and some confusion resulted. Sorties were made from the garrison
to aid these. They were subjected to a galling fire from the British
infantry and the Indians under Tecumseh, but safely reached the fort-
ress. Another detachment under Colonel Boswell landed and drove
away the threatening savages. For their relief General Harrison dis-
patched several hundred men under command of Col. John Miller,
who attacked the nearest battery and drove away the enemy four times
as numerous. The troops advanced with loaded but trailed arms. The
first fire of the enemy did little damage. Then it was that a charge
was ordered, and the enemy fled with great precipitation. The American
troopers and militia alike covered themselves with glory in this encounter.
Twenty-eight Americans were killed in this sortie and twenty-five were
wounded. Forty-three prisoners were brought back to the fort. It was
one of the bravest incidents of the entire seige.
Had the wise orders of General Harrison been carried out in full,
the terrible massacre which occurred would have been avoided. Colonel
Dudley executed his task gallantly and successfully up to the point of the
capture of the batteries, and without the loss of a man. He reached them
unobserved, the gunners fleeing precipitately. The Americans rushed
forward and spiked eleven of the largest guns, hauling down the enemy's
128 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
flag. Great and loud was the applause that reached them from the fort
across the river. But most of Dudley's troops were unused to warfare
with the savages. They were extremely anxious for a combat — and they
were Kentuckians. Colonel Dudley had landed with 866 men. Of these
only 170 escaped to Fort Meigs. Elated with their initial success, and
being fired upon by some of the Indians, the Kentuckians became infuri-
ated and boldly dashed after their wily opponents without any thought
of an ambuscade. The commands of Colonel Dudley and warnings from
the fort were alike unheeded by these impetuous southerners.
General Harrison offered a reward of $1,000 to any man. who
would cross the river and apprize Colonel Dudley of his danger.
This duty was promptly undertaken by an officer, but the enemy had
arrived on the opposite bank before he could reach it. Many, indeed,
were those killed, including Colonel Dudley himself, in the fierce contest
that waged for about three hours. Many more were wounded, and the
others were taken prisoners. Those who could walk were marched toward
Fort Miami. Those who were wounded too badly to move were imme-
diately slain and scalped by the savages, and an equally sad fate met
those who were taken to the fort. The Kentuckians had become demor-
alized and it developed into each man fighting for himself as best he
could in the confusion.
Lieutenant Underwood has left a vivid account of the battle, from
which the following is taken :
"While passing through a thicket of hazel, toward the river in form-
ing line of battle, I saw Colonel Dudley for the last time. He was
greatly excited : he railed at me for not keeping my men better dressed
(in better line). I replied that he must perceive from the situation of
the ground, and the obstacles that we had to encounter, that it was
impossible. When we came within a small distance of the river we halted.
The enemy at this place had gotten in the rear of our line, formed
parallel with the river, and were firing upon our troops. Having noth-
ing to do, and being without orders, we determined to march our com-
pany out and join the combatants. We did so accordingly. In passing
out we fell on the left of the whole regiment and were soon engaged
in a severe conflict. The Indians endeavored to flank and surround us.
We were from time to time ordered to charge. The orders were passed
along the lines, our field officers being on foot. * * * \Ve made
several charges afterwards and drove the enemy a considerable distance.
* * * At length orders were passed along the lines directing us to
fall back and keep up a retreating fire. As soon as this movement was
made the Indians were greatly encouraged, and advanced upon us with
the most horrid yells. Once or twice the officers succeeded in producing
a temporary halt and a fire on the Indians, but the soldiers of the dif-
ferent companies soon became mixed, confusion ensued, and a general
rout took place. The retreating army made its way towards the bat-
teries, where I supposed we should be able to form and repel the pur-
suing Aborigines. They were now so close in the rear as to frequently
shoot down those who were before me. * * * in emerging from
the woods into an open piece of ground near the battery we had taken,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 129
and before I knew what had happened, a soldier seized my sword and
said to me, 'Sir, you are my prisoner!' I looked before me and saw,
with astonishment, the ground covered with muskets. The soldier,
observing my astonishment, said 'your army has surrendered,' and
received my sword. He ordered me to go forward and join the pris-
oners. I did so."
Tecumseh was far more humane that his white allies. While the
bloodthirsty work was proceeding a thundering voice in the Indian
tongue was heard from the rear, and Tecumseh was seen approaching
as fast as his horse could carry him. He sprang from his horse, rage
showing in every feature. Seeing two Indians butchering an Ameri-
can, he brained one with his tomahawk and felled the other to the earth.
He seemed torn with grief and passion.
After this incident the prisoners were not further molested. It is
certainly convincing proof that the British authorities did not discourage
the inhumanities of their savage allies, and it is believed that many of
the officers encouraged them in their savagery and atrocities. Inimical
as was Tecumseh toward the Americans, insatiable as was his hatred of
us, we cannot but admire him as a man. In personal courage he was
excelled by none. In oratory few were his peers, but in humanity he
stood out in striking contrast to the customs of his own tribe, one of the
most savage of all. He was never guilty of wanton bloodshed, and ever
used every effort to restrain his followers from all deeds of cruelty and
torture in dealing with their captives.
A British officer, who took part in the siege, tells of a visit to the
Indian camp on the day after the massacre. The camp was filled with
the clothing and plunder stripped from the slaughtered soldiers and
officers. The lodges were adorned with saddles, bridles, and richly
ornamented swords and pistols. Swarthy savages strutted in cavalry
boots and the fine uniforms of American officers. The Indian wolf dogs
were gnawing the bones of the fallen. Everywhere were scalps and skins
of hands and feet stretched on hoops, stained on the fleshy side with
Vermillion, and drying in the sun.
"As we continued to advance into the heart of the encampment," says
Major Richardson, "a scene of a more disgusting nature arrested our
attention. Stopping at the entrance of a tent occupied by the Minoumini
(Menomeni) tribe be observed them seated around a large fire over
which was suspended a kettle containing their meal. Each warrior had
a piece of string hanging over the edge of the vessel, and to this was
suspended a food, which, it will be presumed we heard not without
loathing, consisted of a part of an American. Any expression of our
feelings, as we declined the invitation they gave us to join their repast,
would have been resented by the savages without ceremony; we had,
therefore, the prudence to excuse ourselves under the plea that we had
already taken our food, and we hastened to remove from a sight so
revolting to humanity."
Some of the soldiers, who finally escaped from their captivity, have
left us terrible tales of their treatment by the savages, all of which was
done without a word of protest from the English officers. The young
130 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
men were generally taken by the savages as prisoners back to their
villages, and some of them were never heard of afterwards by their
friends. Most of them, however, were taken on board boats bound
for Maiden.
"I saved my watch by concealing the chain," says Lieut. Joseph R.
Underwood, "and it proved a great service to me afterwards. Having
read, when a boy, Smith's narrative of his residence among the Indians
my idea of their character was that they treated those best who appeared
the most fearless. Under this impression, as we marched down to the
old garrison (Fort Miami) I looked at those whom we met with all the
sternness of countenance I could command. I soon caught the eye of a
stout warrior painted red. He gazed as me with much sternness as I
did at him until I came within striking distance, when he gave me a
severe blow over the nose and cheek-bone with his wiping stick. I aban-
doned the notion acquired from Smith. On our approach to the old gar-
rison I perceived that the prisoners were running the gauntlet and that
the Indians were whipping, shooting and tomahawking the men as they
ran by their line. When I reached the starting place, I dashed ofif as
fast as I was able, and ran. near the muzzles of their guns, knowing
that they would have to shoot me while I was immediately in front or let
me pass, for to have turned their guns up or down the lines to shoot me
would have endangered themselves as there was a curve in their line.
In this way I passed without injury except some strokes over the shoul-
ders with their gun-sticks. As I entered the ditch around the garrison
the man before me was shot and fell, and I fell over him. * * *
How many lives were lost at this place I cannot tell, probably between
twenty and forty."
"We heard frequent guns at the place during the whole time the
remainder of prisoners were coming in," wrote Leslie Combs. "Some
were wounded severely with war clubs, tomahawks, etc. The number
who fell after the surrender was supposed by all to be nearly equal to the
killed in the battle. Their bloodthirsty souls were not yet satiated with
carnage. One Indian shot three of our men, tomahawked a fourth, and
stripped and scalped them in our presence. * * * Then all raised
the war-hoop and commenced loading their guns. * * * Tecumseh,
more humane than his ally and employer (Proctor), generously inter-
fered and prevented further massacre."
The Dudley massacre was the third great loss suffered by the Amer-
ican armies of the Northwest in less than a year after the beginning of
the War of 1812. Harrison said that "excessive ardor * * * always
the case when Kentucky militia were engaged * * * was the source
of all their misfortunes." The main body of the savages now withdrew
from the British command, partly because they were tired of the con-
tinued siege, and partly because their thirst for blood and butchery was
satiated. But Proctor did not retire until he had dispatched another
white flag, with a demand upon General Harrison to surrender. The
reply was such as to indicate that the demand was considered an insult.
Because of the withdrawal of his dusky allies General Proctor felt him-
self compelled to give up the siege on the 9th instant and return with his
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 131
remaining forces to Amherstburg, Canada, where he disbanded the
militia. Before finally withdrawing he gave a parting salute from his
gunboats, which killed ten or a dozen and wounded twice that number.
The British forces are estimated to have numbered more than three thou-
sand men. Of these, 600 were British regulars, 1,800 were Canadian
militia, and 1,800 were Indians. Harrison's forces at the maximum did
not much exceed 1,000 effective men, this does not, of course, include
those under Colonel Dudley.
The total loss at the fort during the entire siege was 81 killed and
189 wounded. The British reported loss was only 15 killed, 47 wounded,
and 41 taken prisoners. The men welcomed the relief from the terrible
tension to which they had been subjected. They were glad to get to the
river and wash themselves up, for there had been a great scarcity of
water within the stockade, jvlany had scarcely any clothing left, and
that which they wore was so begrimed and torn that they looked more
like scarecrows than human beings. Of the part taken by his troops,
General Harrison had only words of commendation. In his reports to
the Secretary of War, he described the savages as the most effective
force. A long list of names received special mention.
After the enemy had withdrawn. Fort Meigs was greatly strengthened.
The damage which the British guns had wrought was repaired, the Brit-
ish battery mounds were leveled, while the open space in front was
extended; better drainage and sanitary conveniences were also estab-
lished, for the lack of which the garrison had suffered considerable sick-
ness. Reinforcements were hurried forward from Upper Sandusky,
while General Harrison made a tour of the various other fortresses
within his jurisdiction. The extent of the frontier under his command
was indeed extensive, and it required constant watchfulness as well as
great executive ability to guard against invasion and to prevent the
advance of the enemy within it.
Comparative calm followed the abandonment of the siege of Fort
Meigs for a couple of months. But Harrison was not inactive during
this time. He fully appreciated the strength of the Indian allies of
Britain. Heretofore it had been the American policy not to employ
friendly Indians in its service, except in a few instances. This policy
the Indians could not understand. In order to clarify the situation a
council was called at Franklinton (Columbus) on June 21st. The
Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, and Senecas were represented by fifty
of their chief and head men. Tarhe, Chief Sachem of the Wyandots,
became the spokesman of all tribes present. Harrison said that the time
had come for an expression of the tribes as to their stand, for the Great
Father wanted no false friends. As a guarantee of their good intentions,
the friendly tribes should either move into the settlements or their war-
riors should accompany him in the ensuing campaign. To this proposal
all the warriors present unanimously agreed, asserting that they had been
anxious for an opportunity to fight for the Americans. Harrison prom-
ised to let them know when their services were wanted. Although the
tribes were not called upon to take part in the war, many of the Indians
of their own free will did accompany Harrison in his later campaigns.
132 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
In July General Proctor again headed an expedition for the mouth
of the Maumee. On the 20th of the month the boats of the enemy were
discovered ascending the Maumee toward Fort Meigs. With him was
an army estimated to number at least 5,000. The Indians also began to
appear in the neighborhood in considerable numbers. A picket guard,
consisting of a corporal and ten soldiers, was surprised about 300 yards
from Fort Meigs on the night of their arrival, and all but three were
killed or captured. Fourteen soldiers, whose term of enlistment had
expired, desired to return home on foot by way of Fort Winchester.
They were attacked by savages when only a few miles above the fort,
and only two escaped. Reinforcements arrived at the fort, which greatly
added to its strength. Among these were Lieutenant Montjoy with
twenty United States troops. The American force within the fort was
small and numbered only a few hundred. They were in charge of General
Clay, who immediately sent word to General Harrison at Lower San-
dusky. Harrison said that he was unable to send additional troops at
once, but advised great precaution against surprise and ambuscade by
the wily enemy. ^
Proctor and Tecumseh had forrnulated a plan for the capture of Fort
Meigs by strategy. A sham battle was staged by Tecumseh along the
road toward Lower Sandusky, near enough so that the noise might be
distinctly heard by the troops in the fort. When the Indian yells, inter-
mingled with the roar of musketry, reached the garrison, the men
instantly flew to arms. Thinking that a severe battle was being fought,
the men could hardly be restrained from marching out to the defense, as
they supposed, of their gallant commander-in-chief. This was precisely
the purpose of the enemy. The shooting was intended to convey the
impression to the besieged than an advancing force of reinforcements
was being attacked by the Indians, thus hoping to draw out the garrison.
General Clay had had too much experience, however, in Indian warfare,
and refused to be drawn into their plans. Furthermore, he did not think
that Harrison would come thus unannounced so soon after the messenger.
After several futile attempts to draw the Americans from their protec-
tion, the enemy departed from Fort Meigs on July 27th, having been in
its vicinity less than two days. After leaving Fort Meigs for the second
time, a part of the British army sailed around through Lake Erie and
up the Sandusky River to Fort Stephenson, hoping to find it an easy prey.
It is rather interesting to read of the doings about camp in this early
day. There were a number of court martials that we have a record of
for drunkenness and insubordination at Fort Meigs. Herewith are two
general orders issued at that fortress that make interesting reading in
this day of national prohibition. The first relates to what was probably
the first official celebration of our national natal day in this vicinity.
(General Order)
Camp Meigs, July 4, 1813.
The General commanding announces to the troops under his com-
mand the return of this day, which gave liberty and independence to the
United States of America ; and orders that a national salute be fired
under the superintendence of Captains Gratiot and Gushing. All the
troops reported fit for duty shall receive an extra gill of whisky. And
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 135
those in confinement and those under sentence attached to their corps, be
forthwith released and ordered to join their respective corps.
The General is induced to use this lenience alone from consideration
of the ever memorable day, and flatters himself that in future, the sol-
diers under his command will better appreciate their liberty by a steady
adherence to duty and prompt compliance with the orders of their offi-
cers, by which alone they are worthy to enjoy the blessings of that liberty
and independence, the only real legacy left us by our fathers.
All courts martial now constituted in this camp are hereby dissolved.
There will be fatigue this day.
Robert Butler, A. Adjt.-Gen.
(General Order)
Camp Meigs, July 8, 1813.
The commanding General directs that the old guard, on being released,
will march out of camp and discharge their arms at a target placed in
some secure position, and as a reward for those who may excel in shoot-
ing, eight gills of whisky will be given to the nearest shot, and four gills
to the second. The officer of the guard will cause a return, signed for
that purpose, signifying the names of the men entitled to the reward.
G. Clay, Gen. Com.
Robert Butler, A. Adjt.-Gen.
For a moment let us turn our attention to another momentous event
of Northwestern Ohio, although not taking place within the Maumee
region. The event was so heroic and the success so wonderful that it will
greatly interest all those interested in the history of this section. The
defense of Fort Stephenson at Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) by
George Croghan, a Kentucky youth who had barely passed his majority,
ranks high among the achievements of the brave Northwestern Army.
In historical sequence this section took place shortly after the siege of
Fort Meigs had been lifted.
Fort Stephenson was a ramshackle old stockade which had been begun
by Major Wood in April but not wholly completed. It was built of piles
16 feet high, and surrounding them was a dry ditch about 8 or 9
feet wide and 5 or 6 feet deep. About an acre of ground was
within the enclosure, with a blockhouse at the northeast corner and a
guardhouse at the southeast corner. The piles of logs were set close
together and each one was sharpened at the top. In this day we would
consider it a very flimsy structure, but it was the ordinary fort stockade
of the frontier days where artillery had little part in the conflicts. When
General Harrison visited the fort, even after Croghan had labored day
and night to strengthen it, he was extremely dubious about its efficiency
in resisting such an attack as might be brought by the enemy. The gen-
eral had his headquarters at Fort Seneca, only nine miles above on the
Sandusky River.
Definite orders were finally sent to Croghan to destroy Fort Stephen-
son, as follows : "Immediately on receiving this letter you will abandon
Fort Stephenson, set fire to it, and repair with your command this night
to headquarters. Cross the river and come up on the opposite side. If
you should deem and find it impracticable to make good your march to
this place, take the road to Huron, and pursue it with the utmost cir-
134 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
cumspection and dispatch." When Croghan received this curt and per-
remptory command, belated over night, he felt that a retreat could not
be safely undertaken, for the Indians were already' hovering around the
fort in considerable numbers. For this reason, he sent back the following
answer: "Sir, I have just received yours of yesterday, ten o'clock P. M.,
ordering me to destroy this place and make good my retreat, which was
received too late to be carried into execution. We have determined to
maintain this place, and by Heaven ! we can." This reply made General
Harrison extremely angry and he summoned Croghan before him at Fort
Seneca. But when the gallant Croghan appeared at headquarters and
made his explanation, the commanding general's wrath was quickly
appeased. He again received orders to destroy the fort, but the swift
approach of the enemy prevented their execution.
The first sight of the approaching enemy was on the evening of July
31, 1813. In was not many hours before the advance guard of the
enemy made their appearance. There were at least five hundred British
regulars, veteran troops of European wars, and one or two thousand
Indians, according to the best reports. As soon as the Indians appeared
on the hill across the river, they were saluted by a charge from the
6-pounder, which soon caused them to retire. Indians showed themselves
in every direction, demonstrating that the entire fort was surrounded and
a retreat was absolutely impossible. General Proctor sent a flag of truce
demanding a surrender. The mettle of the youthful commander, when
told that the Indians could not be restrained in the event of the certain
capture, reveals his mettle. His envoy told the British officer that "the
commander says that when the fort is taken, there will be no survivors
left to massacre. It will not be given up so long as there is a man able
to resist."
With these words the parley ended, and the men retired to their
respective lines. The enemy promptly opened fire with their howitzer
and 6-pounders, the firing continuing throughout the night with little
intermission, and with little effect as well.
During the battle Croghan occasionally fired his 6-pounder, changing
its position from time to time in order to convey the impression that he
had several cannon. From apparent indications he decided that the
enemy would attack the fort from the northwest angle. Hence it was
that he removed his 6-pounder to a blockhouse, from which he could
cover this angle. The embrasure thus made was masked; the piece was
loaded with half a charge of powder, and a double charge of slugs and
grape shot. He also strengthened his little fort as much as possible with
bags of sand and flour and whatever else was available. Late in the eve-
ning the enemy proceeded to make an assault. It was only when the
columns were quite near that the men could be distinguished by the
besieged. They were then thrown into confusion by a galling fire of
musketry directed toward them from the fort. Colonel Short, who was
at the head of the advancing column, soon rallied his men, however,
and led them with commendable bravery to the brink of the ditch. Paus-
ing for a moment he leaped into the ditch and called upon his men to
follow him.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 135
"Cut away the pickets, my brave boys and show the d — d Yankees
no quarter," Short shouted, and his words were carried across the
paHsades. In a few minutes the ditch was filled with men. Then it was
that the masked porthole was opened and the 6-pounder, at a distance
of only thirty feet, poured such destruction upon the closely packed body
of "red coats" that few were fortunate enough to escape. This brief
assault, which lasted about half an hour, cost the British twenty-seven
lives. Colonel Short fell mortally wounded. A handkerchief raised on
the end of his sword was a mute appeal for the mercy which he had a
few moments before denied to the Americans.
A precipitate retreat of the enemy followed this bloody encounter.
The whole of the attacking troops fled into an adjoining woods where
they were beyond the reach of the guns of the fortress. The loss of the
British and Indians was 150, including about twenty-six prisoners, most
of them badly wounded. The casualties of the garrison were one man
killed and seven slightly wounded. The one man who was killed met his
death because of his recklessness, by reason of his desire to shoot a red
coat. For this purpose he had climbed to the top of the blockhouse, and,
while peering over to spot his victim, a cannon ball took off his head.
This long planned and carefully arranged assault by a powerful
enemy lasted less than an hour. With it the storm cloud which had been
hovering over this section passed northward and westward.
Before daybreak the entire British and Indian forces began a dis-
orderly retreat. So great was their haste that they abandoned a sailboat
filled with clothing and military stores, while some seventy stands of arms
and braces of pistols were gathered about the fort. Croghan immediately
sent word to Harrison of his victory and the departure of the enemy, and
it was not long until Harrison himself was on the road to Fort
Stephenson.
"It will not be among the least of General Proctor's mortifications that
he has been baffled by a youth who has just passed his twenty-first year,"
wrote General Harrison in his official report. The rank of lieutenant-
colonel was immediately conferred upon Croghan by the President of the
United States for his courageous defense on this occasion. His gallantry
was further acknowledged by a joint resolution of Congress approved
in February, 1835, and by which he was ordered to be presented with a
gold medal, and a sword was awarded to each of his officers under his
command.
The third of the great victories of this year of victories in North-
western Ohio occurred on the water. Its significance was fully as great
as the successful land campaigns of which we have just read, and it
occurred only a little more than a month after the Fort Stephenson
repulse. Thus the most wonderful naval victory of the War of 1812
occurred within 'threescore miles of our homes. While General Harri-
son and his officers were winning their victories inland along the Maumee
and the Sandusky, the construction of an American fleet of war vessels
was in process of building at Erie, Pennsylvania, in order to co-operate
with the land army in oiifensive operations. This important undertaking
was entrusted to Oliver Hazard Perry, then a navy captain at Newport,
136 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Rhode Island, and only twenty-eight years of age. It was his judgment
that Lake Erie was the place where Great Britain could be struck a severe
blow. Within twenty-four hours after his order to proceed was received,
in February, 1813, he had dispatched a preliminary detachment of fifty
men and he himself quickly followed. There was nothing at Erie out
of which vessels could be built, excepting an abundance of timber still
standing in neighboring forests. Shipbuilders, naval stores, sailors, and
ammunition must be transported over fearful roads from Albany or frorri
Philadelphia. It was indeed a discouraging situation that confronted the
youthful officer. Under all these embarrassments, and hampered as he
was in every way, by August 1, 1813, Commodore Perry had provided
a flotilla, consisting of the ships Lawrence and Niagara, of twenty guns
each, and seven smaller vessels, to wit : the Ariel of four guns, the Cala-
donia of three, the Scorpion and Somers with two guns each and three
of one gun each named Tigress, Porcupine and Trip. In all he had a
battery of fifty-four guns.
Having gotten his fleet in readiness. Commodore Perry proceeded
to the head of Lake Erie and anchored at Put-in-Bay, opposite to and dis-
tant about thirty miles from Maiden, where the British fleet lay under
the guns of protection of the fort. He remained at anchor here several
days, determined to give battle at the first favorable opportunity. On
September 10th, at sunrise, the British fleet, consisting of one ship of
nineteen guns, one of seventeen, one of thirteen, one of ten, one of
three, and one of one — amounting to sixty-three and exceeding the Amer-
icans by ten guns, appeared ofif Put-in-Bay and distant about ten miles.
Commodore Perry immediately weighed anchor. Commodore Perry, on
board the Lawrence, then hoisted his Union Jack, having for a motto
the dying words of Captain Lawrence, "Don't Give Up the Ship."
Before he hoisted the ensign he turned to his crew and said : "My brave
lads, this flag contains the last words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist
it?" The answer came from all parts of the ship, "Ay! Ay! Sir!" The
act of raising was met with the hearty cheers of the men.
Perry formed his line of battle, and started for the enemy. The day
was a beautiful one, without a cloud on the horizon. The lightness of
the wind enabled the hostile squadrons to approach each other but slowly,
and for two hours the solemn interval of suspense and anxiety which
precedes a battle was prolonged. The American commander had never
heard the thunder of a hostile ship, but he was versed in the theory of
naval war. At fifteen minutes before twelve the enemy opened his fire
but it was not returned for ten minutes by the American fleet, which was
inferior in long-range guns. Then the battle began on both sides. The
British fire was found to be the most destructive. It was chiefly directed
against the flagship Lawrence. In a short time every brace and bowline
of the Lawrence was shot away, and she became unmanageable. In this
situation she sustained the conflict upwards of two hours until every gun
was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew were either killed
or wounded. Perry himself, assisted by his chaplain and the piu-ser, fired
the last shot. Fortunately, one might almost say, providentially, at half
past two the wind raised and enabled the captain of the Niagara to bring
her up in gallant style. Perry then entrusted the Lawrence to the com-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 137
mand of Lieutenant Yarnell, and proceeded toward the Niagara standing
erect in an open boat bearing his flag with the motto : "Don't Give Up
the Ship."
Perry expressed his fears to Captain ElHot that the day was lost,
because the light wind prevented the other vessel from approaching
nearer to the enemy. As the breeze again stiiYened, Captain Elliot volun-
teered to bring up the other vessels. He embarked in a small boat,
exposed to the gun-fire of the enemy, and succeeded in bringing up the
remotest vessels so that they could participate in the final encounter.
Protected by the stouter vessels, they poured in a destructive fire of grape
and canister, wreaking terrible destruction upon the enemy.
Commodore Perry now scented victory. He gave the signal to all the
boats for close action. The small vessels, vmder the command of Captain
Elliot, set all their sails. Finding that the Niagara had been only slightly
injured, the commander determined upon the bold and desperate expedi-
ent of breaking the enemy's lines. Accordingly he bore up and passed the
head of three of the enemy vessels, giving them a raking of fire from his
starboard guns. "Having gotten the whole squadron into action he luffed
and laid his ship alongside of the British commodore. The small vessels
having now got up within good grape and canister distance on the other
quarter, enclosed the enemy between them and the Niagara, and in this
position kept up a most destructive fire on both quarters of the British
until every ship struck her colors."
"Cease firing," came the order from Perry as he saw the white flag.
"Call away a boat, and put me on board the Lawrence. I will receive the
surrender there."
The entire engagement lasted about three hours, and never was a
victory more decisive and complete. It was found that more prisoners
had been taken than there were men on board the American squadron
at the close of the action. The greatest loss in killed and wounded was
on board the Lawrence. Of her crew, twenty-two had been killed and
sixty wounded. At the time her flag was struck, only a score of men
remained on deck fit for duty. The killed on board all the other vessels
numbered only five and there were thirty-six wounded. The British loss
must have been much more considerable. The commander himself was
dangerously wounded.
Immediately after the action, the slain of the crews of both squadrons
were committed to the waters of Lake Erie. On the following day the
funeral obsequies of the American and British officers, who had fallen
during the engagement, took place at on opening on the margin of the
bay in an appropriate and afifecting manner. The crews of both fleets
united in the ceremony. At the time of the engagement General Harrison
was at his headquarters at Fort Seneca. A couple of days later, just as
he was about to set out for Lower Sandusky, filled with anxiety for the
fleet because he had received reports of a terrific cannonading on the
10th, the short and laconic message of Commodore Perry reached him.
All of Northwestern Ohio was aroused by this remarkably victory and
the residents began to have visions of the peace and quiet which did
actually follow.
138 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
As time passes the victory of Commodore Perry assumes greater and
greater proportions in the eyes of the students of history. This is not
because of the numbers of vessels or men engaged. In the light of mod-
ern warfare, judged by the standard of the superdreadnaught, and its
monster guns, it was a small affair. Nine small sailing vessels on the
one side and six on the other, with probably a thousand men all told, the
greater part of whom were not even seamen — such were the forces that
met at Put-in-Bay. One gun from a modern man-of-war would throw
more metal in one charge than an entire broadside from the 117 guns of
the opposite fleets. It is by its results that the action must be judged.
It cleared the waters of Lake Erie of hostile vessels and made possible
the invasion of Canada that followed. Likewise because of the heroism
displayed as a struggle between man and man, it deserves to be
remembered.
After the victory of Put-in-Bay General Harrison lost no time in pre-
paring to embark his army for Canada. On September 20th his army
commenced to embark at the mouth of the Portage River, at Port Clinton.
Perry's vessels were used as transports, including the captured British
vessels. A quarter of a thousand Wyandots, Shawnees, and Senecas
sailed with him as regularly enlisted troops. They had pledged them-
selves to follow the methods of civilized warfare. He promised to deliver
General Proctor to them if they would put petticoats on him, which
greatly pleased the Indians. The little fleet sailed on the 27th and seven
hours later had touched Canadian soM. The Battle of the Thames fol-
lowed on October 5th, in which Tecumseh was killed. General Proctor
escaped by a swift flight. The casualties were not large on either side,
but several hundred British prisoners were left in Harrison's hands.
A few days later Detroit was occupied by the American troops.
Harrison's campaign freed Northwestern Ohio from danger. Actual
peace did not come at once, for the peace treaty was not signed until
December, 1814. But the death of Tecumseh, their fiery leader, broke the
spirit of the hostile red men. With Detroit, Mackinac and Fort Wayne
in American hands, there were no British to disturb the quiet of this
region. The principal troubles along the Maumee were economic.
"I think I would hang half of the quartermasters and all the con-
tractors," wrote one general. Eighty soldiers were reported sick at Fort
Meigs in January, 1814. Two months later the supplies there were
reported as follows: "9,461 rations of meat; 29,390 of flour; 25,688 of
whisky; 1,271 quarts of salt; l,018j<i pounds of soap; 948 pounds
candles; and 1,584 pounds tallow and grease."
The discharge of volunteers and drafted militiamen quickly followed
the official news of peace with Great Britain. The forts in this region
were rapidly dismantled and abandoned. Fort Winchester (Defiance)
was abandoned in the spring of 1815, the equipment being taken down
the Maumee to Detroit. The garrison at Fort Meigs had already been
reduced to forty men and four small cannon. In May the garrison and
all the military stores were loaded on a schooner and taken to Detroit.
Fort Wayne was thus left as the only military post in the Maumee region.
CHAPTER XI
OHIO-MICHIGAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE
Northwestern Ohio was the theater of one of the most unique clashes
between governmental jurisdictions that the United States has wit-
nessed. As we look backward and review the events that transpired,
many are inclined to smile at the controversy and dismiss the incident.
Although it possessed both serious and comic phases, the tragic far out-
weighed the lighter features. On several occasions the shedding of blood
was narrowly averted. It only needed the throwing of the firebrand,
for the tinder had already been prepared. Passions were aroused and a
hot-headed leader might have started a bloody affray in which American
would have been fighting American in a civil war.
"A disputed jurisdiction," wrote Lewis Cass to Edward Tiffin, in
1817, "is one of the greatest evils that can happen to a country. There
is nothing that will so arouse the combativeness of an individual as the
behef that someone is infringing on the boundaries of his individual and
exclusive domain. This has been proved many times by the bloody
scrimmages which have taken place between adjoining owners over the
location of a seemingly unimportant line fence. In the prolonged litiga-
tion that has followed in the courts, even the victor has been the loser.
The same bellicose spirit was aroused in the State of Ohio and the terri-
tory of Michigan by an imbroglio over the sovereignty of a strip of
ground extending from the Maumee River to the western boundary of
Ohio. This disputed land was eight miles in width at Toledo, and five
miles broad at the western boundary. The problem was recognized as
early as 1802, when the first constitution of Ohio was formed. Congress
should have settled the question at that time, as it was well within
the power of that body, but like many others it was neglected. As Ohio
and Michigan increased in wealth and political importance, however, the
factious boundary question began to protrude itself upon the horizon in
a threatening manner. Toledo was the chief cause and Lucas County
was the chief result of this dissension.
The Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute was not a struggle between two
bellicose governors. Mason of Michigan and Lucas of Ohio. The real
disputants were not the Territory of Michigan and the State of Ohio.
They were the sovereign State of Ohio and the Government of the
United States. Governor Lucas said : "As I have before stated to you,
we have no controversy with the Territory of Michigan. A territory can
have no sovereign rights, and no arrangement that could be made with
territorial authorities on the subject of boundary would be obligatory."
It was the most serious boundary question that has occurred in the
Northwest. The question arose through a previous grant in which one
of the lines of demarkation began at "a line drawn East and West,
through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan." The old maps were
139
Map Made in 1834, Showing "Harris Line"
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 141
not very accurate, for the latitude and longitude had not been well estab-
lished and the uncertainty was caused by inaccurate knowledge as to
where the exact southern boundary of Lake iMichigan lay. In the act
of Congress granting to Ohio the right to form a constitution, the north-
ern boundary was described as follows : "On the north by an east and
west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake jMichigan, run-
ning east after intersecting the due north line from the mouth of the
Great Miami, until it shall intersect Lake Erie, or the territorial line, and
thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line."
When Michigan was organized as a territory from the northern part of
Indiana territory, in 1805, the description of its southern boundary was
very similar. "An East and West line, drawn through the Southerly
extreme of Lake Michigan, running East until it shall intersect Lake
Erie, or the Territorial line ; provided, That if the Southerly bend or
extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far South, that a line drawn
due East from it would not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect
Lake Erie East of the mouth of the Aliami of the Lake, then, and in
that case, with the assent of Congress, the Northern boundary of this
State shall be established by. and extending to, a direct line running
from the Southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most Northerly
Cape of Miami Bay. after intersecting the due North line from the
mouth of the Great Miami River."
The Ohio Constitution was approved by Congress as prepared by the
convention. The great issue of a foreign war, threatening a common
danger, united all the people of the frontier in the support of the gen-
eral interests. The number of persons whose interests were involved
were also extremely few. The attention of Congress was attracted, how-
ever, for two surveys were made under congressional authority. It was
not many years before official notice is recorded of the disputed claims
which gave all of the site of the present City of Toledo, with its won-
derful harbor, to jMichigan. This is shown by the following letter to
Governor Meigs :
Miami Rapids, January 23, 1812.
Sir: — It appears to be the general wish of the people in this settle-
ment (which consists of about fifty families), to have the laws of the
State of Ohio extended over them, as we consider ourselves clearly within
the limits of said State. The few who object, are those who hold offices
under the Governor of Alichigan, and are determined to enforce their
laws. This is considered by a great majority of the inhabitants as usurp-
ation of power which they are under no obligation to adhere to. If no
adjustment should take place, I fear the contention will ere long become
serious. Sir, will you have the goodness to inform the people here,
whether there has been any understanding between the State of Ohio
and the- Governor of Michigan on the subject of jurisdiction, together
with your advice?
I am sir, with high esteem, Your obedient servant,
Amos Spafiford, Collector' of Fort Miami.
To His Excellency, Return Jonathan IMeigs, Esq.
N. B. The foregoing letter is written at the request of the inhabitants.
142 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The question undoubtedly became dormant for a while because of the
war which followed between England and the United States, in which
many important actions and events occurred in this vicinity. For sev-
eral years Ohio's representatives in Congress endeavored to induce that
body to settle the boundary question, but it could not be brought to con-
sider a question so unimportant as the boundary of so distant a state.
While the Michigan authorities were also worrying themselves about this
question Indiana was formed with a boundary ten miles north of this
Lake Michigan-Erie line, thus depriving her of a thousand square miles
of ter.ritory. But it was a sparsely settled region and little known to
the territorial inhabitants. The Ohio territory was different. It was
near the center of the territory's population. One of these which laid off
the northern boundary of the state practically as it is today, was known
as the Harrison Line ; the other, which more nearly conformed to the
claims of Michigan, was called the Fulton Line. William Harris made
his survey in 1817, under appointment of Governor Cass of Michigan.
As he had been provided with a copy of the. Ohio Constitution, and had
followed its provision, his report caused much ill feeling in that territory.
In 1819 President Monroe commissioned John Fulton to make the sur-
vey, and his line, following the Ordinance of 1787, was just as displeasing
to Ohio. In 1821 the matter became somewhat acute when the assessor
of Waynesfield Township (now Maumee), Wood County, undertook
to list for taxation the property in the disputed region. It began to be
recognized that the line designated by Congress was an impossible one,
for it would have placed parts of the lake counties east of Cleveland in
Michigan. This made the issue more than a local one. In December,
1823, Dr. Horatio Conant wrote from Fort Meigs to Senator Ethan A.
Brown : "The jurisdiction of the Territory of Michigan is extended to
the territory between the two lines with the decided approbation of the
inhabitants of the disputed ground, which makes it impossible for the
State officers of Ohio to interfere with the exciting disturbance. We are
anxious to have some measure adopted to ascertain the limits of our
jurisdiction. * * * Almost any line that could be run would be pre-
ferred to the present, cutting off, as it does, the bay and mouth of the
river."
The mooted problem was brought to a head by the prospect of secur-
ing the location of the terminus of the Miami and Erie Canal. Toledo
naturally offered the most desirable terminus for the canal, but the
thought of Ohio constructing so expensive an undertaking, and turning
its traffic into a Michigan port, was not to be entertained. Maumee City
and Perrysburg were not worried. They both declared that the proper
finality was there. But year-old Toledo was wide awake. The advantage
of a canal in those days was of inestimable advantage in building up a
town. This in a measure explains the excessive zeal manifested by these
early Toledoans. Unless under the jurisdiction of Ohio, they felt there
was' no canal for them. A public meeting was held in Toledo in 1834,
and the majority of those present expressed themselves in favor of the
jurisdiction of Ohio. A petition to that effect was signed ^nd forwarded
to the executive of the state.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 143
Sentiment was not unanimous, however, for the following letter was
sent to Governor Mason:
Monroe, March 12, 1835.
To Hon. Stevens T. Mason,
Acting Governor of Michigan Territory:
We, the citizens of the Township of Port Lawrence, County of Mon-
roe, Territory of Michigan, conceive ourselves in duty bound to apply for
a special act of the place appointed for holding our Township meetings.
By a vote of the last Town meeting (1834) our meeting of this year
must be held at Toledo, on the Maumee River. We apprehend trouble,
and perhaps a riot may be the consequence of thus holding the meeting
in the heart of the very hot-bed of dissatisfaction.
We therefore pray your Excellency and ihe Legislative Council to
aid us in our endeavors to keep the peace and sustain our claims to the
soil as part of the Territory of Michigan, by an act removing the place
for the Town meeting from Toledo to the Schoolhouse on Ten-Mile
Creek Prairie, to be held on the day of April, in preference to the
usual day and place appointed.
J. V. D. Sutphen.
• Coleman I. Keeler,
Cyrus Fisher,
Samuel Hemmenway.
Delegates from Port Lawrence to the County Convention at Monroe.
Because of the urgent demands from the citizens of Toledo, Governor
Lucas made the boundary question the subject of a special message to
the Legislature. That body passed an act extending the northern bound-
aries of the counties of Wood. Henry and Williams to the Harris Line.
That part west of the IMaumee River was created into Sylvania Town-
ship and that part east into Port Lawrence Township. The authorities
of Michigan had previously exercised jurisdiction over the territory lying
between the two lines. Under this act three commissioners were desig-
nated to resurvey and mark the Harris Line. The men appointed by
the Governor were Uri Seely of Geauga, Jonathan Taylor of Licking
and John Patterson of Adams counties. The 1st of April (1835) was
named as the time of commencement.
Urgent appeals were sent to the authorities at Washington by the
territorial officials of Michigan that protection be afforded from Ohio
which "has swollen to the dimensions of a giant." The Legislative
Council of Michigan rashly passed an act called "The Pains and Penal-
ties Act," which provided severe penalties for anyone within the limits
of the territory who should acknowledge any other sovereignty. A chal-
lenge followed when an election was ordered in the disputed strip by
the Ohio authorities. Benjamin F. Stickney, Piatt Card and John T.
Baldwin acted as judges of this election, which caused excitement to run
very high. Michigan at once retaliated by appointing officials who were
instructed to enforce "The Pains and Penalties Act." That the acts of
the Legislature of Ohio and of Governor Lucas thoroughly aroused the
144 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Governor of Michigan is clearly indicated by the following letter to his
chief military officer :
Executive Office, Detroit, March 9, 1835.
Sir: — You will herewith receive the copy of a letter just received
from Columbus. You now perceive that a collision between Ohio and
Michigan is inevitable, and will therefore be prepared to meet the crisis.
The Governor of Ohio has issued a proclamation, but I have neither
received it nor have I been able to learn its tendency. You will use
every exertion to obtain the earliest information of the military move-
ments of our adversary, as I shall assume the responsibility of sending
you such arms, etc., as may be necessary for your successful operation,
without waiting for an order from the Secretary of War, so soon as
Ohio is properly in the field. Till then I am compelled to await the
direction of the War Department.
Very respectfully your obedient servant,
Stevens T. Mason.
Gen. Jos. W. Brown.
Although not having a direct bearing upon this controversy, it may
be said that the inhabitants of Michigan were belligerent in more ways
than one. Having been denied permission to form a state in January,
they were at that very time engaged in an eiTort to form an organization
in accordance with the Ordinance of 1787. A convention was called
to "form for themselves a constitution and State government," whether
Congress consented or not. Thus it was that the territory being refused
permission to become a state was about to establish a state government
for itself. By these acts Michigan did not gain friends in Washington.
The Michiganders even even went so far as to elect their state officials
in the autumn of 1835.
Governor Lucas came to Toledo, accompanied by his staff and his
boundary commissioners. Gen. John Bell of Lower Sandusky, who was
in command of the seventeenth division of the Ohio militia, had under
him a voluntary force of about six hundred men fully armed and
equipped. This force went in camp at old Fort Miami, and there awaited
the orders of the Governor. In order to enlist recruits General Bell
sent a drummer, named Odle, to Perrysburg, believing that the best way
to stir up the requisite enthusiasm. Accompanied by a man carrying a
flag, Odle marched up and down the streets of that village beating his
drum with the greatest vigor. The courthouse was on his route, and
court was in session. The judge ordered the sheriff to stop the noise.
The drummer said he was under orders to "drum for recruits for the
war," and that he should not stop until assured that the court had
more authority than had his office. Even while replying he did not stop
his beating. Odle was arrested and Captain Scott summoned. Scott
replied that Governor Lucas was at Spafiford's Exchange Hotel, Perrys-
burg, and had sanctioned the course. Judge Higgins ordered the captain
and drummer to jail. Captain Scott said that when the state was invaded
the military authority was paramount, and that he would declare martial
law if the imprisonment was made and arrest the court. The outcome
was that the judge simply continued the case at hand and Odle resumed
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 145
his drumming more vigorously than ever. As a result, the number of
recruits was greatly increased.
General Brown, in command of the Michigan forces, issued orders
to the militia of Michigan stating that if there is an officer "who hesi-
tates to stake life, fortune and honor in the struggle now before us, he
is required promptly to tender his resignation. * * * We are deter-
mined to repel with force whatever strength the State of Ohio may
attempt to bring into our Territory to sustain her usurpation." He had
under his command a body estimated from eight to twelve hundred men,
ready to resist any advance of the Ohio authorities to run the boundary
line or do anything upon the disputed territory. With him was Governor
Mason. The two executives eyed each other (at a safe distance) hke
pugilists preparing for battle. The "Pains and Penalties Act" of the
Legislative Council of Michigan provided a fine of $1,000 and five years'
imprisonment for any person other than United States or Michigan offi-
cials to exercise or attempt to exercise any official authority in the dis-
puted territory. Both parties were in a belligerent attitude and the
excitement was most intense.
Governor Lucas had fully made up his mind to order General Bell
to Toledo with his troops as soon as the necessary preparations had been
made and risk the consequences, whatever they might be. ' But before
his preparations were completed two commissioners from the President
of the United States, Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, and Colonel Howard
of Baltimore, arrived, and used their personal influence to stop all war-
like demonstration. A conference was held on April 7, 1835. The com-
missioners submitted the two following propositions for the assent of
both parties.
"1st. That the Harris Line should be run and remarked, pursuant
to the act of the last session of the Legislature of Ohio without inter-
ruption. 2nd. The civil elections under the laws of Ohio having taken
place throughout the disputed territory, that the people residing upon it
should be left to their own judgment, obeying the one jurisdiction or the
other, as they may prefer, without molestation from the authorities of
Ohio or Michigan, until the close of the next session of Congress." To
this armistice Governor Lucas assented, but Governor IMason refused to
acquiesce, insisting that he could not honorably compromise the rights
of his people.
"Believing that no obstruction would be placed in the way of making
the survey. Governor Lucas permitted his commissioners to proceed upon
their work and disbanded his military. Things did not run smoothly, as
is shown by report at Perrysburg, dated May 1, 1835, of which the fol-
lowing is a copy in part ; * * * "We met at Perrysburg on Wednes-
day, the 1st of April last, and after completing the necessary arrange-
ments, proceeded to the Northwestern corner of the State, and there
succeeded in finding the corner as designated in the field notes of Sur-
veyor Harris. * * * Thence your commissioners proceeded east-
wardly along said line, which they found with little difficulty, and
re-marked the same as directed by law in a plain and visible manner, the
distance of thirty-eight miles and a half, being more than half the length
146 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of the whole Hne. During our progress we had been constantly threat-
ened by the authorities of Michigan, and spies from the territory, for the
purpose of watching our movements and ascertaining our actual strength,
were almost daily among us. On Saturday evening, the 25th ult., after
having performed a laborious day's service, your commissioners, together
with their party, retired to the distance of about one mile south of the line,
in Henry County (now Fulton), within the State of Ohio, where we
thought to have rested quietly and peaceably enjoy the blessings of the
Sabbath — and especially not being engaged on the line, we thought our-
selves secure for the day. But contrary to our expectations, at about
twelve o'clock in the day, an armed force of about fifty or sixty men
hove in sight within musket shot of us, all mounted upon horses, well
armed with muskets and under the command of General Brown of Mich-
igan. Your commissioners observing the great superiority of force,
having but five armed men among us, who had been employed to keep
a lookout and as hunters of the party, thought it prudent to retire, and
so advised our men. Your commissioners with several of their party,
made good their retreat to this place. But, sir, we are under the painful
necessity of relating that nine of our men, who did not leave the ground
in time after being fired upon by the enemy, from thirty to fifty shots,
were taken prisoners and carried away into the interior of the country.
Those who were taken were as follows, to wit : — Colonels Hawkins,
Scott and Gould, Major Rice, Captain Biggerstafif and Messrs. Ellsworth,
Fletcher, Moale and Rickets. We are happy to learn that our party did
not fire a gun in turn and that no one was wounded, although a ball from
the enemy passed through the clothing of one of our men."
0«e of the men arrested, J. E. Fletcher, refused to acknowledge the
authority and jurisdiction of Michigan by giving bail. He wrote to
Governor Lucas as follows:
"Lenawee County Jail, Tecumseh, May 5, 1835.
"Sir : — I am at present incarcerated in jail — was committed yesterday.
* * * I dined with General Brown yesterday. Governor Mason was
there. He strongly urged me to give bail. * * * y[y reply has been
that the right to demand bail is the question at issue. * * * Governor
Mason expressed himself as being very anxious that the difficulties might
be settled without further hostilities. General Brown was silent upon the
subject. There is reason to believe that he does not wish to have this
case amicably settled, but that he secretly wishes a collision between the
State and Territory that he may have an opportunity to distinguish him-
self. * * * Yhe Sherifif expressed regret that the citizens of Ohio
were fired upon. General Brown replied 'it was the best thing that was
done ; that he did not hesitate to say he gave the order to fire.' * * *
I will add, that I shall remain as I am until further instructions, which
I doubt not will be forwarded in due time.
"I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
J. E. Fletcher."
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 147
Maj. Benj. F. Sticknev sent the following letter to the editor of the
Toledo Gazette, dated April 13, 1835:
* * * "On the morning of the 9th, then on my return home, I was
met by some gentlemen some 14 miles from Toledo, with the intelligence
that a band of ruffians of 30 or more, had at dead of night come to my
house from Monroe, and in a ferocious manner demolished the door
leading to the principal avenue of my house and seized a gentleman
(Mr. Naaman Goodsell), bore him off and treated his lady and daughter
(the only females in the house), with brutish violence, notwithstanding
I had exhorted all to exercise moderation. * * * When my daugh-
ter gave out the cry 'murder,' she was seized by the throat and shaken
with monstrous violence, and the prints of a man's hand in purple were
strongly marked, with many other contusions. Mrs. Goodsell exhibited
marks of violence also. This Michigan banditti proceeded likewise to
the sleeping quarters of another gentleman (Mr. George McKay), burst
in the door, seizing him in bed ; and as the first salutation, one of the
villians attempted to gouge out one of his eyes with a thumb. * * *
After two days of Court-mockery at Monroe, these gentlemen were
admitted to bail.
"On the 10th, it was reported than an armed force was assembling
under General Brown, to march to Toledo, and take as prisoners such
as accepted office under Ohio (about a dozen). On the 11th, they arrived
in force, about 200 strong, armed with muskets and bayonets. The officers
of Ohio having been lulled into security by assurances of the Commis-
sioners of the United States (jMessrs. Rush and Howard), were not pre-
pared for defense, and retired, giving them full space for the display of
their gasconading, which was exhibited in pulling down the flag of Ohio,
and dragging it through the streets at the tail of a horse, with other
similar acts.
"Cyrus Holloway of Sylvania Township, a very good man, was elected
Justice of the Peace, under the laws of Ohio, and with others was spotted
for vengeance. Apprehending that Michigan officers were after him, he
took to the woods, hiding for several days in a sugar-camp shanty. He
being a pious man, some of his partisan friends, fond of the marvelous,
reported that Providence had wrought a miracle in his behalf ; that little
robins daily went to his home, there got food and took it to him during
his seclusion in the forest. Many believed this, and accepted it as strong
proof of the justness of the claim of Ohio to the disputed territory.
The miraculous part of the story had a very slight foundation in the
fact, that Mr. Holloway's children, who daily carried food to their
father, had a pet robin, and usually took it with them on such visits ;
hence, the robin-story."
In addition to the outrages upon the surveying party, there were
numerous assaults upon individuals. Throughout the entire spring and
summer Toledo was the center of incessant excitement. Each incursion
of Michigan officials for the purpose of making new arrests was the occa-
sion for renewed excitement. Attempts were made by Wood County to
arrest Michigan partisans, but the proposed victims somehow would get
advance information and remain out of sight. Major Stickney went to
148 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Monroe on the Detroit steamer to pay some social calls. He was there
arrested and imprisoned for acting as a judge in an Ohio election. He
was considered an important prisoner. He wrote to Governor Lucas :
"Monroe Prison, May 6th, 1835.
"Here I am, peeping through the grates of a loathsome prison, for the
monstrous crime of having acted as the Judge of an election within the
State of Ohio. From what took place the other day at Port Miami, at
a conference between yourself and the Commissioners of the United
States wherein we had the honor of being present, we were led to believe
that a truce at least would be the result. In this we were again deceived.
I left my residence in Toledo in company with a lady and gentleman,
from the interior of Ohio, to visit my friend, A. E. Wing of Monroe, and
others, conceiving that respect for the ordinary visits of hospitality
would have been sufficient for my protection under such circumstances.
But vindictiveness is carried to such extremes, that all the better feelings
of men are buried in the common rubbish. The officer who first took
me, treated me in a very uncivil manner ; dragging me about as a criminal
through the streets of Monroe, notwithstanding there are a number of
exceptions to this virulent mass."
"7th, 7 o'clock A. M. — Have been here fourteen hours, and no refresh-
ment of any kind yet furnished. It appears probably that it is intended
to soften us by starvation. Those bands of ruffians of the United States,
hanging upon the northern border of Ohio, require chastisement. They
have become very troublesome * * * kidnapping and abducting
individuals who have become offensive to them. * * *
"I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
B. F. Stickney."
Mr. Goodsell wrote to Governor Lucas concerning his experiences
after being captured by the Michigan authorities. He says :
"My journey was rendered unpleasant by the insolence of some of the
party, and my life jeopardized by being obliged to ride upon a horse
without a bridle, which horse being urged from behind became frightened
and ran with me until I jumped from him. I arrived at Monroe, and
was detained there until next day, as they refused me any bail from day
to day. I was taken before the grand jury, then in session, and ques-
tioned concerning our meeting officers, etc., etc. During the second day
a large military force, or posse, was raised, armed and started for Toledo.
After they had gone nearly long enough to have reached Toledo, I was
admitted to bail, and returned — passed the force on the road — inquired
of the Sheriff whether that was to be considered an armed force or a
Sheriff's posse. He answered that he considered it an armed force at this
time, but it was so arranged that it might be either — as circumstances
should require ; that General Brown and aide were along, who would act
in case they assumed a military force. * * * When about half way
from this place to Monroe, on the morning of my abduction, our party
was joined by the one having Mr. McKay in custody, who had also been
abducted, or made prisoner as they termed it. About his person there
were marks of violence. He rode with his feet tied under his horse."
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 149
The Legislature of Ohio was convened in extra session by Governor
Lucas "to prevent the forcible abduction of citizens of Ohio." The mem-
bers were greatly aroused by the illegal arrests, and passed an act pro-
viding heavy penalties for any attempted forcible abduction of a citizen
of Ohio. The offense was made punishable by imprisonment in the
penitentiary for not less than three nor more than seven years. In spite
of all this, a posse of about two hundred and fifty armed men again vis-
ited Toledo, on July 18th, and made seven or eight arrests, chiefly for
individual grievances. This posse also committed several overt acts,
among which was damage to a newspaper office. The office of the Toledo
Gazette was visited by a posse bearing muskets. The door was demol-
ished and a "pi" made of the type already set for the next issue. "We
have barely enough type and materials enough saved from the outrages,
we are about to relate, to lay the particulars before the public." said the
Gazette in its next issue.
An act was also passed by the Ohio Legislature to create the new
County of Lucas out of the northern part of Wood County, including the
disputed territory, together with a portion of the northwestern corner
of Sandusky County. Of this county, Toledo was made the temporary
seat of justice. The Court of Common Pleas was directed to hold a ses-
sion there on the first Monday of the following September, at any con-
venient house in the village. Three hundred thousand dollars was appro-
priated out of the public treasury, and the governor was authorized to
borrow on the credit of the state $300,000 more to carry out the laws in
regard to northern boundary. Governor Lucas called upon the division
commander of this state to report as soon as possible the number of men
in each division, who would volunteer to sustain him in enforcing the
laws over the disputed territory. Fifteen of these divisions reported
over one hundred thousand men ready to volunteer. These proceedings
on the part of Ohio greatly exasperated the authorities of Michigan.
They dared the Ohio "million" to enter the disputed ground, and "wel-
comed them to hospitable graves." Prosecution of citizens within this
territory for holding offices under the laws of Ohio were prosecuted with
greater vigor than ever. For a time the ^Monroe officials were kept busy.
Most of the inhabitants of that village were employed in the sheriff's posse
making arrests in Toledo. The commencement of one suit would lay the
foundation for many others. There are few towns in the United States
in which the citizens have suffered as much for their allegiance to a state
as did those of'Toledo.
The highly inflammable condition of public sentiment in Michigan is
revealed in the following extract from The Detroit Free Press of August
26, 1835:
Ohio Controversy. — The Legislative Council yesterday had this
subject under consideration. They have made an appropriation of
$315,000 to meet any emergency which may arise, and we learn that every
arrangement will be made to afford a warm reception to any portion of
the "million" of Ohio, that may visit our borders. Michigan defends her
soil and her rights, and we wish our fellow citizens of Ohio to recollect
that "thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just."
150 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
War ! War ! ! — Orders have been issued for volunteers to rendez-
vous at Mulholland's in the County of Monroe, on the 1st of September
next, for the purpose of resisting the mihtary encroachments of Ohio,
The Territory, it is expected, will be on the alert, and we understand
services will be accepted from all quarters.
The latter movement evidently had reference to preventing the hold-
ing of the court at Toledo, September 7th.
On June 8th Governor Lucas called an extra session of the Legisla-
ture and delivered a message of which the following is a part:
"It appears to me the honor and faith of the State is pledged, in the
most solemn manner, to protect these people in their rights, and to defend
them against all outrages. They claim to be citizens of Ohio. The
Legislature by a solemn act has declared them to be such, and has
required them to obey the laws of Ohio, which, as good citizens, they have
done, and for which they have been persecuted, prosecuted, assaulted,
arrested, abducted and imprisoned. Some of them have been driven from
their homes in dread and terror, while others are menaced by the authori-
ties of Michigan. These things have been all done within the constitu-
tional boundaries of the State of Ohio, where our laws have been directed
to be enforced. Are we not under as great an obligation to command
respect and obedience to our laws adjoining our northern boundary as
in any other part of the State? Are not the inhabitants of Port Law-
rence, on the Maumee Bay, as much entitled to our protection as the citi-
zens of Cincinnati, on the Ohio River? I feel convinced they are equally
as much. Our commissioner appointed in obedience to the act of the 23d
of February, while in discharge of the duty assigned them, were assaulted
while resting on the Sabbath day, by an armed force from Michigan.
Some of the hands were fired on, others arrested, and one, Colonel
Fletcher, is now incarcerated in Tecumseh, and for what? Is it for
crime? No; but for faithfully discharging his duty, as a good citizen
of Ohio, in obedience of our laws. * * * The question necessarily
arises, what shall be done? Shall we abandon our just claim, relinquish
our indisputable rights and proclaim to the world that the acts and reso-
lutions of the last session of the General Assembly were mere empty
things? Or rather, shall we not prepare to carry their provisions into
effect ? The latter, I doubt not, will be your resolution ; and I trust that
by your acts, you will manifest to the world that Ohio knows her con-
stitutional rights ; that she has independence enough to assert them ; and
that she can neither be seduced by flattery, baffled by diplomatic manage-
ment, nor driven by menaces from the support of those rights."
The loyal citizens of Toledo were "getting discouraged having no
arms, nor succor sent them, which they construed to neglect. It was dif-
ficult to comfort them." The confusion is revealed in an old copy of
The Toledo Gazette, published in "Toledo, Wood County, Ohio," in
which there is an administrator's notice of "the estate of John Babcock,
late of Toledo, in the County of Monroe and the Territory of Michigan,"
as well as other official notices of the same purport.
The arrests by Michigan authorities continued. The following affi-
davit by a Michigan officer who had a warrant for the arrest of Two
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 151
Sticknev, a son of B. F. Stickney, and the rearrest of Mr. McKay aflfords
most interesting reading and sheds Hght upon the intensity of public
f eeHng :
Territory of Michigan, ss.
Monroe County,
Personally came before Albert Pennett, a Justice of the Peace within
and for the county aforesaid. Lyman Kurd, who, being duly sworn, said
that on the 15th day of July, 1835. this deponent who is a constable within
the county aforesaid, went to Toledo in said county, for the purpose of
executing a warrant against Geo. McKay in behalf of the United States
This deponent was accompanied by Joseph Wood, deputy sheriff of
said county. Said Wood had in his hands a warrant against Two Stick-
nev. This deponent and said Wood went into the tavern of J. B^ Uavis.
in 'the village of Toledo, where they found said Stickney and McKay
This deponent informed McKay that he had a warrant for him, and
there attempted to arrest McKay. The latter then sprang and caught a
chair, and told this deponent that unless he desisted, he would split him
down. This deponent saw McKay have a dirk in his hand. At the time
this deponent was attempting to arrest McKay, Mr. Wood attempted to
arrest Stickney. Wood laid his hand on Stickney's shoulder and took
him by his collar, and after Wood and Stickney had scuffled for a short
time, this deponent saw Stickney draw a dirk out of the left __side of
Wood, and exclaim. "There, damn you, you have got it now. ims
deponent then saw Wood let go from Stickney, and put his hand upon his
side, apparently in distress, and went to the door. This deponent asked
Wood if he was stabbed. Wood said, very faintly, that he was. This
deponent then went with Wood to Ira Smith's tavern A physician
thought it doubtful whether Wood could recover. This deponent thmks
there were from six to eight persons present at the time this deponent and
Wood were attempting to arrest McKay and Stickney. None of them
interfered At the time Wood informed Stickney that he had a precept
against him, Stickney asked Wood whether his precept was issued under
the authority of Ohio or Michigan. When Wood showed him the war-
rant, Stickney said he should not be taken ; but if it was under Ohio, he
'^° Thirdeponent thinks that at the time Wood was stabbed it was
between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, and this deponent
remained there about three hours. Before this deponent left the inhabi-
tants of Toledo, to the number of forty or fifty, collected at Davis
tavern. This deponent was advised, for his own safety to leave the
place and also by the advice of Wood, he returned to Monroe, without
having executed his precept. And further deponent saith not.
Lyman Hurd.
Subscribed and sworn to before me, this sixteenth day of July, one
thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^ p
152 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The proceedings of this case were reported by Governor Mason to
President Jackson, who reahzed that it was necessary to take some action
in order to prevent serious trouble. Governor Lucas himself conferred
with the President on the subject of the boundary difficulties. The
result of this mission was the urgent plea of the President for the mutual
suspension of all action by both parties, until the matter could finally
be settled by Congress, and that no prosecutions be commenced for any
violations of the acts.
As court had been ordered held in Toledo, as county seat of the new
County of Lucas, the Michigan authorities were determined to prevent
it. For this purpose the Detroit militia arrived in Monroe on the eve-
ning of September 5th. Together with volunteers these forces rendez-
voused near Toledo, and marched into that city on the 6th. Their num-
bers were variously estimated at from eight to twelve hundred, and
they were led in person by Governor Mason and General Brown. The
associate judges had assembled at the village of Maumee, with Colonel
Van Fleet and one hundred soldiers sent by Governor Lucas for their
protection ; but wise peace counsels prevailed, and Ohio won the victory
without shedding a drop of valiant Michigan blood. Strategy was
adopted instead. As September 7th was the day set for holding the
court, it was decided that the day began at midnight, and as no hour
was specified, one hour was as good as another.
At 1 o'clock in the night the officers accompanied by the colonel and
twenty soldiers, each carrying two cavalry pistols, started on horseback
down the Maumee. They arrived about three and went quietly to a
schoolhouse. About 3 o'clock the judges opened the court. The three
associated judges were Jonathan H. Jerome, Baxter and William Wilson.
They appointed a clerk and three commissioners for the new County
of Lucas. They transacted a little other necessary business and "no
further business appearing before said court," it adjourned in due form.
The clerk's minutes, hastily written on loose sheets of paper, were
deposited in his hat according to the custom of men in those days. All
present then quickly started through the woods up the Maumee River
to the town of the same name. In their haste the clerk's hat was knocked
from his head as a result of coming in contact with the limb of a tree.
Not a little apprehension was experienced until the scattered papers,
containing the invaluable minutes of the court, were found. The entire
session had been held between two days. All arrived safely at Maumee
City, clearly outside the disputed territory, but yet within Lucas County,
where Michigan civil officers or troops dare not pursue. Here the first
victory was quietly enjoyed, and plans matured for complete discomfiture
of the enemy. Colonel Van Fleet signalized their success by firing two
salutes.
This is the account that appeared in the Michigan Sentinel, pub-
lished at Monroe, under date of September 12, 1835:
"Wolverines of Michigan! — In anticipation of the proposed organi-
zation of the Court of Ohio at Toledo, and the approach of Lucas's
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 153
'Million" Acting Governor Mason made a large requisition on the brave
Wolverines of Alichigan; and on Saturday last (September 5th) they
approached our Town under arms by hundreds, from the Counties of
Monroe, Wayne, Washtenaw, Lenawee, Oakland, Macomb and St.
Joseph. The whole body entered the disputed territory on Monday,
accompanied by Governor Stevens, Generals Brown and Haskall, and
Colonels Davis, Wing and others, to the number of 1,200 to 1,500 and
encamped on the plains of Toledo. Governor Lucas did not make his
appearance. The Court is said to have been held at the dead of night,
by learned Judges dressed in disguise ; and the insurgents of Toledo
precipitately fled from the scene of action."
The Michigan authorities continued to make trouble, but the success
of the above strategy practically closed the contest. An order came
from Washington removing Governor Mason from the office of chief
executive of the territory of Michigan because of his excessive zeal for
its rights. His secretary, John S. Horner, immediately became acting
governor. This had little effect upon the people of Michigan. Mason
had been elected governor under the election held without authority
and he still proceeded to administer the affairs of state until the mortified
Horner betook himself into the wilds beyond Lake Michigan. Senators
had been elected and immediately went to Washington and demanded
admission to the Senate. But the representatives of Indiana and Illinois
worked against Michigan, for their own boundary lines were affected.
While the advocates of Michigan called it tyranny to keep 80,000 people
shackled by a territorial government its opponents prophesied the event-
ual destruction of the federal government when its people were allowed
to make states for themselves. But behind all was the disputed boundary
question. On June 15th, 1836, Michigan was admitted into the Union
with her southern boundary next to Ohio limited to the Harris line. The
disputed territory was given to Ohio. As compensation for her loss
Michigan was awarded the northern peninsula, with its rich beds of
mineral ore, which had proved to be a most valuable possession. The new
state lost 400 miles of territory but 9,000 were added to it. Nevertheless
the State Legislature when it met would not agree to the conditions.
The bill of admission was called a "Bill of Abomination" for Michigan
was "mutilated, humbled and degraded" and it was. not desirable to
enter a union with "Gamblers and Pickpockets." A convention was
called to which delegates were elected and consented to the conditions
imposed. It was not until January, 1837, that Michigan became in fact
a state.
Thus it was that the angry strife which for a time threatened a san-
guinary war, was happily settled, and fraternal relations have ever since
existed between the authorities of Ohio and Michigan. The Ohio Legis-
lature in 1846 passed an act appropriating $300 to compensate Major
Stickney for damage to property and for the time he passed in prison
at Monroe. Michigan afterwards bestowed $50 upon Lewis E. Bailey for
the loss of a horse while in the service of the territorial militia. The
154 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
people of both states immediately took the matter good naturedly, and
treated the whole affair as a joke. Songs were sung, of which a couple
of verses of the Michigan "War Song" are as follows :
Old Lucas gave his order all for to hold a Court,
And Stevens Thomas Mason, he thought he'd have some sport.
He called upon the Wolverines, and asked them for to go
To meet this rebel Lucas, his Court to overthrow.
Our independent companies were ordered for the march,
Our officers were ready, all stiffened up with starch;
On nimble-footed coursers our officers did ride,
With each a pair of pistols and sword hung by his side.
CHAPTER XII
THE PASSING OF THE RED MAN
Prior to the War of 1812, there were comparatively few x\mericans
in Northwest Ohio and not a great number of French or British. On
the right bank of the Maumee, on a site now within the City of Toledo,
there was a French settlement consisting of a number of families. There
were probably three score of white families living at or near the foot
of the rapids at Maumee. Of these Amos Spafiford was the most prom-
inent, since he was collector of customs at that port. Some of these
were also French, and Peter Manor, or Manard, did valiant service for
the American cause. There were a number of white traders residing at
Defiance, and other points along the Maumee and Auglaize. The entire
number, however, was very inconsiderable. The red man as yet felt
no crowding in the vast domain over which he hunted. For the thirty
years succeeding the second war with Great Britain the principal history
of this region relates to the various treaties with the Indian tribes by
which the sovereignty of the rich Maumee Valley was transferred from
the red man to his white successor.
The total number of Indians residing in Ohio at the time of the incom-
ing of their successors was not great, as we reckon numbers today. At
the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy, it was estimated that 15,000 Indians
lived in Ohio, who were capable of putting 3,000 warriors on the war-
path. More than one-half of these doubtless resided in Northwestern
Ohio, for none made their homes along the Ohio River. This probably
conflicts with the prevalent notion that the forests literally swarmed with
the savages. There were a few Indian villages, many isolated groups
of lodges in the forests, which were the homes of hunters, and narrow
trails winding among the trees and bushes. So thin and scattered was
this native population that, even in those parts where they were most
numerous, one might journey for days together through the twilight
forests without encountering a single savage form. Escaped captives
have traveled from the Maumee River to Wheeling or Pittsburg in day-
time without casting eyes upon a single human being.
There were many Indian tribes resident in Northwestern Ohio. In
fact, tribal relations were constantly changing among the aborigines.
Tribe was giving place to tribe, language yielding to language all over
the country. Immutable as were the red men in respect to social and
individual development, the tribal relations and local haunts were as
changeable as the winds. The Hurons, or Wyandots, were scattered
during the French occupation of Canada through the animosity of the
Iroquois. The Fries along the southern shores of Lake Erie had been
exterminated by the same implacable foes. Their blood was constantly
155
156
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
being diluted by the adoption of prisoners, whether white or red. In
fact it was the pohcy of many tribes to replenish their losses in war by
adopting the young braves captured from the enemy. The tribes most
intimately associated with the Maumee region are the Wyandots, Shaw-
nees, Miamis, Ottawas, Senecas and Delawares.
At the time of the settlement of Northwestern Ohio, the Wyandots
were admitted to be the leading nation among the Indian tribes of the
Northwes . This was not because of numbers, but for the reason that
they were more intelligent and more civilized in their manner of life.
To them was entrusted the Grand Calumet, which united the Indians in
that territory into a confederacy for mutual protection. They were
authorized to assemble the tribes in council, and to kindle the council
fires. The signature of Tarhe, the Crane, is the first signature under that
of General Wayne in the Treaty of Greenville. The name Wyandot
is the Anglicized form for Owendots, or Yendats. They were divided
Good-bye to the Old Hunting Grounds
into tribes or totemic clans, and their head chief was taken from the
Deer Tribe until the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This tribe was so deci-
mated at that battle that the chiefs thereafter were selected from the
Porcupine Tribe. The descent always followed in the female line. The
principal home of the Wyandots was along the Sanduskv River, but
many dwelt along the Blanchard and their hunting ground covered the
entire Maumee region. In fact, they claimed it all and only permitted
the other tribes to reside here through sufferance.
The Wyandots were always a humane and hospitable nation. This
is clearly manifested in permitting their former enemies to settle on their
lands, when driven back before the advancing white population. They
kindly received the homeless or exiled Senecas, Cayugas, Mohegans,
Mohawks, Delawares, and Shawnees, and spread a deer skin for them
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 157
to sit down upon. They allotted a certain portion of their country, the
boundary of which was designated by certain rivers, or points on certain
lakes, to these outcasts, which was freely given for their use, without
money and without price. This fact was clearly developed when the
different tribes came to sell their lands to the Government, when the
Wyandots pointed out these bounds. Although never behind other
tribes in their wars against the whites, they were far mo^e merciful
toward their prisoners. They not only saved the lives of mo?} prisoners
taken by them, but they likewise purchased many captives from other
tribes. Thus they became allied with some of the best families in this
and other states. The Browns, an old Virginia family, the Zanes, another
well-known family, the Walkers of Tennessee, the Armstrongs and
Magees of Pittsburg, were all represented in the tribe.
The Wyandots was the last Indian tribe to be removed from Ohio.
It therefore remained longest on the borders of the incoming white popu-
lation. Many of this once noble tribe therefore sank into degrading vice,
becoming the worst as well as most ignoble and worthless of their race.
This is not very much to the credit of the Caucasians, who should have
protected the weak aborigine and endeavored to show him a better life,
instead of trying to exploit him and enrich himself at the expense of
his weaknesses. The tribe numbered about twenty-two hundred at the
time of the Greenville treaty, including the men, women, and children.
From that time until their removal, almost a half a century later, they
lost but few men in battle. It is a fact, nevertheless, that during these
fifty years through drunkenness, with its accompanying bloody brawls,
and other vices the tribe was reduced to fewer than half the original
members.
The Wyandots were great hunters and wandered all over extreme
Northwestern Ohio in their winter hunting expeditions. Bear hunting
was the favorite sport. During the winter the bears were generally
hibernating, but one would occasionally be discovered in a hollow tree.
When they found such a tree they would examine the bark to see if
one had ascended. Their keen eyes would soon detect the scratches
of his claws upon the bark. It might be thirty or forty feet up to the
entrance to his winter dormitory. A sapling was quickly felled against
the tree and an agile hunter would ascend. He would then cut a branch
and scrape the tree on the opposite side of the hole, crying like a young
bear. If a bear was inside, he would either make a noise or come out.
If inside and he failed to appear, a piece of rotten wood would be lighted
and dropped inside. This would fire the tree. It would not be long
until Mr. or Mrs. Bear appeared in great wrath, sneezing and wheezing,
and blinded by the smoke. A bullet or arrow would quickly soothe his
troubles.
They were also experts at tr^ping, and especially at ensnaring the
raccoon. When other game was difficult to obtain they subsisted largely
on these little furry animals. "One man will have, perhaps, 300 rac-
coon traps, scattered over a country ten miles in extent. These traps are
'dead falls,' made of saplings, and set over a log which lies across some
branch or creek, or that is by the edge of some pond or marshy place.
158
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
In the months of February and March the raccoons travel much, and
frequent the ponds for the purpose of catching frogs. The hunter gen-
erally gets round all his traps twice a week, and hunts from one to the
other. I have known a hunter to take from his traps thirty raccoons in
two days, and sometimes they take more. From three to six hundred is
counted a good hunt for one spring, besides the deer, turkeys, and
bears."
The Wyandots understood the art of making sugar from the sap
of the maples, and devoted themselves to this industry for several weeks
after the sap began to run. They fashioned bark troughs, which held
a couple of gallons, for the trees that they tapped, and larger troughs
to hold the collections. These were shaped like canoes. They cut a
long perpendicular groove, or notch in the tree, and at the bottom struck
in a tomahawk. This made a hole into which they drove a long chip.
Indians and Pioneers
down which the sap flowed into the bark vessel. As an instance of
life in a Wyandot camp. Rev. James Finley says : "The morning was
cold, and our course lay through a deep forest. We rode hard, hoping
to make the camps before night, but such were the obstructions we
met with, from ice and swamps, that it was late when we arrived.
Weary with a travel of twenty-five miles or more through the woods,
without a path or a blazed tree to guide us — and, withal, the day was
cloudy — we were glad to find a camp to rest in. We were joyfully
received by our friends, and the women and children came running to
welcome us to their society and fires. It was not long after we were
seated by the fire, till I heard the well-known voice of Between-the-
Logs. I went out of the camp, and helped down with two fine deer.
Soon we had placed before us a kettle filled with fat raccoons, boiled
whole, after the Indian style, and a pan of good sugar molasses. These
we asked our heavenly Father to bless, and then each carved for him-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 159
self, with a large butcher knife. I took the hind-quarter of a raccoon,
and holding it by the foot, dipped the other end in the molasses, and
ate it of? with my teeth. Thus I continued dipping and eating till I had
pretty well finished the fourth part of a large coon. Bv this time my
appetite began to fail me, and thought it was a good meal, without
bread, hominy, or salt."
The Shawanees, Shawanoes or Shawnees were a tribe that command
considerable attention in the history of Northwestern Ohio. Fearless
and restless, wary and warlike, they were the vagrants of the trackless
forests. Nomadic as were all the savages, the Shawnees bear ofi the
palm for restlessness, and they were the equal of any in their undying
hostility to the whites. They had wandered from the waters of Lake
Erie to the warm shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to that they
are known to have been along the Delaware River. They were proud
and haughty, and considered themselves superior to the others. The
Shawnee traditions said that the Creator made them before any other
tribe of people, and that from them all red men were descended. Their
arrogant pride and warlike ferocity made them the most formidable of all
the nations with which the white settlers had to contend in Ohio. They
reveled in their prowess and cunning. When driven from the Carolinas
and Georgia, the Shawnees decided to repossess their former hunting
grounds. Instead of resorting to force, however, they betook themselves
to diplomacy. At a council of rconciliation, they were given permission
to settle on the lands of the Miamis and Wyandots. They first estab-
lished themselves along the Scioto, and later along the Auglaize and
Miami. This matter of ownership was raised by both the Miamis and
Wyandots at the Greenville Treaty.
When the Miamis moved to Indiana, after the burning of Pickawil-
lamy in 1782, the Shawnees under Blue Jacket and Blackhoof estab-
lished themselves at Wapakoneta and others settled at St. Mary's, Lewis-
ton, and the mouth of the Auglaize (Defiance). Skulking bands were
ever harassing the whites along the Ohio River. As a famous council
house was located at Wapakoneta, many of their captives were brought
there. At least one hundred and fifty Shawnee warriors took part in the
defeat of St. Clair. Blue Jacket lived in the style befitting a great chief.
At the Treaty of Greenville, the Shawnees withheld participation for sev-
eral weeks through their obstinacy. When the chiefs finally decided to
join with the other tribes, they were reserved and haughty. But the
warm-heartedness of General Wayne was irresistible. When they left
Blue Jacket' Blackhoof and Red Pole expressed their undying personal
regard for Wayne, and they never again took up arms against the United
States. The Shawnees returned to their former vocations of hunting and
trapping, with an increased cultivation of the soil. The men lounged
about during the summer, when the skins and furs were not fit for
market.
In the fall season nearly all the villages commenced making elaborate
preparations for their winter's hunt. When everything was ready, the
whole village, men, women and children, together with their dogs, cats,
and ponies, with as much of their furniture as they could conveniently
160 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
carry, set off for the lonely woods. "I have seen many of these com-
panies moving off in cold weather," says a pioneer, "among whom were
to be seen the aged, gray-headed grandmother, the anxious care-worn, and
nearly forlorn mother with her half-naked children, and often a little
infant on her back, with its little naked head to the cold wind over its
mother's shoulder ; the whole company headed by a nimble-footed and
stout-hearted warrior, with his blanket drawn close around his body, a
handkerchief curiously twisted to a knot on his head, with his gun on
his shoulder and gunstick in his hand, his tomahawk in his belt, which
is so constructed that the poll is his pipe and the handle the stem, and
he carries his tobacco in the skin of some little animal, often a polecat
skin."
The Ottawas were a Canadian tribe which formerly dwelt along the
river of that name. Accompanying the Wyandots, with whom they were
on friendly terms, they went west only to be again hurled back by the
Sioux. Scattering bands finally found asylums along an affluent of
the Maumee, and there gave their name to the river also known as the
Auglaize. The Delawares also occupied lands with the Wyandots. They
called themselves Lenape, or Leni-Lenape, meaning "real men." They
were in many respects a remarkable people. They were generally peac-
able and well disposed towards the whites and religious teachers. When
the Iroquois subdued them they "put petticoats on the men," to use their
expression, and made "women" of them. They were deprived of their
right to make war, change their habitation or dispose of their land with-
out the consent of their overlords. Those found in Northwestern Ohio
had fled there to escape the humiliation of such surroundings.
One of the smaller of the tribes was the Senecas, who dwelt along
the lower Sandusky. Prior to the incoming of the white man, they
remained there by the sufferance of the hospitable Wyandots. They
were renegades from the Iroquois nation. Among them were also a
few Oneidas, Mohawks and Tuscaroras. About the beginning of the
nineteenth century, these "Senecas of the Sandusky," as they were fre-
quently called, numbered about four hundred souls. At this time they
were more dissipated than their neighbors, the Wyandots. Virtue was
indeed at a low ebb, for the marriage relation was maintained in name
only, and their free practices led to many quarrels and difficulties of a
serious nature.
Along the Maumee River the dominant tribes were the Miamis. The
British called them Twightwees, meaning "the cry of the crane." They
were one of the most powerful tribes of the west, numbering many hun-
dreds of warriors. Members of this tribe were reported as far as Illi-
nois and Wisconsin. Of his people, Little Turtle, their famous chief,
said : "My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit ; thence they extended
their lines to the head waters of the Scioto ; thence to its mouth ; thence
down the Ohio to the mouth of the \\^abash and thence to Chicago over
Lake Michigan." The tribe gave its name to three rivers. Big Miami,
Little Miami, and Maumee. They are said to have been above the
average of the aborigines in intelligence and character. They were also
credited with better manners and dispositions than most of the savages.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 161
Their chiefs also had a greater degree of authority over their warriors.
About the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy they settled along the Maumee.
A French traveler early in the eighteenth century wrote of them as fol-
lows: "The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number
400, all well-formed men, and well tattooed ; the women are numerous.
They are hard working, and raise a species of Maize unlike that of our
Aborigines at Detroit. It is white of the same size as the other, the
skin much finer and the meat much whiter. This Nation is clad in deer
and when a married woman goes with another man, her husband cuts off
her nose and does not see her any more. This is the only nation that
has such a custom. They love plays and dances, wherefore they have
more occupation. The women are well clothed, but the men use scarcely
any covering and are tattooed all over the body."
"Each Indian," wrote the British agent at Detroit to the home office,
"consumes daily more than two ordinary men amongst us, and would
be extremely dissatisfied if stinted when convened for business." Con-
sider the agent's distress when almost a thousand had already arrived
for a treaty, and they were still coming in hungry groups. All those
who had charge of Indian treaties bear witness to the same characteris-
tics of these aborigines. They were like grown-up children, and like
youngsters they expected to be fed and fed well. Even Little Turtle,
one of the wisest of the chiefs, and extremely abstemious in the use
of alcoholic spirits, was as uncontrolled as his followers in the matter of
eating.
The virtues as well as the vices of these aborigines were those of prim-
itive man. The men spent their time in hunting and fighting, while the
women performed the household work and cultivated the fields. The
squaws did all the menial work. But they had commendable sense of
justice among themselves, and they were far better before the white man
came in contact with them.
It is no wonder that the squaws, who were frequently comely when
young, soon lost all their comeliness and degenerated into smoke-
begrimed, withered and vicious hags, whose ugliness and cruelty fre-
quently showed itself toward the white captives. About the only actual
labor that the warriors would deign to perform was in the making of
bark canoes or the dug-outs, called pirogues, in both of which they
were very proficient. Before the white men brought horses the squaw
on the land and the canoe on water were the Indians beasts of burden.
In infancy the males were generally placed on boards, and wrapped with
a belt of cloth, or skin, in order to make them straight. In early life
they were stimulated to acts of courage and activity. That the men
possessed a lively imagination is shown by their speech. One of the
astonishing things is the retentiveness of the memory. In a speech
made to them, every point was retained, considered and answered dis-
tinctly. Their history and traditions were all preserved in this same
way. They were calm and cool in their deliberations and, when their
minds are once made up, are almost immovable.
From the "superior race" the Indians imbibed the vices of civiliza-
tion rather than the virtues. "Every horror is produced," says General
162 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Harrison, "among these unhappy people by their intercourse with the
whites. This is so certain that I can at once tell, upon looking at an
Indian whom I chance to meet, whether he belongs to a neighboring
or more distant tribe. The latter is generally well clothed, healthy, and
vigorous, the former half naked, filthy, and enfeebled by intoxication;
and many of them without arms, excepting a knife, which they carry
for the most villainous purposes."
Of the vices received from the civilized white man the taste for
"firewater" was not the least. For their own selfish purpose the traders
cultivated this taste with diabolical persistency. When the red man's
head was muddled with liquor, he recognized neither friend nor foe.
He did not always consider the color of the skin, for his befuddled brain
could not distinguish tints. As a result, there were innumerable murders
Indian Arrow Heads
of his own kin, as well as of his white friends and enemies. It has
been estimated that fully 500 deaths from murders and accidents occurred
among the Maumee alone in the decade following the close of the War of
1812, and most of them were traceable to liquor. This is the worst con-
demnation that can be brought against the malevolent influence of the
whites. A trader at Fort Miami reported (1802) that the Indians were
then growing worse year after year. That spring he said that he had
known them to lay drunk around the trading stations as much as ten or
fifteen days, during which time scarcely a mouthful of victuals would
be taken.
Many of the Indian chiefs recognized this evil. Little Turtle did
all that he could to eradicate this unnatural and depraved appetite. But
the great Wyandot chief Monocue expresses himself in the following
telling words : "You, my friends, must leave off bringing your water
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 163
of death (meaning whisky), and selling to my people, or we never can
live in peace, for wherever this comes, it brings fire and death with it;
and if you will still give or sell it to Indians, it will take away all their
senses ; and then, like a mad bear, they may turn around and kill you,
or some of your squaws and children ; or if you should escape, they
will go home, and be very apt to kill a wife, a mother, or a child ; for
whenever this mad water gets into a man, it makes murder boil in his ear,
and he, like the wolf, want blood all the time, 'and I believe it makes
you white people as bad as it makes us Indians, and you would murder
one another as we do, only that you have laws that put those people in
jail, and sometimes hang them by the neck, like a dog, till they are dead ;
and this makes white people afraid. We have no such laws yet ; but I
hope that by and by we shall have. But I think they ought first to hang
all people that make and send this poison abroad, for they do all the
mischief. What good can it do men to make and send out poison to
kill their friends? Why, this is worse than our Indians killing one
another with knife and tomahawk. If the white people would hang them
all up that make it and sell it, they would soon leave it off, and then
the world would have peace."
The Indians were just as intemperate in their eating as in their
drinking. When a hunting party returned home after the long winter
hunt, burdened with large quantities of bear oil, sugar, dried venison,
etc., they were improvident both in the eating and the giving away of
their spoils. Such a thing as a regular meal was unknown but, if anyone
visited a house several times in a day, he would be invited each time to
partake of the best. After his etiquette it was impolite to decline food
when offered, for refusal was interpreted as a sign of displeasure or
anger. Through this lack of foresight they were often reduced to great
distress, and sometimes actually perished from hunger and exposure,
even though they were capable of enduring great hunger and fatigue.
They seem to have believed literally in the injunction to take no thought
for the morrow. It was not uncommon for the Indians to be without
sustenance for days at a time, but they never seemed to profit by such
experiences. They were sometimes compelled to boil the bones thrown
from the feasts of their prosperous days, and even to gnaw the skins
upon which they slept.
That the Indian was naturally kind hearted and hospitable is testified
to by nearly all the early settlers and missionaries. While cruel, crafty
and treacherous in dealing with enemies, he could be generous, kind and
hospitable among friends, and oftentimes magnanimous to a foe.
Although a savage by nature, he was not a stranger to the nobler and
tenderer sentiments common to humanity. He was not always the
aggressor by any means, for history records no darker or bloodier crimes
than some of those which have been committed by our own race against
the poor Indians.
The testimony of the missionaries as to the disposition of the Wyan-
dots is most favorable. Says Mr. Finley: "I do not recollect that I
was ever insulted by an Indian, drunk or sober, during all the time I was
with them, nor did any of them ever manifest any unkindness toward
164 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
me. The heathen party did not like my reHgion, nor my course in estab-
lishing a Church ; but still I was respected, for I treated all with kindness
and hospitality. Indeed I do not believe there are a people on the earth,
that are more capable of appreciating a friend, or a kind act done toward
them or theirs, than Indians. Better neighbors, and a more honest people,
I never lived among. They are peculiarly so to the stranger or to the
sick or distressed. They will divide the last mouthful, and give almost
the last comfort they have, to relieve the suffering. This I have often
witnessed."
With a white race, the British, actually offering a bonus for every
American or French scalp brought into their posts, and feasting the
returning war parties upon rich foods and exciting drinks, the ideas of
the "palefaces" and their ideals must have been sadly confused in the
poor benighted brain of the ignorant savage.
"Running the gauntlet" was one of the most savage amusements of
the Indians. Heckewelder describes this trying ceremony as follows:
"In the month of April, 1782, when I was myself a prisoner at Lower
Sandusky, waiting for an opportunity to proceed with a trader to Detroit,
three American prisoners were brought in by fourteen warriors from the
garrison of Fort Mcintosh. As soon as they had crossed the Sandusky
River to which the village lay adjacent they were told by the captain
of the part to run as hard as they could to a painted post which was
shown to them. The youngest of the three without a moment's hesita-
tion immediately started for it and reached it fortunately without receiv-
ing a single blow; the second hesitated for a moment, just recollecting
himself, he also ran as fast as he could and likewise reached the post
unhurt. The third, frightened at seeing so many men, women and chil-
dren with weapons in their hands ready to strike him. kept begging the
captain to spare him, saying that he was a mason and would build him
a fine large stone house or do any work for him that he would please.
" 'Run for your life,' cried the chief to him, 'and don't talk now
of building houses.' But the poor fellow insisted, begging and pray-
ing to the captain, who at last finding his exhortations vain and fearing
the consequences turned his back upon him and %ould not hear him any
longer. Our mason now began to run, but received many a hard blow,
one of which nearly brought him to the ground, which, if he had failed
would have decided his fate. He, however, reached the goal, and not
without being sadly bruised and he was besides bitterly reproached and
scoffed at all around as a vile coward, while the others were hailed as
brave men and received tokens of universal approbation."
The Indian did not greatly esteem some of the American customs for
he believed that his own were better. An aged Indian, who for many
years had spent a great deal of time among the white people, observed
■that the Indians had not only a much more easy way of getting awife
than the paleface, but they were also much more certain of getting a
satisfactory one. "For," said he, in his broken English, "white man
court — court — maybe one whole year — maybe two year, before he marry.
Well, maybe, then he get a very good wife — maybe not, maybe very cross.
Well, now suppose cross; scold as soon as get awake in the morning!
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
165
Scold all day! Scold until sleep — all one, he must keep him! (The
pronoun in the Indian language has no feminine gender.) White people
have law against throwing away wife, be he ever so cross — must keep
him always (possibly not so true today). Well, how does Indian do,
Indian when he sees good squaw, which he likes, he goes to him, puts
his forefingers close aside each other — make two look like one — look
squaw in the face see him smile — which is all one ; he say yes. So he
take him home — no danger he be cross ! No ! No ! Squaw know very
well what Indian do if he cross. Throw him away and take another.
Squaw love to eat meat. No husband, no meat. Live happy ! Go to
Heaven !"
Indian Portage
Many captives were formally adopted into the Indian families. Almost
invariably they formed such attachments for their foster parents and
relatives that they could scarcely be induced to return to their own
people in after years. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to
revert to the primitive ways and customs of their foster parents. The
Indians treated them indulgently, and in exactly the same way as they
did their own offspring. There was an old white woman living among
the Shawnees, who had been taken a prisoner when very young. Sev-
eral years afterwards her friends tried to induce her to return, but in
vain. She had then become more of a squaw than any other female
in the tribe. Similar instances will be found along every section of
our former frontier.
166 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
John Brickell was captured by the Indians of Northwestern Ohio
at the immature age of nine, and remained with them until he had
reached manhood. In accordance with a treaty he was taken to the
white encampment to be dehvered over to his own people. His own
account reads as follows: "On breaking up of spring, we all went to
Fort Defiance and arriving on the shore opposite, we saluted the fort
with a round of rifles, and they shot a cannon thirteen times (for thirteen
states). We then encamped on the spot. On the same day Whingy
Pooshies told me I must go over to the fort. The children hung around
me, crying, and asked me if I was going to leave them. I told them I
did not know. When we got over to the fort and were seated with the
officers, Whingy Pooshies told me to stand up, which I did. He then
arose and addressed me in about these words : ']\Iy son, these are men
the same color with yourself, and some of your kin may be here, or they
may be a great way oiif . You have lived a long time with us. I call on
on to say if I have not been a father to you; if I have not used you as a
father would a son.'
" 'You have used me as well as a father could use a son,' was the
answer.
" 'I am glad you say so. You have lived long with me ; you have
hunted for me ; but your treaty says you must be free. If you choose to go
with people of our own color I have no right to say a word ; but if you
choose to stay with me your people have no right to speak. Now reflect
on it and take your choice and tell us as soon as you make up your
mind.'
"I was silent for a few minutes, in which time I seemed to think of
most everything. I thought of the children I had just left crying; I
thought of the Indians I was attached to, and I thought of my people
whom I remembered ; and this latter thought predominated, and I said,
'I will go with my kin.' He then sank back in tears to his seat. I
heartily joined him in his tears, parted with him, and have never seen
or heard of him since."
On his return from his captivity Brickell settled in Columbus, and
became one of her esteemed citizens. Not every father or foster father
of the Caucasian race treats his son with such marked affection, or regrets
parting so sincerely as did this simple unlettered red man of the
wilderness.
We get another first-hand description of the character of those
Indians who either roamed or dwelt along the Maumee, together with
the trials and discouragements attending the efforts of the missionaries
among them, from the journal kept by Reverend McCurdy, a missionary
along the Maumee: "They have been collecting for ten days past (1808)
from different places and tribes, and this is to be the week of their Great
Council. Hundreds more are yet expected. The plains are now swarm-
ing with them, and they appear to be full of devilish festivity, although
they can scarcely collect as much of any kind of vegetables as will allay
the imperious demands of nature. They are here almost every hour
begging for bread, milk, meat, melons, or cucumbers; and if they can get
no better, they will eat a ripe cucumber with as little ceremony as a
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 167
hungry swine. And, notwithstanding this state of outward wretched-
ness and these mortifying circumstances, they are swollen with pride,
and will strut about and talk with an air as supercilious as the Great
Mogul. Their ceremonies, also, are conducted with as much pomposity
as if they were individually Napoleons or Alexanders.
"Their houses, when they have any. are wretched huts, almost as
dirty as they can be, and swarming with fleas and lice. Their furniture,
a few barks, a tin or brass kettle, a gun, pipe, knife and tomahawk.
Their stock are principally dogs. Of these, they have large numbers,
but they are mere skeletons, the very picture of distress. These unhappy
people appear to have learned all the vices of a number of miserable
white men, who have fled to these forests to escape the vengeance of
the law, or to acquire property in a way almost infinitely worse than that
of highwaymen. They are so inured to white men of this description
that it is next to impossible to make them believe you design to do them
good, or that your object is not eventually to cheat them. It is vain to
reason with them. Their minds are too dark to perceive its force, or
their suspicions bar them against any favorable conclusions. Such is
their ingratitude, that whilst you load them with favors they will reproach
you to your face, and construe your benevolent intentions and actions
into intentional fraud or real injury. They will lie in the most deliberate
manner and to answer any selfish purpose. They will not bear contra-
diction, but will take the liberty to contradict others in the most impudent
and illiberal manner."
Edmund Burke, a Catholic priest was sent from Detroit to the Indians
living near Fort Miami in 1796. Within the limits of the present village
of Maumee, he constructed and occupied a long house as his chapel.
Here he resided for a time, ministering to the few Catholic soldiers in the
fort, and endeavoring to Christianize the Indians in the neighborhood.
His efforts met with little success, so that he remained _only about a
year. From that time no priest was stationed in this territory for a
score of years.
The Friends, or Quakers, early became interested in the Indians of
Northwestern Ohio. As early as 1793, a commission from that religious
body started to attend an Indian council on the lower Maumee River,
in company with the United States Commissioners. They reached Detroit
but did not succeed in getting any farther. In 1798, a belt of Wampum,
and ten strings of white beads, with a speech attached, was sent by a
number of Indian chiefs to the yearly meeting of the Friends held in
Baltimore. Appended to this letter were the names of Tarhe the Crane,
Walk-on-the-Water and a number of other chiefs. Thev invited the
Friends to visit the Wyandots and Delawares at their villages on the
Sandusky River. When the designated representatives of the Friends
arrived at Upper Sandusky in the following year, they found shocking
and terrible scenes of drunkenness, and were subjected to indignities.
Tarhe himself was not able to meet them for a day or two because of
his intoxicated condition. These men returned to the East without any
satisfactory result for their long and tedious journey. Nothing was
heard from the Wyandots in response to their visit.
168 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The good name of the Society of Friends had spread by degrees to
many western tribes. In 1796 Chief Little Turtle visited Philadelphia
with Capt. William Wells, his brother-in-law, as interpreter, and
endeavored to enlist the assistance of the Friends in civilizing the Miamis
living at Fort Wayne and in its vicinity. No immediate result followed,
but the matter was not dropped. Some agricultural implements were
forwarded. At a meeting held in 1804 it was decided to make a visit to
the Miamis in order to decide on the best course to follow. Four men
were named as a committee for this visit, and they made a little more
progress than had any of the other emissaries dispatched to the Maumee
Basin. Philip Dennis was left with the tribe as a permanent instructer.
This was the first serious effort to instruct the aborigines of the West in
agriculture, and it was not very successful. When the novelty had worn
away, the warriors refused to work.
At the close of the War of 1812, the work of the Friends commenced
among the Shawnees at Wapakoneta in a permanent form: A dam was
constructed across the Auglaize River, and a flouring-mill and saw-mill
were erected for their instruction and benefit in 1819. The expense of
building and operation of the mill was borne by the Society of Friends,
while the corn of the Indians was ground free of toll. The women soon
learned to bake bread, which was much easier than pounding hominy.
The Indians were furnished with plow irons and taught how to cultivate
corn, beans, pumpkins, etc. Cows were furnished them and they were
taught how to use them. As a result of their work, the Indians in that
neighborhood began to improve and to build better homes. They wan-
dered after game less and less, and turned to the rearing of domestic
animals.
The faithful and devoted Friends worked diligently and faithfully
without compensation. Many times they divided the last morsel of food
with the needy Indians, whether the subject of their alms were worthy
or unworthy. An annual payment of $3,000 did not keep starvation
and want away from these improvident people. They taught the Bible
and religious ethics by example as well as by word, and they taught
the industrial arts to as great an extent as possible. A school in manual
training was organized, which was the first school of its kind in Ohio.
Friend Isaac Harvey moved there in 1819, and took charge of the work.
He was a man of good judgment and good policy, and got on very well
with- his charges. It was not long until the holdings of the Indians
around Wapakoneta numbered 1,200 cattle and as many hogs, which
speaks very well indeed for the work done among them.
Much superstitition existed among the Shawnees. Soon after Har-
vey's arrival, it was aroused to an unwonted pitch by The Prophet,
brother of Tecumseh. A woman of the tribe named Polly Butler was
accused of witchery. One night Harvey was startled by the hasty arrival
of Polly Butler, a half-breed, who came with her child to his house
asking protection from the Shawnees, who were seeking to put her to
death as a witch. "They kill-ee me ! they kill-ee me !" she cried in terror.
They were taken into the house by Harvey who at once strangled a
small dog accompanying them that it might not betray their where-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 169
abouts. The next day Chief We-os-se-cah or Captain Wolf came and
told Harvey the occurrences and the resulting excitement, whereupon
Harvey told him of the sinfulness of such proceedings. We-os-se-cah
went away much disturbed in mind, but soon returned and, intimating
that Harvey knew the whereabouts of the woman, was told that she
was out of their reach; and if they did not abandon her with desire to
put her to death, he would remove his family and abandon the mission
entirely. We-os-se-cah desired Harvey to go with him to the Council
House, where twenty or more chiefs and head men. painted and armed
were in session. Harvey went to the United States blacksmith, an
important man with the aborigines, on account of his keeping their guns
and knives in repair, and took him and his son along as interpreters.
Upon their entering the Council House, where some of the Indians were
already in their war paint, Chief We-os-se-cah commanded the Council
"to be still and hear," whereupon he repeated what had transpired
between Harvey and himself, wliich caused great commotion.
"Harvey then addressed them in a composed manner through the
interpreter, interceding for the life of the woman who had been so
unjustly sentenced to be put to death. But seeing them determined to
have blood, he felt resigned and offered himself to be put to death in
her stead ; that he was wholly unarmed and at their mercy. We-os-se-cah
stepped up, took Harvey by the arm, and declared himself his friend,
and called upon the chiefs to desist, but if they would not, he would
offer his life for the Qua-kee-lee (Quaker) friend. This brave and
heroic act of Harvey, and the equally unexpected oft'er of this brave
chief checked the tide of hostile feelings. The chiefs were astonished,
but slowly, on by one, to the number of six or eight they came forward,
took Harvey by the hand and declared friendship. "Me Qua-kee-lee
friend," they would say. They promised if the woman was restored
to her people, that she would be protected ; and they called on the black-
smith to witness their vow — and he became surety for its fulfillment.
It required considerable effort to assure the woman of her safety, but
eventually she returned to her dwelling and was not afterwards molested.
The Protestant missionary work was begun along the Maumee on or
about the year 1802, when the Rev. D. Bacon, under the auspices of the
Connecticut Missionary Society, visited this region. With two com-
panions he set out from Detroit for the Maumee River in a canoe, and
was five days in making the trip. He found here a good interpreter by
the name of William Dragoo, who had been with the Indians since he
was 10 years of age. Upon arrival at the mouth of the river, he found
most of the chiefs drunk at a trading post above and then concluded to
pass on to Fort Miami, where he stored his belongings. The next day
he returned to the mouth of the river, wliere most of the chiefs were
still drunk. Little Otter, the head chief, was a little more sober than
the rest, and he replied in friendly terms that Mr. Bacon should have
a hearing with the tribe. Owing* to the death of a child, another period
of debauch followed, and the missionary was delayed still longer.
After about ten days delay Mr. Bacon secured a hearing for his
cause, which he eloquently presented. But he found many objections.
170 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
One of the most potent was that they would subject themselves to the
fate of the Moravians, if they should embrace the new religion. One
objection, says he, "I thought to be the most important, and the most
difficult to answer. It was this: That they could not live together so
as to receive any instructions on account of their fighting and killing
one another when intoxicated. Two had been killed but a few days
before at the trader's above; and I found that they seldom got together
without killing some ; that their villages were little more than places of
residence for Fall and Spring, as they were obliged to be absent in the
Winter on account of hunting, and as they found it necessary to live
apart in the Summer on account of liquor ; and that the most of them
were going to disperse in a few days for planting, when they would
be from 10 to 15 miles apart, and not more than two or three fam-
ilies in a place." Becoming convinced that any further attempt he then
might make would be fruitless, Mr. Bacon abandoned the field and
journeyed on to Mackinac.
The Presbyterian Church was the next denomination, in order of
priority, to send missionaries into Northwest Ohio. At the opening of
the nineteenth century, the Rev. Thomas E. Hughes made two mis-
sionary tours throughout these regions. On one of these journeys he was
accompanied by James Satterfield, and on the other by Rev. Joseph
Badger. One of these early missionaries in speaking of the Indians on
the Lower Maumee writes as follows: "My interpreter advised me to
go with him to see them that evening ; and I had a desire to be present as
I supposed I might acquire some information that might be useful. But
I thought it would be imprudent to be among them that night as I knew
some of them were intoxicated and that such would be apt to be jealous
of me at that time, and that nothing would be too absurd for their
imaginations to conceive, or too cruel for their hands to perform.
"Anderson a respectable trader at Fort Miami told me that they
had been growing worse every year since he had been acquainted with
them, which is six or seven years ; and that they have gone much greater
. lengths this year than he has ever known them before. He assured me
that it was a fact that they had lain drunk this spring as much as fifteen
days at several different traders above him, and that some of them had
gone fifteen days without tasting a mouthful of victuals while they were
in that condition."
It cannot be said that the Presbyterians ever gathered unto them-
selves a very large following among the Indians of this section. Their
principal station was along the lower Maumee, about half way between
Fort Meigs and Grand Rapids, then called Gilead. There the mission
owned a farm, a part of which was a large island, and ministered unto
the Ottawa tribes. Upon this was erected a large mission house and a
commodious school building. It was established in the year 1822. The
aim of the missionaries was to make the mission as near self sustaining
as possible, and to benefit the Indians in every way. The children were
given board and clothing, educated and trained in farming. , The report
of this mission, published by the United States in 1824, gives the number
of the mission family as twenty-one. Some taught domestic science,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 171
others instructed in agriculture, while others attempted to instill book
learning and religious truth into their pupils. It was allowed $300 every
six months from the congressional fund for the civilization of the
aborigines. The only ordained missionary for this faith was the Rev.
Isaac Van Tassel, although there were several assistants.
The mission church was organized in 1823 with twenty-four per-
sons, nine of whom were aborigines. All were pledged to abstain from
the use of spirituous liquors. The mission closed in 1834, when the
Indians were removed to the West. At that time, there were thirty-
two pupils in attendance at this school. Fourteen of these were full-
blooded aborigines, and sixteen of them were recorded as mixed blood.
The records reveal that the whole number which had been under instruc-
tion at this station during the dozen years of its existence, most of
them for brief periods of time, was ninety-two. While the aborigines
did not antagonize the missions directly, the general attitude of the
warriors, and the large number of drunks among them, particularly
at the time of the payment of the annuities, kept up an excitement of
blood and evil that greatly detracted from the quiet influence which
the missionaries attempted to throw around their pupils and converts.
It was such things as these that made the work of the Christian mis-
sionaries one of such great difficulty. White men and half-breeds
would continue to sell the "firewater" to the Indians, and even bribe the
Indians to keep their children from the schools. Many would leave
between two days after a few days experience. But the missionaries
and the teachers persisted, and the attendance gradually increased.
Most of those that remained took to education readily enough, but they
absorbed the religion sparingly and rather doubtingly.
The widow of Rev. Isaac Van Tassel has given an account of the
mission, from which I quote the following: "It has been said that
the Maumee Mission was a failure. If the hopeful conversion of
about thirty souls, and the triumphant deaths of at least nine of these,
who were known to the missionaries to have died trusting in the
Savior, besides, much seed sown, the result of which can only be known
in the light of eternity, was not worth the few thousands expended
there, then might the mission be called a failure. The Indians were
at first shy and distrustful ; they could not believe that white people
intended them any good. As they became acquainted, however, they
were very friendly, and never gave us any trouble by stealing or com-
mitting any depredation. They were always grateful for any favors
bestowed on them by the missionaries."
After the close of the mission school. Rev. Isaac Van Tassel and
his wife continued to live in the buildings for several years, and con-
ducted a boarding and day school for the children of the white settlers
who were then beginning to come in in increasingly large numbers.
Missions to the Wyandots have been described in the chapter devoted to
that tribe. The Baptist Church conducted a mission for several years at
Fort Wayne, with Rev. Isaac McCoy as the missionary in charge. This
denomination doubtless conducted some religious services within North-
western Ohio, but no regular mission under its auspices was ever
172 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
established here. The Fort Wayne mission was opened in 1820, with
a school for both white and Indian youths, and was removed about
a hundred miles northwest three years later at the special request of
the Pottawattomies, who donated a section of land for its use.
The most noted and successful effort to elevate the Indians^ of
Northwestern Ohio to a better life was through the missionary efforts
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at Upper Sandusky. This mission
was begun by John Stewart, an ignorant mulatto, with a mixture of
Indian blood. Having become converted following a long debauch,
he resolved to go out into the wilderness and preach the gospel. In
his wanderings he reached Upper Sandusky in 1816, and began to
preach to the Wyandots. A colored man, named Jonathan Pointer,
living with the Indians, became his interpreter, and at first an unwilling
one. Stewart was an excellent singer, and he thus attracted the atten-
tion of the red men, who dearly loved music. At the first formal meet-
ing, called at Pointer's house, his audience was one old woman. On
the following day the same woman and an old chief, named Big Tree,
came. The following day, which was the Sabbath, the meeting was
called at the council house, and eight or ten Indians gathered. From
this time the congregation continued to increase and many songs were
intermixed with the prayer and exhortations. With this feature the
Indians were delighted.
When he began work Stewart was not a licensed minister, but he
was afterwards duly ordained. The mission was taken over by the
Methodist Episcopal Church in August, 1819, the first Indian mission
of that denomination. Stewart remained with the Wyandots until his
death from tubercular trouble on December 17, 1823. The most noted
missionary at this station was the Rev. James B. Finley, who labored
there a number of years, and has left us his experiences and observa-
tions in several interesting books. A number of chiefs became con-
verted and developed into exemplary men. Between-the-Logs and Mon-
onoue were comparatively early converts and became licensed preachers.
They greatly endeared themselves to the whites with whom they came
in contact. One of the chiefs, Scuteash gave his testimony in the fol-
lowing quaint way:
"I have been a great sinner and drunkard, which made me commit
many great crimes, and the Great Spirit was very angry with me, so
that in here (pointing to his breast) I always sick. No sleep — no eat —
not walk — drink whisky heap ; but I pray the Great Spirit to help me
quit getting drunk, and forgive all my sins, and he did do something
for me. I do not know whence it comes, or whither it goes. (Here
he cried out, 'Waugh ! Waugh.' as if shocked by electricity.) Now
me no more sick — no more drink whisky — no more get drunk — me
sleep — me eat — no more bad man — me cry — me meet you all in our
great Father's house above."
The Wyandots were very emotional, and were excellent singers.
Some of their members were prone to prolixity in speaking, and "some
times," said Mr. Finley, "they had to choke them off. On one occa-
sion I saw one of the sisters get very much excited during one of their
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 173
meetings, when Between-the-Logs, an ordained minister of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, a native Wyandot, struck up a tune and put her
down. Then several speakers spoke and without interruption. Between-
the-Logs followed them, and had uttered but a few words, when the
squelched sister, who had a loud, ringing voice, began, at the top of
her register, singing —
'How happy are they
Who their Saviour obey.'
"Between-the-Logs was fairly drowned out, and took his seat, as
much overcome by the merriment as the music."
During the year 1823, Col. John Johnston, United States Indian
Agent, visited the Wyandots on their reservations. He passed several
days among them, and at the close of his visit reported as follows :
"The buildings and improvements of the establishment are sub-
stantial and extensive, and do this gentleman (Mr. Finley) great credit.
The farm is under excellent fence, and in fine order ; comprising about
one hundred and forty acres, in pasture, corn and vegetables. There
are about fifty acres in corn, which from present appearances, will
yield 3,000 bushels. It is by much the finest crop I have seen this year,
has been well worked, and is clear of grass and weeds. There are
twelve acres in potatoes, cabbage, turnips and garden. Sixty children
belong to the school of which number fifty-one are Indians. These
children are boarded and lodged at the mission house. They are
orderly and attentive, comprising every class from the alphabet to read-
ers in the Bible. I am told by the teacher that they are apt in learning,
and that he is entirely satisfied with the progress they have made.
They attend with the family regularly to the duties of religion. The
meeting house, on the Sabbath, is numerously and devoutly attended.
A better congregation in behavior I have not beheld; and I believe there
can be no doubt, that there are very many persons, of both sexes, in
the Wyandot nation, who have experienced the saving efifects of the
Gospel upon their minds. Many of the Indians are now settling on
farms, and have comfortable houses and large fields. A spirit of order,
industry and improvement appears to prevail with that part of the
nation which has embraced Christianity, and this constitutes a full half
of the population."
The effect of the mission work was really wonderful upon the
Wyandot youths, for they grew vip much better in their habits and
manners than their elders. The parents began to build better log houses
with real brick chimneys, and also devoted much more time to their
agriculture. Some families really raised enough from their little farms
to support them. It was not until 1824 that the old mission church
was erected. At times the council house was used, and on other occa-
sions the meetings were held in the schoolhouse, which was much too
small.
The Delawares, as well as the Wyandots, when journeying from
their reservations in search of game, almost invariably stopped at the
houses of the white settlers along their route. When they came to a
174 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
white man's cabin they expected to receive the hospitality of its inmates
as freely as of their own tribe. If such was not the case the red man
was much offended. He would say "very bad man, very bad man," in a
contemptuous way. They would never accept a bed to sleep upon. All
that was necessary was to have a good back-log on the fireplace, and
a few extra pieces of wood near by, if in cold weather, for them to put
on the fire when needed. They usually carried their blankets, and
would spread them upon the floor before the fire, giving no further
trouble. Not infrequently they would leave those who had sheltered
them a saddle of venison, or some other commodity which they had to
spare.
After peace was declared with Great Britain most of the settlers
who lived along the Maumee previous to the war returned to their
former possessions. They were accompanied by friends and former
soldiers who sought desirable sites for settlement with their families.
Many of them lived in the blockhouses at Fort Meigs for a while.
Contentions arose, however, regarding the pickets and other timber of
the fort, and one of the parties to the controversy finally set the remain-
ing ones on fire. The last settler to be killed by the Indians was Levi
Hull in 1815, He left the house to bring the cattle from the woods.
Several gun reports were heard, and a searching party found his body,
dead and scalped, on a spot within the present limits of Perrysburg.
The settlement of the Maumee Valley was at first slow, but the "foot
of the rapids" and vicinity was settled earliest. In 1816 the government
sent an agent to lay out a town at the point on the Miami of the Lake
best calculated for commercial purposes. After thoroughly sounding
the river from its mouth, he decided upon the site of Perrysburg. The
town was laid out that year on the United States Reservation, and
named after Commodore Perry. The lots were offered for sale in the
following spring at the land office in Wooster. From about this time
the encroachment upon the Indian domain may be said to date.
After the War of 1812, the Indians were left in a serious condition.
As at the close of the Revolutionary War, they turned at once, with
little or no apparent regret for their past, to the Americans for their
support. In this they were like naughty and spoiled children. Begging
to have their physical cravings supplied, they gathered at Detroit in
such great numbers that they could not be fed from the limited sup-
plies on hand. Hence we are told that they went about the city devour-
ing rinds of pork, crumbs, bones, and anything else with nutriment in
it that was thrown out by either the soldiers or the civil population.
Believing that there was a chance to place the relations of the Indians
and the Americans on a better basis, because of the very necessities
of the savages. General Harrison arranged for a treaty council to be
held at Greenville in 1814. The Indians agreed to deliver all the pris-
oners in their hands at Fort Wayne. His pacific efforts were so satis-
factory that when he and General Cass reached Greenville, on July
22, several thousand Indians were assembled there to greet them. On
this occasion, a treaty was entered into with the Wyandots, Delawares,
Shawnees and Senecas, by which these tribes engaged to give their
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
175
aid to the United States as against Great Britain and such of the tribes
as still continued hostile. ^
In the year 1816, the number of Indians of all ages and both sexes
in Northwestern Ohio, together with their location, was reported to
the Government as follows : Wyandots residing by the Sandusky River
and its tributaries numbered 695 ; of the Shawnees dwelling by the
Auglaize and IMiami rivers, with their principal village at Wapakoneta,
there were 840; the Delawares living by the headwaters of the San-
dusky and Muskingum rivers number 161 ; of the Senecas and others
of the Six Nations having their habitations between Upper and Lower
Sandusky, at and near Seneca Town, only 450 were enumerated ; the
Ottawas about Maumee Bay and Lake Erie and by the Auglaize River
Wigwams
were estimated at about 450. This would make a total resident Indian
population at that time of about 2,600.
The condition of the Indians dwelling along the Maumee River at
this time was extremely miserable. They dwelt in what are generally
termed villages but, as a rule, they had no uniform place of residence.
During the fall, winter and part of the spring they were scattered in
the woods hunting. Some of them had rude cabins made of small
logs, covered with bark, but more commonly some poles were stuck in
the ground tied together with plants or strips of bark, and covered
with large sheets of bark or some kind of a woven mat. The great
enemy of these Indians was an insatiable thirst for intoxicating liquors.
There were always depraved citizens of the United States capable and
willing of eluding the vigilance of the government and supplying this
thirst. When the supply of grog at home failed, they would travel any
distance to obtain it. There was no fatigue, no risk, and no expense
too great to obtain it. With many of them the firewater seemed to
be valued higher than life itself. Many of the murders by Indians of
176 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
their own brethren, as well as of the whites, could be attributed to the
effect of liquor.
But there were white monsters who were willing to murder or rob
the poor red man who was trying to live honestly. One of these trag-
edies occurred about 1841, or 1842, in what was then Henry County,
which included most of present Fulton. Sum-mvm-de-wat, a Wyandot
chief and a Christian convert, with a party of friends left the Wyandot
reservation for their annual hunt in Williams County to secure raccoon
skins, which then brought a good price. Sum-mun-de-wat, accompanied
by his nephew and niece, had with them two excellent coon dogs. Two
white men who met the Indians found that they had money. A day
or two afterwards some more of the Wyandot party coming along
found the murdered bodies of their chief and his two relatives. This
murdered chief was one of the most enlightened and noble chiefs of
the Wyandots, and was a licensed preacher of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. The whites were aroused at the foul deed and arrested the
suspected parties. One of them, Lyons, was lodged in jail at Napoleon,
as the murder had occurred just within the Henry County line. The
other, Anderson, confessed to as cold and brutal a murder as was ever
conceived. But both men escaped punishment through the influence of
white friends.
As soon as the authority of the United States was well established
in this section of our state, it adopted the policy of narrowing the
limits of the range of the Indians in order to render them less nomadic.
When this was accomplished, it was hoped to be able to incline them
to agricultural pursuits. The excluded lands were then opened to
prospective settlers. With this purpose in view, a council was called to
meet at the "Foot of the Rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie," the place
designated undoubtedly being near the site of the present village of
Maumee. The date was September 29, 1817. At this time Generals
Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur met the sachems and other chiefs of
the Wyandot. Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, Pottawattomie, Ottawa and
Chippewa tribes. They succeeded in negotiating a treaty which in
importance ranks second only to the great Treaty of Greenville con-
cluded in 1795.
The Wyandots agreed to forever cede to the United States an
immense area of land, including a large part of the Maumee. This
grant is described as follows in the treaty : "Beginning at a point on
the southern shore of Lake Erie where the present Indian boundary
line intersects the same, between the mouth of Sandusky Bay and the
mouth of Portage River ; thence, running south with said line to the
line established in the year 1795 by the Treaty of Greenville which
runs from the crossing place above Fort Laurens to Loramie's store;
thence westerly with the last mentioned line to the eastern line of the
Reserve at Loramie's store ; thence with the lines of said Reserve north
and west to the northwestern corner thereof ; thence to the northwestern
corner of the Reserve on the River St. Mary, at the head of the navi-
gable waters thereof (St. Marys); thence, east to the western bank
of the St. Mary River aforesaid; thence, down on the western bank
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 177
of said river to the Reserve at Fort Wayne; thence, with the Hnes of
the last mentioned Reserve, easterly and northerly, to the north bank
of the said river to the western line of the land ceded to the United
States by the Treaty of Detroit in the year 1807 ; thence, with the said
line south to the middle of said Miami (Maumee) River, opposite the
mouth of the Great Au Glaise River; thence down the middle of said
Miami River and easterly with the lines of the tract ceded to the
United States by the Treaty of Detroit aforesaid; so far that a south
line will strike the place of beginning."
The other tribes gathered at this council also released their claim
to all the lands within this territory, with the exception of certain speci-
fied reservations. For these concessions, the United States agreed to
pay annually forever, the sum of $4,000 in specie at Upper Sandusky;
to the Seneca tribe annually forever, the sum of $500 in specie at Lower
Sandusky; to the Shawnee tribe, the sum of $2,000 at Wapakoneta; to
the Pottawattomies, the sum of $1,300; to the Ottawas $1,000, and to
the Chippewas $1,000 annually for a period of fifteen years, payments
to be made in specie at Detroit. To the Delawares, the sum of $500 in
specie was to be made at Wapakoneta during the year 1818, but there
was no annuity. A number of specific reservations of land were made
to the Indians most of which were along the Sandusky and Auglaize
rivers. Grants were also made to a number of persons connected with
the savages either by blood or adoption. Most of these were former
prisoners who had lived with the tribes and finally been adopted by
them. Most of them had been prisoners of the Wyandots. The late
Shawnee chief, Captain Logan, who had fallen in the service of the
United States, was remembered by the grant of a section of land on
the east side of the "Great Au Glaise River adjoining the lower line
of a grant of ten miles at Wapakoneta on the said river." Saw-En-
De-Bans, or the Yellow Hair, or Peter Minor (Manor) who was the
adopted son of Tondaganie, or the Dog, was granted a section of land to
be located in a square form on the north side of the Miami (Maumee)
at the Wolf Rapids, above DeBoeuf. This is near the village of Provi-
dence, in Lucas County. The United States obligated itself to appoint
an agent for the Wyandots to reside at Upper Sandusky, and an agent
for the Shawnees at Wapakoneta. This agent was to protect the
Indians in their persons and property, and to manage their intercourse
with the American Government and its citizens. It also specially
exempted all these reservations from taxes of any kind, so long as
they continued to be the property of the Indian and reserved to the
United States the right to construct roads through any part of the land
granted and reserved by this treaty.
When it came time to sign the treaty, so we are told, all looked
toward the mother of Otusso and a direct descendant of Pontiac. He
was the last war chief of the Ottawas remaining along the Maumee.
She was a sort of Indian Queen who was held in great reverence by
the Indians. When the treaty was agreed upon, the head chiefs and
warriors sat round the inner circle, and the aged woman had a place
among them. The remaining Indians, with the women and children
Tol. 1—13
178 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
comprised a crowd outside. The chiefs sat on seats built under the
roof of the council house, which was open on all sides. The whole
assembly kept silence. The chiefs bowed their heads and cast their eyes
to the ground ; they waited patiently for the old woman until she rose,
went forward, and touched the pen to the treaty, after it had been
read to them in her presence. Then followed the signatures of all the
chiefs.
It is said that there were 7,000 Indians present at this treaty at
Foot of the Rapids of the Maumee, including the women and chil-
dren. It must have been a strange assemblage. By this treaty
the title to most of the land in the Maumee Basin was granted to the
United States. Of all the great treaties ever made with the Indians this
one held at the Maumee Rapids was of the greatest interest to North-
western Ohio. ' A line drawn from Sandusky Bay to the Greenville
Treaty line, near Mount Gilead, thence westerly along that line to the
Indiana boundary and north to Michigan, would, about embrace the
Ohio land purchased at this council. It has since been divided into
about eighteen counties. Almost three decades had elapsed since the
Marietta colony was planted on the Ohio. Now for the first time
could it be said that Northwestern Ohio stood on an equality with the
rest of the state, and was practically free from the fetters and domi-
nance of a race whose interest and habits, customs and mode of life,
were entirely opposed to those of the rest of the country. Heretofore
it had been partially a blank place on the map, labeled Indian country
and Black Swamp. Its very name brought a shrug of terror to many.
Following this treaty the civil jurisdiction of Logan County, with court
at Bellefontaine, became operative until the organization of counties
in 1820.
A number of additional treaties were made with the Indians at
councils held in various places, but they are not of great importance for
the purposes of this history, excepting the one convened at St. Marys
in Auglaize County, in September, 1818. This was held at Fort Barbee,
the present site of St. Marys, between the same parties, and some
changes were made by which the Indians were given much more exten-
sive allotments, because of a gathering dissatisfaction. Although the
council did not commence until the 20th, the chiefs and warriors of
seven nations began to assemble in the latter part of August. This
council lasted until the 6th of October. It was intended to be supple-
mentary to the one made the previous year at the Foot of the Rapids
of the Maumee. The Wyandots were given a large increase in land,
consisting of two tracts of 56,680- and 16,000 acres respectively. The
Shawnees received 12,800 additional acres to be laid off adjoining the
east line of their reservation at "Wapaghkonetta." The Senecas also
received 10,000 more acres along the Sandusky. Additional annuities
were granted as follows : To the Wyandots $500 ; to the Shawnees and
Senecas, of Lewiston, $1,000; to the Senecas $500; to the Ottawas
$1,500; all of these were to run "forever."
The traders did a thriving business, and many thousands of dollars
worth of furs were exchanged for rifles, powder, lead, knives, hatchets,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 179'
gaud)' blankets, tobacco, etc. Pony races and ball games were daily
diversions among the Indians, who were well fed by the Government.
For this purpose droves of cattle and hogs had been driven in and great
stocks of cornmeal, salt and sugar laid in upon these and with the game
brought in by the Indian hunters they fared sumptuously every day.
It was not many years after the treaties described above until the
removals of the Indians to reservations farther west were initiated.
In fact, at the same treaty at St. Marys, some of the Delawares agreed
to their removal to a reservation by the James tributary of White River,
in Missouri. The Delawares living at Little Sandusky quitclaimed to
the United States their reservation of three miles square on August
3, 1829, and consented to remove west of the Mississippi to join
those Delawares already transferred. In 1829, by a treaty concluded at
Saginaw, the Chippewas ceded to the United States land claimed by
them running from Michigan to the "mouth of the Great Auglaize
River." Two years later the Senecas along the Sandusky River relin-
quished their reservations in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi,
and the Indians were removed in accordance with this treaty. There
were just 510 of them, as mixed up a mess of humanity as could be
found, so we are told by contemporaneous chronicles. A portion of them
traveled overland, and the others journeyed to Cincinnati, where they
proceeded by water down the Ohio.
It was in 1831 that negotiations were begun with the Shawnees for
the purchase of their lands. The Indians were greatly divided in their
opinions. James Gardner, who began the negotiations, greatly deceived
the Indians, evidently for personal profit. Some were bribed by the
traders and the dissipated ones knew that a removal meant much ready
money. The tribe insisted upon the payment of all its debts as a pre-
liminary. At last an agreement was reached. Because Gardner informed
the Shawnees that they would be removed early in the spring, the
Indians sold off their cattle and hogs and many other things. As a
matter of fact it was almost a year, and the Indians meanwhile suffered
great privation. Many came almost to the point of starvation. When
the money finally came it was transported in ten wooden kegs on horse-
back from Piqua. After receiving their annuity, the Indians entered
upon a round of festivities and dissipation, that lasted in most instances
until their money was spent. After recuperating from their dissipa-
tions, they began making preparations for their removal to their western
home. They destroyed or buried the property that they could not sell.
David Robb, one of the commissioners who assisted in their removal,
has left an interesting account of the ceremonies incident to the occasion.
"After we had rendezvoused, preparatory to moving, we were
detained several weeks waiting until they had got over their tedious
round of religious ceremonies, some of which were public and others
kept private from us. One of their first acts was to take away the fenc-
ing from the graves of their fathers, level them to the surrounding sur-
face, and cover them so neatly with green sod, that not a trace of the
graves could be seen.
180 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"Among the ceremonies above alluded to was a dance, in which none
participated but the warriors. They threw off all their clothing but
their breechclouts, painted their faces and naked bodies in a fantastical
manner, covering them with the pictures of snakes and disagreeable
insects and animals, and then armed with war clubs, commenced danc-
ing, yelling and frightfully distorting their countenances ; the scene was
truly terrific. This was followed by the dance they usually have on
returning from a battle, in which both sexes participated. It was a
pleasing contrast to the other, and was performed in the night, in a ring,
around a large fire. In this they sang and marched, males and females
promiscuously, in single file around the blaze. The leader of the band
commenced singing, while all the rest were silent until he had sang a
certain number of words, then the next in the row commenced with
the same, and the leader began with a new set, and so on to the end of
their chanting. All were singing at once, but no two the same words.
I was told that part of the words they used were hallelujah ! It was
pleasing to witness the native modesty and graceful movements of these
young females in this dance.
"When their ceremonies were over, they informed us they were
ready to leave. They then mounted their horses, and such as went in
wagons seated themselves, and set out with their 'high priest' in front,
bearing on his shoulders 'the ark of the convenant,' which consisted of
a large gourd and the bones of a deer's leg tied to its neck. Just pre-
vious to starting, the priest gave a blast of his trumpet, then moved
slowly and solemnly while the others followed in a like manner, until
they were ordered to halt in the evening and cOok supper. The same
course was observed through the whole of the journey. When they
arrived near St. Louis, they lost some of their number by cholera.
The Shawnees who emigrated numbered about 700 souls."
It was on November 20, 1832, that they commenced their journey
of 800 miles, and proceeded as- far as Piqua the first day, where they
remained two days to visit the graves of their ancestors. They traveled
until Christmas of that year, when they encamped at the junction of
the Kansas and Missouri rivers. They suffered much on the journey
from the severity of the winter. They immediately commenced the
construction of cabins, and, by the latter part of February, these were
so far completed as to protect them from the cold western winds. They
were joined the next spring by the Hog Creek tribe, under the direction
of Joseph Parks. This second contingent fared much better than those
who preceded them, as they had the advantage of season.
The Ottawas along the Lower Maumee, at Wolf Rapids and Roche
de Bout, and also those by the Auglaize River and Blanchard River,
near the present town of Ottawa, about two hundred in number, gave
up their lands and consented to remove to a reservation of 40,000 acres
in consideration of an annuity and presents of blankets, horses, guns,
and agricultural implements, etc. It was especially stated that this
relinquishment did not include the square mile of territory previously
granted to Peter Manor, the Yellow Hair. A three years' lease was also
granted to Chief Wau-be-ga-ka-ke for a section of land adjoining Peter
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 181
Manor, and a section and a half of land below Wolfe Rapids was given
to Mcuk-qui-ona, or the Bear Skin. A quarter section each was set off
to Himar Thebault, a half-breed Ottawa, to William Ottawa, and to
William AIcNabb, another half-breed. The last remnant of the once
powerful Ottawa tribe of Indians removed from this valley to lands
beyond the Mississippi in 1838. They number some interesting men
among them. There was Nawash, Ockquenoxy, Charloe, Ottoke,
Petonquet, men of eloquence who were long remembered by many of
our citizens. Their burying grounds and village sites are scattered along
both banks of Miami of the Lakes, from its mouth to Fort Defiance.
They left on the steamboat Commodore Perry for Cleveland on August
21, 1837, to go from there by canal to Portsmouth, and thence by the
Ohio and ^lississippi to their new western home. There were about
one hundred and fifty in the party, and a few hundred remained behind
with the white neighbors. A couple of years later another hundred, who
had been eking out a precarious existence, consented to follow the others,
and they were accordingly transported west by the same route.
The Wyandots of the Big Spring Reservation, or those of Solomon's
town, ceded their lands, amounting to about sixteen thousand acres, to
the United States at a council held at McCutchenville, Wyandot County,
on January 19, 1832. James B. Gardner was the specially appointed
commissioner on the part of the Government. It was stipulated that
when sold the chiefs should be paid in silver the sum of $1.25 per acre,
for the land and also a fair valuation for all improvements that had
been made. The Indians went to Huron, in Alichigan, or any place
that they might obtain the privilege of settling with other Indians. Some
did in fact join the other Wyandots on their principal reservation. Chief
Solomon went west with his tribe, but returned and passed his last
days among the whites. The \\'yandots were the last Indian tribe to
leave Ohio. Final negotiations were concluded at Upper Sandusky on
March 17, 1842. By this time the white settlers had completely encir-
cled the reservation with towns and cultivated fields. The tribe had been
reduced to fewer than eight hundred persons of all ages and both sexes.
At the last vote, more than two-thirds of the male population voted for
the transposition. By the terms of the treaty, the tribe was given 148,-
000 acres of land opposite Kansas City. In addition they we regranted
a permanent annuity of $17,500, together with a perpetual fund of $500
per annum for educational purposes, and an immediate appropriation of
$23,860 to satisfy the debts of the tribe.
The preparations for the departure of the Wyandots began in the
spring of 1843, but their actual removal took place in July. The arrange-
ments were made by Chief Jacques. The final scenes at Upper San-
dusky were filled with pathos. The love of the Wyandots for their
ancestral homes was indeed great. Frequent councils were held, and
religious worship in the old Mission Church was conducted for weeks
prior to the removal. Their dead were brought from other places and
solemnly reinterred in the mission cemetery. All unmarked graves were
signified by either a stone or a marker. Squire Grey Eyes, who was an
intelligent and Christian chief, importuned as follows :
182 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"He exhorted them to be good Christians, and to meet him in
Heaven. In a most sublime and pathetic manner he discoursed upon
all the familiar objects of a home — no longer theirs. He bade adieu
to the Sandusky, on whose waters they had paddled their light bark
canoes and in whose pools they had fished, laved and sported. He
saluted in his farewell the forest and the plains of Sandusky, where he
and his ancestors had hunted, roved and dwelt for many generations.
He bade farewell to their habitations, where they had dwelt for many
years and where they still wished to dwell. With mournful strains and
plaintive voice he bade farewell to the graves of his ancestors, which
now they were about to leave forever, probably to be encroached upon
ere the lapse of many years by the avaricious tillage of some irreverent
white man. Here, as a savage, untutored Indian, it is probably Grey
Eyes would have stopped, but as a Christian he closed his valedictory
by alluding to an object yet dearer to him; it was the church where
they had worshipped, the temple of God, constructed by the good white
men for their use, and within those walls they had so often bowed
down in reverence under the ministrations of Finley and his co-laborers."
The farewells having been said, the long cavalcade, with the chiefs
on horseback and several hundred on foot, and many wagons loaded
with their effects, began its journey. Among the chiefs were Jacques,
Bull Head, Split-the-Log, Stand-in-the-Water, Mud Eater, Lump-on-
the-Head, Squire Grey Eyes, and Porcupine. On the first day they
had traveled to Grassy Point, in Hardin County, and on the seventh day
they reached Cincinnati. Here they were taken on boats down the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers, and up the Missouri to their new homes. A few
of the chiefs, including the head chief, Jacques, visited Columbus, where
they called upon Governor Shannon to thank him for courtesies and
farewell speeches were delivered. As this last of all the once numerous
Ohio tribes ascended the steamships that were to convey them from the
place of their nativity, "they seemed to linger, and to turn to the north
as if to bid a last farewell to the tombs in which they had deposited
the remains of their deceased children, and in which the bones of their
fathers had been accumulating and moulding for untold ages." The
number who migrated at this time was 664, and about fifty journeyed
west in the following year.
As the Indians began to disappear the tide of immigration, which
had begun after the War of 1812, was still more increased. By 1820
the population of Ohio had risen to more than half a million. The
state now ranked fifth, being outranked only by New York, Virginia,
Pennsylvania and North Carolina. She had outstripped in the race for
population every other one of the original thirteen colonies. North-
western Ohio began to develop even more rapidly than the other sec-
tions, because of the long repression and the fertility of soil which
attracted settlers. It was in 1820 that county outlines were established
and fourteen counties officially created. Williams, Henry and Wood
were the three counties bordering on the Territory of Michigan. Lucas,
Defiance and Fulton counties were still unborn.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 183
The country was still miserably poor. The money was at a dis-
count because of the inflation of the currency following the war. Trans-
portation was so bad that the produce of the western country was
worth little because of the absence of markets. Butter was worth only
6 cents a pound and eggs could be purchased at 4 cents a dozen. Pork
was 2 cents a pound and beef only a cent higher. Under such condi-
tions there could be no great prosperity, even though there might be a
goodly population. It was then that plank roads were constructed in
some places. The question was not satisfactorily adjusted until the
canals were constructed. These artificial waterways answered the needs
of the communities, assisted by the navigable streams, until the advent
of railways. The Miami and Erie Canal opened up the Maumee coun-
try with the southern section of the state. Lake communication reached
Buffalo and the Erie Canal, which had been completed, gave access to
eastern markets. An era of prosperity gradually developed which has
never failed the richly endowed basin of the Maumee.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PREHISTORIC AGE
To the untrained mind the ages prior to the incoming of the white
man, and the few things learned from the savages then inhabiting the
country, are a sealed book. The historic period occupies but a very
brief period in comparison with the untold ages consumed in the forma-
tion of the topography of our beloved Northwestern Ohio as we now
view it. It is not within the province of this work to take up the
geology of the Maumee country in detail as it would be discussed by
the learned geologist to whom the various rocks with the fossils found
imbedded in them speak with almost audible voice. All that can be
related in this chapter is just enough to briefly outline the subject and
to stimulate, if possible, an impetus for further reading upon the
subject.
In Northwestern Ohio occurs the most expansive area of level coun-
try in the State of Ohio, the region of the old lake bed. In fact, if the
investigator goes back far enough, he finds unmistakable evidence that
it was once a part of the ocean bed. In a broad area, reaching from
Ottawa and Lucas counties southwest to Paulding, Van Wert, and
Defiance counties, the change in elevation frequently does not exceed
a foot to the mile. In no part of Northwestern Ohio are there hills of
any magnitude, but certain sections are slightly rolling, and there are
points where the elevation is a few hundred feet above the level of
Lake Erie.
The historic period of this region is very short in the chronology
of the earth, in comparison with the great length of time covered by
the geological ages. Whether these periods occupied 50,000,000 or
60,000,000 years is of very little interest to us, for whichever state-
ment is accepted, the length of years is sufficiently impressive for our
minds. In very early geological ages, the Gulf of Mexico extended
to this region. The greatest influence in the conformation of the topog-
raphy of this vast level area of land occurred during the glacial periods.
It is quite probable that prior to this time Northwestern Ohio may not
have differed greatly from the hilly region of the southeastern section of
our state. This character of the underlying strata is evinced by the
revelations of the oil driller. The dips of these strata are sometimes
steep and sudden, fairly convincing proof that the original surface was
most uneven. The deposits of oil and gas have been found within or
below the Trenton limestone, a formation which is well understood
among geologists. Hence these drillings have furnished geological stu-
dents with much valuable information about this section.
184
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 185
The remarkable change in the surface of this region is ahnost wholly
due to the efifect of glaciers in prehistoric times. Immense glaciers
formed somewhere in the upper regions of Canada, and moved down
slowly toward the south. Neither trees, rocks nor any natural obstruc-
tion permanently impeded their movement. The glaciers scooped out
the basin of Lake Erie and, when they reached what is now Northwest-
ern Ohio, the general movement was in a southwesterly direction. The
fact of these glacial movements is established in a number of ways.
On Kelley's Island there are the most remarkable glacier grooves that
are found in Ohio. In some places the boulders which were imbedded in
the glaciers cut grooves in the limestone rocks that abounded there to a
depth of two feet. The same groovings, although not so deep, are found
on many of the rocks along the lake shore at JMarblehead and Lakeside.
To a geologist these grooves speak as audibly as do the tracks of an
elephant to the hunter. Hence it is that the rocky shores of Lake Erie
have been carefully studied for many decades by geologists from all
over the world. Six of these glacial epochs have been identified by
these students of rocks.
One of these is known as the Harrison Boulder, lying a few miles
southwest of Fremont. This is a species of granite known to come from
the highlands of Canada, directly north of Lake Erie, which is said to
be the oldest land in the world. The age of this particular rock is esti-
mated by geologists to be from 25,000.000 to 150,000,000 years. It was
transported here, so they affirm, not more than 10,000 or 12,000 years
ago. In size it is 13 feet long, 10 feet wide and about 7 feet thick, of which
one-half is out of the ground. It would weigh probably eighty ton, and
has withstood the influence of climate all these years. The place of its
origin is several hundred miles distant, in the Labrador or Hudson Bay
region, and it could have been transported in no other way than by a
glacier. There are many other smaller boulders scattered over the
Maumee region. The valued rocks of this region are much younger,
and were deposited when this was the bottom of the sea, so that they
became filled with sea shells and shell fish and a vast accumulation of
marine deposits. The superficial deposits all belong to the glacial age.
Still another evidence of the movements of glaciers across North-
western Ohio is in the terminal moraines, which are found in several
places. It has been estimated that the thickness of the glacier over Lake
Erie was about eleven thousand feet. It is known from watching the
movements of the glaciers of today on the Alps, as well as in Alaska
and other places, that these great masses of ice and snow move almost
as a semi-fluid substance. Their progress is exceedingly slow, but they
are just as sure as they are slow. They freeze onto the rocks, never
letting go, but carrying them along. The annual movements of glaciers
which have been observed range from 130 to 330 feet in a single year.
These glacial movements cut off the top of mountains, filled up the
valleys, and made the surface of Northwest Ohio what it is today. They
were like huge planes in their effect, leveling the high points, pushing
everything breakable and movable before them, crushing and grinding
the softer rocks. In many places the depth of the deposit exceeds 100
186 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
feet. The rocks, which were thus exposed to the air, frost and water
were decomposed and formed the rich soil of this section, one of the
richest in existence. As the surface was in places a little uneven, and
in some places even depressed, it created the swamps which used to be
so numerous.
The term moraine is given to a ridge of pulverized and transported
material which is left by a glacier. The moraine marks where the front
of the glacier rested, for it was the front that had accumulated most
of the detritus. The glaciers in their movements gathered up rocks and
soil, which were gradually ground up, so that a fair proportion of the
mass of the glacier was sometimes made up of this rnaterial. At times
the glaciers were halted in their movements for periods which might
have covered centuries, and the surface being exposed to a warmer
climate gradually melted. The detritus which had been gathered up
was deposited in ridges, which can be still plainly distinguished. There
are three or four of these moraines, either wholly or partly in North-
western Ohio, which are in a cup shape, with the bottom of the cup pro-
jecting toward the southwest. All of them are nearly parallel. The
approach is generally so gradual that it is scarcely perceptible to the
traveler. The first of these is known as the Defiance Moraine, which
extends northward and eastward from Defiance. The next one is
known as the St. Joseph-St. Marys Moraine, because it follows these
two rivers, with the apex near Fort Wayne, Indiana. The third one is
only a few miles distant from this, and extends in the same general
direction. A fourth, known as Salamonie Moraine, is still a little farther
distant, and crosses the southern boundary of Northwestern Ohio near
Fort Recovery and Kenton. The many little lakes in Northern Indiana
were caused by the irregular deposition of the glacial detritus, leaving
depressions which became filled with water. It is still an unsettled
question whether the diflferent glacial epochs were separated by long
intervals of mild climate or whether they were simply advances and
recessions separated by only comparatively short intervals, as geological
ages are measured.
The glaciers have exercised the greatest influence in determining the
flow of the water, and the direction of the streams. Although the entire
basin at one time may have drained into Lake Erie, with the onward
movement of the glaciers the outlet in this direction was obstructed.
It then became necessary for the water to seek an outlet in another
direction, and so the streams which flow to the southwest were formed.
At one time a great lake covered the central portion of this region. It
is known to geologists as Maumee Glacial Lake,, which was crescent in
shape, and lay between the Defiance Moraine and the St. Joseph-
St. Marys Moraine. It drained through the Tymochtee gap into the
Scioto River, and through the Wabash. Another of these glacial lakes
known as Whittlesey, was found between the Defiance Moraine and
Lake Erie, and was really a later stage of the water. The nurnerous
sand ridges, which are found running across Northwestern Ohio in dif-
ferent directions, were the successive shores of Lake Erie as it gradu-
ally receded to its present dimensions. Near Fort Wayne there is a
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 187
broad channel, easily distinguished, which formerly connected the
Wabash River and the Mauinee, through which the pent-up waters
found its outlet to the Gulf of ^Mexico. As the lake level declined, the
waters of the rivers St. Joseph and St. ]\Iarys followed the receding
lake, thus organizing and forming the Maumee River. The Defiance
Moraine became for a long time the shore of the glacial lake. "Much
of the shore line can now be seen with more or less distinctness at or
near the following places: Beginning at Ayersville, five miles south-
west of Defiance, and extending northward along the convex west side
of the Defiance Moraine to Archbold, the most northerly point ; thence
irregularly in a general southwesterly course along the slope east of
Bryan and of Hicksville to Antwerp, whence it turns southeast to Scott
and near Delphos, thence again in a curving and northeasterly course."
The initial appearance of man upon the stage of hfe in Ohio has
been a matter of much speculation. There have been many speculations
and theories advanced regarding the length of time that man has existed.
Many evidences of prehistoric man are found in Ohio. The oldest of
these have been discovered in Southern Ohio, for during a long period
it was impossible for the human race to live north of the upper lake
ridge, which passes through Bellevue, Tiffin, Fostoria, and Van Wert,
where the former shore is marked by a sand ridge. At that time the
whole region between that ridge and the lake was covered with a body
of water estimated to be from 50 to 100 feet in depth. At a later
period, as the water level fell, it is quite likely that the races then
existing followed up the retreating waters and established their tem-
porary habitations.
There are remains of a prehistoric population, which are evidenced
by enclosures and mounds found along the Maumee River. Most of the
outlines have now been obliterated, and there is nothing whatever to
establish their antiquity. Some rudely shaped knives and other crude
tools, together with stone axes, flint arrow heads and rude pottery, have
been found, which have evidence of great age, because they have been
discovered near the fossil remains of animals known to exist shortly
following the glacial period. Although the Maumee Valley was prob-
ably never the headquarters of so great a number of early peoples as
Southern Ohio, yet it was no doubt a thoroughfare of travel for pre-
historic people, and they erected low conical mounds above the bodies
of certain of their dead.
The late Dr. Charles E. Slocum, who made an extensive study of
the subject, states in his "History of the Maumee River Basin" that
there are more than fifty mounds and earthworks in this basin that can
probably be classed as the work of prehistoric men. Their situation is
on high ground in small groups and widely scattered. Some twenty of
these mounds have been located in the Indian counties of De Kalb and
Steuben. The remains of the mastodon have been found there, one of
them at a depth of 4 feet in blue clay. In Auglaize County parts
of these prehistoric monsters have been discovered, but the most
perfect one of all was unearthed a few miles southeast of Wauseon.
Several of the mounds have been identified on the south bank of the
188 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Maumee, near Antwerp, and one not far from Defiance. This last
mentioned mound was about 4 feet above the surrounding land, and
about 30 feet in diameter. It was covered with oak trees about 20 inches
in diameter. Upon opening the mound, a small quantity of bony frag-
ments were found, which readily crumpled between the fingers on being
handled. Human teeth of large size were also unearthed. There are
two mounds along the Maumee River, just above the City of Toledo.
In one of these a pick-shaped amulet was unearthed, which was 18
inches in length. Several have been identified along the Auglaize River,
near Defiance. In one mound the decaying bones of eight or ten peo-
sons in sitting posture were discovered. On the headwaters of Bad
Creek, Pike Township, in Fulton County, about ten miles northeast of
Wauseon, eleven mounds of small size, arranged in somewhat circular
form, have been discovered. Most of these mounds were opened by
curiosity seekers. A few human bones, some charcoal and a few indif-
ferent articles of flint and slate were unearthed.
Doctor Slocum further states that there are three prehistoric circles
and four serai-circles in the Maumee River Basin. One of these, with
a diameter of about 200 feet, is in De Kalb County, Indiana, and
another near Hamilton, Indiana. This latter is known as the mystic
circle, with a diameter of 68 yards, and averages between 3 and 4 feet
in height. A third is in a bend of the River St. Joseph, in Allen County,
Indiana. Three semi-circles were found along the Lower Maumee
River. The first of these was observed between the years 1837 and
1846, and is mentioned in a book published in 1848, which was the first
volume of the Smithsonian contributions. This account reads as fol-
lows : "This work is situated on the right bank of the Maumee River,
two miles above Toledo, in Wood County, Ohio. The water of the
river is here deep and still, and of the lake level ; the bank is about
35 feet high. Since the work was built, the current has undermined
a portion, and parts of the embankment are to be seen on the slips.
The country for miles in all directions is flat and wet, and is heavily
timbered, as is the space in and around this enclosure. The walls,
measuring from the bottom of the ditches, are from 3 to 4 feet high.
They are not of uniform dimensions throughout their extent; and as
there is no ditch elsewhere, it is presumable that the work was aban-
doned before it was finished. Nothing can be more plain than that most
of the remains in Northern Ohio are military works. There have not
yet been found any remnants of the timber in the walls ; yet it is very
safe to presume that palisades were planted on them, and that wood
posts and gates were erected at the passages left in the embankments and
ditches. All the positions are continguous to water; and there is no
higher land in their vicinity from which they might in any degree be
command. Of the works bordering on the shore of Lake Erie,
through the State of Ohio, there are none but may have been intended
for defense ; although in some of them the design is not perfectly mani-
fest. They form a line from Conneaut to Toledo, at a distance of from
three to five miles from the lake, and all stand upon or near the prin-
cipal rivers. * * * The most natural inference with respect to the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 189
northern cordon of work is, that they formed a well-occupied line, con-
structed either to protect the advance of a nation landing from the lake
and moving southward for conquest ; or a line of resistance for people
inhabiting these shores and pressed upon by their southern neighbors."
None of the discoveries yet made convey to us any definite information
concerning the early dwellers in the Maumee country. Practically every-
thing is left to conjecture. It is barely possible that discoveries will yet
be made that will shed light upon this subject which is still so obscure.
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE LAP OF A CENTURY
In the light of recent developments, February 13, 1920, was the first
day in a new century in the annals of Williams County. Old Father
Time has opened up a fresh, clean page in the Book of Life in which
residents of the northwesternmost county in Ohio may write their future
history.
By an act of the Ohio Assembly February 12, 1820, provision was
made for the organization of fourteen counties lying north of the Green-
ville Treaty line and west of the Connecticut Reserve boundary, and
from that time dates the history of Williams County.
On Lincoln's birthday, 1920, metaphorically speaking, Williams County
came under the wire at the end of its first century run, this part of the
moral heritage having been 100 times around the sun, with Mother
Nature busy shaping its future destiny. While speed regulations may
not please everybody, all will admit that time flies and the mission of this
Centennial History of Williams County is to tabulate and record the
events of 100 years ago of local history. In beginning this second cen-
tury, it is an opportune time to linger by the wayside and register some
of the most important changes that have taken place in the first century,
and when you "count your many blessings, name them one by one," in
the light of human progress you may conclude it is worth while to begin
another century by erecting milestones more frequently.
The historian of today finds so little data of the past that he is
reminded of the ancient story of when the nations Df the earth were
given their religions, and each one inscribed the sacred creed upon either
metal, parchment or stone, but methinks the Williams County pioneer
must have been akin to the Gypsy who is reputed to have written his
creed upon cabbage leaves when the donkeys were browsing in that direc-
tion, so meager is the record left behind him. Lord Byron once said:
" 'Tis strange but true ; truth is always strange ; stranger than fiction,"
and while a great deal of fiction may be written about one single fact,
where there is no local historical society interested in assembling facts
they are most elusive characters.
The best an historian can do is to approach accuracy, and while there
are sins of commission they cannot be worse than the sins of omission in
writing history. Great human interest attaches to the use of the word
first, and who is not thrilled at the first feeble cry of the babe ; the first
tottering steps of the child ; the first short trousers on the boy and the first
long skirts on the girl ; the first day at school ; the first consciousness of
beauty and the dawn of love ; the first earning of labor and the accumula-
tions of capital ; the first sermon, client or patient ; the first battle, the
190
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 191
first sorrow — in short, the opening incidents in every earthly career have
a thrill of their own out of proportion to that belonging to a thousand
greater things, but we know :
"There are gains for all our loses,
There is balm for all our pain.
But when from youth the dream departs,
It takes something from our hearts.
And it never comes again."
— Stoddard.
In the following pages the attempt will be to write everything in terms
of Williams County as a whole rather than with references to any given
locality, and those familiar with the lengthy township chapters in earlier
Williams County publications may feel disappointed, but on further
examination they will discover all the major facts although the presenta-
tion is changed, the diiTerent townships having the same recognition in
the various county-wide chapters. "I am the vine and ye are the
branches," and in writing these pages the county is regarded as a unit
and the townships as integral parts, intermarriages and social relations
obliterating all differences in past history. The birds, the trees, the wild
life of the forest — none recognize township boundary lines, and the rain
falls and the sun shines on all, and Williams County as a unit is the plan
in relating the development of 100 years.
While Williams County history began 100 years ago, the Williams
County of today really began its separate existence twenty years later.
Old Williams County and Williams County of today have dilTerent bound-
aries, and the schoolboy of today only thinks of Williams County with
its present outline. The Williams County of today began in 1840 when
the seat of government was changed from Defiance to Bryan, and
"Thereby hangs a tale," for five years later Defiance was again a county
seat, and Defiance County was on the map of Ohio. In the office of the
Williams County auditor are old records made in Defiance, and today
residents of Defiance County must visit the courthouse in Bryan to obtain
early statistical information about themselves and their property inter-
ests. Until 1845 Defiance was part of Williams County.
Although Williams County was created February 12, 1820, it was
attached to Wood County for civil purposes, this provision being enacted
April 1st, that year and the temporary seat of justice for the "County
of Wood" was Maumee until commissioners were appointed by the Ohio
General Assembly to fix the permanent seat of justice — a matter about
which there has always been a difference of opinion in Williams County.
However, the county seat remained at Maumee for three years when it
was moved across the river to Perrysburg, this action taken March 19,
1823, but "this was of concern to Williams County for only a short time,
as in a few months she was destined to blossom forth as a fully organized
county, and be given civil jurisdiction over a surface that now embraces
portions of six well-settled and prosperous counties."
While Williams County as constituted at the time of the U. S. census
of 1820 had 387 inhabitants within its territory, it is estimated today that
192 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
there was not a white inhabitant within the present county Hmits 100 years
ago. It was in the fourth census that WilHams County was first enumer-
ated, and ten years later the population had almost trebled itself. The
Williams County census covering 100 years in history is as follows :
1820 387
1830 1,039
1840 4,464
Before another official census was taken the dimensions of Williams
County were greatly reduced by losses to Defiance and Fulton counties,
and since 1850, the boundary of the county has remained unchanged with
the following census reports :
1850 8,108
1860 16,633
1870
1880 23,821
1890 24,897
1900 24,953
1910 25,198
1920 24,627
While liars may sometimes figure, it is said : "Figures do not lie,"
although Williams County folk were surprised to note a falling off in
population in the decade just passing of 571 persons. Enthusiasts had all
estimated a gain in citizenship in ten years. Until four decades ago the
Williams County population was mostly from older counties in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New York and from New England, but the biographer who
always does the advance work on any county history finds that the names
of the first settlers in any county as old as Williams are on the tomb-
stones in the cemeteries, rather than in the directories found in the places
of business in such communities.
This Centennial year in Williams County is also the Tercentenary of
the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers to Plymouth Rock, which was the real
beginning of civilization in the New World. While Columbus discov-
ered America in 1492, and there was a colony planted in 1607 at James-
town, Mrs. Felicia Dorothy Hemans writes : "The breaking waves dashed
high on a stern and rockbound coast," in describing the Landing of the
Pilgrims, December 21, 1620, at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, and
the real aggressive American spirit was brought to the wild New England
shores by the passengers in the Mayflower.
In every community there are families who have pride in their descent
from some passenger in the Mayflower 300 years ago, although one Wil-
liams County citizen remarked that the emigration laws were not so strict
when the Pilgrim Fathers came, and while there is no Congregational
church in Williams County today an old account says there was one organ-
ized in a schoolhouse in St. Joseph Township in 1856, and for a time this
oldest church in the New World had a flourishing organization there.
Before landing at Plymouth Rock the passengers who come in the May-
flower all signed a compact which was in reality the first church in Amer-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 193
ica, although it is not represented in Williams County today. The one
Congregational church in Williams County was served by a minister
from Ligonier, Indiana.
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and no matter
where Williams County settlers came from they had mutual desires — a
community of interests, and by the silent process of assimilation they
soon became one big Williams County family with interests in common,
and their past was never held in evidence against them. Many of them
had come into the wilderness of Northwestern Ohio in order to better
their conditions in life, and they soon became land owners and permanent
citizens in Williams County. While some foreigners have became natu-
ralized citizens, and some have claimed citizenship without properly
understanding American institutions, and Americanism, that old riddle :
"Black upon black and black upon brown,
Three legs up and six legs down,"
had no local significance at all. The negro riding a brown horse with a
black kettle on his head seems never to have passed through Williams
County.
While there were Indians in the Williams County forest as elsewhere
detailed in the Centennial history, they came as silently as the shadows
and vanished as silently as they came, and —
"Like the cares that infest the day.
Will fold their tents like the Arabs,
And silently steal away,"
and while they vanished from Williams County long ago, it is said there
were Miamis, Wyandots and Pottawattomies among them. There are
men and women today who are in sympathy with the American Indian,
the Red Man of the Forest who followed the Mound Builders and who
was summarily removed to western reservations by the United States
Government, notwithstanding their hunting grounds in the great North-
west Territory. In proportion to the number of inhabitants there is a
greater foreign population in Williams County at the beginning of its
second century in local history than at any time in the last 100 years.
Some of them have not yet acquired a sufficient knowledge of English
to speak it.
Early in the nineteenth century settlers began crossing the Allegheny
Mountains in numbers, thus peopling the Northwest Territory thrown
on the market under provisions of the famous Ordinance of 1787, and
in a short time Ohio was asking for statehood. It was the first of five
little republics— Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, carved
out of the old Northwest, the exclusion of slavery and the special pro-
vision for educational advantages rendering all these states attractive to
settlers. In speaking of the Northwest Territory today people are inclined
to think of the Dakotas or of the Canadian Northwest, and historians now
designate it as the Old Northwest and when linked with the Ordinance
of 1787, the student of history is not confused about it. In the same
sense Old Williams County comprehends the domain of 100 years ago
194 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
before its area had been reduced by other ambitious counties who must
gain recognition from the standpoint of area in order to be accorded a
place on the map of Ohio.
In dispossessing the Indians found in the forests of Northwestern
Ohio, the Greenville Treaty made under the direction of "Mad Anthony"
Wayne, August 3, 1795, providing for the organization of the fourteen
counties lying north of Greenville it was agreed that $20,000 worth of
goods should be given, and that $10,000 worth should be given them
annually forever, and the treaty secured the free use of all waterways by
the encroaching settlers, but this provision did not mean much to Williams
County. While the United States Senate ratified the treaty, it was almost
a quarter of a century later that the Ohio Assembly took action in the
matter. However, the political pot was boiling and the first Ohio consti-
tutional convention was called in March, 1802, and on February 19, 1803,
Ohio was admitted into the Union as the seventeenth in the galaxy of
states, and from that time forward developments were rapid in North-
western Ohio, and now for a full century there has been a Williams
County.
Since the beginning of local history was February 12, 1820, the citi-
zens of Williams County 100 years later do well in erecting this first
century milestone — the Centennial History of Williams County. The
records show that it was formulated axid given its name 100 years ago —
that one full century has cycled into eternity since Williams County has
been on the map of the world. The statute providing for the formation
of these fourteen counties, of which Williams is the northwestermost, is
entitled : "An Act for the erection of certain counties therein named,"
and it reads as follows : "Be it enacted, etc., that all that part of lands
lately ceded by the Indians to the U. S., which lies within this state shall
be and the same is hereby erected into fourteen separate and distinct
counties to be bounded and named as follows," and the description applied
to the fourteenth includes all of the first, second, third and fourth ranges
north of the third townships north in said ranges, and to run north with
the same to the state line, and to be known by the name of Williams.
In selecting the names of these newly created counties the Ohio
Assembly evidently had in mind the galaxy of Revolutionary patriots,
Williams, Paulding and Van Wert counties being named in honor of the
three captors of Major Andre, Williams County being named in honor
of David Williams, and his companions in the adventure were John
Paulding and Isaac Van Wert. All were Holland Dutch and did not
have a good mastery of the English tongue, and yet Major Andre was
not in doubt about their meaning when on September 23, 1780, they made
of him a prisoner of war. David Williams was the senior of the trio and
took the initiative in the capture. He was only twenty-three years old
so that Major Andre was taken by mere boys, and it is little wonder he
put up an argument. When he encountered the three young militiamen
by the wayside, he said : "Gentlemen, I hope you are of our party."
The three young Revolutionary patriots were engaged in a game of
cards under the shade of some bushes, thus whiling away a little time
when one of them looking up saw a man riding toward them in the dis-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 195
tance. They exchanged glances and abandoned the card game for some-
thing more exciting, and as the stranger approached they interviewed
him. He was a trim built man small of stature, wearing a broad hat,
blue surtout, crimson coat and the pants and vest of nankeen, and he had
dark eyes and a bold, military countenance. He was astride a large
brown horse branded on one shoulder : "U. S. A.," and it was their
opportunity for investigation. When they had exchanged words with
the stranger they understood their own signals, and at once they were
on picket duty. They cocked and aimed their muskets at the rider who
seemed determined to pass them. This brought from his lips the greet-
ing: "Gentlemen, I hope you are of our party."
"What party?" inquired young Williams.
Capture of Major Andre
"The lower party," said Major Andre.
"We are," said young Williams, encouraging the confidence of the
stranger.
"I am^^a British officer," was the lie that fell from the lips of Major
Andre. "I have been up the country on particular business and do not
wish to be detained a single moment."
Not inclined to form a truce with the stranger young Williams
answered : "We are Americans."
Finding himself at the mercy of his captors. Major Andre exclaimed:
"God bless my soul ! A man must do anything to get along," in seem-
ing extenuation, and then becoming more confident he asserted : "I am
a Continental officer going down to Dobbs Ferry to get information from
below " and at this stage in the proceedings he produced a pass
signed by Gen. Benedict Arnold, but the subterfuge was of no avail with
three sturdy young American soldiers.
196 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
At this juncture,- Major Andre warned them : "You will get your-
selves into trouble."
"We care not for that," answered the three sturdy militiamen in one
voice. They had Major Andre where they wanted him and they were
undismayed about it. They compelled him to dismount while they
searched him. When they asked him to remove his boots his face changed
color and he was obstinate about it. When he hesitated young Williams
relieved him of the left boot, exclaiming: "My God, he's a spy," when
they found three sheets of closely written paper enclosed for protection
in a blank sheet, and marked : "Contents Westpoint." When they
removed the other boot they found another similar package, and in answer
to their questions Major Andre told them he obtained the papers from
a man at Pines Bridge. Williams, Paulding and Van Wert were not
inclined to believe the story.
As a last resort Major Andre tried to bribe his captors and buy his
liberty. He ofifered his horse and equipage, and 1,000 guineas for his
release, but they were firm in the matter, and he was wholly at their
mercy. Growing desperate under the pressure of circumstances Major
Andre assured the young militiamen he would give then 10,000 guineas
and all the drygoods they wished for his release, and these things would
te deposited for them at any point they might designate, but to his sor-
row he found that he was dealing with American soldiers and there was
no price on their integrity. He promised them anything and everything
for his liberty. They might carry his order to New York where they
would obtain all those things unmolested, but in him they recognized the
traitor and they did not release him. It was twelve miles to the nearest
military station at Newcastle, and they turned their captive over to the
officers there.
When Major Andre was executed Williams, Paulding and Van Wert
■were witnesses. They stood in the ring and saw him hanged by the
neck, and when the hangman informed him that his time was short and
asked for an explanation or any special preparation, he answered : "Noth-
ing for those captors only to witness to the world that I died like a brave
man," and the hangman, who was painted black because of the hideous-
ness of his requirement, was ready to adjust the noose when Major
Andre, game to the last, said : "Take off your black hands," and he
adjusted it himself. He tied his own pocket handkerchief over his eyes,
and with a smile to his new made acquaintances he was launched into
■eternity. It was an awful moment in the lives of his captors, and yet
they had nothing to regret. In his capture they had thwarted the purpose
of iBenedict Arnold, whose name has gone down in history as a traitor to
Tiis country.
While these young Revolutionary soldiers never lived in the Ohio
■counties named in their honor, it is interesting to note that Allen, Han-
cock, Henry, Marion and Putnam counties also commemorate Revolution-
ary soldiers, and that an Ohio public official once said he hesitated about
invading any of those counties because of the military spirit thus engen-
dered in them. David Williams died in New York in 1831, and he may
have been unaware of the honor bestowed upon him in the naming of
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 197
Williams County. It is a matter of record that the United States Con-
gress gave to each of the captors of Major Andre a farm in West Chester
County, New York, vahied at $2,500, and voted to each of them a hfe
pension of $200 a year and a silver medal inscribed on one side "Fidelity,"
and on the other the Latin words : "Amo Patraie Vinci," which being
translated means "The love of country conquers."
In the opening days of this second century in local history the citi-
zens of Williams County will be interested in knowing that the man
whose name is thus commemorated was born October 21, 1754, at Tarry-
town-on-the-Hudson, and that he died August 2, 1831, near Livingston,
New York. David Williams enlisted in 1775 and served in the War of
the Revolution under General Montgomery. While in the service his
feet were frozen and that disabled him for further military duty. In
addition to the special recognition of the United States Congress, he
was given a cane by the State of New York because of his chivalrous
defense of the Hudson from obstruction at West Point.
In 1830, David Williams visited New York City upon the invitation
of the mayor who, on the part of the city, gave him a carriage, horse and
harness, and the pupils in one of the schools gave him a silver loving cup.
A monument has been erected to his memory near the Schoharie court-
house along the Hudson, and the citizenship of Williams County today
commemorate his memory in a way quite as enduring as if his statue
were carved in marble or granite and placed in some public spot, and yet
the story goes that after the man so signally honored by his countrymen
had located on the farm provided for him among the Catskill Mountains
he was too generous for his own good, and indorsing papers for his
friends he lost heavily and was forced to mortgage the land given to him
by the Congress of the United States. A grandson, William C. Williams,
finally secured title to the farm by discharging the indebtedness against
it, and thus its ownership remained in the Williams name, and the whole
story reads like an ordinary tale beginning: "Once Upon a Time."
In the auditor's office in the Williams County courthouse there hangs
a picture entitled "The Capture of Major Andre," which is a copy of
the painting by A. B. Durand, and it was the happy thought of Charles
R. Lowe while auditor of Williams County to have it engraved and used
on all warrants issued against the county. Every citizen who receives a
county warrant carries away a real work of art, whether or not he is
conscious of the fact — a copy of "the celebrated Durand painting showing
the three militiamen questioning Major Andre in time of the American
Revolution.
CHAPTER XV
FROM SAVAGERY TO CIVILIZATION
In the preface to his second History of Ohio that veteran historian,
Henry Howe, who was a native of Connecticut but later lived in Colum-
bus, writes, "We don't know what is before us," as he details his adven-
tures and commonplace experiences traveling through the sate in 1846
and again in 1886, adding, "Not a human being in any land that I know
of has done a like thing." and his comment is that in the interim of forty
years — the length of time having elapsed between his first and second
tour of Ohio, that the Children of Israel wandered in the Wilderness of
Judea, the state had more than doubled its population while no arith-
metical calculation could estimate its advance in material resources and
intelligence.
What Mr. Howe has said of Ohio applies admirably to Williams
County today. While the pioneers always talked about the "good old
times," under the present economic conditions Williams County citizens
are united in discussing "high old times," incidentally taking many flings
at ,the high cost of living, and yet it is said the sky is just as blue, and
on the other hand the clouds are sometimes just as threatening over the
northwesternmost county of Ohio as anywhere else in the world.
"Equality of opportunity implies equality of obligation," and men and
women are born free and equal in Williams County, as well as in the rest
of the world. Like the statistician, an historian does not need to possess
an imagination since he must deal with the facts as he finds them. His-
tory is well defined as the record of transactions between different people
at different periods of time, and someone has said that not to know what
happened before one was born is to remain always a child. It is said by
another: "The roots of the present lie deep in the past, and the past is
not dead to him who would know how the present comes to be what it
is," and most people of today are interested in the firelight stories of
other days, when told by those of preceding generations — stories heard
at mother's knee, the traditions handed down from father to son, and
time was in Williams County when "word of mouth" had greater signifi-
cance than it has today.
It is the mission of the true historian in Williams County as in the
rest of the world, to delve into the great past in an effort to unravel the
tangled threads in the history of all the yesterdays. Fairy stories have
their place in family life, and some of the traditions handed down from
one generation to another seem like a story that is told even though every
word is fact, and the young people about Williams County firesides now-
adays— firesides, when there are radiators and registers in so many house-
holds, and the question naturally presents itself — what are the coming
198
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
199
generations to do in the way of pioneer recollections? The young peo-
ple in Williams County homes today have little conception of the primi-
tive conditions, family lore and even local history, and older persons owe
it to them in the mad onward rush of the twentieth century to anchor
them a while in memory's doorway, where they may listen to the footfall
of the ages. '
Bulwer Lytton said: "There is no past so long as we have books."
And in the pages of a well-written history it is possible to live one's life
Pioneer Fireplace Showing Early-Day Household Utensils
all over again. The past becomes the present in the preservation of many
things of interest to the future citizen. While the idealist is never at his
best in the field of realism, the student of economic conditions in Wil-
liams County today knows that the increase and advance along the line
of achievement has been much greater since I\Ir. Howe's second tour of
Ohio, for it is a matter of record that he visited Williams County. At
this centennial period there are a great many yesterdays in the past of
Williams county, and today tells its own story. The log-rolling and the
200 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
wool-picking social epoch is so far in the dim distance of the past that
most men and women have either never heard or have forgotten those
stories and incidents of the long ago.
The celebrated fisherman. Izaak Walton, once wrote in his diary :
"I love the world" ; and while not all share his optimism there are some
who think enough of posterity to leave their hieroglyphics behind them.
Someone writes : "It seems needless to urge the value of history upon
mankind, since no tribe, race or nation has ever progressed very far
before it began to invent and make use of means for the preservation of
its story." Even the savage tribes left crude records of their prowess
in the chase or upon the field of battle. These various records were
carved in the barks of trees, written upon scrolls of papyrus, traced upon
the faces of sun-dried brick and tiles, or chiseled in the long-enduring
granite. History is the torch by which our steps are lighted, and its
neglect is a long backward stride toward savagery. The wisdom of
remote ages recognized this fact. However, they were not all as wise
as the Grecians in the choice of their methods in the preservation of his-
tory. The Grecians devoted the genius of their poets and prophets to it,
while Athens adorned and illustrated it by the splendid creations of her
painters and sculptors.
"All history is wrought from the threads of local thought, deed and
adventure that become racial or national when they affect the characters
and destinies of races and nations. But with all its want of consideration
for the common people, and its imperfect realization of the higher mis-
sions of the Government the world would still be savage and sitting in
darkness, were it not for the survival of history," and the records show-
there was a lapse of almost four years from the .time a definite outline
was given to Williams County until there was a permanent organization
in it. On February 2, 1824, the General Assembly of the State of Ohio
passed an act providing as follows : "That the County of Williams shall
be organized, and the counties of Henry, Paulding and Putnam shall be
attached thereto for judicial purposes, and that on the first Monday of
April next the legal electors residing in the counties of Williams, Henry,
Paulding and Putnam shall assemble within their respective townships at
the usual places of holding elections, and shall then proceed to elect their
several county and township officers until the next annual election," and
there is no gainsaying the fact that the greatness of a nation depends upon
the character of the men and the women of the home, the neighborhood,
the township, the town and the county.
It was further decreed that "The courts of the above named counties
shall be held at Defiance in the County of Williams until otherwise pro-
vided by law, etc.," and it was "otherwise" in 1840, when the court was
transferred from Defiance to Bryan, although on March 4, 1845, court
again assembled in Defiance with the area of Williams County reduced
by the loss of some of its most valuable taxable property in the town-
ships of Defiance, Delaware, Farmer, Hicksville, Milford, Tiffin, Wash-
ington and Mark, there having been twenty townships embracing an area
of more than 720 square miles, or more than 460,000 acres, while 400
square miles was the requirement under the provisions of the 1802 Ohio
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 201
constitution. The people of Defiance who suffered the loss of their court
were not slow about taking advantage of the situation, and five years
later they were holding court there again. Naturally there were divided
interests and sympathies along the Williams-Defiance county line for a
time, but happily all of that seems to have been forgotten today.
While eight of Williams County townships through the action of the
whirligig of time w-akened up one morning and found themselves in Defi-
ance county, a commercial map of Bryan would still include them, and
the remaining twelve townships are : Northwest, Bridgewater, Madison,
Millcreek, Florence, Superior, Jefferson, Brady, St. Joseph, Center,
Pulaski and Springfield, and as Williams County stands A. D. 1920,
after whirling through space for 100 years it is bounded north by Mich-
igan, east by Fulton and Henry counties, south by Defiance and west
by Indiana. In its struggle for a place in the sun, Defiance County
secured most of its area from Williams although some was taken from
Henry and from Paulding counties. There always has been litigation
along the Ohio-Michigan boundary about land extending from one state
into the other, and it is not a one-sided difficulty. In 1919 there was
a case filed in the Williams County Court and it is still on the 1920
docket, entitled : Bowers versus Wagner, the ^lichigan man seeking
remuneration for 1.31 acres — a fraction more than one acre of his land
on the Ohio side, while the farm lies in Michigan.
^ Northwest, Bridgewater. Madison and Millcreek townships lie in the
Michigan strip, and they were the disputed territory, lying between the
Fulton and Harris line, but in 1836 Michigan lost tlie disputed strip his-
torians say because of its inability to force its just and righteous claims.
The question at issue as far as Ohio was concerned was the harbor at
the mouth of the Maumee on Lake Erie, and since Michigan was at
the time asking for' statehood, the handiwork of the skilled peacemaker
was in evidence in the settlement of the disputed boundary, compromise
entering into it. In surrendering this disputed territory Michigan was
compensated in receiving undisputed claim to its northern peninsula
bordering on lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior which with its mineral
wealth offset its loss to Ohio, and it gave to Ohio the commercial advan-
tages it sought, and the water ways question is still under consideration.
Toledo is the meeting place for the canal and lake commerce, and
Ohio and Michigan both fared well in the final adjustment of border
difficulties. From 1836 to 1845 there were twenty townships in Williams
County, the territory lying between the Harris 'and Fulton lines being
given to Ohio, but on the other hand what has been the compensation to
Williams County for the loss of its eight townships to Defiance County?
It was March 4, 1845, that President James K. Polk permitted Defiance
County to establish itself and in 1849, the Ohio General Assembly allowed
another grab at Williams County and Millcreek and Brady townships
lost territory to Gorham and Franklin townships in Fulton County.
With the loss of eight townships in 1845 and parts of two more townships
a few years later, Williams is still to be reckoned with as among the
progressive Ohio counties. While it gained four townships on the north
and lost part of two townships on the east and eight townships on
202 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the south, WilHams County has begun its second century run against
time with entire serenity, having fully recovered from it all. While
some of the townships are under and others over the required thirty-six
square miles of territory, there is still an excess over the requisite 400
square miles to constitute it a county. There are eight civil and four
congressional townships as the county stands today, St. Joseph, Center,
Pulaski and Springfield still conforming to the original survey by the
United States Government, the section numbers beginning at one and
ending at thirty-six.
While there may be no Devil's Lanes in Williams County today there
have been many border difficulties, and there are men and women who
do not have to inquire the meaning of the expression, Devil's Lane.
The Boundary Stone
While there is now no "No Man's Land" on Williams County soil, it is
said there are some high fences intended to interfere with the rights
and pleasures of others. Suits to quiet title are of frequent occurrence
because of border difficulties and faulty surveys, and thus the "sins of
the fathers are sometimes visited upon the children" in Williams County,
as well as the rest of the world. The conditions of the Golden Rule
are sufficient to settle most dififerences, and now that solid masonry marks
the Ohio-Michigan boundary at frequent intervals, there will never be
further dispute about the territory, although families living in Ohio and
owning land in Michigan must pay taxes on either side, the rule prevail-
ing that personal tax is payable in the state where the house is located
and land tax payable in the state where the land is located, tax collectors
finding it necessary to establish a precedent in the matter. Those who
own land on both sides of the line who sleep in Ohio pay all but their
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 203
Michigan land tax in Williams County. If they sleep in Michigan they
pay their personal tax there.
When Williams County with its original boundaries was formally
organized, April 1, 1824, there was not much of a scramble among poli-
ticians since beside the honor and distinction connected with it there
were little emoluments, and such considera,tion did not attract ordinary
mortals. The first official roster was : Auditor, Timothy S. Smith ; cor-
oner, John Oliver ; Sheriff, William Preston, and the board of county
commissioners : Jesse Hilton, Cyrus Hunter and Charles Gunn. None
of these officials hailed from what is Williams County today. The orig-
inal Ohio Constitution only provided definitely for the election of a
sheriff and coroner, the other offices optional with the people, and Wil-
liams County had an auditor extra. This election was held on the first
Monday in April, and accordingly the northwestmost county in Ohio came
under the wire again in its century run as an organized county.
There was an interim of sixteen years covering the time from 1824
to 1840, when the people of Williams County paid their taxes in Defiance
instead of Bryan. There was an ancient fort located there, and as early
as 1794 Anthony Wayne — Mad Anthony, declared that all the devils
in h — 1 could not subdue the people there, and thus the place was named
Fort Defiance long before the organization of Williams Countv. Prior
to February 12, 1820. the territory now known as Williams County was
under different jurisdictions, being controlled from Chicago, Milwaukee,
Detroit and Toledo, and for the next four years from Maumee and
Perrysburg until the county seat of government was located at Defiance,
and since 1840 it has been at Bryan. In the period from 1840 to 1851,
there were a number of new counties established in Ohio, but under the
second Ohio Constitution, adopted in 1851, there have been no changes
of boundary or organizations.
The first Ohio Constitutional Convention assembled in Chillicothe,
November 1, 1802, pursuant to an Act of Congress approved April 30,
that year, authorizing the people of the Northwest territory that now con-
stitutes Ohio to meet, draft and adopt a constitution. It required twenty-
nine days of deliberation, and a document was produced that served
the newly formed state almost half a century. The second Constitutional
Convention assembled in Columbus in 1851, and in 1912 there was a
third Constitutional Convention in Ohio, and on May 9. a special session
was held in Chillicothe — the final session, in order that the body for-
mally terminate its labors in the halcyon atmosphere of legend and tra-
dition hovering over the birthplace of the original Ohio Constitution.
It was planned that the delegates and officers of the convention should
hear the final rap of the gavel that would pass the 1912 session into
history within the walls of the courthouse that now stands upon the site
of the Ohio Capitol where the first constitution was written and became
a law.
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CHAPTER XVI
THE TEMPLE OF JUSTICE IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
The migration of the \\'iniams County "seat of justice" from Mau-
mee, Perrysburg and Defiance to Bryan has its counterpart in the wan-
derings of the "seat of justice" in Ohio, from Marietta, ChilHcothe, Cin-
cinnati, Chillicothe again, Zanesville and again in Chillicothe. There
were only two sessions of the Ohio Assembly in Zanesville, both the town
and county enjoying the acquired importance and when Columbus was
finally decided upon in 1810, the itinerant government of Ohio returned to
Chillicothe where there were better accommodations, there to await the
completion of the buildings in Columbus.
When a group of men was named to select the site for the permanent
capital of the commonwealth of Ohio, Newark, Dublin, Worthington,
Delaware, Circleville all had a hand in shaking the plum tree, but four
men of Franklin County who saw what a good stroke of business it
would be to have the state capital located on their adjoining farms laid
a formal proposition before the law-making body oiJering to present a
square of ten acres for the state house, another ten acre plot for the
penitentiary, and in order to secure the location of the buildings they
agreed to erect them at their own expense. They placed an expense
limit of $50,000, and on February 14. 1812, the valentine was given to
them. These four men were: Lyne Starling, John Kerr, James John-
son and Alexander McLaughlin.
The first official building at the new capital of Ohio was a log jail
which was erected in 1813, and in the next year the Ohio penitentiary was
built, the jail and penitentiary being regarded as more necessary than
the state house since there were temporary buildings both in Zanesville
and Chillicothe. Finally a new state house was erected in Columbus
which is described as a plain, insignificant structure looking more like a
tavern than an edifice to house the law-making body of Ohio. It was
constructed after the severely simple store box style of architecture
adopted in Chillicothe and Zanesville, and in 1816 the government was
permanently established in Columbus. There is no record of any struc-
ture built on purpose either in Marietta or in Cincinnati, although an
old account says the sessions of the Ohio Assembly in Cincinnati were
held in Avery's tavern and in a Presbyterian Church there. Both Zanes-
ville and Chillicothe adapted their deserted state houses to the use of
the county courts, and finally the progress of civilization outstripped
them and they were torn away to give place for modern buildings. Thus
the court of Williams County is not without precedent in its wanderings
from place to place, and in the lure held out to it by Williams Center,
Pulaski, West Unity and later on by Montpelier.
206 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Fort Defiance was so far from the geographical center of WiUiams
County, that the settlers north of the Maumee River did not get much
recognition from the officials meeting there, and through the influence of
the Hon. John A. Bryan, one time Auditor of State and later United
States Consul to Peru who donated land for the temple of justice, the
Williams County Court was transferred from Defiance to Bryan. An
old account says : By 1840 there were settlers in every part of Williams
County in sufficient numbers to perfect organizations and establish town-
ship governments, and the rumblings of discontent occasioned by the
courthouse being so far from the center grew louder and louder as the
population increased in the north part of Williams County. It was simply
a case of the mountain coming to Mohamet, since the people from the
Michigan strip who had entered their land in Michigan would no longer
journey to Defiance to transact official business with Williams County.
Then it was that West Unity, Pulaski and Williams Center established
their claims for the goddess of justice.
Defiance naturally opposed the removal of the county seat to the
bitter end since Bryan only existed in the imagination of some land own-
ers and speculators, the spot in question being an unbroken forest — not a
stick a-miss, and the charge is substantiated that money did it. However,
the Williams County contingent along the IMaumee could no longer rule
by swinging a majority, and in response to a petition from the outlying
sections of Williams county on the first Monday in December, 1839, the
General Assembly of Ohio appointed three commissioners : Joseph
Burns of Coshocton, James Culbertson of Perry and Joseph McCutcheon
of Crawford counties to examine the situation and to weigh matters
carefully and report at the next session of the Assembly. There could
be but one result since the geographical location and the population cen-
ter must be taken into consideration.
While a courthouse fight is not an unusual thing, it is a rather unusual
that one should spring up so often and be continued so indefinitely as
has been the case in Williams County. While three moves are said to
equal one fire, there has never been any loss by fire of the records of
Williams County. After journeying to Defiance for sixteen years the
northern part of Williams County had grown in numbers, and finally
gained the desired recognition. The county seat was at Defiance from
1824 until 1840, and much of the time there was open rebellion because
the covmty commissioners ignored the northern townships in their appro-
priations of funds for public improvements. The balance of power was
in the south part of the county, and among those most active in bringing
about the desired changes were : John A. Bryan, Charles Butler, Alfred
P. Edgerton and William Trevitt. Their names are commemorated today
by the names of prominent streets in Bryan.
It seems that Mr. Bryan and Mr. Trevitt took the initiative in locating
the county seat in Bryan, and abstractors of title today frequently write
the names of Eliza Ann Bryan and Lucinda Trevitt who joined their
respective husbands in transferring property in the beginning of things
in Bryan. While these two women joined their husbands in giving two
acres out right for the public square in Bryan, on March 27, 1841, a
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 207
deed was made for 320 acres of land from Mr. Bryan to Mr. Trevitt
with $800 as the monetary consideration. WilHam Arrowsmith was
county surveyor at the time, and it is said that on July 14, 1840, he
applied the name of Bryan to the embryo county seat in honor of the
man who had given the courthouse square to the community. The plat of
the town was completed November 24, 1840 — just fourscore years ago.
The court of common pleas convened for the last in Defiance Jan-
uary 19, 1841, and on February 25 the county commissioners ordered
all the records and journals belonging to the County of Williams with
statutes, desks, stoves, stationery and all the furnishings belonging to
the offices of the several officers of the county, and all papers relating to
the business of the county which should be left on file or otherwise, and
that all the movable property be removed to the town of Bryan, and
the several county officers were required forthwith to pack such property
into goods boxes, and the record sayeth further that all paraphernalia
having been removed from Defiance exactly three months later, April
19, 1841, court convened for the first time in Bryan.
When it became known that the Legislative Commission had located
the county seat of Williams County in an unbroken forest many people
of Ohio and from other states visited the site in the wilderness. Some
came out of simon pure curiosity to see the town in the woods, while
others with foresight had visions of investments and ultimate speculation.
They would get in on the ground floor and buy lots, and as values
advanced they would increase their fortune. However, many visitors thus
attracted returned to their homes with derogatory reports and the future
of the incipient village was a doubtful question. Among those recog-
nizing the future possibilities of Bryan in the woods was John Kaufman,
who came prepared to face the inconveniences and hardships of the fron-
tier community. Mr. Kaufman assisted in building the temporary log
courthouse and helped burn the brick used in constructing the permanent
temple of justice.
While fortune did not smile on John Kaufman he never left the town.
He is entitled to special mention as a worthy citizen, his life story having
been linked with the courthouse of Williams County. He was a booster
in the days when others were k'nockers, and when other sources of
revenue were no longer open to him for many years he was the efficient
janitor of the courthouse. He was a character well known to many
Williams County citizens, and when he died November 3, 1879, the offices
in the courthouse were draped in honor to him. There are men who say
he is entitled to recognition in Williams County today. It was several
years before the more substantial second courthouse was completed in
Bryan, and when Defiance County "swarmed" in 1845, and took with
it so much valuable taxable property the old question of geographical
location of the county seat bobbed up again.
While Defiance had been too far from the geographical center, the
same charge was now made against Bryan and West Unity asserted its
claims for recognition. An old man living in Bryan asserted : "There
has always been a courthouse split in Williams County." While Bryan
still had the log courthouse West Unity tried its hand, but when Fulton
208 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
County was organized in 1850, having taken a strip off of Brady and
Millcreek townships in order to reach its requisite 400 square miles of
territory, West Unity had the same geographical handicap charged
against Bryan. Really the difference between Bryan and West Unity
was settled by the Legislature of Ohio creating Fulton County. The con-
flict raged furiously between the two towns until the third party took
a hand in the difficulty, and it was a case of the pot calling the kettle
black when West Unity urged that Bryan was too far from the geo-
graphical center of Williams County. On February 26, 1850, the General
Assembly of Ohio passed an act to create the County of Fulton. In
doing so it appropriated territory from Lucas and Henry counties, and
three tiers of sections from Millcreek and two from Brady townships
in Williams County. West Unity found itself as near the Fulton County
line as Bryan was to the line of Defiance County. Both were "border
towns," and thus ended the vexed controversy. Again the area of Wil-
liams County had been reduced, and that accounts for the irregularity of
its eastern boundary. Unless there is further controversy perhaps there
will never again be jurisprudence surgery inflicted on the northwestern
most county in Ohio.
As early as 1857 there was a new geographical center clamoring for
recognition in Williams County, and there were election manipulators
doing things in the interest of Montpelier. One of the campaign argu-
ments cropping out that long ago was : "You know very well we are
entitled to the courthouse in Montpelier," and that line of argument is
heard today in Williams County, notwithstanding a writer in 1850, who
said the Williams County courthouse controversy had been consigned to
"the tomb of the Capulets," and it would seem that two territorial trim-
mings would quiet the matter. As it stands today Williams County has
about eleven and two-thirds townships, while there was a time when it
had twenty — still twenty square miles of territory in excess of the Con-
stitutional requirement.
The claim of Montpelier was in evidence for many years and it waxed
eloquent in the eighties when it was necessary either repair or rebuild
the temple of justice in Williams County. Reference to the Williams
County map will convince any one of the central geographical location
of Montpelier, and Williams County folk who wanted the courthouse
there are in position to understand the feeling that actuated Defiance
residents when they were losing it fourscore years ago. In writing on
the subject a Montpelier historian recently referred to the "unpleasant-
ness," saying, charitably enough : "The corpse of which should be buried
beneath the green sward of friendship, and no grinning skeleton be
allowed to stand between those who are working for the upbuilding of
Williams County and her varied interests today." However, not all
the citizens of Montpelier feel that way and the situation is a parallel to
that existing between St. Paul and Minneapolis. The story is told that
a church in IMinneapolis once discharged its minister because he took
his text from St. Paul. A Williams County joker said that when there
was a gala day in Bryan, Montpelier prayed for rain, but citizens of
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 209
Montpelier declare that the present day population seldom thinks of
Bryan only when they must pay their taxes there.
An old account says: "It was on a bright autumn day in 1840, that
the woods were ringing with the sound of the woodman's ax, and Volney
Crocker was chopping the first gigantic tree from the courthouse ' square
in Bryan." It was then an unbroken forest and the wild life of the forest
hitherto undismayed began scampering from tree to tree and perching
on the highest limbs because of the seeming encroachments of civiliza-
tion. While Mr. Crocker chopped down the first tree on the public
square in Bryan, until that time he had been a resident of Williams
Center. While building his primitive American dwelling — the first cabin
in Bryan, Mr. Crocker lived temporarily in a wagon, and it is recited
that he endured all the hardships known to the pioneer in any country.
Mr. Crocker is entitled to the double honor of chopping down the first
A Pioneer Wood-chopper
tree on the courthouse square, and of constructing the first house in
Bryan. This cabin had the regulation puncheon floor and the prescribed
stick and clay chimney. There is different architecture in Bryan today.
It is related that A. J. Tressler who was the first school teacher in
Bryan and other prominent citizens of the frontier community were on
the ground when Mr. Crocker was clearing the public square, and that
after school in the evening the teacher assisted in gathering and burning
brush, but had his foresight been equal to the hindsight of most peda-
gogues of later years he would have said : "Woodman, spare that tree,"
in some instances, and there would still be some of the original forest
trees standing in the Williams County public square today. The only
thought of the pioneer was to rid the earth of the trees encumbering it,
and his posterity today is reduced to the necessity of planting if he
would shelter his door yard from the heat of the summer sun. Had
Professor Tressler been possessed of the necessary vision of the future,
he might have immortalized himself in pleading for the perpetuation of
210
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the original forests surrounding the temple of justice in Williams County
today. It is said that nowhere in Williams County are there any of the
trees of the original forest at the end of its first century in definite his-
tory, A. D. 1920, and fourscore years from the day Mr. Crocker cut
down that first tree in the public square in Bryan.
John A. Bryan and William Trevitt who had been active in locating
the new county seat agreed to put up the necessary buildings, and there
was a makeshift courthouse and jail erected in 1840, both made of logs
and both standing north of the public square in Bryan. It is a matter of
record that Jacob Over and James McFadden were the builders — arch-
itects, carpenters and contractors and they dressed the logs by hewing
Old Court House
and scutching them, and the temporary courthouse stood at Main and
Mulberry streets while the jail was on North Lynn Street, perhaps in
the same square where the Williams County bastile is located today.
The entrance to the courthouse was in the south end and the judge's
bench was in the north end of the structure and while court was held
on the ground floor there was an upper story. Older citizens of Williams
County today say the upper story was never finished and was never used
at all. However, court was held there for seven years. The story is
told in Bryan that the old courthouse was torn down and the logs were
used in two houses still standing, A. D. 1920, in the east part of town.
The logs of the jail were used in constructing a sewer in Bryan.
In the autumn of 1847 when bricks were being burned on the public
square to be used in the construction of a more permanent courthouse
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 211
in Williams County, skeptics visiting the site feared that the excavation
would tap a subterraneous body of water and that the goddess of justice
would sometime be submerged, and this story of her watery grave was
revived annually in the spring time for many years. The floating gar-
dens in Mexico are no more of a reality than citizens of Williams County
expected to see in Bryan because of the artesian water underlying the
territory. It is not considered by the conservative ones as a "safe
place for the democracy" of Williams County. Many advised their
friends against investments in a town underlaid by water, thinking only
catastrophe could result from it. No doubt those skeptics would be
glad to own some of this Bryan realty of today.
When the board of county commissioners finally took up the matter
of building a permanent courthouse in Bryan, they used a set of plans
drawn by H. Daniels, the dimensions to be 53 by 87 feet, and there was
a cost limit of $10,000 placed upon it. An old account says the log
courthouse was cold and uncomfortable, but because of the tardiness in
providing a new one there was an order for chinking and daubing the
old one again. This repair cost the munificent sum of $7.08 to the tax-
payers of Williams County. The contract for the courthouse was let
piecemeal, and while Williams County taxpayers know little about
strikes and labor difficulties from experience today, the time came when
Bryan and Trevitt refused to fulfill their obligations and the WiUiams
County Commissioners were forced to advertise for bids for other labor
to finish the courthouse. The existing contract with Bryan and Trevitt
was declared "abandoned and vacated," and the unfinished job was let
to Giles H. Tomlinson.
The whole afifair was unsatisfactory, and when Mr. Tomlinson failed
to carry out his agreement the commissioners called on the bondsmen,
Bryan and Trevitt having been secured by A. P. Edgerton who made
good the money paid to Tomlinson whose work was worthless, and the
original contractors again took hold of the proposition and completed
the courthouse. It was to have been completed December 1, 1847, but
on July 21 the board required further security looking toward the finish
of the contract, and William Yates, Levi Cunningham, Jacob Bowman,
S. E. Blakeslee, E. H. Leland and A. J. Tressler became sureties for
Messrs. Bryan, Trevitt and Edgerton, there being no general bonding
companies that long ago. While Mr. Bryan and Mr. Edgerton both
have Williams County towns named for them they paid well for the dis-
tinction. They had financial difficulties sufficient to entitle them to some
honors. It is said that all of Bryan was once sold at sheriff's sale, and
those making abstracts of titles today encounter many difficulties about it.
It was six years from the time building was commenced until the
second Williams County courthouse was ready for occupancy, and in
1848 the citizens raised money to construct a board fence around the
county's property, but the attitude of the public has changed today. Wil-
liams County people would now pay their money to have such an obstruc-
tion removed in order that visitors to the public square might enjoy
themselves there. After the Williams County courthouse had been occu-
pied two years the board of commissioners declared the job unsatis-
212
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
factory, and on April 10, 1850, employed Attorney William Carter to
bring a suit on the contract against the bondsmen, and there was con-
stant litigation over the place because of the frequent subsequent bills for
repair until Mr. Edgerton finally returned $550 to the county covering this
subsequent expense.
While Bryan has a separate place for the temporary detention of evil-
doers today, the sheriff's residence and Williams County jail supplanting
the log structure was built in 1867, and the casual observer would think
of it as in a good state of preservation. It is located at the corner of
Bryan and Beech streets and culprits are held in durance vile two squares
from the temple of justice today. The original log jail is said to have
stood in the same block, but it is a matter of record that July 19, 1844,
a contract was let for building the county jail shown in the accompanying
cut, standing on the north side of High Street and opposite the court-
BILL-COVERED BuiLDING, OlD JaIL IN BrYAN
house square in Bryan. The board paid Erastus H. Leland $7 for clear-
ing the lot on which this jail was built, although $4 an acre had been
the record price for such jobs. John McDowell built this jail at a cost
of $1,050 to Williams County. It holds a distinctive place in local his-
tory because a man was once taken out of it and hanged in the open
space in the rear of it.
In writing about Bryan in 1886, Henry Howe says : "The town has
a neat, domestic air and is New England like in its general appearance,
the courthouse there being the northwesternmost in Ohio," and that was
at the time a third courthouse was under consideration. An old account
says: "It did not require the gifts of a prophet to foresee the inevitable
struggle, and while the adherents of either Bryan or Montpelier dis-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
213
claimed any such incentive for their actions, yet tlie election returns for
several years prior to 1888 showed that each was getting ready for the
fray," much devolving upon whether a man asking the sufi'rage of the
people of Williams County was friendly to Bryan or Montpelier. It
was known to all that the Williams County courthouse was doomed, and
for years more attention was focused on local than on presidential
elections. , , , , . ■
Forty years had elapsed since the courthouse had been located m
Bryan and'Williams County has suffered subsequent loss of territory, and
still the temple of justice was several miles from the geographical center
—and ]\Iontpelier was alive to the situation. While the courthouse
built to satisfy the demands of the pioneers was inadequate to the needs
of a progressive county, people were inclined to continue the use of it
rather than open the vexed question of location again. However, on
East Side Court House Square, 1869, Bryan
February 10, 1888, a bill was introduced in the Ohio State Senate author-
izing and requiring the county commissioners of Williams County to
borrow $50,000 for the purpose of repairing the old courthouse or build-
ing a new one. While Montpelier tried to defeat the bill it carried, and
it was decided to raze the old one and erect a new one in Bryan. Samuel
Priest was given the contract of wrecking the old courthouse, and the
county business was transacted temporarily at the Mykrantz college
building on North Lynn Street. An injunction was filed by Montpelier
citizens, but Judge Sutphin dissolved the suit August 14, 1888, and two
days later a contract was let to Malone Brothers & Earhart of Toledo,
the specifications calling for the use of Berea stone and the stipulated
amount being $107,450, and the first brick in the walls of the present
edifice was laid October 22, the same year.
214 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"Pioneers of Williams County/' and bearing the date "1899,"
is the inscription on the corner stone of the WiUiams County court-
house, the cornerstone ceremony occurring Tuesday, April 30, 1889,
the day of this ceremony being just 100 years from the time "The Father
of His Country" was inaugurated the first President of the United
States. Notwithstanding the fact that Old Father Time found them
napping when Williams County had rounded out its first century in local
history, the citizenry did observe one centennial day in fitting manner.
In this courthouse cornerstone are preserved many valuable records, and
a large concourse of people witnessed the ceremony connected with
laying it. Judge C. A. Bowersox was speaker of the day, and since
the taxpayers were vigilant there is no apparent evidence of faulty
construction in the imposing edifice in the public square in Bryan today.
While its cost far exceeded the original expectation, additional bonds
were sold covering the increased expenditure and all are happy about it.
The spacious temple of justice is a monument to the citizenship of
Williams County today, and the sum of $185,000 is said to cover the
cost of the building and' the fixtures in it. One of the most commend-
able features about the building is the rest room for women. The
wives and mothers may wait there when fatigued from shopping, and
"Meet me at the rest room," is sufficient explanation when a club woman
wants to call a committee meeting in a central locality. Sometimes there
are called sessions of societies held there. There is a rogue's gallery in
the ofifice of the county sheriff, and there are faces of many noted per-
sonages in it. However, they tell one there that no WiUiams County
celebrity has ever been included in this more or less noted collection.
The clock on the Williams County courthouse merrily peals forth
the hour, and the bell in the tower just as solemnly says: "Come to
court. Come to court," and the stranger sojourning in Bryan appre-
ciates the invitation of the benches in the courthouse yard, where he
may sit in the shade and watch the frisking squirrels or look in the faces
of passing humanity. However, when the time comes that another tem-
ple of justice must replace the one standing in Bryan today — well, tell
it not in Montpelier.
CHAPTER XVII
OFFICIAL ROSTER OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The history of WilHams County is the story of a manhood and a
womanhood which from the days of the first log cabins have had no
superiors among the pioneers in any of the frontier countries, and it is not
necessarily a mass of corrupt officials that are found in the temple of jus-
tice today. It may be said that an increased knowledge of the general plan
and of the details of the system under which Ohio is governed can hardly
fail to develop in them a wholesome respect for its government, and a
patriotic pride which will make of them better contented and more law-
abiding citizens. It is declared by some that government begins in the
home, that it expands to the state and that finally the church is the con-
trolling influence, but in a community where not all the citizens are identi-
fied with the church there is some question arising about it.
The government of the family, school, state, and nation must be vested
in some recognized head and the judge and the prosecuting attorney
are the terrors of evil doers in any community. While the construction
placed upon the statutes sometimes seems to be a matter of personal
opinion by some particular officer, taken as a whole the official roster
of Williams County is made up from good, honest citizens. Sometimes
the fault may be in the law itself, and yet efficiency seems to prevail in
the administration of local affairs. While the manner of transacting
business is not specified in the Constitution, some things of an adminis-
trative character are implied, and men elected to official position have
little difficulty in construing the law governing the conduct of their par-
ticular offices. The board of commissioners is the real governing body,
and was the first organized in the history of Williams County. However,
the judge is regarded as the honorary elective position in countv history.
For sixteen years Williams County officials assembled in Defiance for
the transaction of their official duties.
Under the provision of the Ohio Constitution of 1802, the Williams
County judges of common pleas court were: Pierce Evans, John Per-
kins, Robert Shirley, William Bowen, Elisha Scribner, Benjamin Leavell,
William Preston, Oliver, Crane, Foreman Evans, Payne C. Parker,
James M. Gillespie, Charles C. Waterhouse, Nathaniel B. Adams, Lyman
Langdon, Jonas Colby, Reuben B. James, William D. Haymaker, Thomas
Kent, Payne C. Parker, Abner Ayres, Williams H. Stubbs, and
noting the frequent repetition of names it is proof conclusive that when
a man once gets his feet wet in the political stream, it is henceforth
hard for him to remain out of the water. Some of the names appear
again and again, and some succeed themselves in political positions. None
of these judges were natives of Williams County. Judge Selwyn N.
215
216 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Owen was the first citizen of Williams County to be elected common
pleas judge, and he was succeeded by Judge Charles A. Bowersox who
A. D., 1920, is the common pleas judge again.
Williams County has sustained relation to other counties in the matter
of courts, and Judge Ebenezer Lane who was supreme judge of Ohio
was the first to officiate in the Williams County court of common pleas,
and it was a different experience riding on horseback over such an
immense circuit holding- court, and that perhaps explains why he did
not reach Defiance in time for the first term of court in 182-1 — either
in May or October, but at the first term held there in 1825 he was on
the bench. Under the old Constitution the judges were: Judge Eben-
ezer Lane, David Higgins, Ozias Bowen, Emery D. Potter, Myron H.
Tilden, Patrick C. Goode, George B. Way — the supreme court judges
serving Williams County under the provisions of the old Constitution.
From 1851 the duties of the judges were different under the second
Constitution, and the territory was changed again.
Under the second Constitution each county was allowed a common
pleas judge, and the judges in Williams County were: Lawrence Hall,
Benjamin E. Metcalf, John M. Palmer, Alexander S. Latty — the latter
having served longer than any other judge in Northwestern Ohio. Judge
Owen of Bryan was the first resident judge of Williams County to be
elevated to the position of common pleas judge, and he was also later
elected judge in the Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Owen succeeded as
common pleas judge by Charles A. Bowersox, and later the judges
were: Silas T. Sutphin, Wilson H. Snook, William H. Hubbard, John
M. Killits, Edward S. Mathias, Charles E. Scott and Charles A. Bower-
sox. In 1883 there was a change of territory again, and Charles S. Bent-
ley was the only man representing Williams County.
Intimately associated with the judge of the court is the prosecuting
attorney. In order to hold court he is a necessity. Until 1835 prosecut-
ing attorneys in Ohio were appointed by the state. Since then they
are elected by the people, and those who have served Williams County
are : Charles W. Ewing, Rodolphos Dickinson, James L. Gage, Henry
Cooper, Josiah Robinson, Rodolphos Dickinson, Amos Evans, Curtis
Bates, Amos Evans, William C. Holgate, Erastus H. Leland, Joshua
Dobbs, Sanders M. Huyck, Joshua Dobbs, John A. Simon, Meredith R.
Willett, William Letcher, Cunningham R. Scott, John S. Cannon, Charles
M. Mykrantz, William O. Johnston, Philetus Smith, Schuyler E. Blakes-
lee, Charles S. Bentley, Robert A. Scott, Charles W. Pitcairn, George
Strayer, Robert A. Scott, Thomas Emery, John M. Killits, E. C. Peck,
James D. Hill, Edward Gaudern, C. L. Newcomer, D. A. W^ebster, John
H. Schrider, D. A. Webster, Lewis Christman, Edward Gaudern and
Charles T. Stahl.
Probate Judge ,
The court of the probate judge was created by the Constitutional
Convention of 1851, and it is purely local in its dealings with the affairs
of the community. Its incumbents are: Joshua Dobbs, Meredith R.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 217
Willett, Isaac R. Sherwood, W. A. Hunter, William H. Ogden, George
E. Long, John W. Leidigh, C. A. Bowersox, Martin Perkey, George
Rings, W. C. Closet, C. M. Miller, John H. Schrider, Francis M. Frazier,
Edwin C. Peck and J. Arter Weaver. The Williams County juvenile
court has always been under the supervision of the probate judge. While
there has not always been need of a probation officer, Charles R. Ames
is at present serving in that capacity. His duties pertain to the welfare
of children, and his work comes under the supervision of the Ohio
Council on Child Welfare. There is not much child delinquency in
Williams County.
The Clerk of the Court
The clerk of the Williams County Court is required to keep the
docket, and to enter all proceedings in books provided for such purpose.
In their order of succession they are : John Evans, George T. Hickcox,
William C. Colgate, Edwin Phelps, Levi Colby, John Paul, Walter Cald-
well, William A. Stevens, Jacob Youse, Milton B. Plummer, Lewis E.
Brewster, Ezra E. Bechtol, William H. Chilcote, Ezra E. Bechtol, Wil-
liam W. Darby, Hugh G. Monen, Justin E. Alvord, John Gearhart, Abra-
ham L. Brace, William E. Stough, John Gearhart, Samuel Gearhart and
George A. Brown.
Sheriffs of Williams County
The sheriff is the chief executor and peace officer of Williams County.
He is provided with a home adjoining the bastile of the county, and it
becomes his duty to prevent lynchings, riots and all violent disorders.
He must pursue and capture felons and those guilty of misdemeanors.
The incumbents in Williams County are : William Preston, Isaac Hull,
William Preston, Alfred Purcell, Uriah E. Drake, Jonathan B. Taylor,
William K. Daggett, John Drake, James M. Gillespie, Daniel Langel,
Thomas Shorthill, John Bell, Hiram Byers, William S. Lewis, Edwin
J. Evand, Henry L. Walker, William W. Darby, George C. Kober, Jacob
A. Dorshimer, George W. McGrew, Miller W. Burgoyne, John C. Bailey,
Albro Wyrick, Bert Youse, Bert W. Ames, Charles Grim, Samuel S.
Wineland, John RufY and Lewis T. Perkins.
Recorders of Williams County
The Williams County recorder is charged with the safekeeping of all
records, deeds, mortgages and other instruments affecting the title to
lands, and the incumbents of the office are : John Evans, Horace Ses-
sions, Calvin L. Noble, Jacob Youse, Milton B. Plummer, James B.
Wyatt, George L. Starr, Harvey H. Wilcox, Isaac N. Sheets, Robert
D. Dole, Barrett E. Conklin, Thomas J. Coslet, Eli Swigart, Benjamin
F. Ewan, Simon B. Walters, Charles F. Eyster, C. D. Hall, H. A.
Graetz, Ross Stickney, and Sherman Ingram.
218 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Auditors of Williams County
The Williams County auditor keeps all the accounts of the board of
county commissioners, and he prepares the annual tax duplicates from
the transfer books and assessment sheets. The auditor is the Williams
County bookkeeper and a warrant or order from him is necessary before
the county treasurer pays out any funds at all. The Williams County
auditors in their turn are : Timothy S. Smith, Thomas Philbrick, George
Lantz, James W. Craig, Foreman Evans, Granville Edmiston, William
Seemans, George W. Crawford, William A. Brown, William A. Stevens,
A. R. Patterson, Francis M. Case, Conroy W. Mallory, Simeon Gillis,
Jacob Kelly, George Rings, Alfred F. Solier, George W. Solier, Albert C.
Marshall, J. Fred Von Behren, Howard Friend, Joseph W. Williams,
George E. Morris, Rufus Weaver, G. C. Beucler, C. R. Lowe, G. C.
Beucler, C. R. Lowe and H. C. Miller.
Treasurers of Williams County
The Williams County treasurer receives all taxes paid for the support
of the state, county and township, and he is held to a strict account for
the safety and proper application of such funds. The incumbents to
date are : Moses Rice, William Seemans, Benjamin Leavell, Robert
Wasson, William Dawson, John Lewis, Sidney S. Sprague, Elijah Lloyd,
John Cameron, Reuben H. Gilson, William A. Hunter, John Rings,
Samuel Ayres, Elisha G. Denman, Nathan B. Townsend, Andrew J.
Tressler, William H. Keck, John B. Grim, Oliver G Smith, Melvin M.
Boothman, Elisha M. Ogle, John Bailey, Samuel K. Swisher, George
Ruff, George P. Elliott, Daniel Deemer, J. Ellsworth Scott, Willard
Bradhurst, Frank Culbertson, H. J. Brannan, D. A. Lew, Frank Spang-
ler and D. A. Lew.
Commissioners of Williams County
The duties of the Williams County commissioners are numerous, and
they are very important to the tax-payers. They have control of all
public property and if they saw fit they might even sell the courthouse.
While all other county officers have their duties outlined by statute, the
county commissioners have latitude and they may use their own discre-
tion in many things. The county auditor is ex-officio member of the
board and he keeps a record of its proceedings. The sheriff preserves
order. From the beginning the Williams County commissioners are :
Charles Gunn, Jesse Hilton, Cyrus Hunter, Benjamin Leavell, Isaiah
Hughes, Nathan Shirley, Montgomery Evans, Jesse Hilton, Sebastian
Sroufe, Payne C. Parker, Pierce Evans, James W. Craig, Montgomery
Evans, Jesse Hilton, John Stubbs, John Kingery, John Rings, Oney Rice,
'Jr., Payne C. Parker, Albert Opdycke, Levi Cunningham, John Stubbs,
Calvin L. Noble, William Sheridan, George Ely, Harmon Doolittle, Jacob
Bowman, Ezekiel Masters, Robert Ogle, Daniel Farnham, Joseph Rea-
soner, John Tanner, John Washburn, Thomas Burke, Stephen B. McKel-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 219
vey, William Letcher, Christopher Brannan, Timothy W. Stocking,
Alpheus W. Boynton, Daniel Farnham, George R. Joy, Robert Haughey,
Hiram Opdycke, \\'iniam G. Fish, Jacob Haughey, Timothy W. Stocking,
Daniel Farnham, Eli Booth, John B. Grim, Clark Backus, P. S. Garlow,
Conroy W. iMallory, Jonathan Burke, George R. Joy, George Webber,
Alfred Riley, Eli Wisman, Joseph F. Creek, John Brannan, William A.
Bratton, Walter I. Pepple, Archibald Pressler, John U. Bratton, John
F. Hamet, Benjamin F. Morris, John Brannan, Frank Loring, Benjamin
F. McGrew, Frank L. Waterston, Marion R. Chandler, Jeremiah Clay,
A. F. Young, William Moss, E. F. Long, Jacob Coolman, W. W. Benner,
Peter Juillard, A. R. Dewees, F. A. Oberlin, Guy H. Knepper, F. C.
Flickinger, Albert Witzel, John P. Fisher, and the board as^ it is consti-
tuted, A. D. 1920: Dewees, Knepper and Fisher.
Coroners of Williams County
The coroner of Williams County is a conservator of the peace, and
while it is usually filled by medical doctors, it is one office that always
seeks the man. Sometimes coroners are elected who do not qualify and
court bailiffs or any other available person may be sworn in temporarily
to perform the duties. The powers and duties of the coroner are iden-
tical with those of the sheriff as far as suppressing riots and arresting
offenders goes, and under certain conditions the coroner may take charge
of the county jail and imprison the sheriff himself. The prime requisites
of the coroner is to hold inquests where death results from unnatural
causes, or where the cause of death is unknown, and he takes charge of
all money or valuables found on the body of such person, disposing of
them according to law. The incumbents to date are : John Oliver, Rob-
ert Wasson, DeWitt Mackrel. William Preston, (from 1830 to 1850
there is no record of any coroner) and the courthouse had been at Bryan
ten years when Chauncey Mattison was chosen ; G. S. Dunscomb, John
R. Kemp, George H. Rolland, Justin O. Rose, Quito H. Crasser, Amos
Betts, Ralph C. Ely, George Hart, Harrison S. Kirk, George W. Bohner,
Richard F. Lamson, Daniel C. Caulkins, Charles Neblong, Frank O. Hart,
Blair Hagerty, Joseph W. Williams. Clark JNI. Barstow, Henry M. Byall,
Lorin A. Beard, Harry Wertz, O. H. Niehart, S. S. Frazier, E. A. Bech-
tol and again no one qualified for coroner and James Oldfield, court
bailiff had been sworn in to perform such duties, until finally Dr. W. R.
Davis of Montpelier had the honor thrust upon him.
Surveyors of Williams County
The surveyor of Williams County establishes all lines and boundaries.
He usually marks corners by stones and records the surveys. Those who
have served Williams County are: John W. Perkins, Miller Arrow-
smith, Seth B. Hyatt, James Thompson, Charles W. Skinner, James Paul,
Francis M. Priest, John A. Mattoon, John C. Grim, Selden Hoadley, B.
B. Doughton, H. M. Sharp, W. H. Davis, Bert Beucler and Harvey F.
Brown.
220 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Superintendent of Williams County Public Schools
The office of school superintendent was created by Act of the Ohio
Assembly in revising the school code, and it became efi'ective August 1,
1914, and the requirements of the superintendent are that he act as clerk
of the board of education, have charge of the public schools, formulate
the course of study and conduct teachers' institutes, etc. He is elected
by the presidents of the various village and rural district boards of edu-
cation, the 1920 board being: L. O. Cook, S. D. Kaiser, W. E. Bard,
J. M. Hodson and M. C. Edgerton. Prof. W. A. Salter is the first
incumbent of this office.
Secretary of State from Williams County
In its entire history Williams County has furnished one Secretary of
State whose duties were in the State Capitol in Columbus. In 1869
Isaac R. Sherwood was elected from Williams County.
State Senators from Williams County
The following men have been elected to the Ohio Assembly as sen-
ators from Wilhams County: Edward Foster, Meredith R. Willett,
William Sheridan, William M. Denman and William Behne.
State Representatives from Williams County
In its past history Williams County has furnished the following repre-
sentatives in the Ohio General Assembly. They are : Sidney S. Sprague,
Thomas S. C. Morrison, Erastus H. Leland, Schuyler E. Blakeslee, Cal-
vin L. Noble, Philetus W. Norris, Elisha G. Denman, Schuyler E. Blakes-
lee, John W. Nelson, George W. Mooney, Francis M. Carter, William
Letcher, Charles A. Bowersox, Solomon Johnson, Robert Ogle, Blair
Hagerty, Joseph W. Williams, Theodore S. Carvin, Robert Starr,
Orlando Bennett, William M. Denman, O. H. Niehart, Henry L. Goll,
C. A. Bowersox, William Behne, Rev. William Mooney, W. H. Shinn,
and F. L. Waterston.
United States Congressmen from Williams County
Williams County has furnished the following U. S. Congressmen:
Alfred P. Edgerton, Isaac R. Sherwood and Melvin M. Boothman.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BENCH AND THE BAR IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
The story of the bench and the bar in Williams County is contem-
porary with the history of the county itself. Before the judge of the
court comes all the woes of humanity, and a well known humorist has
said : "Some folks are so guilty that cannot find a lawyer famous enough
to defend them." In a figurative sense the terms bench and bar indi-
cate the judge of the court, and the practicing members of the legal
fraternity. Bench is a time honored term, English in its origin and the
judge himself is a public officer vested with authority to hear and deter-
mine causes — civil or criminal, and to administer justice according to
the law and the evidence produced by the litigants before him.
Laws are the necessary relations resulting from the nature of things,
and many matters are settled in court every year about which there has
been no controversy — litigation without the element of contest, simply
an amicable adjustment of matters. Judicial proceedings do not neces-
sarily mean controversy, and there are many prosperous lawyers who
seldom appear in court. There are estates to be settled and titles to
be cleared, and the mimic dictionary definition of the word lawyer : "The
man who rescues your property from the adversary and keeps it himself,"
is perhaps descriptive of the situation to some who have had experience
in the courts of in-justice.
While there are unwritten laws in society and lynch laws in some
communities that do not require legal advice in their execution, juris-
prudence is a systematic knowledge of the laws, customs and the rights
of man in a state or community necessary to secure the due administra-
tion of justice. A jurist is one who professes the science of law and
sometimes writes it. There are men at the Williams County bar who
are known in the halls of state, and there is a fraternal spirit apparent
at all times. The bench and the legal profession have had recognition
beyond the confines of Williams County, and the local legal acumen is
appreciated in the courts of the commonwealth of Ohio. Although no
one enjoys a mirthful aspersion upon his own profession more than the
lawyer, it is unanimously declared that the legal light who defined arson
as "pizen," was not a member of the bar in Williams County.
In some courts a bailiff shouts the words three times : "Come to
court. Come to court. Come to court," but in the \\'illiams County
court the bell reverberates the call that has in some places been lost in the
echoes of other years, and when the court bell sounds culprits in durance
vile know their doom is approaching settlement. While the rain falls
on the just as well as on the unjust, the judge of the court must possess
his soul in patience while the lawyers at the bar quibble over seemingly
221
222 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
irrelevant matters, and at all hazards the witness must be protected from
the onslaught of unscrupulous attorneys. Sometimes timid, unoffending
and innocent witnesses are made to suffer in cross examination, and the
voice of sympathy and the kindly look on the face of the judge may
inspire them. It is a recognized condition that every culprit must have
the benefit of the doubt, and the conviction must come only when there
is no shadow of a doubt as to the guilt, and a man who is a prince at
cross examination sometimes forgets the rights and privileges of the
witness, unless the judge protects him.
At all hazards the dignity of the court must be maintained, although
there are vexatious problems in jurisprudence. Some lawyers compre-
hend while others do not, and bulldozing tactics are ever under the bans
in the courts of Williams County. Some one has said that obedience to
law is liberty, and while pettifoggers may attempt to blind the jury, the
judge always charges them that he is impartial and that they must not
get the impression that he has any personal opinion about cases given
to them for settlement. There are two sides to all questions, and the
jury must weigh the law and the evidence in all matters brought before
them. It is within the province of the judge to explain to the jury the
construction of the law with reference to particular situations. The wit-
ness and the jury all take the oath: "So help me God," and they are
always impressed with the fact that right wrongs no one at all.
What is true in other communities is true in Williams Covmty today,
and lawyers everywhere no longer depend wholly upon their eloquence
to carry them through, the newspapers having "stolen their ammunition"'
by spreading the story in advance, and crowds are no longer attracted to
courtrooms only in extraordinary instances. Only the facts in the law
and the evidence are now summed up by the most successful attorneys
at the bar in Williams County. While not so much is required in the
way of qualifications to be admitted to the bar, the shrewd lawyer well
understands that his knowledge is his capital, and that cold blooded
facts without garniture are the convincing things, the bread and butter
end of the story. It is taken for granted there is not a lawyer at the
Williams County bar who would not offer $2 worth more counsel when
asked to take a $3 fee out of a $5 bill, were such an emergency con-
fronting him, and it is universally conceded that the average lawyer will
take care of himself in the matter of charges for his services.
Time was in the Williams County court when prisoners and counter
clients were afraid of certain "spellbinders" who were reputed to be
able to influence juries by their eloquence, but under the searchlight of
more widespread intelligence the advocate at law must be wholly in sym-
pathy with his cause if eloquence comes to his rescue at all. Most attor-
neys at law are students today, and when fiery oratory prevailed deci-
sions were often reached purely under the stress of emotion. Just as
the martial music of the fife and drum stir a crowd on a gala day, some
men have been able to sweep everything before them with their own
strong personality. There is inspiration in numbers and oratory always
attracts the crowd. There are men at the Williams County bar who are
eloquent in or out of court, but in many instances the newspapers have
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 223
already told the story, and the business-like lawyer comes to the point
in the fewest possible words. While there are still causes that stir the
heart, the orator at the bar must feel the burden of his words or they
fall without impress upon the jury and upon those sitting beyond the
jury box who always form their own conclusions, and unless the attorney
has a distinctive message why should he exert himself to the point of
frenzy. This is the age of calm reason rather than disturbed emotions,
and the Williams County legal fraternity has adapted itself to the changed
conditions.
The first court of Williams County before it had been shorn of its
original domain was held in the home of Benjamin Leavell in Defiance,
April 5, 1824, the associate judges being Cyrus Hunter and Charles
Gunn: "A Leavell headed Hunter with a Gunn," said a joker of the
time, and when the county was thinly settled there was not sufficient
litigation to sustain many lawyers. That long ago there were fence
inspectors and there were some line fence difficulties, and there was
always more or less arbitration, many jurists today effecting settle-
ments out of court. The story is told of the neighboring frontier farm-
ers who had line fence difficulty, and one of them immediately engaged
a lawyer to take care of his interests. In a few days the other consulted
the same lawyer, and learned that his neighbor had been there ahead of
him. However, the affable lawyer volunteered to give him a letter of
introduction to another attorney. Thinking the matter over the farmer
concluded the contents of the letter might interest him, and he broke
the seal. The lawyer had written : "Two fat geese. You pick one and
I'll pick the other," and the case did not come to trial when the two
neighbors saw themselves in the light of the attorneys.
There is a commendable thing noticeable among the attorneys of the
Williams County bar, that in speaking to others or of them titles are
given them, and there is dignity in the social relation. The judges of
the court in Williams County are all mentioned in their turn in the
official roster in the preceding chapter : "Official Roster of Willi.ams
County," and there have been so many changes of judicial relation with
other counties that mention is made of men who never lived in Williams
County. While there were associate judges under the original constitu-
tion, on the adoption of the second Constitution March 10, 1851, the dis-
trict common pleas and the County Probate Court assumed local
jurisdiction. j
There had been a president judge sitting with the associate judges
from the organization of Williams County in 1824, until since the adop-
tion of the second Ohio Constitution, the Supreme Court having its origin
under the old Constitution, the judge being required to hold court in
turn in each county. The regulation was preposterous under old time
transportation difficulties, and time was when "circuit" had its own mean-
ing to the attorneys of W'illiams County. Men have frequently crossed
swollen streams under difficulties in order to reach some distant court
in time to serve the people and give them justice. Until 1851 this was
the custom, and some noted Ohio jurists have presided over the courts
in Williams County. The Supreme Court had both original and appel-
224 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
late jurisdiction, and important criminal cases were tried before it while
the judges were still peripatetic, holding court in all of the counties.
The most important sessions of the Supreme Court ever held in Wil-
liams County was the one incident to the arraignment, trial and con-
viction of Andrew F. Tyler and Daniel Heckerthorn for the murder of
David Schamp in Jefferson Township, the crime occurring June 20, 1847,
and the motive being money. Every county has its quota of criminals and
its records of suicide, but who wants to see such things transcribed to
the pages of history. The fair name of any community need not be
besmirched by any such mention, but the extraordinary circumstances
warrant the following story. Were a chapter on criminology and suicide
included in this Centennial History of Williams County many innocent
parties would sufifer from the recollection, and most families prefer the
skeletons in their closets left there in quietude. The most atrocious
crime that blots the annals of Williams County is still a subject of con-
versation in the highways and byways of the community.
The victim was a ten-year-old boy named David Schamp. a son of
Peter D. Schamp who was a well-to-do citizen of the community. It
seems that Tyler was a wandering fortune teller and that he had visited
the Schamp home and concluded there was money available, he induced
a seventeen-year-old half-witted young man named Daniel Heckerthorn
whom he had met in the vicinity to lure the boy away from the Schamp
household, and they would hold him for the ransom likely to be offered
for information about him. It was on a Sunday morning in midsummer
that the half-wit went to the Schamp home and lured the boy into the
woods, giving him candy with arsenic on it. The poison was slow in
taking effect, and Heckerthorn took the boy by the heels and struck his
head against a knot on a beech tree causing his death, and when the boy
did not return a search was instituted in the neighborhood for hirn. Heck-
erthorn had followed Tyler's instructions in covering the body with some
rotten wood and leaving it near a stream of water.
The crime was committed on Sunday and on Monday everybody was
in the searching party. On Tuesday and Wednesday others joined in
the search, and by Thursday the excitement had spread and the woods
were full of settlers who were offering sympathy and assistance. By this
time suspicion had focused on Heckerthorn and Jacob Bohner and M. B.
Plummer who found him in hiding at the home of relatives ques-
tioned him and he confessed his guilt, implicating Tyler. He was not
a resident of Williams County, and he said Tyler had promised him
money to return to Wayne County if he would kill the boy and cause
the father to offer a ransom for information. An old account says: "In
the peace of God and the state of Ohio," Heckerthorn committed the
murder, and that Tyler, "Not having the fear of God before his eyes,
but being seduced by the instigation of the devil," induced him to do it.
The "aforesaids" in'the formal charge against them were numerous, and
Tyler who was also non-resident in Williams County elected to have his
trial in the Supreme Court.
Judge Peter Hitchcock presided at the trial which was held in Bryan,
and the prosecuting attorney was Joshua Dobbs assisted by Charles Case.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 225
The defense was conducted by Schuyler E. Blakeslee. The warrants for
the arrest of the two roaming vagabonds temporarily living in Williams
County were issued by George Ely, a local justice of the peace, and
both had preliminary trials and were committed to the log jail then
standing on the north side of the public square in Bryan. However, it
was considered unsafe and they were transferred to Maumee. They were
confined there one year before being brought to trial in Bryan. Tyler
was tried first and he was sentenced to hang, and in a later trial Hecker-
thorn was given the same sentence. The knot from the tree against
which he had beaten the boy's head was exhibited in court at the time
of the trial. However, on account of the youth and imbecility of Heck-
erthorn his sentence was afterward changed to life imprisonment.
Friday is hangman's day, and the execution of Tyler was designated
to occur January 26, 1849, in Bryan. Sheriff Daniel Langel upon whom
mvolved in the painful duty of the execution constructed an enclosure in
the rear of the log jail shown on page 212, but the night before the
fatal day the people demolished it and the hanging was witnessed by all
who wished to see it. It is said the evidence was conclusive and that
the jury promptly returned its verdict, and since that time nothing has
occurred within the bounds of Williams County more hideous in its
details. While Heckerthorn was given the sentence to hang the gov-
ernor of Ohio commuted it to life imprisonment, and while he was after-
ward allowed his freedom he never returned to Williams County. While
it_ is said the good men do lives after them, there is hardly a chance
visitor to Bryan who does not hear the story of a man having been
hanged in Williams County. While there is sufficient of the elevating
and intellectual attainment to bar all sinister mention, the people who
developed the county had their trials and difficulties. They should not
be classified as uncouth in any community because among them were
God-fearing men and women, and the example made of Tyler has had
a subsequent salutary effect in later developments.
Just a year ago a negro named James Morgan was sentenced to elec-
trocution, but like Tyler and Heckerthorn he was not a resident of
Williams County. He had been a passenger on a Wabash train from
Chicago to Montpelier, and in a difficulty at the station there he killed
Conductor Grant who was one of the most popular railroad men about
the country. In relating the circumstances. Judge C. A. Bowersox who
pronounced the death sentence upon him said the picture would always
remain with him. When the negro was questioned, he replied : "Noth-
ing to say. Nothing to say, but, Judge, spare my life," and since the
dignity of the law must be upheld the judge sentenced him to die in the
electric chair in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Judge Bowersox said:
"I can hear him yet, 'Nothing to say. Nothing to sav, but oh spare my
life.' " ■ V :
_ The three firebugs who are elsewhere mentioned in this Centennial
History: W. O. Elkins and George and Michael Virchell were sen-
tenced to life imprisonment from Williams County. However, it seems
that Tyler and Morgan are all who paid the penalty of their crimes with
their lives, and that change of sentence finally liberated all the others.
226 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Litigations arise from various sources, and tiie business of the bench
and the bar alike depend on them. From the nature of the case lawyers
naturally enjoy trials and tribulations.
Questions of title — friendly litigation, often claim the attention of
eminent attorneys. A flaw may have occurred in the spelling of a name
or a signature may be in doubt — many technicalities and legal entangle-
ments are straightened out in court. Interpreters of the law quite fre-
quently become law-makers as has been demonstrated in Williams
County, and they are frequently well adapted to legislative requirements.
Quite often the political bee buzzes in the legal headgear — the lawyer's
bonnet, and at the Williams County bar is a creditable array of jurists and
statesmen. When politics becomes morals applied to government, the
Decalogue and the Golden Rule will assist men greatly in framing the
necessary laws, and patriotism always commendable, will be as pure as
the sunlight and not tainted with the influence of the almighty dollar.
When partisanism is buried in patriotism and all hearts throb with one
common purpose, the purification of politics now an irridescent dream,
may then be accomplished in the world.
The battle for supremacy is as old as Nature herself, and in it there
are no humanities — there is no sentiment, and yet Judge Bowersox
denominates the Williams County bar as a good average group of attor-
neys. He asserts that there is a high sense of justice and right in the
minds of all of them. Their physical and financial interests are closely
allied, and some of them know the meaning of threadbare clothing while
waiting for delayed patronage. When they "run down physically they
soon run down financially," and they are all inclined to make the most
of their opportunities. They secure their livelihood from others who must
adjust differences among themselves, and the lawyer is worth his hire
as well as any other labor. There are human interest stories heard in
court every day, and while there are twelve men good and true who are
to decide the cases on their merits, there are attorneys at the bar who
understand all about the psychological moment — know when to bring the
pressure to bear, and while an unbiased decision is required at the hands
of the jury, think of this charge: "Truth is what you seek and where
it leads you there you may go," and meanwhile the prisoner at the bar
is in suspense — uncertain as to findings of the jury.
Judge Bowersox has pardonable pride in the law library maintained
in the Williams County courthouse. Membership at the bar entitles an
attorney to use it, and it is the best possible monetary arrangement for
any young lawyer who is limited in his book-purchasing ability. All the
Ohio reports and those of nearby states are found there, and through
the use of it the individual attorney does not require such an extensive
and expensive working library of his own, and while books may be
removed the borrower must always leave his card covering his obligation
for them. There are lights and shadows, and cheerful as well as gloomy
pictures as the panorama passes and repasses in the courts of Williams
County.
CHAPTER XIX
AGRICULTURE, WILLIAMS COUNTY'S OLDEST
OCCUPATION
The fact remains unquestioned that the civilization of any country will
not advance any faster than does its agriculture. Progress and improve-
ment along all lines of human activity are more rapid today than at any
time in the history of the world. It is undeniable that agriculture is
keeping pace with all other industries. It is the fundamental occupation
and all others are dependent upon it. While all industries are essential
to civilization, in the countries where the methods of agriculture are
crude there is not much advance along any line of development.
The stranger who rides along some of the well improved highways
of Williams County today in a modern touring car is hardly cognizant
of the fact that only a few years ago very different conditions existed
in the country. It would be difficult for him to conceive of the log cabin
in the clearing out of which the smoke curled from a stick and clay
chimney, but there are men and women today who remember all about
it and who talk of "the good old days" in the history of Williams
County. Instead of the lowing of many herds today, the traveler of
yesterday heard the ring of the woodman's ax or the crack of the hunts-
man's rifle as he was endeavoring to supply his family with meat from
the wild animals in the unbroken forest. Improvements and inventions
never come along before they are needed in any community. The McCor-
mick reaper was first made in 1831, but what would Williams County
farmers have done with modern harvesting machinery in the swamps
and among the stumps of a generation ago?
The Stone Age is not yet in Williams County since there are no quar-
ries from which building stone may be obtained, although boulders have
been used extensively in foundations and ornamental porches and here
and there is a house constructed from ordinary field boulders. However,
on the land lying east of the lake ridges crossing the county north and
south there are no boulders, and cement is the hope of the future. While
there is evidence of the Moundbuilders having occupied the country, the
Williams County settlers encountered the American Indian and the stories
have been handed down "word of mouth" to men and women living today.
An old account says : "The plow has been run over these mounds regard-
less of the history a careful search among them might reveal, and it has
obliterated almost all traces of their existence."
The explanation is offered that farmers wanted the corn these mounds
would produce, and there is little sentiment in the world today. The
stories of crumbling skeletons, skulls and other human bones that have
been found in Williams County mounds are regarded in the light of
227
228 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
mere speculation. While the work of the Moundbuilders is not so much
in evidence today, their story will be handed down to future generations.
Like the settlers who followed the Indians, it seems that the Mound-
builders lived along the streams, the waterways and natural highways
and that they subsisted on the fish in the streams and the wild life of
the forest. While it is said there are 13,000 mounds in Ohio, most of
them in the vicinity of Marietta, it is known that the Indians never buried
their dead in mounds. \\'hile some of the settlers regarded the mounds
as Indian graves they were more secretive, and after all the mounds were
in this country before the coming of the Red Man of the Forest.
While the first man in the world was placed in a garden there is no
record extant that he labored until after eating an apple one day at the
instigation of the woman God had given him, and immediately they began
R Cabin
hustling for a livelihood and no doubt they turned their attention to agri-
culture. One Williams County enthusiast said there is a progressive
spirit among local agriculturists — that they are given to experiment and
try anything. While some of them farm like the patriarchs, since live-
stock and animal husbandry go hand in hand with agriculture, and the
cattle on a thousand hills — rather in the fields of \\'illiams County belong
to hustling, up-to-date farmers. W^illiams County farmers do not cling
to the methods of the past, but they seek to maintain land fertility and
productiveness, and crop rotation is practiced by all of them.
Roughly estimated there are 2,900 farm homes in Williams County
today, and the farm fireside — furnace heated home, is still the hope of
the country. There are many rural homes perched high on natural
building sites where drainage is not a problem, and the dooryards and
barn lots are dry because of natural conditions. In its early history
Williams County was heavily timbered and in the main the country was
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 229
so swampy that the settlers all located along the Alaumee and other
streams, but the whirligig of time has juggled with the boundaries and
it is no longer a Williams County stream. . Nettle Lake and the undulat-
ing lands along the St. Joseph River and a few of the smaller streams
is the only waste land in the county today.
While in the main Williams County is level land, there are some
marshes although most of them were drained long ago. The Irishman
and his spade or the sturdy farmer himself have long been superseded
Old-Time Rail Fence
by the ditching machine, and tiling has had its part in the transforma-
tion. Because of the lack of the fall in the streams there has never been
much water power, and the sluggish waters used to produce miasma, but
in many places it is only necessary to excavate slightly to find an arte-
sian flow of purest water. It is a rich clay soil with occasional sandy
loam and all the small grains are successfully grown all over the county
today. The cereals are produced and diversified farming prevails, and
those who prune and spray their orchards know Williams County to be
a fruit producing country.
230
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
While the pioneers lacked vision in clearing the Williams County
farms, and they did not leave some of the original forest standing to
shade their future dwellings, there is a civic spirit manifest today and
people are inclined to beautify their surroundings, both in town and
country. While Arbor Day is observed in the public schools, there is
some inclination to re-forestration and catalpa and black locust groves are
not unusual, and living fence are frequently seen about the country.
While there are "staked and ridered" rail fences here and there today,
where, oh where is the rail splitter of yesterday? While there are regu-
lation fences, "hog tight, horse high and bull strong," they are usually
built of wire and what does the youngster of today know about fence
worms, and the requisite skill in building a straight rail fence, the eye
of the builder his only plumb bob or spirit level in doing it. Who said
Threshing Scene
anything about laying the fence worm in the light of the moon or was
it in the dark of the moon to keep the timber from decay. At any rate
a wire fence does not shelter the cattle in time of the storm, and lightning
sometimes strikes them when they are near it. Who said: "Backward,
turn backward, oh Time in your flight and make me a child again?"
Time was when there was plenty of venison, wild turkeys, squirrels
— plenty of wild meat on the settler's table — the forest supplied his every
need, his fire, his building material and sap-sugar, nuts and meats, but
where, oh where was he to secure the money with which to pay his taxes?
The Indian trader supplied some of it by leaving money on deposit in
the office of the county treasurer, and when the settler came in with the
pelts he received his tax certificates in exchange for them. Since the
World war experience with substitutes for life's necessities, twentieth
century folk better understand the hardships of the pioneers. "Lest we
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
231
forget, Lord, lest we forget," but it went against the grain with many-
citizens of the United States of America when they had to sacrifice and
deny themselves, after so many years of ease and comfortable existence.
The Williams County farmer of today would make slow progress
with the implements of yesterday. The reap hook and the cradle had
their day in the harvest fields of Williams County as well as the rest of
the world. The Armstrong mower — Old Father Time is always cari-
catured with an Armstrong mower in his hand, but the Williams County
farmer of today has all the advantages of labor-saving machinery. "Maud
Muller on a summer day raked the meadows," revives memories of the
long ago, and the Parable of the Sower has been revised in the Bible
Commentaries because the youngsters of today do not understand it,
although the Parable of the Soils is fraught with meaning to them.
"The Frost Is on the Pumpkin,
The Fodder's in the Shock"
While they have never seen the man go out to sow broadcast from the
grain bag about his shoulder, they do know about the preservation of
soil fertility.
The hay loader of today combines so many old time harvesting opera-
tions, and does away with so many of the helpers of the past that when
one has been in different environment for a while it is like as if he never
had lived in the country at all. While there are milk separators, egg
incubators, manure spreaders and power operated machinery both in the
barn and in the house, there must be a man or woman at home to look
after such things. After repeated trimmings there are yet 420 sections
of land in Williams County which reduced to acreage means 268,800
acres with but little waste, and it is said the Williams County farmer is a
wizard — that he can make money at anything. They have always saved
daylight, the old-time couplet:
232 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,"
being known to all of them. Someone has written :
"The murmuring grass and the waving trees —
Their leaf-harps sound unto the breeze —
And water-tones and tinkle near.
Blend their sweet music to my ear ;
And by the changing shades alone,
The passage of the hours is known,"
and that seems to be the way to mark time in Williams County.
While there used to be corn shocks standing in the fields of Williams
County until time corn was planted again, there are now almost one thou-
sand silos, and when the snows of winter are falling the farmer feeds in
comfort and nothing is lost of the crop, the silos being filled through
neighborhood co-operation before cold weather, and the farm women all
know when the silo is being filled as "threshing" dinners are the rule
again. A recent writer declares the novelist is sure of the reader's tears
when he describes the farmhand who pitches hay in the hot sun all day
long, or the woman who is compelled to mend her children's clothes, wash
the dishes and make the beds — nothing to do but work, but there was less
of sentiment in the past when the most comforting text in the Scriptures
was "Grin and bear it." The fact is the happiest folk in the world
are those who work, and the twentieth century dames who breakfast in
bed and work only when they feel like it are designated by "trouble-
shooters" as the bane of society.
The pioneers were busy folk — busy all day long — and while there may
be advantages in poverty and deceitfulness of riches, most Williams
County folk make some effort to corner the coin of the realm, and it is
said that whenever a man is born into the world a job is awaiting him.
The Bible says, "My father worketh hitherto and I work," and Nature
works all of the time. The sunshine and the showers are in the interest
of Williams County agriculture. While more Williams County people
earn wages than draw salaries, it is the almighty dollar that draws the
young man from the farm today. The factory maintains a wage scale
the farmer has hitherto felt unable to pay, and never was there so much
idle farm land as A. D., 1920, because of the shortage of farm, labor.
While many Williams County fields remain unplowed, the people in all
of the town decry the high cost of living and yet there is no migration
apparent toward the farms, although the fact confronts them that tenant
farmers of the past are landowners today. As tenants they made the
money to buy the land, and scientific agriculture is increasing soil produc-
tion instead of reducing it.
There has been an influx of Illinois and Iowa tenant farmers who
have bought land in Williams County. They have raised land values
from $100 to $300 an acre, and Aladdin-like prices have deterred others
from investments. The dairv farmers of Williams County turn over
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 233
their dollars so often that they go right on making improvements not-
withstanding the prices of building materials. When the passerby
remarks : "There's a good barn, a clean barnyard and a well-kept farm,
and a good milk-producer lives there," the observer will note the atmos-
phere and thrift and feel glad about such apparent prosperity. In a meas-
ure better farming movements are overcoming the influx from the farm
to the factory. There is a feeling in some of the rural homes that Wil-
liams County towns are assuming the air of cities, while they are sur-
rounded by agricultural communities, and draw their support largely
from their farm patrons. The line of demarcation between" town and
country should never be apparent, and the social advantages of the town
are now available to all who live in the country.
The lazy man has at last come into his own. students of economics
agreeing that he instinctively finds the short method of doing things,
thereby making for increased production and conservation of time, these
simpler and easier ways coming naturally to the constitutionally lazy
man or woman. David Harum of "horse-trader" fame in fiction says :
"There's as much human nature in some folks as in others, if not more" ;
and the historian of today finds all sorts of characters in ^^'illiams County.
While some are born great, others achieve greatness and in some intances
it is thrust upon them, and when the pioneers would meet they would
talk about the number of acres of cleared land they had — so much land
clear of all stumps — the land still in timber being a detriment to them.
Time was when men who did not own land were welcome visitors if they
would cut and haul away the wood and thus help to clear the forest. It
is hard to think of those wilderness conditions in ^^'ilIiams County under
the changed environment of today.
Under the pioneer conception of things a man's chances in life
depended upon whether or not he was a good chopper — how many cords
of wood he could chop and pile in a given time — and the man who could
ruthlessly destroy the most timber was an excellent chopper. The ele-
ment of waste was not considered in ridding the land of the valuable
timber encumbering it. Why Williams County settlers used to cut logs
and haul them to the St. Joseph River and float them down stream to
Fort \\'ayne. They would always raft their logs when the water was
falling in order to hold them to the middle of the stream, and prevent
entanglement with drifts that always formed when the stream was run-
ning full in the middle and pushing the logs to the edge of the current.
When logs were coming down the stream in numbers Fort Wayne deal-
ers always culled them closely, but they always bought all of them. The
settlers simply had to have some money, and they secured it by rafting
logs down the river when there was plenty of timber in \\'illiams County.
The price of farm land today is influenced by its location, and by the
nature of its improvements. While an occasional farm may change
ownership at $100 an acre the exchange price is oftener twice that amount,
and there are very few rundown farms to command the lower price under
the new order of agriculture. Livestock farming increases soil fertility,
and livestock fed on the farm is the hope of the county. There are few
old-time "hardscrabble" looking farmsteads in Williams County today.
234 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
With livestock and poultry production there are constant sources of
income, and it has always been said that the American hen would pay off
the national debt with half a chance, but while she roosted in the trees
she only laid one or two clutches of eggs in the whole year. The twen-
tieth century Williams County hens have made a record for themselves,
and more eggs are shipped from Williams County than from any other
locality in the Middle West. In many respects farm life is up to par in
Williams County today.
The backward season of 1920 has not wholly disheartened Williams
County farmers — oats sown the middle of May being an exception to the
rule — but there is always a "seed time and harvest." The shortage of
farm labor and the late season seem combined A. D., 1920, and idle land
is a distinctive loss to the community. It was cold all through May, and
in 1918 there was a "June frost" that worked havoc all over the country.
An old record says there was frost June 4, 1859, when ice formed in
places in Williams County three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and
"wheat and rye froze in the blossom, corn in the stalk and potatoes and
vines froze to the ground," and on Sunday, June 5, that year after the
sun was up there was an extraordinary spectacle of utter blight visible
upon every grain field about the county.
There is an occasional year without a summer, and sometimes there is
a year without a winter. In 1859, the weather was cold and changeable
until after the 4th of July, and the orchards and forest trees alike
showed the efifects of the June frost. There were similar visitations in
1816, and again in 1834 in Northwestern Ohio. However, drainage has
had much to do with changing weather conditions as well as health in
the country. There are not now so many quinine bottles on the clock
shelves in Williams County, although the winters of 1918-19-20 will be
remembered because of the visitation of influenza, there having been
widespread harvests of death in many communities. The flu was more
virulent than the lagrippe of twenty years ago.
It is conceded by all that the inventive genius of man has done as
much for the Williams County farmer and his wife in giving them
improved working conditions as in any other branch of economics, and
one need only look back to the beginning of the twentieth century to note
many changes. The age of electricity dawned in the nineteenth century,
and while some men and women will always live in the past, as far as
drudgery and hard labor are concerned, the farm boy of today knows
little about pumping water for a herd of thirsty cattle, the windmill and
the gasoline engine having emancipated him. The products of the farm
are fed to livestock and marketed in that way, and under the new order
of things there is a pay day often while merchants used to carry the farm
population on their account-books by the year, and diversified farming
tells the story. Corn, oats, wheat, clover and back again to corn, brings
results in Williams County. Live stock and small fruits are a source of
unfailing income and people are inclined to take advantage of the
situation.
There is some soil adapted to onion culture, and alfalfa and sugar
beet production are now recognized factors in the agriculture of Williams
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 235
County. Combined with live stock there is some attention given to pet
stock production, and rabbit growing is a recognized farm industry. Back
to the farm is the cry and the retired farmers hving in the different towns
are no longer producers. When they become consumers they increase the
market demand and help bring about the higher cost of living, and with
so many producers in the consumers' class the law of supply and demand
seems to work a hardship to all. Every town has its quota of retired
farmers, and when they narrow down their activities from a quarter sec-
tion of land to a town lot, do they shorten their days? Do they live as
long as if they had continued their farm activities? Some assert that it
is better to wear out than to rust out, and while the towns are over
populated in these World war reconstruction days, there are too many
empty houses on the farms. Since the automobile has supplanted the
horse, and the retired farmer cannot haul a load of manure to the farm
every morning, it seems like a hopeless case for him. When he has
whittled store boxes all morning he wonders what to do with himself.
That old couplet,
"March winds and April showers,
Bring the pretty May flowers,"
still describes the situation in Williams County; and
"Thirty days hath September, April, June and November,
While all the rest have thirty-one save February,"
still holds good in the twentieth century. On many Williams County
farmsteads the horse has been supplanted for heavy draft by the farm
tractor, and driven from the highways by automobiles. There are
labor-saving devices nowadays that would cause the forefathers to push
their fingers through their hair in amazement, and the man who said of
the steam engine that it would not start and then that it would not stop,
still has relatives in Williams County. The doubting Thomas of the
Bible is not alone in the world of doubters. He has brothers and sisters
in Williams County as well as the rest of the world.
The gasoline power used in turning the sod on the Williams County
farms today obviates the sore shoulder difficulty encountered by the
. farmers a generation ago when horses were the motive power drawing
the plow, and the grass-fed horse when feed was short in the spring and
did not have the strength of the tractor of today. There were always
some farmers who were out of corn before corn came again. The thrifty
farmers of Williams County today have cofnmodious barns and live in
modern houses with running water, furnace heat, artificial light plants and
all as the result of business methods applied to agriculture. The edu-
cated or book farmer has had his part in the changed conditions. It is
said that what is not in the head is in the heels, and the educated farmer
takes advantage of many things. While the forefathers worked long
hours over humdrum jobs, the labor-saving machinery used today leaves
some time for planning methods of doing things. Running a farm is like
running a factory, and it requires a high grade of intelligence to make
high priced land profitable for agriculture.
236 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Improved farm implements have always appeared on the market as
farmers needed them, and it is said the Mogul was the first farm tractor
in use in Williams County. It was a gang drawing several plows, but
the smaller tractor has been found more servicable and the labor scarcity
has developed its popularity. What has become of the Williams County
farmhand and his eight-hour day — eight hours in the morning, and again
in the afternoon? Who remembers about Roosevelt's Country Life Com-
mission and the purpose of it? Slight inquiry among implement dealers
developed the fact that there are now about three hundred farm tractors
in use in \\'illiams County. It is said the distribution is general in the dif-
ferent townships, the labor-saving necessity being widespread, so many
young men going to war who did not return to their farm homes when
they were discharged from the service. To make of the farm a real
home and a profitable business, management — scientific planning is a
necessity.
CHAPTER XX
DAIRY FARMING AND AGRICULTURE
Of all the recognized industries in Williams County today, that of
live stock production has shown a remarkable growth and has meant as
much in the way of material development as any of the multiplied forms
of local industry. In the beginning when the Williams County forests
and streams supplied so many of the human needs, and there was no com-
mercial side to its history, there was no incentive for livestock production
more than a few cattle for work in the clearings, and a few horses kept
solely for the purpose of traveling about the country. All team work
was done with oxen and there were only a few cows — dual purpose
animals used for power as well as kept for dairy products — the cow was
an essential utility animal in the family economy. She was useful in
clearing the country and in plowing the ground about the settler's home
in Williams County.
In pioneer days very little attention was given to the methods of
scientific live stock breeding, and the wildest dream of the settler did not
include the automobile truck used in transporting farm products today.
The sturdy oxen and the cows were used by them to draw their heavier
loads and to break their ground, and as the size of the clearings increased
and more trails were blazed through the wilderness of Williams County
and communication with the outside world began to be established, there
were changes in the outlook before them. In the springtime when
"straight up" was the only direction the settler could see out from his
rude cabin home, it was very common for one lad to drive a yoke of cat-
tle— sometimes the family cow — hitched to a plow breaking the clearing
while the rest of the family were busy increasing the size of it. As the
cleared land increased the wants of the settlers increased, the ox was too
slow for the road and the horse became a necessity.
The cow was never adapted to travel, and the Williams County herds-
man has been influenced to throw away the big stick when caring for the
domestic animals about the farmyard since he has been given to under-
stand that every blow to an animal is a blow to the live stock industry.
While the Van Camp Packing Company in Bryan through its milk con-
densory affords a local market for milk, there are many other agencies
— creameries and condensories — operating in Williams County. Every
town has its milk station and they are multiplied in some of the towns.
A number of mammoth concerns are buying milk from farmers in Wil-
liams County today. "\\'hen a feller's just a croppin' 'nd not a dairyin',"
said a student of economics, "he's not a buildin' up the land, and it runs
down in spite of him." While some read Hoard's Dairyman, The Ohio
Farmer has a good dairy feature in it, and the farmers who are best
informed have fewest dairy difficulties.
237 ■
238 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The woman from the city who visited a Williams County farmhouse
and objected to the milk because there was such a thick yellow "skum"
on it, was used to the "process" milk from which the butter fat had been
extracted before she saw it. Every time the milk is handled some con-
stituent is taken from it, and the cow herself would not recognize it
when it is delivered to the customer in the city. The Williams County
milk comes from the rural homes to the Van Camp Packing Company's
plant in cans, and it goes away from there again in smaller cans, and
finds its way to the breakfast tables all over the United States of Amer-
ica and in foreign countries. With its coterie of trucks bringing in milk
every day the condensory in Bryan is in direct communication with 1,500
farm homes all of the time. The water is removed from the milk at the
plant, and the Van Camp products are known in the markets of the
world.
'—
'^^ '
Dairy Herd
While the Van Camp Packing Company has 1,500 milk patrons, only
about half of them have silos, but with all the other milk producers in
Williams County it is estimated there are at least 1,000 silos in use in
Williams County. With reference to milking machines, one dealer said
there were twenty-five and another said fifty, while at the condensory they
said seventy-five, and the reader may use his own judgment with refer-
ence to the question. If offering a market for milk the condensory has
created an interest in dairy farming, and while Holstein-Friesian cattle
were unknown in Williams County twenty years ago they are in the
majority today. While the Holstein cow is not of the butcher type, when
she is past her profitable milk production period she is sent to the block,
but it is said the milking period may be prolonged indefinitely by judicious
feeding and careful management of the cow. There is no harm in putting
water in the milk as long as it passes through the mechanism of the cow.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 239
The cow that is crowded in milk production wears out sooner as she only
has so many units, and her vitality wanes as production is increased and
thus crowding shortens her period of usefulness.
On May 20, 1920, the Van Camp condensory received 115,000 pounds
of milk and May and June are the months of highest milk production.
Williams County farmers are changing from high grade to thorough-
bred Holstein cows, and the middle of each month is farmers' pension
day throughout the dairy territory of Northwestern Ohio, Northeastern
Indiana and Southern Michigan. While some other Ohio counties lead
Williams in milk production, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York all
lead Ohio in the amount of dairy products. While there are some valu-
able dairy herds in Williams County, and there are many silos in use, it
is said the first one was used by Job Hodson of Bridgewater. With the-
estimated number of 2,900 farmers, it would seem that 1,000 ^ilos was
too high an estimate and yet there are twin silos and three and four of
them at other farmsteads, and it goes without saying that those who have
them would not be without them at all.
Where livestock is a factor on Williams County farms, there are many
farm names in all parts of the county. There are still bachelors in every
community who stand willing to enroll as bridegrooms, when women
owning farms consent for them to have their names on the barns, but
farm names should reflect local characteristis or some feature in the busi-
ness carried on there. When the name of the farm is conspicuously
posted the passerby instinctively looks for the discarded farm implements
left standing, and they are a reproach to the whole thing. Most dairy
farms are named, and a Queen Ann appearance from the front with a
Mary Ann arrangement in the rear, is quite as bad at a farmhouse as in
town property.
In order to secure the best results the Van Camp Packing Company
maintains a "trouble shooter" who visits the farm dairy and offers sug-
gestions as to sanitation. He finds it necessary to see some milk pro-
ducers every spring, and he must be as wise as a serpent and as harm-
less as a dove in dealing with them. When he takes a housewife out to
where her dairy utensils are drying in the sun and with his pocket knife
peals the incrustrations from her pails that constitute excellent germ
hatcheries she begins to realize that she is unsanitary in her dairy depart-
ment. While some milk producers are careful, others are careless — care-
less as they dare to be — and the bacteria breeds in such numbers that sour
milk is the unavoidable result from it. Sometimes the dress a woman is
wearing is in need of laundering, and the visitor knows there will always
be sour milk diffilculties under such working conditions. Were he to
advise her to "slick up" a little, she would be offended at him.
When muslin is used on the strainer the "trouble shooter" sometimes
advises the woman to burn it, and if such family is allowed to deliver
sour milk, sour milk will be the rule and not the exception. Some years
ago a book entitled "The Honorable Peter Sterling," written by Paul
Leicester Ford, revolutionized dairy conditions in New York, and since
it is in the Bryan public library Williams County milk producers should
read it. "Nuff said," expresses the situation sometimes when dairy uten-
240 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
sils are inspected, and the water problem is sometimes the difficulty.
Unless. there is sufficient water no family should undertake handling dairy
products. In one place a rag had been drawn into a hole in the bottom
of a milk can, and when the milk reached the condensory it was sour
and was returned to the farmhouse. The woman did not believe in the
theory of germs. She had not read the poem on the subject — the shortest
poem in the English language — "Adam had 'em," but when her daughter
asked to smell of the rag the visitor had cut of¥ of the milk can, she
promptly put it in the stove.
The trouble had been explained to the husband on the outside, but
knowing the disposition of his wife the visitor was taken into her pres-
ence, and she resented the insinuation that there were germs in the rag
stopping the hole in her milk can. One milk inspection trip on the part
of the "trouble shooter" resulted in the purchase of fourteen new milk
At.
.^l^m^^-]
ig
i
i
9
^
■
■
n
I
Cows IN Pasture
cans immediately. All animal heat should be immediately removed from
the milk by placing the can containing it in cold water, and two cans by
the side of the road illustrated the difiference in handling it. One was
warm both from the sun and from the warm milk inside of it, while the
other was ice cold to the hand because the animal heat had all been taken
out of it. \\'hen properly cooled milk always reaches the condensory in
good condition, and no blame attaches to the hauler about it. "No fun
to hump up under ten or twelve cows and have sour milk come back to
you," said a producer, and then he admitted that conditions were unsani-
tary about the place where he left it standing over night, the accumulation
of manure and the lack of sufficient water.
There is a good income from the milk industry when no sour milk
comes back from the factory. A man who had sold milk for years and
had watched the details of the business, leased the dairy and went away
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 241
from it, and immediately there were sour milk difficulties. "Eternal
vigilance is the price of success" in dairying as well as in other industries.
Where there is plenty of running water there are few sour milk difficul-
ties. The successful dairyman makes milk tests and weeds out the
unprofitable cows, and sometimes udder troubles are the source of the
difficulty. Who wants to go back to the plan of raising cream from the
milk in crocks after seeing what is taken out of it by the separator?
Where the herds are large there are more diseases, and the old-time dairy
processes are too slow for the commercialized dairy business of today.
While the mothers sold butter the daughters sell milk, and they would
find the old-fashioned skimmer and the cream jar a weariness to the flesh.
When farm dairies are managed in sanitary manner, and due atten-
tion is given the rations of the cow, it is seldom necessary to "dope" her.
Who knows about "bloody murrain" and "hollow horn" when cows are
properly housed and fed as in the twentieth century?
Where milking machines are used there are few sour milk complaints,
as there are usually better sanitary conditions. Milk is easily tainted and
utmost precaution is necessary in handling it. When Williams County
farmers began thinking about owning better live stock their ambition for
better homes was aroused, and the present-day condition is largely result-
ant from this movement. A well-bred animal is worth more on the
market than a scrub, and the progressive farmer understands and fakes
advantage of such knowledge. There have been colossal fortunes built up
in the live stock industry of the world.
In the early history of Williams County cattle were the most impor-
tant domestic live stock because of their ability to work and to produce
milk and butter. Many are the stories handed down from father to son
of the endurance of a yoke of cattle, and when improved live stock was
under consideration as long ago as when Jacob cheated Laban because of
his knowledge of live stock breeding, progressive farmers have sought to
better their flocks and herds. While dairy cattle are the type in vogue in
Williams County, as the size of the clearings increased and the horse
began to be used on the road, the cattle were bred more and more to the
beef type, and when the ox was finally emancipated from the plow, both
beef and dairy cattle were to be seen in the country. The man who brings
a well-bred animal into the community is a public benefactor. The silo
belt is widespread and the dairy industry has come to stay in Williams
County.
CHAPTER XXI
WILLIAMS COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
When Williams County citizens were debt-ridden, and were still pay-
ing for their homes they had little social inclination, and they were not
often brought together. While anniversaries have always occasioned
family gatherings, the social reunion was not an element of community
life until within the twentieth century. It is true that while families were
more in debt they did not plan many pleasures, but as their fortunes have
been better they have inclined more to sociability.
A woman no longer young and not addicted to writing, reflects the
community life of the past in these words: "Health, wealth and duty;
this is life." In looking over the past and recounting its ups and downs,
we realize the many advantages we have today. If we could only recall
those days when we used to have so many good times, meeting at one
another's houses and spending the day, how we would all enjoy it. We
realize that there are many better ways of living than we knew in the
past, and yet we enjoyed it. They were busy, strenuous days and ways.
The one goal before the earlv settler was his home in the wilderness,
the new country. * * * There was more said about honesty that
long ago. Our forefathers taught us the power of endurance. In the
laborious life they lived they endured all kinds of privations, and withal
the county fair brought the pioneers together as no other institution ever
did in Williams County.
Ask somebody older, say the Metbuselahs in every community, when
some statistician or historian is attempting to verifv information. The
law of association governs them all, and men remember things by the time
the barn burned and women by the births of their children or by their
own marriage, or somebody has laid away a paper, and with sufficient
inquirv data may be collected in any communitv. It is said that it has
been 300 vears since there was a pioneer in England, and the names of
most Williams County pioneers are on their gravestones today rather
than in the directory. Indeed, some who are listed in the early publica-
tions as "settlers." have no "kith or kin" to commemorate them today in
the annals of Williams County.
While Williams County was given definite outline and a name just
100 years ago, and it was properlv organized in 1824, there was no per-
manent citizenship then in what is now Williams County. The people
were designated as "squatters," and Indian traders until 1827 when
James Guthrie located in the bounds of what is now Sprin.gfield Town
ship, along the Tiffin River. However, the priority of citizenship seems
a little difficult to determine since the old accounts mention others who
were temporarily within the bounds of Williams County. One account
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 243
says that Isaac Perkins was within the confines of the county as early as
1817, and that J. P. Loutz was a WilHams County squatter as early as
July 26, 1823, but he later went to Lincoln, Nebraska. There is mention
of a white man and woman passing along the trail from Fort Wayne to
Detroit in time of the War of 1812 — the second war with England.
There is more definite information about Adam in the Garden of
Eden at the dawn of history than there is available about James Guthrie.
In the Guthrie period — 1827 — in Williams County it was not the custom
among the hardy frontiersmen to leave diaries for the benefit of future
historians, who might care to know the color of their hair or the amount
of their bank accounts — little James Guthrie knew about deposits, and he
cared less about future notoriety in the annals of Williams County. While
others are mentioned as coming early it seems to be the concensus of
opinion that James Guthrie is the Adam of local history. No one points
out the exact spot where he lived or relates any story about his relatives.
Evidently he did not wish to lose himself in the crowd or he would not
have sought the wilds of Williams County. "Far from the madding
crowd," was the life of this lone homesteader in the northwestermost
county of Ohio, and yet he "builded better than he knew," for out of that
humble beginning has come the Williams County civilization of today.
There is a good community spirit throughout Williams County today.
The people put their shoulders to the wheel in all forward movements,
and there are no centers of moral infection — Jonahs to the community
at all. When farmers are better organized they may hope to accomplish
some things, no longer applies in Williams County. They are ambitious
and abreast of the times in everything. There is the Grange, the Farm
Bureau and the Co-operative Livestock Shipping and Marketing Associa-
tions, all operated in the interests of those engaged in agriculture. When
farmers strike they win because the rest of the world depends upon them,
and yet until recently there has not been much effort at combination
among them. Co-operative methods and combined interests are bringing
them more and more to an undestanding of each other. While they have
always stood together on moral questions, it has been economics to the
four winds among them.
An old account says that no county in Northwestern Ohio possesses
better elements for successful agriculture than Williams, and while the
Williams County Agricultural Association was organized in 1856, its
minutes show a checkered existence. Since it was not a thickly settled
country, at a meeting held February 10, 1857, it was decided to admit
farmers from Defiance and Fulton counties as competitors for premiums
on equal terms with Williams County exhibitors, except the field crops
which were limited to Williams County. The first fair was held in the
public square in Bryan — recently such exhibits are designated as street
fairs — and although shifted from one site to another the fair was held
regularly for several years. Finally the day came when "innocuous
desuetude" described it, and at one time and another it was revived again.
In 1857 there was a Union Agricultural Society organized at West
Unity, embracing Williams, Defiance and Fulton counties, but in a short
time the Civil war demolished it. There were no fairs held after 1861,
244 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
when the soldiers of the commnuity went to war and the society went
out of existence. In 1885 another association was organized at Mont-
pelier. and it continued in active existence until 1898 when its last fair
was held, although its career had been successful. In 1892 the Bryan
Fair was again organized and a mile racetrack was constructed, and for
several years horse races were the feature there. The Bryan ball park
occupies part of the site today. The time came when the fairs were dif-
ferent— not the social event of the past when the people came together for
reunion as well as to see the live stock, fruits and vegetables. When there
were few other places of interest all went to the fairs and appreciated
them.
The Williams County Fair of Today
When the Montpelier Fair Association suspended the grounds and
equipment were purchased by the Williams County Agricultural Society,
and in 1900 a fair was again held at Montpelier. There is a half mile
racetrack and an amphitheater, with some good buildings for the use of
exhibitors. The grandstand accommodates the visitors, and the Williams
County fair at IMontpelier is attended by many beyond the limits of the
county. It attracts visitors from surrounding counties and from Mich-
igan and Indiana. There are about forty acres in the grounds, and Mont-
pelier citizens have taken the necessary steps in beautifying the place and
converting it into a park when there is no fair in session. The Williams
County fair grounds becomes a Montpelier park under provisions of a
statute allowing such grounds to be used by a community complying with
certain requirements. Beside the races and livestock exhibits there are
always consignments of vegetables, canned goods and needle work at the
Williams County fair.
The Williams County fair grounds of today is skirted by a beautiful
stretch of the St. Joseph River, and since Montpelier citizens have beau-
tified it by planting shrubbery it has become a Williams County play-
ground, where picnics and family reunions are held ; the people coming
for miles to meet their friends and relatives and spend the day together.
While the human family dates back to Adam in the Garden of Eden the
organized family really belongs to the twentieth century in Williams
County. Very few families met in an annual reunion before the dawn of
the twentieth century. An era of material prosperity had been ushered
in, and with their debts paid people were enjoying the comforts of life,
and they began to think of recreation and a more intimate knowledge of
each other.
It was coming to be a reproach for a man to know more of his live-
stock pedigree than of his own genealogy, and the human herd book or
family tree became a reality in many William County households. At the
annual reunions men and women would see "Uncle John" and "Aunt
Elizabeth," and they would learn things about their own early history.
The organized family is a miniature historical society, the family histo-
rian always discovering many "ties that bind," and it is a recognized fact
that each child has a right to know its lineal descent — its ancestry. The
importance of fortunate parentage and of right environment in the home
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 245
are beyond the possibilities of exaggeration. Upon this institution have
been concentrated the wisest and strongest efforts of the church, and of
all reformatory organizations.
"The family as an actual institution is a social group consisting of a
man and his wife (or wives) and their children, with an outer circle of
kindred of uncertain extent. In some cases the conception is wider,
including pious reference to former generations, and a consideration of
generations yet to come." And greater than the family is society — the
community, the state, the family, the component part of it all, and thus
the Williams County fair grounds converted into a park serves an excel-
lent purpose in the community.
CHAPTER XXII
SUPPLEMENTAL WILLIAMS COUNTY FARM
ORGANIZATIONS
"In union there is strength," and "E pluribus unum" on the silver
dollar conveys special significance. "United we stand but divided we
fall," seems to incite people to vinited effort, and while it is said "A fool
may know when to quit, but a wise man knows when to begin," it is still
true that in the multitude of counsel there is wisdom, and there is every
reason for social and protective organization in Williams County.
In 1867 there was a "horsethief society." The Franklin Vigilance
Committee, organized at West Unity, embracing territory in Williams
and Fulton counties, and the object was protection against the loss of
horses ; the old saying, "Lock the stable after the horse is stolen," not
being the idea of its members. Older people remember when now and
then a horse was stolen in Williams County, although since the advent
of the automobile such stories have not been circulated in the community.
At one time the horse-breeding industry seemed to be without limitation,
from the Indian pony without pedigree to splendid draft animals and
road horses, but today the driving horse is seldom seen on the highways
of Williams County. While the horse industry of the past added thou-
sands of dollars to the wealth of the county, and there is a great deal
of sentiment attached to the horse — more of sentiment and regret at his
passing — than may be at first apparent, there is little market today for
this noblest of all farm animals. When a horse has been faithful and
has been cared for tenderly, and then becomes "trading stock," there is
a tinge of sadness in the story. While horses are no longer stolen, they
are not wholly emancipated from service in Williams County today, and
the story of "Black Beauty" will always be read with interest, even
though the noble horse is seldom used away from the farmstead in Wil-
liams County. The "bawky" and the "runaway" horse, and the blind
horse — these stories all hark back to the long ago. The white horse and
the red-haired woman — sight of one used to suggest the other, but the
time will never come when people will forget about the pale horse and
the rider whose name is Death.
The Grange — Many Local Organizations
One of the farm movements sweeping the whole United States in
the reconstruction period following the Civil war was the Grange —
Patrons of Husbandry, the Grangers call themselves. Webster's Inter-
national Dictionary defines the word Grange : "An association of farmers,
designed to further their interests, and particularly to bring producers
246
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
247
and consumers, farmers and manufacturers, into direct commercial rela-
tions, without intervention of middlemen or traders." The first Grange
was organized in 1867 in the United States. The Grange was organized
in Williams County in 1874, and active in promoting it were : J. P.
March of Jefferson township, P. S. Garlow of Pulaski, and Thomas Hod-
son of Madison Township. It was a spontaneous movement — sprang up
over night in many communities, and the principal land owners were
active in it. Many Granges own their own property, and the Grange is
still a social center in Williams County. While some have allowed the
social advantage of the Grange to supplant the church, there is room for
both in every community. The Grange is still a formidable agency for
A\'iLLiAMS County Country Life Club
better social conditions, and for the moral welfare of those engaged in
agriculture.
The Country Life Community Organization
The County Life Club had its beginning in 1910, in Superior Town-
ship under the leadership of J. R. Mick, but it proved to be popular
movement and now includes territory in Superior, Pulaski, Jefferson and
Center townships, its object being to make country life worth while and
to create sentiment for farm activities and exhibits. A similar organiza-
tion at West Buffalo embracing parts of Superior, St. Joseph, Center and
Florence townships has since been formed, and there are annual meet-
ings with premiums offered for agricultural exhibits. The object is to
promote agriculture and an interest in the live stock industry. There
have been almost three hundred exhibits, and home-talent programs are
always arranged in connection with the annual meetings. The attendance
is always large, many coming from the towns of Williams County, the
248 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
exhibits there always being of interest to everybody. The exhibit is a
stimulus to better production in future.
The Williams County Farm Bureau
(Contributed by J. R. Mick)
The Farm Bureau movement is now so general over the United States
that the agricultural history of nearly all counties must contain mention
of this new farm organization.
While the first Farm Bureaus were organized in 1910, the Williams
County organization only dates back to the year 1917, but there has been
a healthy interest in it. Before this time there has been some agitation,
but three years ago the work in Williams County began to assume definite
shape, and organization meetings were held in all parts of the county. At
these meetings the purpose of the Farm Bureau was explained, and farm-
ers were asked to pledge their support to it. The first object was to
secure a ^^'illiams County agricultural agent.
While the United States Department of Agriculture and the Ohio
State University were willing to pay the larger share of the county agent's
salary, they were unwilling to place an agent in Williams County unless
a county Farm Bureau was organized, and that was the object of the
preliminary meetings; The work of the county agent would be much
more efficient when supported by a strong, active Farm Bureau. The
Department of Agriculture required the organization to secure the
co-operation of at least 10 per cent of the farmers of Williams County.
Wherever the proposition was presented there was generous response ; the
required number was soon secured and the work of a permanent organi-
zation was begun. Among those who were active in the beginning were
Elmer S. Johnson of Springfield, J. M. Hodson, Bridgewater ; H. D.
Boynton, Pulaski ; H. B. Dargitz, Northwest, and many others.
A mass meeting was held in December, 1917, and the following officers
were elected: President, Elmer S. Johnson; vice president, J. M. Hod-
son ; secretary-treasurer, Paul Smith of West Unity. The following were
elected members of the executive committee, each man representing two
townships: H. D. Boynton, L. O. Cook, H. B. Dargitz, C. E. Greek,
Jacob Zeeb and J. R. Mick. The next step was to get the appropriation
from the county commissioners. The county was asked to pay $1,500
of the expense of hiring an agricultural agent and maintaining an office,
the commissioners approved the appropriation, but it was not till March,
1918, that everything was ready for business. On March 6 the Farm
Bureau executive board met to engage a county agent.
Few more important meetings have ever been held in the interest of
Williams County agriculture than this one, for upon the choice made that
day depended in a large measure the success or failure of the Farm
Bureau work in the community. Three men presented themselves before
the board as candidates for the position. After a careful examination
of their qualifications, the board by unanimous vote chose Carl G. Field-
ner as the man most likely to meet the needs of Williams County. A con-
tract was executed with Mr. Fieldner, and two days later he began his
work as farm agent in Williams County.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
249
The seed-corn famine in Ohio was in 1918, and one of Air. Fieldner's
first tasks was to help William County farmers secure reliable seed.
This was accomplished in two ways : First, where farmers had home-
grown seed they were urged to test each ear, and in many cases the agent
did the testing for them. If a farmer had ten bushels of seed testing
40 per cent germination, he could and many did by careful test of each
individual ear, save about four bushels of fairly good seed. Second,
where the farmer had no seed that would grow, and could not obtain any
home-grown seed, he was advised to order corn through the Farm
Bureau. The Government was able to locate reasonably good seed in
Pennsylvania and Delaware, and a carload was ordered for Williams
County. In all 1,300 bushels of seed was distributed by the Farm Bureau
at cost.
Williams County Foremost in Poultry Productions
The season in all parts of Williams County was unfavorable that year
for corn growing, and the seed was not everywhere satisfactory ; but it
was the best obtainable, and met a real need, while it also demonstrated
the ability of the Farm Bureau to meet an emergency. Perhaps 7,000
acres more corn was planted in Williams County that year because of the
Farm Bureau service. The first summer the Farm Bureau and county
agent were able to accomplish enough to more than justify its existence.
Among other things accomplished should be mentioned the following:
Seed for 3,500 acres of oats treated for smut ; enrolled 165 boys and girls
in poultry, food and pig clubs ; purchased and distributed eleven carloads
of acid phosphate at cost ; conducted many canning and baking demon-
strations ; held poultry meetings in different parts of county ; introduced
500 bushels of pure-bred wheat for seed ; conducted a score of meetings
in the interest of a bigger wheat crop for 1919, and brief mention will
be made of the last two undertakings.
250 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The World war brought home to WiUiams County farmers the neces-
sity of greater production. In this the Farm Bureau lent its aid. Twenty
meetings were held in different parts of the county in the interest of a
bigger acreage of wheat, and better methods of increasing the yield per
acre. Definite instructions were given farmers as to how they might do
this. As a result an unusually large acreage was sown to wheat in the
fall of 1918, and as there was much more acid phosphate used than ever
before, the crop harvested in 1919 was perhaps the largest in many years.
Realizing the value of pure-bred varieties of grains, the Farm Bureau the
first year of its existence secured 500 bushels of two high-yielding, pure-
bred varieties of wheat for seed. This wheat (Gladden, a beardy variety,
and Trumbull, a smooth wheat) was well distributed over the county.
The yield was six bushels above the average yield for the county. This
showed that the new varieties are more profitable than other kinds that
have been grown here for years. In 1919 enough of the new seed was
available to seed about two thousand acres.
Planning for Bigger Things
It was soon seen that the old membership fee of $1 was not suffi-
cient to carry on the Farm Bureau work in Williams County. It would
not meet the requirements of a worth-while organization. After much
discussion and several district and state meetings, several Ohio counties
decided to place the membership upon a $10 basis, and Williams County
was among the first to adopt the new plan. The membership canvass
began in March, 1920, and continued for two weeks when it was found
that 1,525 members had signed a three-year contract, agreeing to pay an
annual fee of $10 into the association. This put the organization on a
firm footing, and enabled it to undertake projects that were impossible
under the old $1 membership plant. As an evidence of the farmer's
approval of the new and more business-like method of handling his inter-
ests, it may be said that under the old schedule the Farm Bureau had but
900 members, while under the new $10 membership plan, the membership
almost doubled itself.
Tribute to Carl G. Fieldner
It was an encouraging event in Williams County agriculture when
Carl G. Fieldner began his work as farm agent. He is a native of
Defiance County. After graduating from the Bryan high school,
Mr. Fieldner completed a four-year course in agriculture at the Ohio
State University. By the virtue of his office he is now a member of the
faculty of the Ohio State University, and as such he is able to bring the
best and latest teaching and practice of that institution to the farmer on
his farm in Williams County. He is peculiarly fitted for his work ; his
technical training, his grasp of the farmer's needs, his capacity for
methodical work, his love for the things of the country, his splendid
enthusiasm, and above all his sincerity of purpose and tireless energy,
have rendered his services well nigh indispensable.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 251
In short, Mr. Fieldner brings the university to the people, and better
farming practices are the result of his efforts. He has no fads or fan-
cies ; he ever keeps in mind actual farm conditions, and any proposition
that does not measure up to that standard is discarded by him. In other
wrords Mr. Fieldner is practical ; besides his work with the Farm Bureau
executive committee, he works with different local committees in all parts
of Williams County. By a wise use of this plan he is able to extend his
usefulness over a wider area than when working alone. Those in posi-
tion to know assert that Williams County has one of the best farm agents
in Ohio today. Different positions have been offered Mr. Fieldner at
higher salary than he now receives, but he believes his work in Williams
County is not yet finished, and he has refused to leave for more
remunerative employment.
Tribute to the Farm Bureau President
The Farm Bureau history of Williams County cannot be written with-
out complimentary mention of the services of its first president, Elmer
S. Johnson, whose unexpected death in February came as a shock to his
many friends. To Mr. Johnson more than to any other man is due the
credit of inaugurating the Farm Bureau work in Williams County. He
spared neither time nor effort in securing the required number of mem-
bers to insure a county agent. As long as the Farm Bureau exists it will
stand as a monument to his vision and industry. Although he attained
to but forty-one years, Mr. Johnson had achieved a measure of success
that many do not have at the end of a long lifetime. He was an authority
on the growing of soy beans, and was said to be the most extensive
grower of this crop in the United States. Consequently his advice upon
this great legume crop was in great demand, and through it he brought
fame and prestige to Williams County from the outside world.
For three successive years Mr. Johnson was chosen president of the
Williams County Farm Bureau, his last election occurring but one week
week before his untimely death. At all times Mr. Johnson gave his time
unstintingly to the organization. His influence and personality did much
to strengthen Farm Bureau work all over the country. Being an expert
in his line he needed its help the least and yet he did the most to bring it
about for others, thereby proving his unselfishness in the matter. He
enjoyed the respect and confidence of his associates, and was at all
times able to work in harmony with them. He had a great vision
of the mission of the Farm Bureau. Under his leadership it adopted the
$10 membership plan, and he arranged for the canvass, but he did not
live to see the result of it. The death of Mr. Johnson came at a time
when Williams County and the State of Ohio were beginning to make
extensive use of his talent and experience. While lecturing in farmers'
institutes in Central Ohio, he was taken ill and died within a few days.
In his death the Williams County Farm Bureau lost a loyal, generous,
capable leader, and the cause of agriculture a true friend and an able
champion.
252 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Present Farm Bureau Roster
The Williams County Farm Bureau officers are: President, L. O.
Cook, Jefferson Township ; vice president, E. E. Kirk, Bridgewater ; sec-
retary-treasurer, J. R. Mick, Superior. The executive board consists of
six members in addition to the officers; they are: H. B. Dargitz, C. E.
Greek, J. A. Lautzenheiser, N. B. Sanford, Theodore Oberlin and Galen
Newcomer. While the Farm Bureau is still a new thing it has been in
existence long enough to become a force in county, state and national
affairs. The Williams County Farm Bureau is affiliated wfth the Ohio
and American Farm Bureau Federations, and through this relation Wil-
liams County farmers will have their share in solving the many problems
that are to be faced in future.
As it is now organized, the Williams County Farm Bureau is more
of a business organization than formerly. In the early years of its his-
tory it concerned itself mostly with helping the county agent in his work ;
this important work is still receiving as much attention as before, so that
the business of the organization may be considered as so much additional
accomplished, and with the aid the county agent and Farm Bureau are
able to furnish the farmer of today and the future, he should do his
work more efficiently, and with greater assurance of reward for his
efforts. In a recent report Williams stood fifth among Ohio counties in
its Farm Bureau membership, and it seems that the increased annual
dues has stimulated the membership in other counties.
Farmers' Institutes in Williams County
There are five days of State Farmers' Institute in Williams County
each year, and the Farm Bureau plans to supplement the number by hold-
ing at least one session in each township, thereby reaching more people
with the instruction. A recent newspaper clipping says : "County Agent
C. G. Fieldner has spent considerable time the past month in organizing
boys and girls' clubs. He believes they are more likely to become farmers
if they join a pig, food or poultry club." And it also appears that H. D.
Boynton and J. R. Mick represented the Williams County Farm Bureau
at the Columbus meeting. Under a recent arrangement it is possible for
the different co-operative farm organizations to unite in employing a
purchasing agent, such an agent being able to buy more advantageously
than an agent representing a single organization. Collective bargaining
has its appeal to Williams County farmers, and the Capper-Hersman bill
enables them to sell their products collectively, although it encountered
difficulties in the United States Congress. The Williams County Farm
Bureau is urging Congress to pass it.
CHAPTER XXIII
CO-OPERATIVE LIVESTOCK SHIPPING SURVEY
Since it is conservatively estimated that there are 300 tractors at work
in the fields of Williams County in addition to the usual amount of horse-
power, and 1,000 trucks used in hauling the products to market, with
1,000 silos preserving the stock feed in order to increase the flow of milk,
and 75 milking machines have been brought to the aid of the hand milk-
ers, something must be done in the way of marketing the surplus products
from the farmsteads all over the county.
With the dififerent communities becoming enthusiastic about their
flour and feed mills in Williams County today, it is difficult to imagine a
time when it was necessary to manufacture cornmeal by the Armstrong
process at home, making the hopper in which the grain is ground from
the stump of a fallen tree. An old account relates that a solid stump
was cut square on the top and the center was burned out of it. When
the cavity was cleaned out it became the mortar, and the householder thus
provided bread for his family. The corn was poured into the hollow
stump and he pounded it into meal. The process would seem laborious
in the light of twentieth century methods. The Irishman who said he did
not mind the corn silks left in, but that he wanted the cobs taken out of
his cornbread might not enjoy a pone made from it. The product was
sifted through deer skins stretched over wooden hoops and punctured
with small awls, so the meal would sift through them. A great many
persons would do without cornbread today if it cost them so much effort,
and thus the grandmothers of yesterday had cornmeal for their famous
ovens before the open fire on the hearthstone. Later, the Williams County
settlers had waterpower mills — corn crackers, hominy pestles, and finally
the improved flouring mills of today.
It is only when there is a surplus that methods of marketing its prod-
ucts concern a community. In his recently completed survey of co-opera-
tive livestock shipping in Williams County, C. G. Fieldner asserts that it
has more shipping associations than any other Ohio county. In the biog-
raphy section of this Centennial History of Williams County there is
frequent reference to the relation subscribers maintain to the different
shipping associations. The Brady Farmers Co-operative Company
recently organized is capitalized at $20,000, with the shares of stock
placed at $50, with 10 per cent of stock already collected and organized
in a way that it may engage in the elevator business at the discretion of
those furnishing the money. It started with fifty-eight members. It has
been operated since February at West Unity.
The Kunkle Farmers Co-operative Association capitalized at $5,000,
was organized in October, 1919, with 10 per cent paid in on $50 shares
253
254 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of stock. There were 1 18 members and the capital stock will be increased
as numbers warrant it. It is also organized on a basis that it may operate
the elevator there. Twenty-seven carloads of livestock had been shipped
from Kunkle when the 1920 survey was completed in May.
The Pioneer Farmers Exchange Company, organized in January, is
capitalized at $25,000 and placed at $25 a share with 10 per cent collected,
and it started with 150 members. There is no local buyer, and the aver-
age has been one and one-half carloads a week for four months.
Tractor Plow
The Alvordton Farmers Exchange, capitalized at $15,000, was organ-
ized in October, 1919, with eighty-seven members, at $25 a share, with
a provision for operating the elevator there.
The Superior Farmers Co-operative Association Company, organized
in February, 1919, at Montpelier, is capitalized at $5,000, with shares
placed at $5, and it started with 130 members. Although there is a local
buyer, this company sends out a carload a week, mostly to the Buffalo
markets.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 255
The Edon Farmers Co-operative Company was organized in October,
1919, as a livestock shipping association. In January it bought out the
elevator and local feed store and increased its capital stock to $25,000,
shares of $10 all paid in, and it employs men to "Operate the elevator and
feed store. There are 192 members.
The Blakeslee Co-operative Shipping Association was organized in
February, 1919, with seventy-one members, on a basis of $5 a member,
and while there is no capital stock the company is considering the plan
of incorporating. In 1919 it shipped thirty cars.
The Arctic Shipping Association was organized in February, 1917, and
capitalized at $1,500, with $3 shares of stock. It has 493 members and
ships from Edgerton and from Butler, Indiana. While it is organized
under the laws of Indiana, it ships as much from Edgerton as from But-
ler. This company did $500,000 worth of business in 1919, shipping 174
cars from August to May, 1920, and sometimes both points send out
shipments together.
Melbern has had its initial organization meeting and will probably
organize on the same basis as Edgerton.
Stryker is working for a farmers' elevator, and has appointed a meet-
ing to consider a shipping association.
The Pulaski Farmers Elevator Company is trying to locate stock-
yards there in order to handle livestock.
The Bryan Farmers Co-operative Elevator Company is considering
the question of shipping livestock.
A Tri-state Co-operative Association has been formed at Montgomery,
Michigan, with members in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. It has 600
members, and 100 of them live in Northwest Township, Williams County.
It is engaged extensively in the retail trade, handling butter, eggs, feed,
coal, and operating two elevators beside shipping livestock. Williams
County contributes to two outside shipping associations, one in Michigan
and one in Indiana.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE HOUSE OF THE LORD IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
"I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the
Lord," and W. E. Gladstone once said : "I go to church on the Sabbath
day not only because I believe in religion, but because I love England."
And perhaps that some spirit moves the hearts of some residents of Wil-
liams County today.
"For now abideth these three, the church, the school and the press, but
the greatest of these is the " ; and this great educational triumvirate
is within the reach of all in Williams County today. It is said that prac-
tically all the religious denominations existing within the bounds of the
county today were planted here in its early history. When Williams
County was organized there were no residents within the present bounds
of the county. However, in the 30's, the settlers became numerous and
there were churches in all the communities.
The Interchurch W^orld Religious Survey effected in May and June,
1920, discovered Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, Evangelical, Amish-
Mennonite, United Brethren (radical and liberal), Christian, Christian
Union, German Lutheran, Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite,
Dunkard Brethren, Bessada Brethren, Baptist, Church of God, Union,
Progressive Dunkard, English Lutheran, Church of Christ, Universalist,
Episcopalian, Catholic and Christian Science organizations. The survey
has demonstrated conclusively the utter impossibility of uniting them on
any definite evangelistic basis, since the ministers are multiplied who hesi-
tated about giving out statistical information. Fearing lest their denomi-
nations would suffer in the contrast, some would give out no statistical
data until the Rev. G. W. Whymen, who made the survey, labored awhile
with them. The true situation might place them at a disadvantage, and
one minister walking the floor informed the statistician there was no
earthly power that could compel him to do such a thing.
The hope of the county is its youth, its schools and its Christian
churches, but some of the abandoned places of worship are silent wit-
nesses to the fact that community centers have changed unless there is
a wane of piety. "There are some queer and hitherto unexplained hap-
penings since we were young," said a group of men with undimmed recol-
lection of the hazy past, and they remember with regret that men and
women who appeared in their best raiment when some of those abandoned
churches were dedicated to the worship of Almighty God have moved into
other parts of the moral heritage, or sleep in the churchyards and do not
know of the seeming desecration. In the onward rush of civilization it
is fortunate they were spared the spectacle of their loved house of wor-
ship made into a place for the money changers, converted into barns or
tobacco warehouses.
256
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 257
The decadence of the rural church has long been a problem in
society, and the city minister knows the depressing influence of an audi-
torium filled with empty pews. In view of the situation the national,
state and county religious survey has come about and people are learning
of the over and under-churched communities. Perhaps the Methodist
Episcopal Centenary in 1919 prompted the Interchurch World Movement
which concerns the Universe just 300 years after the Pilgrim Fathers
founded the first church in the New World. The compact signed by the
Pilgrims before they disembarked from the Mayflower, December 21,
1620, at Plymouth Rock, was the first religious or government organi-
zation of any kind on American soil ; the pages of history setting forth
the fact that they were seeking a shrine where they might worship God
according to the dictates of their own conscience. The Congregational
church established at Plymouth Rock, is the Mother Church in America
The Interchurch World posters displayed everywhere in May, 1920,
bear this sentiment from President Abraham Lincoln, spoken when he
was under great mental stress : "God bless the church, and blessed be
God who in this, our great trial, giveth us the churches" ; and it is the
mission of the Interchurch World Movement to foster them. Artistic
posters have been used effectively in this campaign, and under the picture
of a young boy are the words : "Make the world safer for him." Under
the Madonna poster was the inscription : "This simple faith has made
America great" ; and the poster showing the young woman decked in
white lilies, the emblem of purity reads : "The ideals you taught her came
from the church." And all combined to cause the churchmen of America
to respond with their money.
The men of affairs in every community are interested in the moral
welfare, and they have respect for the church even though their names
may not be on its roster. Lack of leadership is the recognized need of all
community movements, and it is leaders rather than drivers the world
needs today. The world needs men with their feet on the ground even
though their heads are in the clouds. The dreamers always have opened
the way for material things, and idealism just as certainly precedes
realism in the church world of today. The little church reverie —
"If all our members were just like me,
What kind of a church would our church be?"
suggests heart examination. After all that has been said about over-
lapping of parishes and over-churched communities, it is estimated that
not more than 25 per cent of the people in Williams County are church
communicants today. With a population of 24,000, not more than 6,000
are reached by the churches, and it is a serious condition.
"Go ye into all the world," is the twentieth century missionary spirit,
but with 75 per cent of the people in Williams county not sustaining
any church relation, there is a definite call : "Remain in Macedonia
and help us." Some aver that the prayers offered by the pioneers are
not approached in fervency by either the ministry or the laity of today,
and an old-fashioned religionist exclaimed : "Oh, how I delight to listen
to a brother who talks to God simply and from the heart ; oh for more
258 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of the prayers of God, the body, soul and spirit working together, the
whole man being aroused and startled up to the highest pitch of intensity
to wrestle with the Most High," and then the economic question entered
into the consideration. It is urged that the pioneer minister who had
such power in prayer was not actuated by the thought of salary at all.
Today while some pray others pay, and the church is not without its
problems. While Martha of old was worn with much serving, it was
said that Mary had chosen the better part, and men and women will
always have different understanding of things.
There have been intellectual and spiritual changes in the passing
years, and denominational lines are not so severely drawn in Williams
County today as in the past. The twentieth century has witnessed many
changes, and churches co-operate today which were once separated by
hatred and bitterness. It. is a stock story that when a city church choir
was singing: "Will there by any stars in my crown?" the answering
refrain wafted across the street from another choir was : "No, not one.
No, not one," but the fellowship in Williams County churches has been
demonstrated repeatedly. The nation-wide religious survey has revealed
the fact that church members are more prosperous than men outside of
the church, and while "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof,"
in the Williams County churches there are men and women who are
conscientious in their giving — who bring the tithes into the storehouse,
one tenth of everything being consecrated to Christian purposes.
On the other hand there are men and women who hedge about to
avoid contributing to different community enterprises because they must
contribute to the church, while the tithing system would allow them to
give to many things. The budget system is proving satisfactory in many
Williams County churches, and many do give on the First Day of the
Week as the Lord has prospered them. The returns of the religious
survey indicate that the evangelistic methods of the past are not effective
today, that the old-fashioned revival with its emotional appeal is not
reaching the unchurched people, and that the "Life of a church is vitally
related to the frequency of its public preaching service," there being
too many non-resident ministers. While there are forty ministers in
Williams County today, vivisection is the apparent difficulty.
Religious vivisection is one of the world-wide problems of the church
today. There is too much sectarianism and a tendency to multiply the
churches and denominations in both town and country, and the inclina-
tion is not limited to Williams County. "Absent treatment" is not recom-
mended as a religious antidote, and while it has been found there are
now seventy-five active churches in the county, there are only fourteen
that support a minister alone. WHiile some of the Williams County
clergy are highly educated, efficient men, they serve two and three
churches and some preach as many as four sermons on one Sunday in
as many different pulpits. The housing problem is under consideration,
only a few churches owning parsonages and it is said that some minis-
ters are forced to live in the houses the members themselves would not
occupy, and "The Interchurch World Movement is a co-operative effort
of the missionarv boards, church extension societies and similar benevo-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 259
lent agencies of all the Evangelical churches to work out a unified
Christian program." It is the first organization in the history of the
world to undertake such a thing.
In the survey the word community is comprehended as a unit of ter-
ritory and population characterized by common economic and social
experiences and interests. While the cost of living has increased 80 per
cent, it is said the minister's salary has not increased 20 percent in twenty
years. The community center occupied by but one religious denomina-
tion would simplify conditions, and it is said the stove is the only warm
religious thing in some of the multiplied churches of today. While there
are about twenty abandoned churches, some of them sold and converted
to other uses, others stand as sentinels — silent reminders of more pros-
perous days in the community. While the church bell still reverberates
from many towers, the church with a steeple pointing to the heavens
is a rarity today. In his rambles through Williams County Henry Howe
relates that he came upon a rural church in ruins from a storm disaster.
In its palmy days it had supported a steeple, and it had been the pride
of the community. A few miles away a new church was in prospect, and
a well-to-do farmer living between said that if they would build the
steeple high enough he would contribute toward it, and become a member
there. There is religious sentiment in connection with the steeple and the
church bell in it, and none wholly resist such call to worship. Whether
or not they admit it most people have religion — will at least defend the
religion of their mothers.
Since people have automobiles they "just go and go and go," while
the church bell says : "Come, come, come," and one student of the church
problem said : "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," is an
economic impossibility as long as there are Saturday night band con-
certs, and the stores in all of the towns remain open until the "wee
small hours." He had arrived at the conclusion that the business men
shared the responsibility for local Sabbath desecration. As long ago as
when delivery horses were used by local grocerymen, there was agitation
of the Sabbath observance question. The argument was advanced that
late Saturday night buying was an unkindness to the grocers, their clerks,
delivery boys and a hardship on horses that were driven late into the
night. The Sunday dinner feature entails hardships upon the women,
and the Sabbath observance agitators hark back to the customs of the
forefathers who stopped business on Saturday afternoon in order to
properly prepare themselves physically, mentally and spiritually for the
next day's religious service.
One student of conditions remarked that a church sold to a Grange
was not wholly desecration ; although dedicated for worship it still shel-
tered humanity. There have been half a dozen churches destroyed by
fire in Williams County. In the recent survey where a church is only
opened now and then for funerals and there are no regular services, it
is classed as abandoned, and in most denominations there are churches
that are not self-supporting, and the object of the Interchurch World
Movement is to obviate such conditions. There are church days — Go
to Church Sundays, Mothers' days, Fathers' days and Children's days,
260 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and many strenuous efforts are made to attract all the people to the
churches. While "the very looks of some of the pioneer ministers would
frighten sinners from the error of their ways," the gospel messenger is
not necessarily a forbidding looking character. While some religionists
of every age have "overdone the man-of-sorrows idea, and have made
of it a long-faced religion," the modern conception is a more joyous
one, "Feed my sheep and feed my lambs," is the Bible teaching, and
the junior church simplifies religion so that the child mind grasps it.
Who is responsible when so much religious training is above the
mental grasp of those who sit in the sanctuaries? True righteousness
comprehends the idea of dealing justly and loving mercy, admitting the
Golden Rule into human life, visiting the widow in her affliction and
taking the proper care of the fatherless, and it is usually understood
that all does not consist simply of forms and ceremonies. Salvation
is through grace, and some of the Williams County clergy have heeded
the Bible injunction about earning bread by the sweat of the brow, and
the salary not meeting their economical requirements, they do other
things to meet the obligations. The church in any community is an
asset — the real estate dealer's hobby, the price of land always being
advanced on account of it. While the choir is recognized as the war
department in many churches, music is a feature to increase church
attendance. While those who want back seats must come early, the
future gives promise to the shifting pulpit in order that the minister
may meet them half way at least when they come into the service.
While stentorian tones are now out of vogue in Williams County
church pulpits, time was when the gospel minister removed his coat and
engaged earnestly in the delivery of his message. "The groves were
God's first temples," and the study of acoustics has not always entered
into church construction. Lack of leadership and music are the most
apparent difficulties in all communities. While "Jesus paid it all," is a
popular song, there is something left for the individual when church
becomes an efficient center of the community. God and one is called a
majority, and "where two or three are gathered together" there is estab-
lished a community of interests and as in the past the success of the
rural church depends upon the faithfulness of the few today.
The story is handed down that the pioneer minister had the convic-
tion: "Woe is nie if I preach not the gospel," and in desperation he
said : "Somebody pray what can pray." Then turning to his wife he
added: "Pray, Betsy," and under such conditions there were religious
awakenings. "Celestial fire often broke out in rural schoolhouses in
early days," says one of the older histories. "The conflagration would
sweep the whole community, and under the spell of the old-time religion
men and women hated sin as the devil hates holy water today. In the
old revival meetings period there were conversions such as the twentieth
century has not witnessed — men of God with a message came preaching
in the wilderness days in Williams County." and said a voice from the
past : "The people heard them gladly. They preached not for so many
paltry dollars, but for the salvation of never-dying souls. Visiting min-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 261
isters were entertained in tlie homes of the settlers, and the coming of
these prophets of the Lord was a time of rejoicing among them."
The secret once leaked out :
"Where the pot boiled the strongest,
Ministers always stay the longest,"
and yet the circuit rider was forced to take some note of corn cribs
and other physical necessities. He brought to the settler the news from
the outside world, and he was a welcome visitor. There are still men,
women and preachers in every community, but society is organized on
a different basis today. While some churches are still supported on
the quarterage system, the weekly offering through the envelope system
provides the running expense of the church today. "Trust in the Lord"
is a motto frequently displayed, and yet most people are practical and
pay as well as pray, and it is a good combination. It is related by an
early historian that when ministers began holding weekday services
when the bulk of the \\'illiams County population lived in the country,
farmers and their wives and children together with their hired help all
went in their everyday clothes to the schoolhouse to hear the gospel
message. Among the sky pilots of that day are mentioned: Stoddard,
Coleman, Warner. Thompson, Albright, Lindsay, Hulburt, Cather, Baker,
Deemer, and among them were some of the Peter Cartwright type that
always attracted the people to hear them. It is said of John W. Bower-
sox of St. Joseph township that his home was always open to ministers,
and the same was true in other pioneer households in Williams County.
When night meetings began to be held along in the 70s, whole neigh-
borhoods would come on foot to the schoolhouse, some always carrying
along unlit torches to light the way home in the dark, the torches made
from hickory bark and guns were sometimes carried along as a matter
of protection. It was nothing uncommon to see a rifle in the place of
worship, and when meeting was out those going in the same direction
would form a torchlight procession on the way home from the service.
It presented a wildly wierd picture as the shadows danced and quivered
on either side like spectral figures, and ever and anon the woods would
ring with hymns of rejoicing, or songs of awful warnings, exhorting
sinners to repentance. There is nothing like those pioneer meetings in
modern times.
Some Unexpected Church Visitors
"As early as 1854," says an historian, "the Baptists were holding an
afternoon meeting in a schoolhouse in St. Joseph township, when some
men engaged in railroad construction on the Air Line came to break
up the meeting. When they disturbed the meeting the Reverend \\'eaver
who must have been a 'fighting parson,' remonstrated with them to no
purpose. The visitors had come for trouble, and the members did not
disappoint them. They continued their disorderly behavior, and since
there is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue, the meeting
stopped and the fight began, the citizens present taking excellent care of
262 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the situation. The church members present did not 'turn the other cheek,'
as according to the Bible injunction, but they turned on their assailants.
Among those present are mentioned : Alexander and Tobias Wright,
John Gnagy, John W. and David Bowersox, John Skelton and Benjamin
F. Cornell, and when they combined forces with the minister the ruffians
were overpowered and driven away from there. It was a veritable
'Church of the Best Licks,' and there are men living today who would
join under similar conditions."
An Exemplary Church Years Ago
To illustrate the situation by a case in point, mention is made of the
the Rev. G. M. Miller who preached at West Bethesda Presbyterian
Church for forty years. He was a community leader, and in the time
of his ministry West Bethesda was a rural center. It was one of the
largest rural churches in Williams County. The pioneers in the com-
munity all had large families and they all grew there. There was no
restraint on anybody, and the children came barefoot to church and
Sunday school and never thought of missing a service. The people
were interested — but, alas, the day came when migration set in and the
families that had constituted the rural community went to town. The
lure of business and the wages possible caused the influx of the popu-
lation and "everything just flattened out" in the community. The new
families coming in — tenants on the farms in many instances, did not
take hold just where the former residents left off in community affairs,
and today Reverend Miller sleeps in the adjoining churchyard uncon-
scious of the fact that his flock is scattered — are as sheep without a
shepherd, and when one of them visits West Bethesda today he finds
strangers there.
Certainly there are just as many broad acres of land about the rural
church and school as in times past, and they are just as productive of
farm commodities, but with the smaller families and many of them
transient in the difiterent communities, there is no question about the
decadence of the rural church today. Time was when a dozen chil-
dren surrounded the family board, but it is fashionable now to have
one or two children and an automobile, and who is going to sit in the
pews of the rural church under such conditions. The lack of leader-
ship and the lack of music explains why they all attend religious service
in town. With twentieth century transportation they cover the distance
in less time than they used to require in walking to the rural church, and
"when the old guard died off" there has never been any more leadership
in the country. It is said that automobiles carry half the populace to
the Indiana lakes every Sunday in the warm weather, and yet sentiment
still clings to the old-fashioned church in the rural community.
An Incident Gleaned from an Old Church Book
An old record of Pulaski Mission, Maumee District, Michigan Con-
ference, in possession of John E. Beach, but likely to find its way into
the Bryan public library, relates that said mission was erected from the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 263
old Defiance circuit in the fall of 1838, and Thomas Shorthill who was
later a tavern keeper and the first postmaster in Bryan was the recording
steward in the mission. The record is in his handwriting, and this is
said to be the earliest Methodist church in Williams County. It appears
that one John Radabaugh had been arraigned before the church in an
ecclesiastical trial, the ofifense being "harboring and working a stray
horse," and his case was adjudicated by the quarterly conference there.
He was found guilty and his name was stricken from the records. At
that time the courts of justice were not always invoked on moral ques-
tions, the ecclesiastical body of the church reserving the privilege of
meeting out punishment to offenders itself.
The High Priest of Old said of the Nazarine : "He taketh away our
government," and those early churchmen felt the same way about such
things. They were jealous of their ecclesiastical function. In that day
the church wished to retain authority, and they handled such contro-
versies themselves. They were clothed with dignity and law, and offend-
ers found no favor with them. The unique thing about it all was that
the name of John Radabaugh was stricken from the roster at one quar-
terly conference, and before it convened again the man died, and at
the next session the aged father feeling the disgrace attaching to the mem-
ory appeared before the conference and asked to have the name written
in the church book again. When it was written on the Lamb's Book of
Life he wanted it to remain on the church book in Pulaski. The blot
must be removed from his escutcheon in order to make a better showing
in the next world.
It is related that Reverend Scranton who was an early minister in
Williams County attained to an age of 104 years, and that Rev. Thomas
Prettyman was among the early ministers who attained to old age. The
old accounts refer to churches in the north part of Williams County as
Winebrenarian, while there is later reference to them as the Church of
God. In the ancient village of Lockport there is a Liberal United Breth-
ren Church about which the chronology will never be in doubt, since the
slate roof reveals the lettering and the date — 1887, which seemed a
commendable thing as so many forget such data in the onward march
of civilization. While the church edifices that have been sold at auction
and converted to other usages seem like spectres in the religious life of
the community, it is a condition over which communities do not seem
to have control — the decadence inevitable, and with almost 40 per cent
of those still in existence unable to sustain themselves, there is little
prospect for more hopeful conditions. Reverend Whyman who made
the religious survey, made a map showing the territory served by the
different denominations and as a matter of economy many existing con-
ditions should be changed, and "over-churched" would not then describe
so many communities. This parish map would be a revelation to many
seemingly well informed persons in Williams County. Why so many
denominations ever entered one limited area is a question that remains
unanswered only in the nature of things.
Years ago, so traditions say, there was a Y. M. C. A. in Bryan, but
no definite information was available, and there are Boy Scouts today
264 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
without definite, permanent organization. While there is no Salvation
Army station in Williams County, Salvationists from nearby towns
solicit aid, saying they always receive good support in the different towns.
Whenever there is a drive of any kind Williams County seems to be the
storm center, and there is a disposition to aid them all. In the World
war Belgium, France and England were unable to withstand Prussianism
alone, but when the nations of the earth laid aside petty diiference and
team work was once established it was the beginning of the end of
German inhumanity, and the religious survey has the same purpose^
strengthening the religious outposts, and making a solid front against
the forces of evil in the world. It was stated in the beginning of this
chapter that the settlers seemed to bring with them the churches found
in Wil-liams County today. It would be difficult to say what denomina-
tion has done most toward Christianizing Williams County.
In 1920 religious survey has revealed the fact that twenty-two
churches have been abandoned, and that the Liberal United Brethren
now have eleven organizations, while there are six Radical United Breth-
ren strongholds in the community.
The Church of God — Winebrenarians — have five rural churches, while
the Methodist Episcopal denomination has fifteen churches in Williams
County, seven of them in the towns. The Presbyterians have six churches
with four of them in town. The Christian Union reports three rural
churches. The Evangelical Lutheran has four churches, all in town.
There are two Reformed and one Mennonite Church in the county.
The Progressive Brethren maintain three churches while the Church
of the Brethren — old order of Dunkards, have two churches. The Dis-
ciples or Christians maintain four churches, and the Catholics including
two missions have five places of worship, and the Universalists have two
churches, one of them closed part of the time. There is one Episcopal
Church, two Baptist and four Evangelical churches, and while for twenty
years there have been Christian Scientists in Bryan, they have recently
commenced holding meetings again.
If all the churches knew more of their own history it would be pos-
sible to obtain data, but the ministers "have no continuing city" and the
laity do not tax themselves with such things. Propaganda is essential
in any church that cares to perpetuate itself.
In very many instances it is the minister and the women of the
community who carry on the work of the church, and yet some of the
laity recognize in it a man's job and are rallying to it. Sometimes the
religion is all in the wife's name, and husbands sustain the relation of
brother-in-law in every denomination. It does not often happen that
the husband has treasure laid up where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor
thieves break through and steal while the wife remains worldly minded
and indifferent to such things. It is sometimes urged that church is a
dress parade, and that women do not impress their husbands with the
sancity of their religion or they would think more of it. The woman
exists in every church who claims that her husband is just as good as
other men, an argument that is hard to combat and very destructive of
church sentiment.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 265
The minister needs to be master of the situation, and his classifica-
tion of sin should be as absolutely correct as the physician's diagnosis
of disease. The man of God who passes over offense without righteous
reproof is guilty of malpractice, the same as the physician who prescribes
for the wrong malady because he does not understand the symptoms,
or does not have the courage to call things by their right names. While
there as a few persons in every neighborhood who can quote John III, 16,
the church people of today know less of the Bible than did the preceding
generations who read it through chapter by chapter, oftentimes as many
times as the number of their years ; since America has become a nation
of newspaper readers, all that is changed and only a few read daily from
the Book of Books. In some households there are family worship and
daily Bible readings, usually the course of study outlined bv the Inter-
national Sunday School Lesson Committee. While the country is older
than the town and the church used to center in the country, all that is
changed today. There is no gainsaying the fact that many church edi-
fices have been made attractive, although like the people worshipping in
them they are nonconformists when it comes to style of architecture.
CHAPTER XXV
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
The Williams County Sunday School roster, A. D. 1920, is: Presi-
dent, William Harter, Bryan; vice president, J. A. Jennings, Edgerton ;
secretary-treasurer, E. M. Smith, West Unity; children's division super-
intendent, Mrs. Clara Harwood, Montpelier ; young people's division
superintendent, Rev. Arthur Valentine, Pioneer; adult superintendent,
Walter Gardner, Bryan ; educational superintendent, Jesse Rupp, West
Unity; administration superintendent, C. H. Estrich, Edon. The associa-
tion motto is : "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly divining the Word of Truth,"
and it has been the policy of the association to hold its annual meetings
in the different communities.
The Williams County Sunday School Association was organized
almost fifty years ago. In some of the township organizations there are
secretaries that have been twenty-five years in that relation. There has
always been excellent attendance at the county conventions. Mr. Harter
speaks of the enthusiasm and interest, saying the Sunday schools and
churches had suffered loss when the young manhood of Williams County
went overseas in the World war, and that they had also suffered from
the ravages of flu, and that the result is that one or two annual sessions
had been smaller than usual because of it.
While most Williams County churches maintain Sunday schools, the
German Lutheran, Catholic and Christian Science Sunday schools do
not affiliate with the County Sunday School Association. The gavel used
by the president was given to the association in convention assembled
at Edon in 1905, by State Sunday School Association President Joseph
Clark of Columbus. It is made from wood grown in the Holy Land
and has the word Jerusalem on it. President Clark brought it from the
World's Sunday School Convention in Jerusalem where he represented
the Ohio Sunday School Association as a delegate, and it is appreciated
for its history.
The Williams County Sunday School Association indorses all forward
movements in church and Sunday school, and it cultivates an interde-
nominational spirit at all times. It encourages friendly contests, one
Sunday school with another or one class in the same Sunday school
with another in order to increase enthusiasm and attendance. The town-
ships vie with each other in developing excellent programs, and denom-
inational lines are forgotten by all. When Sunday schools were first
organized in Williams County there were no lesson helps as today, and
teachers used the Bible leaving it to the class as to what book should
be studied, and the lessons were usually in the New Testament. It has
been figured out that by reading three chapters every day and five chap-
266
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 267
ters each Sunday, one may read the entire Bible in a year and have two
Sundays exempt from reading it.
The man who first gave the Sunday school institution to the world
was Robert Raikes of Gloucester, England. He was interested in the
welfare of the poor in that community, and in 1781, he gathered the
children together and employed teachers for them. He taught them Sab-
bath observance, and others soon caught the spirit of it. Within five
years there were 250,000 children under Sunday school influence and
in the twentieth century all Christians accept the Sunday school as the
most efficient branch of modern church extension service.
About ten years after Robert Raikes called the world's first Sunday
school together, the idea was introduced into Philadelphia, and it soon
spread all over the United States. December 19, 1890, was the first cen-
tennial of the Sunday school in the United States, and from one dozen
interested persons in Philadelphia it had grown in one hundred years
to immense proportions. When Robert Raikes had only a few followers,
John Wesley wrote : "Who knows but what some of these schools may
become nurseries for Christians?"
It is said the adult Sunday school attendance in Williams County
is better in the towns than in the country. The decadence of the rural
church and the rural families attending Sunday school in town explains
it. In order to have the adult become a church communicant the child
must be instructed properly, and the modern churches are planned with
reference to the Sunday school. The junior church is a reality in some
communities.
All the Sunday schools in the church and all of the church in the
Sunday school would be an ideal condition, but the standing criticism
is that there are two Sunday audiences the children attending Sunday
school and leaving before the church service, and the junior church helps
solve that difficulty. In some communities one service is merged into
the other, the burning question being how to hold all for both services.
The Sunday school has been the great agency for the removal of denom-
inational barriers, and in Sunday School Association conventions all
denominationalisni or sectarianism is submerged to the common inter-
ests, and no questions are raised about which there may be difference
of opinion. The International Sunday School Lesson series was adopted
in annual convention in Indianapolis in 1872, and Williams County now
has all the advantages. The graded system of study was adopted in
1910, but it did not at once spring into popularity.
While some Williams County Sunday schools adhere to the use of
the Bible, most of them use the lesson commentaries from their own
denominational publishing houses, although uniform lessons are studied
through the influence of the International Sunday School Association.
It is usually through the Sunday school that knowledge of the Bible
reaches the home, although the Sunday school teacher may have the
same difficulty in finding the Book of Jonah that she would in locating
St. Jacob in the New Testament. "Ponder the Bible until it is written
on the heart," say the Sunday school advocates, and yet the little girl
who learned the Golden text: "Ye cannot serve God and Mamma," is
not an isolated example of the inefficient Sunday school teacher.
CHAPTER XXVI
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
There was' an educational proviso in the famous Ordinance of 1787,
under which the Northwest Territory was organized, and thus Ohio and
the other states formed from it attracted the best class of settlers. One
who has distinctive remembrance of the three R's as the entire educa-
tional curriculum in Williams County public schools, is inclined to take
some note of the passing show — the evolution in educational methods.
Along in the early '70s the country schools were the social centers, and
it frequently fell to the lot of the rural pedagogue to clean out a school
house on Monday morning that had served as a community center on
Sunday. Today many educational leaders are entering a plea for the
return of similar conditions, the school property to be utilized by the
entire community.
That long ago the teacher who taught the three R's successfully had
fulfilled his whole duty, and if a child did not learn it was its mis-
fortune— not the fault of the teacher, but today there is individual
instruction and if a pupil is backward it becomes the teacher's duty to
find out the reason — to know the child's environment, and while advance-
ment is recognized, there were some good results from the old fash-
ioned pedagogical methods. The early schools in Williams County were
on the subscription financial basis, and scholar or half a scholar indi-
cated the age of the youngster receiving such advantages. In a sense
it was the method of grading, although no one thought so at the time.
When Williams County school teachers received $1 a week and boarded
around, there was nothing said about any advance in wages. The high
cost of living did not disturb them as today when increased salary is
the prime consideration.
There is a lot of sentiment attached to the one-room country school-
house that so well served the educational needs of the past, but with the
modern trend of things it is evervwhere being left behind in the onward
march of educational progress. While some cling to it because of what
it meant to them, others accept the utility side of the question and discard
it. A recent versifier said :
"The little red schoolhouse stands
lust like it's always done —
But I can't grow reminiscent —
I never went to one,"
and some of the adherents to old time educational methods assert that
children of the past knew more at twelve years old than they do now when
they graduate, not taking into the account at all that many studies are
pursued now that were unknown to the schoolchildren of a generation
ago.
268
HISTORY OF \\-ILLIAMS COUNTY 269
From one of tlie early Williams County histories this line is taken :
"That the pupils in our common schools then were much better spellers
than now is beyond all question," but the fact remains that greater
emphasis was placed on spelling than on any other accomplishment
unless it were "figgers." Another fact remains unquestioned that the
early teachers were better writers, much of the handwriting of half a
century ago being as plain as the script of today. There were good
spellers and good penmen evolved from the one-room schoolhouse in
every pioneer community. There used to be writing school, and the
teacher was an adept in ornamental penmanship but where is the man or
w'oman today who attempts any flourish in his signature? The three
R's curriculum embraced "readin', riten 'nd 'rithmetic," and the fellow
still exists who can "read readin' readin', but can't read riten readin'."
West Unity School House — 1874
It is a well known fact that the backwoods schoolmasters were wel-
comed into the homes of Williams County, while under twentieth cen-
tury conditions the teacher has difficulty in finding a place to board in
many communities. ^\'hiIe there were no prescribed qualifications in
the past, the pedagogue of today must have professional training, and a
man exclaimed: "You can't make whistles out of pigs' tails," evidently
meant to convey the impression that the efficient school teacher is born
and not trained for it. While everything is commercialized today,
nature has something to do with equipping the efficient school teacher.
An old account says the backwoods teacher "taught twenty-two days
for $8 a month and found," but such an opportunity would hardly tempt
the twentieth century teacher.
There was a time when brawn rather than brain was considered,
when muscular development rather than mental achievement secured
recognition. There were unrul\- boys in the long ago, and they remained
270 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
in the rural schools longer than now when they are graduated from the
grades before they are big enough to terrorize the teacher, and they pursue
higher studies in other schools. Utility rather than beauty was the idea
in schoolhouse furnishings, and the puncheon benches with augur holes
through them for the legs, were once part of the story in Williams
County. The pioneer-community-center-one-room schoolhouse was built
of logs with fire burning in the middle, and the smoke blinding to the
eyes of children and teacher, and there was greased paper over an aper-
ture in the wall admitting the sunlight. These pioneer schools were
usually named for some prominent family in the community as the Bible
schoolhouse in Superior township, named for an early settler there.
Some one has written : "Backward, turn backward, oh time in your
flight, and make me a child again," but with the environment changed
it might all prove a disappointment to him. Arvilla Wisman who once
lived in Superior township was a teacher for forty years. What would
some of her impressions be were she to come again. She had 100 thir-
teen-week terms of school to her credit when she retired from the teach-
ing profession in Williams County. When she was thirteen years old she
began teaching school in Licking County, and she was an early teacher
in Williams County. Her own impaired health and the advanced age of
her pairents caused her to abandon the schoolroom, and she built a house
in Pioneer. She died there in 1873, and Dr. Richard Caudern who was
her medical attendant in. her last illness, had been her pupil in public
school. They had known each other many years, and he said of her that
her life although unpretentious was full of self sacrifice and that she
was a useful woman. She had devoted her whole life to the moral,
intellectual and religious training of the youth, and her life was a bene-
diction to Williams County.
It is said that Northwest has always been a popular township with
the female teachers of Williams County. Miss Abigail Hillis who was
the first teacher there was married before her term ended, and her experi-
ence has been an incentive. She had ten pupils and drew public money.
Although a married woman she finished the school, and for years the
"Whaley" school was a landmark there. The story is handed down that
Miss Mary McCrillus, the first teacher in Bridgewater was a comely
young woman, good company and popular with the young men of the
community. She was given to flirtation and a stalwart swain who liked
her "sat up" nights with her. She allowed him to visit her as many as
three evenings in a week, and "in consequence of this habitual nocturnal
wakefulness the young woman was very drowsy the following day in
the schoolroom, and she would often fall asleep in her chair. She would
waken with a start at some unusual noise occasioned by the misconduct
of pupils," and as a result she was discharged by the school authorities.
It is related that it was a cold, damp summer and that fire was necessary.
There was nothing more cheerful than the blaze except the cheery face
of Miss McCrillus, and when the room would become warm she always
became sleepy. The young man no doubt received his share of censure
because of her failure as a school teacher. Miss Mary Heritage was
employed to finish the term.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
271
An old account says of a teacher at Melbern : "Old Man Barney the
Yankee was the first teacher in this primitive school, and he received his
pay by subscription. He was an odd fellow with peculiar habits, and
his education in this day would be regarded as mediocre." It is related
of J. B. Kimmell who was an early day teacher that he would tie boys
and girls together, and have them stand on the tops of the seats as pun-
ishment. In one of the books is this tribute to Johann Adam Simon who
had been partly educated in Germany before he located in Florence town-
ship in 1843, saying: "Between the ages of eight and fourteen years he
received that thorough mental training which the educational system of
Germany afforded to all, and being fitted with a retentive memory and apt-
ness for acquiring knowledge he was always classed with those older than
himself, and at the age of twelve years he was selected by his teacher
High School, Edon
as the pupil most competent to assist in hearing recitations," and the
query arises as to whether or not this method became general in Williams
County. At that time there was a log schoolhouse, and James Welsh, a
young attorney from Bryan was the teacher. He was paid $1 a week
for his service. Solomon Metzler was another school teacher of that
period in Florence, and until 1875 the children living in Edon went to
school in the country.
The first schoolhouse in Bryan was a small log structure located at
the corner of Butler and Lynn streets. A. J. Tressler who helped clear
the public square taught the first public school, although Harriet Powell
had taught private schools in the same house. In 1845, a frame school-
house was erected at the site of the present high school building and
auditorium, and Mr. Tressler continued teaching there at $15 a month,
receiving $45 for three months. There is no record that he asked for
272
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
more money. William L. Smith was the first teacher in Brady town-
ship, and Doctor Veers taught the first school in West Unity. There
was a school in Springfield township as early as 1836, and twenty years
later there was a school in Stryker. Early teachers mentioned in old
accounts are : Abigail Hillis, Maria Marquart, Rebecca Thomas, Maria
Kinney, Mary McCrillus, Mary Heritage, Miss Angell, Alanson Smith,
Rachel Baker, John West, Julia Clark, Milton Zuker, Joseph Reasoner,
Sarah McClain. S. B. Doty, David Black, Arvilla McDaniels, Joel F.
Poole, George W. Durbin, James Welch, Elizabeth Stoddard, John Cor-
nell, Mr. Barney, Thomas Hill, William Neavill and Edgar Hubbard,
all of whom were "sturdy knights of the birch," doing what they could
to teach the young idea the use of firearms. Teaching the "young idea
High School, Bryan
to shoot" is still the work of the teacher in the public schools of Williams
County.
When it comes to first things being first there is always a question,
but one account says the first school was perhaps in the village of Den-
mark, although now there is little trace of it. Rev. Israel Stoddard is
mentioned as the teacher and John Cornell was the next after him.
Unless an historian knew for himself it is difficult to correlate all the
data, and those early day Williams County school teachers have all long
since gone to their reward, and none will ever know definitely about it.
There is reference to one rather eccentric teacher named Southworth:
"He was eminent in scholarship but unbalanced in mind ; he is remem-
bered by some as an old man, tall, spare and with long, gray hair and
beard ; he traveled about continually leaning on two staffs, carrying his
budget on his shoulders i he was a harmless old man stopping at whatever
house or place night overtook him. He would read or expound the Scrip-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 273
tures and pray with those who kept him in apparent payment for his
entertainment," and again the panorama changes. Teachers of today
have different methods of doing things.
Under the old regime wood was furnished at the schoolhouse by the
patrons in proportion to the number of children each family sent to the
school, the men "snaking" the logs to the school and the teacher and the
boys chopping the wood as they needed it. A former writer says : "A
description of one schoolhouse will doubtless answer for all. The desks
were placed around the wall, and the seats were mostly of basswood logs
split into halves ; there were augur holes through them and legs were
placed under them ; upon these rude and uncomfortable seats pupils of
all ages and conditions were compelled to sit the six hours per day
of school," in strong contrast with present day conditions. Each master
had his own system of writing, and the query of the age is what became
of the legible handwriting of yesterday? Scribbling describes the sys-
tem today in comparison to the writing exhibited in some of the ancient
documents still preserved by individuals, and in the archives of Williams
County.
In the way of text books, they used Dabol's Arithmetic and Webster's
Elementary Spelling Book, and from them they learned mathematics,
science, language, literature and history. They read from the New Test-
ament memorizing much of it — learned it off by heart, and on Friday
afternoons and in Sunday school they recited it. There were "whispering
schools," at all times, and "passing the water" used to be the reward for
careful study. An old account says: "Nothing modern can equal the
spelling schools of those early times. The young people would go miles
to a spelling school and it was district against district, and it was won-
derful how each would back its champion speller." Webster's Element-
ary spelling book was the text for years, and finally the McGuffy series
of readers were adopted in Williams County, Adams and Pikes' Arith-
metic and Western Calculator were used, and there was no uniformity
in arithmetics until Ray's Practical Arithmetic became the standard, and
many men and women living in Williams County today learned mathe-
matics— what they know of the science — from it. It was always thumb-
marked when they reached common fractions. All who used Ray's Arith-
metic would still be able to settle the John Jones estate — the last problem
in common fractions. There were always young people in Williams
County who were ambitious to secure an education, and among some of
the older men and women of today are a few college graduates.
Antebellum Educational Institution
In 1852, the Maumee Presbytery established a Normal school at
Williams Center, the citizens without regard to previous religious con-
viction contributing to it, and James Anderson, a man of fine character
and rare culture was chosen as its principal teacher. Three years later
he died, and his brother David Anderson was chosen as his successor.
James Greer Bowersox was one of the teachers, and the enterprise
received loyal support from such men as Giles H. Tomlinson, Jacob Dill-
274 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
man, Collins Tharp and the Ensign brothers and many others. While
the money had been contributed for a nonsectarian school, it was charged
that there was an attempt to inculcate Presbyterian doctrine, and when
the Civil War came on the whole thing was abandoned, and the public
school system was then beginning to attract favorable attention, although
hitherto it had been regarded by some in the light of charity. When the
Presbyterian ritual was introduced the Normal soon lost its prestige in
the community.
The Mykrantz Normal in Bryan
While the Civil War was the distracting influence against the Wil-
liams Center Normal, coupled with the doctrinal or denominational dif-
ferences, the Bryan Normal conducted by Prof. Charles W. Mykrantz
came into existence January 1, 1864, and for ten years it was a very
popular institution. While it started with forty pupils, it soon enrolled
100 and in time that number was doubled and many of the leading citi-
zens of Bryan and surrounding country were educated there. As one
man they pay tribute today to Professor Mykrantz who in 1874 was
made superintendent of the public schools of Bryan, thus uniting the
Normal and the high school and the Mykrantz Normal building on North
Lynn Street has long since been converted into residence property. At
one time it housed the court and the public offices of Williams County. It
is still a landmark in the community — a monument to the memory of
Professor Mykrantz. Some enthusiastic friends say Professor Mykrantz
was the most beloved educator who ever lived in Williams County. It
was he who developed Emerson Opdycke, the phenomenal mathemati-
cian, and J. F. Starr, Fletcher Starr, was another who distinguished
himself. On one Bryan home-coming day when the friends of Professor
Mykrantz came out in numbers to see him again, they received news
of his death and a pall overspread the community.
Tribute to Professor Saunders
It was in 1881 that Prof. W. A. Saunders became superintendent and
principal of the Montpelier -public schools, and after a number of years
there he taught in Stryker and then in Bryan. Professor Saunders was
educated at West Point Military Academy, receiving his appointment
there from President James A. Garfield. While he held a life certificate
to teach anywhere in Ohio, he confined his activities to Williams County.
From Bryan he return to Montpelier where he taught several years again.
An enthusiastic friend said: "I dare say more men and women point
to Professor Saunders as a model teacher than to any other Williams
County educator."
Recent School Survey of Williams County
The school population included all citizens between six and twenty-one
years of age, although not many remain under the supervision of edu-
cators until they arrive at their majority. Accordingly the Williams
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
County public school population, A. D. 1920, numbers about six thousand
upon which number assessments are made, and money is used for them
whether or not they are benefitted from it. In round numbers there were
900 in high school the last year, but since they leave high school three
or four years before attaining to their majority, public money is drawn
for many who do not use it. To be exact, there were 400 boys and 489
girls enrolled recently in the high schools of Williams County.
It is estimated that 75 per cent of all who enroll in high school
remain to graduate, although it is true that the highest salaried teachers
come into contact with the more limited number of pupils. While
diplomas are issued to those who complete common school in the eighth
grade, too many stop there while the high school awaits all of them. The
high schools of the county have always j.ttracted some eighth grade
High School, Edgerton
graduates from the country. However, recently the centralized schools
give to the rural pupils high school advantages in the country. The impor-
tance of teaching agriculture is emphasized in the curriculum of rural
instruction, the theory being to educate the young people back to the farm
rather than away from it. "When they haul the children from the farms
to the schools in the towns, they absorb town notions," said one student of
the educational problem, "and it is 'all ofT' with them as farmers," while
others see in the fact that they are only in town for the day and are
home again in the evening, the most wholesome results.
Under the plan of centralization the majority of rural children are
given high school advantages, it being estimated that 100 per cent begin
while in the one-room rural school not more than 60 per cent enter high
school, the period of observation extending over the last five years in
Williams County. While some rural schools have undergone repairs
recently in neighborhoods where there is a strong anticonsolidation senti-
276
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
ment, in other communities they look as if they were abandoned before
they are because of the prospect of centraHzation, and it would be unwise
to expend money. Like the rest of the world, there is a difiference of
opinion in Williams County, and they do not spend money for equipment
that may be used only a short time. While centralization has come about
under the leadership of Prof. W. A. Salter, he has not been arbitrary
about it. In some localities centralization is a reality, while in others
votes have been taken and the measure has been deferred indefinitely. In
the eastern part of Williams County the benefits have been recognized,
and there are centralized schools at Stryker and West Unity, and farther
north Kunkle and Pioneer have already begun it. Kunkle is already
using its new building, and new buildings are in progress at Stryker and
West Unity, and Pioneer has voted the tax for it.
Public School, Stryker
In a measure all the towns have been centralized schools, automatic-
ally, since nearby children have long patronized them. In many instances
they have left their homes for the school week, while under the central-
ization system they are returned to them each evening. As the roads are
improved and trucks come into more general use, obviating the long
rides mornings and evenings, the objections will vanish, and all will recog-
nize the advantages. A. D. 1920, there are still eighty-one single room
and two two-room schools in Williams County. Edon and Florence
township schools are already partially centralized automatically, some of
the nearby rural schools being abandoned, and the proposed parochial
school at Blakeslee will leave few one-room schoolhouses in use in Flor-
ence township. Although under denominational control the parochial
school will automatically centralize that community. The parochial
school will not be under township and county supervision, and yet its
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 277
course of study will conform to the standard, and it will report its status
from time to time.
The line of demarcation between Stryker and West Unity comes
nearer conflicting than in any other locality, and while eight wagons are
in use in transporting children to and from the Stryker school, there are
four wagons and one truck making two trips serving the West L'nity
village school district, and while Pioneer has been graduating pupils since
1875, and it now draws from Michigan as well as the surrounding coun-
try, it is just beginning centralization. Kunkle is spoken of as an excel-
lent example of the success of centralization. While sentiment clings to
the landmarks of the past, progress does not always stand aside for senti-
ment, and along with other sacred memories the one-room school of other
years is being abandoned in the wake of progress. As a community
High School. Pioneer
center it served its day and generation most acceptably, but new ideas
in education always have had to prove themselves before becoming fully
established in any community.
There are now eight accredited high schools in Williams Countv, and
the one at Alvordton gives two years in high school training. In the
Williams County teaching force at the beginning of its second century in
local history, there were thirty-nine high school teachers, and 153 ele-
mentary teachers, many non-resident teachers in high school while nearly
all the elementary teachers live in Williams County. All high school
superintendents are required to have college education, and most of them
have life certificates. All teachers must have some college training, and
must keep up professional standards. The day is past for the untrained
teacher in Williams County as well as the rest of the world. There is
one Smith-Hughes law teacher at Stryker, and there is equipment for
278 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
manual training and domestic science teaching installed in all modern
school buildings. There is instruction in music (See Chapter on Music),
agriculture, home economics and recently attention has been given to
athletics, there being track meets and field days frequently. There are
contests in oratory, and a healthy educational interest is apparent.
Prof. J. W. Wyandt who had been at the head of the Bryan public
school system for many years has established an enviable reputation for
himself as an educator. The splendid Bryan Auditorium provides an
assembly room for the entire high school, and it is used for special
instruction features — lectures, concerts, plays and is in every sense a
community center, not only for Bryan but for all of Williams County.
There are political, educational, agricultural and memorial meetings held
there. The gymnasium in connection with it is an excellent feature, and
it afTords physical as well as mental training advantages. Mental effi-
ciency depends upon bodily soundness, a sound body being the foundation
for strong mentality. Sometimes people take medicine when they should
take exercise, and the gymnasium offsets such conditions.
There are about 400 graduates from the eighth grade town and coun-
try in Williams County each year, and some who enter high school later
enter colleges and universities. There are some who take military and
naval training aside from those who pursue only classical studies. The
winning oration in the Williams-Fulton County contest, A. D. 1920,
begins : "We are proud of the wonderful accomplishments of America's
great educational system in the past, but with all of this we believe that a
greater work lies ahead for the young men and women of today than at
any time since the perilous days of our nation's birth. The seven
million persons in America who cannot read, write or speak English are
a menace to America's future. Our schools teach naught but American
doctrines, and the allegiance to the Stars and Stripes. * * * Amer-
ican education alone can prevent the formation of false conceptions of
America. The school can mold the mind while it is yet plastic, but the
adult alien demands a different treatment."
The first centralized school in Ohio was in Ashtabula County in 1892
— just four hundred years after Columbus discovered America, and the
end is not yet — the system finding favor in many localities. In 1914,
when the new school code was enacted providing for superintendents
of schools in the different counties some of them began centralization
projects, and recent reports show that from fifteen counties in the begin-
ning the plan is now in vogue in seventy Ohio counties, and that other
states are rapidly adopting the method of bringing high school advan-
tages within the reach of all. Credit for much of the progress in rural
education in Ohio is given to Governor James Cox, who "was keenly
conscious of the great importance of the movement to organize rural life,
and he realized that a school system commensurate in efficiency with the
importance of rural life and its industries, was necessary and fundamental
to the progress of such a movement, and that the country boys and girls
were not getting a square deal because the so-called system then in use
was inadequate to their needs and interests, and failed to reveal to them
the possibilities of rural life and rural activities," and he called the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 279
legislature into extraordinary session to enact the new school code in
Ohio. Since that time he has vigilantly guarded it against reactionary
influences and measures.
In writing about centralization a leading educator says: "It has
proved beyond the anticipation of its most ardent advocates its worth in
meeting the rural school conditions. When fully and properly admin-
istered, it is a corrective agency for the readjustment of the affairs of
rural life. Fortunate are the children whose heritage it is to have the
opportunities made possible by its provisions, and only the coming years
can reveal the full measure of its benefits." It is said the history of one
family is practically the history of other families with the names changed
to suit the requirements, and such is true of educational conditions in
different communities. Who will gainsay the statement that an education
increases one's opportunities for success, and paves the way for influence
and usefulness in the community?
CHAPTER XXVII
THE NEWSPAPER IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
While there are no daily newspapers published in Williams County,
the metropolitan newspapers have extensive circulation and the different
communities are well served with weekly publications. Among the factors
of civilization — the forces that make for righteousness, none is more
potent that the American newspaper, and it is true that the press controls
the destiny of the Republic — has made presidents, senators, representa-
tives, judges — has inaugurated national policies, solved problems of
finance and international law, and narrowed down to Williams County
newspapers, there is reason for pride in some of them.
Miss Eva Marie Ramsey who is known in Williams County as a con-
tributor to The Bryan Democrat, one time prepared a paper which she
designated as the history of journalism in Williams Country, and with
some necessary changes bringing it up to A. D. 1920, this paper follows :
There may be among our readers those who find the happenings of long
ago more interesting than current events.
Be that as it may, the reading public is ever eager for information of
a local nature. Hence this carefully prepared resume : Although Williams
County was created by an act of the Legislature February 12, 1820. it
was not until 18.37 that an attempt at journalism was made ; prior to this
time no community had reached that state of progression when a news-
paper was regarded as essential to the needs of its people, nor was the
call for news sufficiently importunate as to appeal to the journalist of
the time, alluring him to the venture. In 1837, however, when \\'illiams
County still embraced the major part of Defiance County, a paper of
modest size, the first to make its appearance in Williams County, was
issued in Defiance under the management of John B. Seemans.
This sheet was named The Barometer, and in politics it was neutral,
although Mr. Seemans was a whig. Relying as it did mainly upon the
patronage of Williams County, the existence of The Barometer was
a brief one. The next venture was made in the spring of 1843, by a
party of men, leading democratic politicians, among whom were LTnited
States Senator Benjamin Tappan of Steubenville ; Col. S. Medary and
Dr. William Trevitt of Columbus; James L. Faran of Cincinnati, Gen.
James B. Steedman of Lucas County, and Horace E. Knapp, a young
man of recognized journalistic ability, who at that time was at the head
of The Kalida venture, and who afterwards became a citizen of our own
town and a writer of histories.
As Bryan had but a small population and little business although
the seat of justice, it did not figure in the discussion of an eligible loca-
tion for the new press. So Defiance, being the business and political
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 281
center of Northwestern Ohio was decided upon, and the journal, The
Northwestern, published by J. B. Steedman and Company, was estab-
lished. Although S. T. Hosmer, a well-known and efficient printer was its
supervisor, the publication died at the early age of one year. October
31, 1845, the memorable year in which Williams County was reduced
from twenty to twelve townships, an effort was made by Thomas H.
Blaker to publish a paper in Bryan. It was named as was its predecessor,
The Northwestern. Its birth was also the birth of journalism in Bryan.
There is further information available. The Northwestern was
issued from the same press used by John A. Bryan when publishing The
W'estern Hemisphere in Columbus in 1835 — the press, type and other
fixtures being brought to Bryan from Columbus with a four-horse team,
and seventeen days of hard driving being necessary in making the
distance. With this first newspaper established within the present limits
of \\'illiams County, who is prepared to say whether the press, the
pulpit or the public school exerts the greatest influence in the community ?
An old account says : No community in these days can be said to
have reached the progressive state until that infallible index to prosperous
conditions, a newspaper, makes its appearance, pays periodical visits to
an intelligent constituency. Seventy-five years ago journalists were not
so plentiful that one could shake them from bushes, and the appetite for
printed news was not sufficiently keen to cause any one to endure martyr-
dom in attempting to "fill a long felt want," by publishing a paper in
Williams County. The second paper had been a failure at Defiance, and
its owner, S. T. Hosmer, sold it in May, 1844, to S. A. Hall, who loaded
his print shop into a canal boat and finally landed at Logansport, Indi-
ana, where he published The Logansport Pharos, a paper still in existence
there. Like the other two Williams County publications issued in
Defiance, The Northwestern issued in Bryan, was short-lived although
seemingly a healthy democrat.
In the period of the publication of The Northwestern another
printing office was brought from Defiance to Bryan at the instance of
W. A. Stevens, then county auditor and afterward a banker in Bryan.
J. W. Wiley who had been interested in the publication of The Defiance
Democrat, in 1846 became publisher of The \\'illiams County Demo-
crat. In the same year, however, and evidently reversing the saying that
the pen is mightier than the sword, Mr. Wiley enlisted in the Mexican
war, becoming First Lieutenant of the Company under command of
Capt. Daniel Chase. So ended briefly the career of The Williams
County Democrat.
About this time Mr. Blaker's office was sold at sheriff's sale to
Giles H. Tomlinson who turned it over to Dr. Thomas Kent and E. H.
Leland. They put A. J. Tressler in charge, and The Northwestern
was revived and for several months it continued to exist. The office
was then redeemed by Mr. Blaker, and in July, 1847, he began the publi-
cation of The Democrat Standard which was continued for a period of
in six months. In the meantime Mr. Tressler revived The North-
western, but the opposition proved too much for the youthful Stand-
ard which publication was suspended. In March, 1848, Mr. Tressler
282 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
sold his office to William A. Hunter, a man of experience in journalism,
who came to Bryan from either Ashland or Carroll County.
The condition of the purchase was that the material for the publi-
cation of The Democrat Standard should be removed from the county ;
and this being done, Mr. Hunter began to publish The Equal Rights,
the first issue, June, 1848, containing the proceedings of the democratic
convention at which General Cass received the nomination for pre'sident.
This man Hunter not only could edit a paper, but on occasion could
officiate in a ministerial way as he did, January 26, 1849, at the hanging
of Tyler. He read the fifth chapter of Acts, sang the hymn, "Show pity.
Lord, oh Lord forgive," and off'ered the prayer and there were many
who witnessed the ceremony, the enclosure erected by the sheriff^ having
been torn away by the citizens who wished to see the criminal swing
into eternity.
After the conflict over the county seat occurred between West Unity
and Bryan, Mr. Hunter removed to West Unity, and in March, 1849,
he resumed the publication of The Equal Rights, a Free-soil Demo-
cratic organ, which he continued until May, 1851, when he took for a
partner T. S. C. Morrison who afterwards represented Williams County
in the State Legislature. He was considered a brilliant writer, and his
departure from this life which occurred at Napoleon early in his career
was widely deplored. Previous to the removal of Mr. Hunter to West
Unity, the newspaper business in Bryan underwent some changes. In
November, 1848, Dr. John Paul, clerk of courts and R. H. Gibson,
county treasurer, purchased and brought to Bryan a printing outfit, and
they began putting in circulation a sheet called The Spirit of the Age.
Charles Case, who afterward became a member of Congress from Indi-
ana, was the editor.
Mr. Hunter, wisely concluding that one newspaper was sufficient
for a village the size of Bryan, abandoned the publication of Equal
Rights, giving full sway to The Spirit of the Age, the demise of which
was announced after lingering a few months. The Family Visitor
next made its appearance in Bryan, published by one John G. Kissell.
This paper was non-political, and contained mainly miscellaneous reading ;
but after a few months it, too, passed out of existence, leaving
Mr. Hunter again in full possession of the field of journalism in
Williams County. The Equal Rights for some time continued to
flourish as the representative journal of the county, although it_ was of
but five-column folio size with fifteen ems width columns. This paper
was issued from a second floor room of the foundry building in West
Unity, and it was chiefly devoted to editorial comment, general infor-
mation and advertisements.
News of a local nature, as a woman visited a neighbor, had not yet
attained its present popularity. The following rather amusing advertise-
ment appeared in the issue of July 31, 1850: "American oil discovered
185 feet below the surface of the earth in Kentucky. This astonishing
medicine of nature is a safe and eflicacious remedy both for external
and internal diseases, if taken in moderate doses by persons in ill-health."
In 1852, Mr. Hunter renamed his paper, calling it The Williams County
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 283
jJemocrat. About this time the slavery question was causing political
parties to make new alliances, and whether from purely honest conviction
or for some other reason, IMr. Hunter on August 10, 1853, sent forth
from his office The Republican Standard, a sheet heartily supporting
the movement that was on foot to organize the Republican party, at
that time an unknown factor in the political world.
This first organ of the Republican party in the county was printed
on Liberty street in a building between North and Jackson streets in
West Unity. In 1854, T. D. Montgomery of Hillsdale, Michigan, pur-
chased the plant of Mr. Hunter and transferring it to Montpelier,
launched The Star of the West, a neutral paper containing news of
local interest. At the end of two months David Staufifer and Aaron
Crissey became owners of The Star of the West, which continued to
twinkle for a period of six months when the material was sold to Frank
Rosenberg who removed it to Fulton County. Two earlier newspaper
ventures had been made in Montpelier. The Eagle, the first news-
paper experiment in that town was published in the interests of Spiritual-
ism, but it expired after a few issues ; and Judge Joshua Dobbs'
Democratic sheet in 1852, whose manager and printer was Van Buren
Shouf, a figure well known later in the newspaper business in Williams
County.
In January, 1855, Judge Dobbs and Capt. D. M. McKinley, estab-
lished a democratic paper in Bryan called The Fountain City News.
In a few months they sold it to John Shouf and Carl C. Allman,
Mr. Allman becoming its editor. Under this new management, The
Fountain City News continued almost two years. In the meantime
Mr. Hunter had moved to Bryan, and again he established The Republi-
can Standard, but after a year or two he sold it to George L. Starr
and Alvan Spencer, who in turn sold it in December, 1857, to I. R.
Sherwood. After selling The Standard, this irrepressible journalist,
Hunter, boldly launched The Political Abolitionist, the life of which
was one short, strenuous year. This man's experience on Hangman's
Day in 1849, seemed to give him courage for anything.
Not yet weary in well-doing. Hunter soon followed with another
publication. The IBusiness Bulletin, which proved to be his last venture
in journalism in Williams County. After a few issues of The Bulletin
Mr. Hunter retired from the field, and devoted himself to the law
profession in Bryan. Mr. Sherwood, in establishing his paper, named it
The Williams County Gazette, but it was a very modest sized sheet
compared with The Bryan Press, which, by the way, is its lineal
descendant. The issue of March 31, 1859, contained the salutatory of
Judson Palmiter who came from Ligonier, Indiana, to edit and manage
The Gazette, Mr. Sherwood retaining an interest in the property.
The office was in the Gibson block on the southwest corner of the
square in Bryan, where now is located the Ditto Building, occupied by
the Price photograph gallery. On September 7th, the block was destroyed
by fire, and the Gazette office with all its paraphernalia was lost. A
meeting was at once called by the late Hon. Schuyler E. Blakeslee to
consider the matter of purchasing a new press for Bryan.
284 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
As a result of this meeting, Mr. Palmiter formed a partnership
with one Mr. Rumsill and they continued The Gazette. After one
month, however, the firm dissolved partnership, Mr. Sherwood again
taking possession and himself conducting the publication of a newspaper
he called The Williams County Leader, a continuation of The
Gazette. He continued its publication until 1861, when he was the
first to enroll his name on the list of volunteers from Bryan when the
call for troops came from President Lincoln. On January 31, 1862,
The Union Press was launched by S. L. Hunter, a son of the intrepid
veteran editor William A. Hunter, herein already referred to as the
irrepressible journalist of Williams County. He had simply broken out
again in a fresh place, and this well conducted newspaper continued
for six months when William M. Starr who had in the meantime come
into possession of The Williams County Leader, purchased The Union
Press, and consolidated the two sheets under the name of The Press
and Leader.
For a year The Press and Leader was continued when the publication
assumed its former name. The Union Press. For two years it existed
thus when a half interest in it was purchased by Thomas Starr, this
partnership continuing for two years, when in June, 186.7, it again
changed hands. Gen. Isaac R; Sherwood repurchasing the business and
taking editorial command of it. He had returned from the Civil war
with a brilliant record as a soldier, having been brevetted Brigadier-Gen-
eral for his gallantry throughout his military career; and thus covered
with honors and full'of enthusiasm — they say pep these days — he stepped
from the battlefield into the field of journalism again. However, in
1868, General Sherwood received the nomination for Secretary of State
on the republican ticket, and he resigned the editorial management to
Robert N. Traver, continuing only as publisher of the paper.
In August, 1869, The Union Press was sold to Gen. P. C. Hayes,
and the issue of October 28th announced its name as The Bryan Press
which cognomen has remained with it through storm and sunshine for
more than half a century. In July. 1874. D. B. Ainger purchased The
Bryan Press of General Hayes, and for three years he directed the
paper. Mr. Ainger then disposed of it to Charles A. Bowersox, A. W.
Killits and Simon Gillis. While Mr. Killits was not active in its pub-
lication. Mr. Bowersox assumed the editorial management and Mr. Gillis
was the business manager. This partnership arrangement continued one
year when in November, 1878, the paper was issued under the firm name
of Gillis & Ogle; in about two years, however, Mr. Gillis became sole
owner of the organ of the Republican party, and for more than five years
he continued its able editor and publisher.
In June, 1889, The Bryan Press passed into the hands of James H.
Letcher and C. S. Roe. On March 1. 1896, Mr. Letcher withdrew from
the firm leaving Mr. Roe alone as proprietor and publisher of The Brvan
Press, the present organization being C. S. Roe & Son, J. M. Roe sharing
with his father the responsibility and pleasure connected with newspaper
publication in Bryan. The paper has a widely extended and merited
circulation under their eflicient management. On October 28, 1869, the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 285
name was given this paper that has since designated it, The Bryan Press.
As nearly as can be ascertained a Democratic organ in Williams
County was a minus quantity for several years, unless a paper published
at one time by George W. Roof concerning which all efforts to discover
the particulars have proved futile flaunted the colors of Democracy for
a brief period in the interim between 1856 and 1863, the time of the
Civil war in history. On April 30. 1853. Robert X. Patterson began his
career as editor and publisher of The Bryan Democrat, and he continued
this relation until September, 1900, when he sold out to R. L. Starr, who
after a few months doubtless became fully satisfied with the life of a
journalist, feeling that he would draw less criticism and public notice to
himself by attending strictly to matters which belong to the legal profes-
sion, and he modestly transferred his obligations to The Democrat
Publishing Company.
In March, 1905, The Democrat Publishing Company was able to
secure the service of William Behne of Defiance, who is the present
editor and manager, and who since assuming full control has brought
the publication up to the standard of a first-class newspaper ; and one,
moreover, the popularity of which with the reading public is steadily
increasing, it having attained to the enviable position of a semi-weekly.
To illustrate its hold upon the people, a Bryan woman admitted that
she could not wash her supper dishes until she had seen The Paper —
meaning The Bryan Democrat. Her attitude toward it is parallel to
the story of the woman who in the reconstruction days following the
Civil war when everybody was converting everything into money the
Williams County resident so well understand since the end of the World
war, had left the family Bible in a stack of newspapers she sold to a
junk man.
Now the junker who had bargained with the woman had some vestige
of a conscience, and when she had pocketed the coin of the realm he had
given her for the collection of newspapers and had returned to the house,
he called to her, explaining that he had found the Bible in the package
of newspapers purchased from her. He stood willing to return it to
her, thinking it an oversight that she had disposed of it. No doubt this
man's mother had been a Christian woman, and he had not forgotten
her training, as she reared her children in the faith, and his respect for
the simple faith of his mother actuated him in the matter. When the
woman again responded to his call and heard the explanation, she said
they had The Cincinnati Enquirer and she would not need the Bible,
the secular press meaning more to her than sacred history. Thus The
Bryan Democrat fills a place in the life of at least one Bryan woman.
When she reads this mention in The Centennial History of Williams
County she will remember about it.
In all the years of its existence — April 30, 1863, to the present. The
Bryan Democrat has missed only three weeks' publication — one in its
first year for repairs on the building, one in 1865 for the removal of the
office and one in 1871 for the holidays; but for these exceptions The
Bryan Democrat has appeared regularly for fifty-seven years and usually
on time, and never has there been issued a half sheet in order for it to
286 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
make its regular appearance. From its small beginning, occupying
but one room it has continued to expand with its surroundings, the town
and the county — until it may be said it has become one of the largest
and best equipped printing establishments in this part of Ohio, and since
Miss Ramsey has been connected with The Bryan Democrat in a
reportorial way, she naturally grows enthusiastic in writing about it.
Her notes have been closely foUlowed in this entire chapter.
Miss Ramsey says further: "We must now travel backward over
thirty years of time, and endeavor to bring forward other efiforts in
Williams County journalism, both successful and unsuccessful ; in May,
1876, Von Shouf and Sardis Williams launched The Fountain City
Argus, a staunch democratic journal which floated tranquilly for one
year when the partnership was dissolved, Shouf assuming full control.
About two months later the sheet appeared under the firm name Shouf
and Plummer. For a little more than two years the firm remained thus
when in August, 1879, Shouf was again left alone and he continued the
management until October, when The Argus ceased publication and was
known no more forever." It is well authenticated that Judge M. R.
Willett was the "force behind the throne," although his name was sup-
pressed and The Argus, although brief its existence, lived sufficiently
long to attain to a wide journalistic prominence as a partisan democrat.
We will mention in passing that Williams of the firm of Shouf and
Williams went from Bryan to Edgerton, where he remained a short time
editing a paper there. He died in 1887, at Elkhart, Indiana, while yet
a young man. Shouf left Bryan and went to Chicago, where he was
engaged in the printing business until 1889, when he sufTered a stroke of
paralysis which afifected his mind, and having been a soldier in the Civil
war he was taken into the Government hospital in Washington, D. C,
in order that he might receive proper medical attention. There was no
hope for him and he was placed in the State hospital at Tolelo.
On April 22, 1880, The Vidette, an organ of the greenback party
was started in Bryan by J. W. Northup and J. R. Douglas. From its
inception The Vidette was unpopular, and the reticence maintained by
the other two papers served only to militate the more against it. After
a struggle of two years The Vidette was transferred to Columbus.
October, 1886, marks the date of the first issue of The Maumee Valley
Prohibitionist, published in Bryan by W. J- Sherwood, son of I. H. Sher-
wood of The Wauseon Republican, and nephew of Gen. Isaac R. Sher-
wood. This little paper in the interest of temperance reform was a
neatly printed and commendable sheet, but in June, 1889, its publica-
tion ceased in Bryan to be resumed in Toledo.
Following up the publications that have appeared at various times in
Bryan, we find that in April, 1900, was issued Number 1, Volume I, of
the Parochialblatt, by Rev. F. Henkelmann and printed in German. It
was published every quarter in the interest of the German Lutheran
Church, and its circulation was among members of the denomination all
over the country. On March 2, 1906, The Ariel made its advent into the
realm of Bryan newspapers. This periodical appeared every Friday,
edited by Rev. G. R. Longbrake, and it contained items of interest rela-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 287
tive to the Universalist Church, local news and advertisements. A pretty
good showing for the newspaper business in Bryan, is it not?
We shall now turn our attention to the records of the business else-
where. In 1878, The Unity Eagle was set flying in West Unity. It was
published by the Grieser brothers, J. W. Grieser, the editor, continued to
"push the quill" (eagle, not goose) for a period of ten years, when he
sold the business to E. T. Runnion, who conducted it for a couple of
years. In 1890, Olin Kenyon purchased The Unity Eagle and he named
it The West Unity Reporter. He edited and published it with marked
ability and success, finally selling it to the Warrens, who own it today.
The father, who assumed the management, died and the business stands :
Warren & Warren, Miss Cecile Warren being the editor and business
manager, while her brother, Ray J. Warren, holds an interest in the
property. It is the one Williams County newspaper published by a
woman.
On the last Saturday in June, 1879. the first number of The Border
Alliance was issued in Pioneer. It was published by the Alliance Print-
ing Company. C. J. De\\'itt was the editor. In one month the paper was
enlarged and its name was changed to The Pioneer Alliance. Two years
later the name was changed again and it was called The Alliance. In
politics the paper was republican, and its growth was almost phenominal
Its circulation extended into Michigan and Indiana. In 1882, another
change seemed necessary and on July 8, a sheet six-column-quarto in
size appeared under the suggestive title : Tri-State Alliance. Mr. DeWitt,
its editor, was also a Baptist minister, and he continued its publication
until 1901, when he left Pioneer. Before going to Mobile, Alabama,
Mr. DeWitt sold the Tri-State Alliance to William Yates, who had
worked with him on the paper.
For two years Mr. Yates continued to convey the news of that section
of the country to its residents through the medium of The Tri-State
Alliance, which he later sold to E. G. Kannaur, who subsequently trans-
ferred it to his brother, Ora Kannaur, who in turn sold the business to
Crommer & Thompson. This firm dissolved partnership in 1907, leaving
as proprietor Miles E. Crommer, and wishing him "miles" of success.
Miss Ramsey had not carried her investigation further. The* Tri-State
Alliance had encountered a few minor hindrances to a tranquil naviga-
tion, which did not prove detrimental to it. When the present writer
called at the newspaper office in Pioneer one June day, 1920, there was
no one present to give out later information about it.
In 1880, for a period of several months a sheet called The Christian
Messenger was issued at Pioneer by Rev. J. L. Rushbridge, a Methodist
minister, who by this means attempted reform along lines involving
questions of intemperance and politics. About 1896 A. H. English
came from Hillsdale, Michigan, bringing with him his printing establish-
ment and resuming at Pioneer the publication of The Telephone News.
This was in truth an opposition sheet, but Mr. English remained at
Pioneer talking through his Telephone only about two years, when he
returned to Michigan. Along in the 70's there appeared occasionally at
Pioneer a small sheet called The Brush Creek Herald, gotten out by
288 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
those who while their neighbors slept were busy preparing the latest bit
of gossip or perpetrating some joke upon an unsuspecting enemy. This
unique sheet, be it understood, was produced by means of pen and ink,
and it might be seen next morning by the passerby tacked up in some
conspicuous place in the village.
At a time when the publication of a newspaper was not warranted
by the support of business men, F. M. Ford and J. R. Smalley foresaw
the advantages that the coming of the Wabash Railroad would afford the
town of Montpelier and they began the publication there of a paper
styled significantly The Montpelier Enterprise. It was established Sep-
tember 18, 1880. with Mr. Ford as editor and Mr. Smalley as publisher.
After two years A'Ir. Smalley severed his connection, leaving Mr. Ford
to conduct the paper alone, which he continued to do until November,
1884, when he sold it to George Strayer. Until that time The Enterprise
had retained an independent position politically, but under the general-
ship of Mr. Strayer it became a strong advocate of the republican party.
In June, 1885, Mr. Ford again entered the realm of journalism,
giving to the citizens of Williams County a paper entitled The People's
Advocate, which he continued to edit until January, 1887, when he sold
it to W. Otis Willet who immediately changed the name to The Mont-
pelier Democrat. In August a half interest in the paper was purchased
by William O. -Shinn, who took charge of the editorial management, until
January, 1889, when The Democrat and The Enterprise were merged.
Ford and Willett becoming the owners and proprietors. The paper
retained the name The Montpelier Enterprise, and it became independent
again. In 1903 Mr. Willet retired, leaving Mr. Ford in charge of the
business, which he conducted with credit to himself, and in 1906, the
publication was changed to Ford & Sons. The death of Mr. Ford
changed the situation, and Montpelier people now read The Leader, with
O. W. Carolus as editor and publisher.
When Mr. Smalley retired from the firm of Ford and Smalley of
Montpelier in 1882, he went to Edgerton, where in November he estab-
lished The Observer. The venture proved quite successful, but after a
few years he sold the paper to Anson J. Schaeffer. The Observer, how-
ever, was not the first news sheet to make its appearance in Edgerton.
In 1870 Albert B. Knight edited a paper there. It was called The Star,
and was printed at Waterloo, Indiana. Whether it was Edgerton Star,
Star of the West, Eastern Star, Star of Bethlehem or smiply The Star,
we were unable to learn, but since it was born of the (K) night, it was a
distinctively marvelous Star that twinkled with rare brilliancy, a lum-
inary worthy of mention in the galaxy of the world's Stars. Prior to his
newspaper, A. B. Knight was a soldier in the Civil war, enlisting in the
Eleventh Indiana Regiment — the Zouaves — commanded by Gen. Lew
W^allace, since famous as the author of "Ben Hur" and other books.
Henry A. Granburg, J. Rush Fusselman and George Halwig became
associated as business partners and started the Edgerton Weekly. This
tri-man partnership endured for a year, Granburg retaining the business
and conducting the paper himself at the end of the year. In 1877 he
disposed of it to Sardis Williams, who changed the name of the paper to
The Edgerton Herald. In a year he sold it back to Granburg, who four
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 289
years later suspended its publication. In November, that year, Mr. Smal-
ley arrived and began publishing The Observer. When Anson Schaeffer
purchased the paper he named it Edgerton Earth. It passed from
SchaetTer's hands to C. W. Krathwhol and subsequently to Charles Aus-
tin After the death of Mr. Austin the publication was continued by his
wife until October 1, 1898, when she sold it to Charles W. Miller, whose
efforts were crowned with success. In 1887 George Strayer again
embarked in the journalistic sea with David Staufler as a partner, and
together they founded The Montpelier Leader, already mentioned as
pubhshed now by O. W. Carolus. When the town of Ashley, Indiana,
was a railroad center Mr. 'Strayer engaged in the printing business there.
In 1889 Thomas Donnelly came to Montpelier from California and
resumed the publication of The Leader, which was a strong advocate
of the republican party, but for several years its career was a checkered
one. It passed from Donnelly to John T. Hutchinson and his partner
and from them to W. H. Shinn and W. A. Croft, then back again to
Donnelly with C. E. Thomas as partner. The next firm was Wetzel and
Reno, which was subsequently changed to W. W. Reno and George B.
Lindersmith. Reno left Montpelier and he later joined the U. S.
Army as surgeon, going to China, and during the Boxer uprising he was
there. Later he was in Manila and attained to prominence there. In
1899, after vacillating for ten years. The Leader became the property
of Clyde E. Thomas. It has had a stormy voyage from the number of
changes in its ownership, and still fills the need in Montpelier. In 1889
the Montpelier Republican was launched upon the tide of journalism
that was then ebbing and flowing in Williams County. Its editor was
C. E. F. Miller, whose brief experiment ended in the suspension of his
publication. .
The newspaper business in Stryker is not unlike that in other Wil-
liams County towns in its fluctuating changes, \yhile The Advance has
frequently changed ownership it has always retained its name. It was
established in 1883 by C. J. DeWitt, publisher at the time of The Tri-
State Alliance at Pioneer. Daniel Smoot was in active charge of the
paper for Mr. DeWitt. History does not reveal the relation of Daniel
Smoot to Senator Reed Smoot of Utah. Joseph Harris succeeded
DeWitt as owner of The Advance, but after conducting the paper a few
vears he sold it to Wesley Kitsmiller & Sons, who continued to acquaint
the people of Stryker and vicinity with the local happenings for several
years, selling out finally to R. L. Starr. Mr. Starr secured for manager
the well-known press representative, E. L. Knight, who remained until
the paper was sold to E. E. Firestone from Michigan. The death of his
wife caused Mr. Firestone to leave Stryker, and in 1899, the business
was sold to G. B. Spaulding, who has made a success of the publishirig
business there. In 1871, there was a diminutive sheet published in
Stryker from a small hand press, Fred Mignery being at once editor,
publisher and printer. He later worked on The Bryan Democrat, and
went from Bryan to New York.
In 1881 Edon's first newspaper was established by C. J. DeWitt of
Pioneer, who was inclined to such ventures. It was called The Edon
Advertiser and it was managed for a time by Percy DeWitt, son of the
Vol. 1—19
290 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
publisher. At different times Justin Abbott and Daniel Smoot were ia
charge of the paper. Until 1892, this biblically named village was again
without a newspaper, when there came to Edon a man by the name of
John Davis from Coldwater, Mercer County, Ohio, who put The Week's
News afloat in that community. After two years the management
changed to Brown and Bloom, who sold out inside of a year to George
Weeks, who changed the name of the paper to The Edon Independent.
He continued the business until 1900, when he sold to Rev. J. F. Cass,
who three years later disposed of it to Arthur S. Powers. In the sum-
mer of 1906 he suspended its publication, going away for a few months.
When he returned he resumed the business, changing the name of the
paper to The Edon Commercial. It was later owned for a year by B. H.
Heaton, when T. C. Boyd acquired the property in 1910, and he says
the time is past when a year's subscription to the paper secures a cord
of wood for the printer.
While the town of Alvordton was founded in 1881, by H. D. Alvord,
it was thirteen years before there was a newspaper in the town. In 1894 a
paper called the Alvordton News was started there by Brown and Bloom,
elsewhere mentioned as publishers. In about one year C. J. DeWitt of
Pioneer purchased the business, changing the name of the paper to The
Alvordton Progress. Both The News and The Progress were devoted
to the interests of the town and surrounding country. DeWitt soon sold
the paper to Sheldon and in turn Sheldon sold it to Rev. J. F. Cass, who
was editor and publisher of the last newspaper in Alvordton. In 1901
he went to Edon, later to Butler, Indiana, and finally he connected him-
self with The Menace. N-E-W-S : North, east, west, south — all want
the News and wonder what became of yesterday's paper before they had
finished reading it.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TRANSPORTATION, COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURING IN
WILLIAMS COUNTY
The annals of Williams County deal at length with the long, wearisome
journeys of the pioneers to distant trading points. Sometimes they must
have supplies other than what they could secure with their trusty rifles
in the forest that infested Williams County. It is still handed down by
An Old-Time Railroad Train
word-of-mouth in the community that the ancestry would be four days
going to and returning from Defiance, to points in Michigan or Indiana,
and it was a longer journey to Maumee or Toledo. It is a well-known
fact that until the coming of the railroads there was not a very dense
population in Williams County.
The Ohio Gazeteer, published in 1837, says : "The Wabash and Erie
Canal will pass through the southeast part of the county and will be acces-
sible from all parts of it." The foregoing was written before the vivisec-
tion had been practiced upon the map of Williams County. There were
then no railroads in prospect, and this canal would put the county in
front rank, greatly enhancing its business opportunities. The communi-
cation reads : "We know of no better wild land to be had in any country."
But that effusion is offset by another in the 1920 Zeta-Cordia issued in
Bryan, which reads : "While traveling on the earth is becoming more
292 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
difficult and uncertain, voyaging by air is gaining confidence and reaching
a height of luxury estimated only by its elevation." And with high school
students writing familiarly about the air service, it will be the duty of
the historian to trace the progress from the canal-boat to the aeroplane.
The trackless air is a diiTerent proposition from the canal, now eliminated
from Williams County history by the shifting of the boundaries of the
county.
Because of the excessive cost of moving freight, talk of the improve-
ment of the natural waterways through the system of the Great Lakes
has been revived, and it is of interest to know that there is a clause in
the famous Ordinance of 1787, under which provision Ohio was admitted
as a state, relative to it. Article III reads: "The navigable waters lead-
ing into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between
the same shall be common highways and forever free, as well to the
inhabitants of the said Northwest Territory as to the cities of the United
States, and those of any other states that may be admitted into the con-
federacy, and without any tax, impost or duty."' and it has local appli-
cation still since the water of the St. Joseph is included among the
rivers leading to the St. Lawrence, making of it a "common highway,"
and under the restrictions imposed even mill dams may be excluded as
interfering with the free navigation of flat boats, pirogues, etc. The
story has already been detailed of how logs were sent down the St. Joseph
to Fort Wayne, but the settlers did not object to the mill dams, since the
mills conferred upon them greater blessings than came from the sale of
peltries floated down the stream. With the mills in the community it
was no longer necessary for them to float their surplus down the river
to Fort Wayne.
Many years ago Macauley, who is the world's most renowned his-
torian, said : "The chief cause which made the infusion of the different
elements of society so imperfect, was the extreme difficulty which our
ancestry found in passing from place to place. Of all inventions, the
alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which
abridge distance have done most for civilization," and it is well under-
stood that distance is now practically annihilated from the face of the
earth. While the railroad and the locomotive were strong factors in the
nineteenth century development, the twentieth century has witnessed only
the beginning of the development of electricity. It was discovered by
Benjamin Franklin while flying a kite, and every day new uses are being
made of it. Through daylight saving and the use of eastern time, people
now arrive at Williams County stations along the Toledo and Indiana
Electric Railway at any given time, and others leave one hour earlier by
the same car — quite a juggling with printed schedules, but people are now
used to it. A car comes in at 8:40, and Bryan people leave town at
7 :40 on it.
The use of steam was first applied in 1680 by Isaac Newton, and
steam and electricity are two of the most valuable agencies utilized in
civilization today. There are men and women still living who remember
the first use of steam or electricity in Williams County.
The first iron highway planned for Williams County was the dream
of Ebenezer Lane, but dreams are not always realized and he was
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
293
doomed to disappointment. It was to be called the Junction road, and
abutments were constructed for the bridge across the Maumee, this road
to pass through Williams County and open up the western country. This
agitation began as early as 1846, the road to lead from Cleveland or
Norwalk, crossing the Maumee below the rapids and make its way
toward Chicago.
In order to facilitate operations, the corporation organized to promote
the road solicited^ subscribers west from I\Iaumee, and W' illiams County
was asked to donate $100,000 to the enterprise, and an election was
announced for May 5, 1852, to vote the appropriation. (Another account
gives March 15th, as the date of the election.) It seems that on this
date the county commissioners voted or ordered: "That public notice be
given the qualified electors of Williams County to meet at their several
place of holding elections on Monday, the fifth day of April next,
Y IXTLKUKUJ
between the hours of 10 o'clock A. M., and 4 o'clock P. M.. of said day
and then and there cast their ballots for subscription or against subscrip-
tion of $100,000 stock fo-r the location and completion of the Junction
railroad in said county, conditioned that said road shall pass from [Mau-
mee City westward through said County of Williams to the Indiana state
line within two years from this date, and touching the following points,
to wit: West Unity, Montpelier. LaFayette (Pulaski), Bryan, Williams
Center in said county, and there shall be a junction of its branches at
one of the above named towns in said County of Williams, and that said
$100,000 be equally distributed on the several branches of said railroad
in Williams County." And thus with no favoritism shown at all opera-
tions were to begin on a mammoth scale — and to think it was all thwarted
by others.
However, the question was put to vote, and the Williams County com-
missioners subscribed the necessary stock, payable April 1, 1867, giving
294 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
themselves fifteen years in which to raise the money. They were not
rushing into financial obligations. Another movement was destined to
defeat the project, even if there had been any "prospect of its realization.
The Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana Railroad Company,
realizing how it would afifect their enterprise if the Junction propo-
sition succeeded, immediately planned an air line from Toledo to connect
with their main line at Elkhart. When this appropriation was voted
in 1852 in Williams County, they appeared without advance notice
with a corps of engineers and surveyed the route, asking no aid or stock
subscriptions. The company asked only the right of way and the dona-
tion of sufficient ground for passenger and freight stations and depots,
and it was a solar-plexus blow to the other railway prospects.
It was the work of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, now
known as the New York Central Railway Company, and February 18,
1853, J. H. Sargent, acting chief engineer and superintendent of the pro-
posed air line called upon Hon. Edward Foster, placing money in his
hands and requesting him to proceed without delay receiving donations
of land or where necessary, purchasing the right of way through Wil-
liams County. Mr. Foster met with delays and embarrassments because
there was so much land owned by non-residents. It was not always pos-
sible to get into communication with them. Some of the resident owners
were indifferent, but William Trevitt and A. P. Edgerton, who were
extensive land owners, donated the right of way and gave sixteen acres
in Bryan for passenger station and warehouse purposes. The network
of tracks in that vicinity today would seem like all of it is used by the
company. There are always some men with sufficient vision to do the
right thing for a community.
It is a matter of record that as early as 1853, Letcher & Blinn of
Stryker took a contract for grading the Lake Shore and Michigan South-
ern Railroad, and this was the forerunner of transportation by rail and
an opportunity to market the agricultural and manufactured products
of Williams County today. While the pioneer road-builders encountered
difficulties in securing solid bottom, on March 5, 1855, Mr. Foster closed
his preliminary work as advance agent in Williams County, and on Octo-
ber 25th he received final payment for his services. Mr. Foster had been
as the voice of one crying in the wilderness about making the paths
straight for the future prosperity — the forerunner of commerce and
manufacturing in Williams County.
The Fountain City News published in Bryan Friday, May 18, 1855,
in an article reproduced from The Toledo Blade, says: "This place
(Bryan) is growing very rapidly since the Air Line Railroad is completed
from Toledo. Some thirty new buildings have been completed within
three weeks. One building for the road has been laid up (logs) and a
large wood-house and water station (they burn coal today) are to be
erected in about three weeks. A large and commodious eating house is
to be built the coming season (all this prosperity in Bryan because of the
Air Line railway through Williams County), and the timber is cut and
framed at Stryker, seven miles east of this place. Mr. Curtis tells us
the road will probably be completed to Edgerton, fifteen miles further
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 295
west, by fall. The passenger business on this road has become respectable
and another car will be added on the train in the fall. The company has
bored for water for two weeks and struck a vein on Tuesday. They
expect to be able to raise the water into the reservoir without any other
artificial means than a pipe to lead it.
"This is a most singular place and water can be found almost any-
where by boring down thirty, fifty or eighty feet, and a stream is forced
up in some places fifteen or twenty feet high, and still Bryan is 108
feet higher than Toledo — a singular phenomenon, and who can account
for it? The Bryanites are proud of their connection with Toledo." All
this matter appearing in print many years before the 1920 crime wave
swept Toledo. There are those in Bryan today who say the "Golden
Rule" Jones' administration was an injury to the morale of Toledo, and
the recent criminal outlook there is an outgrowth of leniency years ago.
Father Alfred Metzger of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Bryan relates
that a few Catholic families came to town with the Air Line road, and
since 1857 a parish has been maintained in the community. Just as
civilization follows the flag, it is everywhere true that the Catholic Church
follows railroad construction.
Free Ride to Toledo
Mrs. Susan Walt of Bryan, who has passed her ninety-sixth milestone
on life's journey, remembers as if it were yesterday when she had a free
ride to Toledo on the Lake Shore line when it was completed, and that
she had dinner that day in the Island House. The beefsteak was rare and
she would rather have cooked it herself. Bryan streets were full of
stumps at the time, and there was a thick forest between the Walt home
at the corner of Mulberry and Cherry streets and the Lake Shore, now
the New York Central, station. Mrs. Walt has witnessed most of the
things that have come to Williams County through the onward march
of civilization.
The First Conductor on the Lake Shore
When passenger service was fully established in 1856, David Moore
was the conductor on the Lake Shore. A Mr. Johnson was the first local
railroad agent serving only a short time, when David Billings assumed the
responsibilities at Bryan. The first printed timetable and through-train
schedule went into effect June 8, 1857, at 5 o'clock in the morning. Trains
stopped at the following stations : Toledo, Springfield, Centerville, Delta,
Wauseon, Archbold, Stryker, Bryan, Edgerton, Butler, Waterloo,
Corunna, Kendalville, Rome, Wawaka, Ligonier, Millersburg, Goshen
and Elkhart. There is a stretch of road from Toledo to Kendalville,
Indiana, without turn or curve — hence the suggestive name of Air Line of
early history. There is no better roadbed in the United States than
crosses Williams County today, and some of the fastest trains in the
world fly over it. Trains used to leave Toledo at 9 o'clock in the morn-
ing and reach Elkhart at a little after 7 o'clock in the evening. A run
296 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of 132 miles then required ten hours, while there is now a twenty-hour
service between New York City and Chicago.
When there were only two trains between Toledo and Elkhart, they
always passed at Edgerton. The locomotive, tender, one passenger and
one freight car made up the train; but try counting some of the trans-'
continental passenger-train cars as they fly through Williams County
today. The number of cars in the long freight trains is some index of
the service. There was not much rolling stock on the Air Line in 1857,
as compared with the New York Central today. While there are ship-
ping advantages direct to Chicago, Williams County shipping is alto-
gether in the other direction, and only empty freight cars are seen going
west through Bryan. The livestock pens along the. railroad tracks indi-
cate the volume of the local shipping industry, and in the chapter on
co-operative shipping facilities, there is indication that an immense vol-
ume of business is transacted in Williams County. While it is in one
corner of the state, it is in the center of the commercial world.
The Cincinnati Northern Through Williams County
When the Cincinnati Northern Railroad was built through Williams
County it was called the Cincinnati. Jackson and Mackinaw line and
while it already had excellent east and west shipping advantages, this road
opened up a future for Bryan. Williams County citizens who subscribed
to the amount of $5 or more toward the road were given a free ride to
some point along it, and since $52,000 was donated by the community
— Bryan and the surrounding country — there were a good many rides
given to citizen stockholders. Some had given $1,000, while $500 and
lesser amounts made up the whole contribution. From its first train there
has been an increasing business, the line connecting Bryan by intersection
with all trunk lines east and west, giving transcontinental service to Wil-
liams County unsurpassed in the United States.
Then men of vision who were strong factors in locating the Cincinnati
Northern are : C. A. Bowersox, O. C. Ashton, D. A. Garver, M. V.
Garver and E. T. Binns. They financed the proposition by raising the
subscription, and giving heavily toward it themselves. They had right of
way difficulties between Ney in Defiance and Pulaski in Williams counties,
and the two Carvers and Binns, who performed the missionary service,
practically bought and paid for the right of way between those two
points. The farmers who opposed it now recognize the benefits from it,
and in relating his experiences Mr. Binns said $5,000 would not tempt
him to go through with it again.
The Wabash at Montpelier
With the four branches of the Wabash connectiiig Montepelier with
Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and Toledo there is an immense volume of
traffic centering there. Its shipping facilities have placed Montpelier on
the map of the commercial world, and because of them it is a center of
manufacturing industries. When the Canada Southern Railroad was in
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 297
prospect, Montpelier experienced its first boom, although the project
failed, but when the Detroit and Butler branch of the W'abash was built
in the 80's its growth was most satisfactory. \\'hen the iMontpelier and
Chicago, and the Montpelier and Toledo branches were completed it was
a prosperous community center. However, Montpelier had its greatest
influx of people when the railroad shops of the Wabash were removed
in 1908 from Ashley, Indiana. Today the shipping facilities from Ohio's
northwesternmost county are unlimited, the four lines out of Alontpelier
and the two lines through Bryan accommodating all the towns in Williams
County. The Wabash was extended in 1901, from IMontpelier to Toledo,
and since 1903 Pioneer has been connected with Toledo by the Toledo
and W'estern electric line, and since 1905 Bryan has been connected with
Toledo by the Toledo and Indiana electric line giving hourly service,
and all the town have frequent trains on the steam lines throughout the
county. Why live in other places when there is such excellent train
service in Williams County?
Some Snapshot Observations
It is said that all commodities go up in price because of strikes on
the railroads, and they remain up because of profiteers. \Miile there are
no "jerk water" lines in \\'illiams County, the story is told of the accom-
modation train that started and stopped, and thus a belated passenger
caught the train. When he asked the conductor if the train had stopped
to get a fresh start, the conductor replied: "No, only a fresh passenger."
While Northwest Township is unpenetrated by rail today, it is not with-
out its memories of the St. Joseph Valley Railroad of other days. While
the iron horse does not cross Northwest and Bridgewater, Columbia once
bid fair to be in connection with the outside world by railway trains.
Bucklen's Arnica Salve has its place in the history of SX'illiams County,
since the man who manufactured it spent his surplus earnings in con-
structing a railroad that was later sold for junk, and there is now little
trace of it in Northwest and Bridgewater. When the railroad promoter
would sell enough salve he would build more track, but his dreams were
never realized in Williams County.
Some Counter Influences in Transportation
While "safety first" is a transportation by-word all over the United
States of America, and the railroads have opened up the markets of the
world to Williams County, the agriculture and livestock industries
advancing with the increased marketing opportunities, and manufactur-
ing following in the wake of transportation, it has not always been
smooth sailing with the promoters. There has been a reported shortage
of 800,000 cars in the transportation systems of the United States leading
up to the 1920 harvest season, and on the vine and the branches theory
when the rest of the world is in trouble, Williams County suffers with it.
While steam transportation has been a civilizing and developing influence
in the progress of mankind, it is certainly handicapped and its days of
298 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
usefulness are materially curtailed since the revival of the waterways
shipping methods, and the competition of the highway trucks all over
the country. There is a saying :
"The smallest fleas have fleas to bite 'em,
And these have fleas Ad Infinitum,"
and it is evident this twentieth century cross-country traffic and travel
was undreamed of by Amasa Stone, the recognized father of the Air
Line, the Lake Shore now known as the New York Central Railway Sys-
tem, nor by Horace F. Clark who was so active in promoting the
successful installation of its service.
Truck Service in Williams County Today
While railway strikes do not originate in Williams County, the results
are felt and the truck service aids in solving the difficulty. Bryan is a
meeting place for truck drivers east and west, a Newcastle, Indiana,
factory maintaining a man at Bryan to effect the exchange of drivers
between Newcastle and Pittsburg where the different parts are sup-
plied, and the "Tol-Chi" pike is alive with such traffic between eastern
factories and western dealers. The price of horseflesh has declined all
over the United States because of the marvelous increase in the num-
ber of trucks, tractors and automobiles, and there has resulted a diversion
of freight from the railroads that lessens their possible earnings greatly.
While this transformation has been obscured by the labor shortage and
the movement away from the farm, it is nevertheless a reality. The
development of the gasoline motor is rapidly revolutionizing economics in
Williams County, the number of trucks being estimated at 1,000, saying
nothing about automobiles, tractors and aeroplane service. The man
going over in a balloon — ah, they no longer travel with parachute attach-
ment, but the tourist going over Williams County via air service today
recognizes an excellent farming country.
War-time measures and Government ownership of railroads demoral-
ized the shipping interests of Williams County as well as the rest of the
world. Local shippers have been delayed and manufacturing has been
at a standstill for want of supplies, and how to get them has been the
perplexing question. With carloads of coal on the side tracks the people
of Williams County have suffered from cold, and private ownership of
the railroads seems to be the answer to the question. Williams County
citizens complain as quick as anybody, and sometimes they squeal before
they are hurt, but under private ownership of the railroads not so many
objections were heard in the whole country.
Relation of the Dirigible to Williams County
The successful transatlantic flight of the dirigible balloon R-34, recalls
to many Williams County people the fact that A. Roy Knabenshue, who
was the navigator of the first really successful dirigible airship in
America one time lived in Bryan. When a young man in the town he
conducted his first experiments with small balloons, having all the time
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
299
in mind the dirigible that afterward reached perfection. While living in
Bryan Mr. Knabenshue was local manager of the Bell Telephone Com-
pany. His experiments with flying were made from the "beer cellar"
hill on the Main Market road, and from the stage in the Bryan Opera
House. When he removed to Toledo he built the dirigible balloon
Toledo No. 1 on the fair grounds there, and he amazed Toledo and the
rest of the world by flying from the fair grounds and alighting on the
roof of the 10-story Spitzer building, then the tallest structure in the
city. In 1904 he attracted world-wide attention by flying over the crowds
at the World's Fair in St. Louis. A year later he startled New York
City by looping the tower of The Times Building, hundreds of thou-
sands of people from the streets and the tall buildings witnessing the
demonstration in the air. Traffic was blocked and the crowds in the
Ho.MECOMING
parks swept the police off their feet in an effort to see it all. In 1917
Knabenshue piloted some of the great American dirigibles in trial trips
for the United States navy. Williams County residents will always keep
track of his aerial successes.
Railway Stations in Williams County
I
Among the public utilities transportation is one of the foremost con-
siderations. The Twentieth Century is an era of high pressure and the
placid view that obtained some few decades gone by when the business
of the world was conducted along lines at once dignified and marked
with slowness that may at once be denominated as conservatism, is no
longer applicable to the mad rush of present-day business activities.
Changes come about and events succeed one another in lightning-like
300 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
rapidity, and in nothing is progress more apparent than in methods of
transportation. In the matter of Williams County railway stations, a
citizen remarked : "The ramshackles of the past are gone, and we are
so used to up-to-date service we have forgotten them." It is to the
advantage of the railway companies when the citizens of any given com-
munity prosper, and they are contributing to that prosperity when
through their passenger stations they present an attractive appearance
to the stranger who visits the town. Visitors always get their first
impression of a community at the railway station. Some of the roads
have imbibed the civic spirit) and are doing many things to beautify the
station property. They all maintain freight offices in addition to their
passenger service, and consignments are sent and received from all parts
of the world in Williams County today.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE EVOLUTION OF THE HIGHWAY IN WILLIAMS
COUNTY
It is estimated that there are 953 miles of road, good, bad and
indifferent, in' Williams County. As the bird flies is considered the
shortest distance between two points, but the trails of Williams County,
while in a measure conforming to the lines of least resistance, did not
always measure the shortest distances. It is said that a wild animal
would go in a certain direction pursued by a dog and a hunter, and finally
a path is made and that is the history of civilization. Sometimes the
hunter who beat the path was an Indian, and thus civilization follows
the trail of the savage in Williams County.
While they were never Williams County settlers thereby reckoned
with as citizens, it is understood that Major Suttenfield and his wife
followed the trail from Fort Wayne to Detroit, passing through "this neck
o' the woods" on horseback in 1812, and there were trading posts along
the trail where Pulaski and West Unity finally came into existence.
"Good traditional authority exists for the belief," says an old account,
"that at least one of these Indian and French trails passed through
Williams County." However, the railroad tracks and the plow shares
have destroyed the last vestige of such trails in some localities. It has
been only a few generations since the powerful tribes held dominion
in the forests of Williams County.
If the dog followed the squirrel and the hunter followed the dog, and
the "beaten path" became the trail, then there is still some evidence of
savagery — providing the hunter was an Indian, in the highways of Wil-
liams County. Another version is that the original highways always hit
the high places in keeping out of the swamps in Williams County.
There are "nimrods" today who would follow the trail with a dog in
pursuit of game at the expense of making a pathway for others.
Query : What is it that stands still and goes to mill ?
Answer : Road.
At the first sessions of Williams County Commissioners assembled
in Bryan, March 1, 1841, road improvement was a subject under consid-
eration. The record shows : "The second act of this board at this
March meeting was to declare a public highway commencing at the
northwest corner of section number 17 in Northwest Township at the
Indiana line, and thence running due east on the section line to the
quarter post on the north side of section number 13, thence southeast-
erly to the quarter post on the north side of section number 17 in Bridge-
water township, and thence east on section lines to the east line of Wil-
liams County." This road is still in use, although at places the angle has
301
302 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
been destroyed by throwing the road on the section line. Since it was
the first highway to receive attention after the county-seat was moved
from Defiance, in order that northern WilHams County might receive
better service, it is of interest to know the description appHes to a road
leading from the Indiana line and passing the Winebrenarian Church
north and east of Nettle Lake, and that it is a well kept, much traveled
highway today.
While the "oldest inhabitant" is not much in evidence now that
Williams County has entered its second century in local history, a man
on the street remarked: "The roads in Williams County used to be a
fright. Why, in the spring of the year the mud was 'belly deep to a
horse,' " and his assertion recalled the couplet :
"The roads are impassable —
Not even jack-ass-able.
And those who would travel 'em
Should turn out and gravel 'em,"
and it seems that was done years ago. An old account says that two
Williams County pioneers, Andrew Smith and Russell Hallock, met in
Bryan. While their farms were only two miles apart, they had not met
for some time. After the usual greeting and inquiry about health, it
being in the springtime when the roads were unusually muddy, Mr. Hal-
lock inquired: "Andrew, I hear you are talking of leaving 'Old Bill'?"
when Mr. Smith answered : "Yes, I've about made up my mind to
move to Tennessee," and Hallock's further inquiry : "Why, what in
the world for, y\ndrew?" elicited the answer: "Well, one reason I can't
stand so much mud," from Smith. Mr. Hallock was not disposed to
dismiss the matter without argument, and he said: "Why, Andrew,
you've lived in Williams County many years. You've seen the mud much
deeper ■" when Smith said, despairingly : "But I never saw it more
'unanimous'," and there was little room or excuse for further argu-
ment. The road question is still sometimes a topic for street corner
conversation.
Judge C. A. Bowersox is authority for the story that mud was once
so deep at Carter's Corner in Bryan — the crossing of High and Main
streets between the Farmers Bank corner and Culbertson's drug store
that when some practical jokers constructed the semblance of a man
who had mired there, his shoes sticking up at one end and his hat at
the other by the use of some sticks in the mud, passersby enjoyed it.
"Stuck in the mud," they said in hilarity, and then another man said
the way he remembered the story was that it was a cow that had mired,
with only her horns and her tail in evidence, and then they told of the
fellow who was trying on a pair of shoes in a store, when his horse
needed attention. When he came back he said the shoes hurt his feet,
but the dealer said it was a sale when he went into the mud with them.
With all of the good roads agitation and the attempt to prevent heavy
hauling when the roads are soft, log haulers still double teams for bad
stretches, and automobiles have trouble in passing such places. All
Williams County is a mud hole — just one mud hole in Williams County —
who remembers when they used to say it?
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 303
When Timber Was More Plentiful Than Today
At a time when the problem was how to get rid of the timber
enculLi^Wmiams C A there -aplankroaf^m Fort Wayne
lams („ouniy mcic wci^ a- i^.c.^" -
S 'b^rr7o/X l::' Wh.„^ ,.» air was Shu. off .J^^e pUn.s^^
tint decav and after Judge Bowersox located at the site ot his present
Some on^Ea^f Hi^h streft in Bryan, he took up several cords of this
One Time the Mum
timber from the street in front of his house and made 5;^;^°°^ of it^
There had been a tannery on the lot, and with pieces of 7°°^ Jrojn *e
vats and from the street the fuel question was solved for some time
s3r:r;sf.astsjs't:'=s{5^^^^^
r™ra„''d°;L'Hoot"^».Ifh?a,s. ,.« Mai^ Market road g.„„i„,
i,d shorter hours have attraeted some from the W.lhams County farms,
304 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the isolation feature from many farmhouses today. While higher wages
when the bills are paid and the net profit is estimated the balance is in
favor of the rural community.
While the Williams County Automobile Club had its part in the
agitation of the good roads question, William Behne, who was its secre-
tary, said the Williams County press had always spread the propaganda,
and perhaps the newspapers had done more than any other single agency
in creating good roads sentiment. The Williams County Automobile
Club has been "clubbed" out of existence. With 4,500 members its
roster would be unwieldy, and it had served its purpose when everybody
recognized the necessity of improved roads in the county. Some people
are possessed of local pride, and the stranger will hear that W^illiams
County has more miles of good roads and more automobiles than any
other Ohio county, and that Ohio leads all the other states in the Union,
but those stories are heard all about the country. Automobile owners
are all good roads propagandists, and it is admitted by all that the
Twentieth Century has witnessed the change, and that more road and
street improvements of a permanent nature have come within the last
ten years in Williams County.
Some Williams County students of economic conditions say the Van
Camp Packing Company in Bryan with its great milk industry has done
much to create sentiment for highway improvement through its distribu-
tion of something like $100,000 annually, this income to farmers only
possible when delivery trucks carry their milk to the market. Only the
farmsteads along improved highways have this advantage. Not many
years ago those who drove horses walked half the distance to town in
passing automobiles en route, but finally the horses became addicted to
the glare of the headlights, and so many farmers now own automobiles
that the characteristic prejudice has been removed from the minds of
all. It is said many Williams County farmers would not have voted
the taxes had they not owned automobiles themselves. Self interest
always changes one's viewpoint, and those who opposed the automobiles
most stringently now are their strongest advocates. While the Appian
Way in Italy has not yet been duplicated in the United States, many
Williams County citizens make long trips in their automobiles.
It has been discovered since loaded trucks use the hard surface
highways more attention must be given to the roadbed, and a solid foun-
dation is necessary. Only for its speed possibilities, the automobile
crossing the country today is like the stage coach of other years. Hear
the honk of an automobile — get out of the buggy and hold your horse —
have you forgotten all about it? Even the horses in pasture do not run
from the passing automobiles today. In their institutes farmers used
to pass resolutions condemning automobiles. Now they vote road taxes
in order that they may enjoy them. The good roads agitation became
active in 1910, and by 1915 it was violent and road contracts were let
in 1916 that would have staggered the taxpayers twenty years ago.
Abutting property, property half a mile away, one mile away and two
miles away, all may be assessed in building the highways today. Every-
body wants an improved highway by his home, and if he can't have it
he wants it near enough that he may reach it.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 305
There has already been an expenditure of $2,500,000 on Williams
County roads and the end is not yet — the roads are the hope of the future
in Williams County. Hard surface roads under existing prices of mate-
rial are built at a cost of $35,000 and $40,000 a mile, including bridges,
etc., and all the specifications extant have been used, there being already
sixty-five miles of road built as inter-county roads receiving state sup-
port, while the others are built by the county and townships, and after
all — Williams County pays the freight, no matter under what law the
improvements are secured from the taxpayers. In the way of mate-
rials—brick, concrete, plain concrete, bituminous concrete, re-enforced
concrete, bituminous macadam with penetration of tar and asphalt — -
water bound surface, water bound surface treated — but why be mysti-
fied with such things when all that is required is the tax money in suffi-
cient quantity to pay for it all?
While highway improvements cost money, there is another side to the
question. Good roads mean lessened transportation costs, and they
increase the farm values in the community. Transportation has made
every avenue of civilization. Senator Warren G. Harding, of Ohio,
president elect of the United States, says of the good roads ques-
tion : "It is the one agency of putting every community in the Republic
on the map of commercial relationship." While Thomas Jefiferson rode
a mule to the White House when he was inaugurated President of the
United States, it is possible for the successful aspirant A. D. 1920 to
reach the "City of Magnificent Distances" in his own automobile because
of the network of improved highways all over the country.
CHAPTER XXX
FINANCE— WEALTH OF WILLIAMS COUNTY TODAY
There have been radical changes in the economic life of Williams-
County in its first 100 years of history. While the emphasis is still
placed on agriculture, the county has manufacturing and commer-
cial interests. It has been said: "The greatest blessing a young man
can enjoy is poverty," and some people die in full possession of the
"blessing," while not all accept the definition as true at all. A smart
paragrapher has remarked that this country has reached the stage where
men use the word "only" in front of $10,000,000, and in Williams County
there are those who require six figures in writing the amount of their
riches — and there may be some sequestered fortunes as yet unknown to
the tax ferrets.
In the war measure Liberty bond sales, Williams was rated higher
than any other Northwestern Ohio county, the amount estimated on
bank deposits. While there are Indiana and Michigan deposits in Wil-
liams County banks, there is also Williams County money deposited
outside of the county. The bond requirements were estimated on the
amount of local bank deposits, and thus Williams County residents were
charged up with money that did not belong to them. Because of the
seemingly high rating there was some difficulty with the first and sec-
ond loans before people were used to making subscriptions, but the
remaining three loans went "over the top" without difficulty. Williams
is one of the well-to-do counties with well-to-do citizens in it, and the
bulk of its wealth in the country. Some persons say that in the war
loans, the county deposits outside offset those from non-residents who
were Williams County depositors.
It is estimated by the state tax commission that the Ohio personal
property duplicate for 1920 wilh exceed $4,000,000,000, and while there
are some who withdraw their money from the banks on tax-listing day,
the state tax commissioner does not think such practice is as common
now as it was in the past. The tax commissioner says : "I believe peo-
ple are more honest about their tax returns than they formerly were
because they have become used to paying taxes." While the banks used
to allow depositors to draw their money and put it into a New York
draft or other non-taxable security for a day and then return it, under
the Ohio laws today this is an impossibility. Liberty Bonds, War
Savings Stamps and other Government securities are exempt from taxa-
tion, and are therefore popular investments. Stock in Ohio corporations
is also exempt from taxation.
306
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 307
The Williams County Tax Duplicate
It was a Frenchman who said that the greatest enemy of the United
States was the Government printing office. It grinds out an endless
stream of money. Some people who are "money hungry" exert them-
selves in accumulating it, and yet it is said there are just about as many
billionaires as millionaires in Williams County. Money is no incum-
brance at all, and there are some comfortable bank accounts. The
stocking depository joke holds good in Williams County as well as the
rest of the world.
The total valuation of Williams County taxable property on the
1919 tax duplicates was $46,391,070, and the highest possible tax rate
under the statutes is fifteen and five-tenth mills (.0155), and it is not
difficult to estimate the amount paid annually in taxes. The auditor
makes the estimate and the treasurer collects the money. The tax rate
is higher in the towns than in the country, and some of them have
reached the limit because of local public improvements. The townships
take care of the town expenses, except for street improvements, which
are taxed to the corporations. The township trustee takes care of the
poor who do not live in public institutions.
Lima Beane, writing in The Toleldo Blade, says : "The majority
pays the taxes while the minority runs the country," and it is said that
taxes and death are the portion of all. You cannot judge the financial
rating of a man from the clothes he wears, since so many are provided
with the purse of the tramp, and have the inclination of the millionaire.
There is always talk about the shriveled souls of millionaires among
people who have little money. A wag once remarked that the conserva-
tive business man uses the word dollar about as often as a group of
society women use the word man in an ordinary conversation, but his
dollars pave the way for his business and social advancement. If there
are wizards of finance in Williams County today who want to die poor,
there are plenty of opportunities to separate themselves from their
money.
Williams County Financial Bulwarks
It is rather a fine distinction, but the dictionary meaning of the word
depositary is a person while depository is a place, and there are many
places where Williams County folk may leave their money. There are
three National and several State and a number of private banks in the
different towns. While there has been some stringency, it is said that
Williams County bank depositors have never been betrayed by any of
the numerous banking institutions. Thrift or spendthrift raises the ques-
tion of saving money, and what the gun was to the Colonist the bank
account is to the American citizen of today.
Bank depositors at Stryker are served by the Exchange Bank of
H. F. Bruns :at Edgerton by the Edgerton State Bank and the Farmers
Commercial Bank ; at Edon by the Edon State Bank ; at Pioneer by the
Pioneer Banking Company and the Citizens Bank of Pioneer ; at Mont-
pelier by the Montpelier National Bank and the Farmers and Merchants
State and Savings Bank of Montpelier; at Kunkle by the Kunkle State
308 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Bank ; at Alvordton by the Alvordton Banking Company ; at West Unity
by the West Unity Banking Company and the Farmers Commercial and
Savings Bank of West Unity; at Columbia by the Farmers Banking
Company, and at Bryan by the First National Bank, Farmers National
Bank and the Union Trust and Savings Company. There are loan com-
panies in Bryan and Montpelier. In a Bryan bank window is this senti-
ment : "Thrift is steady earning, wise spending, sane saving, careful
investing and avoidance of all waste," and it is a suggestive suggestion.
Wherever there is a bank account the family is regarded as on the
highway to prosperity. Women have always been bankers — the stocking
safety deposit, and yet who has not heard the quaint masculine wail :
"My income is the least as iz
But I should wear a smiling phiz
If only wife would mind her biz
And not make life one long drawn quiz,"
and there are homes where there would be no economy or saving at all
only for her inquiry and initiative in the matter. Safety first is a pre-
cautionary measure with the group of banks in Bryan, and some reliable
firearms have been left at convenient places in the business district with
the request that someone vise them should a holdup be staged at any one
of them. There are guns in the courthouse offices overlooking the bank-
ing houses, and some of the "sharp-shooters" there would undertake to
"pick of? a bandit" in front of one of the banks were an alarm given
about it. Bank robbers in Bryan would be startled by bullets flying
from among the trees surrounding the courthouse.
When riches take wings they usually exceed the speed limit, and all
uninvited poverty has found its way into economic conditions. Absolute
freedom from poverty brings about a boastful sort of patriotism that is
not well pleasing in the sight of God or man, and too many people in
time come to look upon their advantages as theirs from personal rights,
while they were simply fortunate in point of inheritance. Everyone
should treat Dame Fortune with consideration in order that her smiles
may continue, and it is said that God's blessings always do one of two
things — make people keener in his service, or dull their moral sensibili-
ties. While character or citizenship is wealth, it has no exchange value
in the open market. And yet it is urged that the basis of credit in busi-
ness relations is character rather than money. Different people have
different standards, and while one man would rather leave a crib of corn
than a library to his posterity, others like Mary of old have chosen the
better part, and money is not the only incentive.
No matter what one's own experience may cost him, he must foot
the bills himself. The young man whose head and hands are educated
by the stern schoolmaster of necessity is fortunate, compared with the
profligate son of a rich father who must beg when thrown upon his own
resources. "Who steals my purse steals trash," said the Bard of Avon
and yet a bank account gives a man the necessary confidence in himself.
A bank deposit is a subdued force in a man's nature, and while few
understand the currency bill many know what to do with the paper dol-
lar. It restores equilibrium — is a sort of minor chord in the music.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE EVOLUTION OF THE POSTAL SYSTEM IN WILLIAMS
COUNTY
In the Bible narrative, Job exclaims: "My days are swifter than a
post," and the postal service is known to have been used in some coun-
tries as early as the thirteenth century. It was provided for when the
Constitution of the United States was written in 1789, although at that
time it was considered as an adjunct to the treasury system. Railway
mail service was established in 1864, several years after the train service
had been given to Williams County. Rural free delivery — R. F. D. — came
in the United States in 1895, and in 1900 it came to Williams County.
People used to regard letters as present-day citizens think of telegrams,
although their friends were often dead and buried long enough before
their letters reached them. No news was always good news, and a letter
sometimes disturbed the peaceful tranquility of the whole community.
Now that practically every family in Williams Coimty receives daily
mail, these stories of the long ago are stranger than fiction to the genera-
tion now on the stage of action. While the family has postage stamps in
the house today, time was when they paid postage on letters received
by them. The story is told of a man who pawned his hat to "lift a let-
ter," because it had been a long time since tidings from the home folks
had reached him, and he would have the letter at any sacrifice. The
system of collecting postage at the time of delivery worked hardship on
many settlers, and the law did not remain long on the statutes of the
country. While the settlers were always anxious for tidings, the con-
tents of some letters did not mean much to them, and now those who
write them pay the postage. There was a time when a letter was so
folded that the superscription became the face of the letter, there being
no envelopes for many years. These letters were sent by carrier when-
ever a traveler was passing from one place to another.
Necessity has always been the mother of invention, and in time the
envelope saved the necessity of so carefully folding the letter, with one
blank side for the superscription. There was no such thing as a postage
stamp, and "collect 12 cents" was written where the stamp is now placed
on one corner of the letter. Wafers and sealing wax were used before
postage stamps were on the market. The advent of the steam railway
did not change things in Williams County, as there were no mail trains
until nine years later. Thomas Shorthill, who already kept the tavern,
became the first postmaster in Bryan, February 22, 1841, which was
the beginning of local postofiice history. The mail was carried on
horseback and by stage, and once a week was as often as anyone heard
from the outside world. Now that everybody reads the daily papers and
309
310 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
has the news from the four corners of the world, who pays any attention
to the minor details connected with the U. S. mail service? Who knows
anything about the rural carriers and their difficulties?
Rural free delivery of mail was established October 1, 1900, on
twenty-eight rural routes in Williams County. Charles Marshall on a
Bryan route entered the service on that date, and although he is "three
score and ten" years old, in twenty years he has seldom used his substi-
tute carrier only at the time of his annual vacation. Since 1909 there has
been carrier mail delivery in Bryan and Montpelier. There is no first-
class postoffice in Williams County. There are two second class, five
third class and three fourth class offices. Bryan has three city and six
rural carriers; Montpelier has two city and five rural carriers; West
Unity has three ; Stryker three ; Pioneer two ; Edon four ; Edgerton four,
and Alvordton one rural mail carrier. Alvordton, Kunkle and Blakeslee
are fourth-class postoffices. Only a town of 5,000 population, and a cer-
tain amount of mail in transit can have a first-class postoffice. On account
of its increasing business, the Montpelier office is asking for another vil-
lage mail carrier. Once a month the U. S. Government, through its
postmaster-general, requires a record of business transacted in each
postoffice — count and weigh everything, and in that way the department
learns the needs of the diflferent communities.
Aerial Mail Service Ei^EftcENCY Station
"The United States Postoffice Department Aerial Mail Service" is the
designation across the front of the Bryan hangar built in the fall and
winter of 1918 by the public-spirited men of Bryan and community, in
connection with the requirement of the U. S. postoffice department. It
is a cement block structure built on a 40-acre plot of ground leased for
five years for that purpose. The aerial mail service between Chicago and
Cleveland as part of the coast-to-coast or transcontinental service was
instituted May 15, 1919, with this emergency station at Bryan, although
the service had been instituted one year earlier between New York and
Washington.
The service was extended from Chicago to Omaha May 15, 1920, and
this emergency station has served to put Bryan on the aerial mail service
map of the world. While the flight is continuous from Chicago to Cleve-
land, there are frequent landings when repairs are necessary. While it
is only a city mail service, the people of northern Indiana and Ohio wit-
ness the flights frequently. The two-motor airplanes have been in use
since the beginning of the second year of local service. The 1919 air
race from coast to coast used the Bryan field without any accident or
mishap at all, and when Maynard, the "flying parson," was on his trans-
continental race against time he landed in Bryan, and R. H. Crawford,
on duty at the hangar, assisted him in righting things and started him
off again.
In its rural free delivery local postoffice history seems to repeat itself,
since in the old days mail was brought by carrier from the dififerent
populous centers into W^illiams County. Star route was a name given to
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 311
the mail service at points not reached by the railways, and there was a
contract between the U. S. Government and individuals. The "star route
frauds" were uncovered in the time of the Rutherford B. Hayes presi-
dential administration. The system was introduced in 1882, in the
United States, and like other good things it was soon in use in Williams
County. The star route mail carriers usually carried passengers, friends
often "coming on the mail" into different communities. However, rural
free delivery changed many star route postoffices into nothing but coun-
try groceries again. Rural free delivery of mail should be mentioned
as one of the agencies in bringing about the better roads sentiment all
over the United States. When the daily rural mail service was estab-
lished the metropolitan weekly papers were at once abandoned for the
dailies, and now the Williams County farmer would be lost without his
daily paper. Many of the rural carriers arrive so regularly that their
patrons know the hour without looking at the sun to estimate it. The
postoffice on wheels is now a fixed habit in Williams County.
' An old account relates that U. S. mail used to be carried along the
Angola road past Kunkle's Corners in 1847, the postoffice being
located at the home of Elias Barrett. The office was called Deer Lick
because of a brackish spring that was a resort for deer that long ago.
The mail was carried on horseback, and it was often so water-soaked that
it had to be dried before the recipients could read it. After a time the
office at Deer Lick was discontinued, and it was revived again in 1880,
at Kunkle, and it is still in existence there. In a scrap book containing
Forget-Me-Nots by R. N. Patterson, the information was gleaned that
there was one time a free delivery letter box attached to a silver maple
tree in Bryan, when John Sardoris was postmaster.
The town was then called Fountain City — so the story goes, and
Mr. Sardoris kept the postoffice in his wagon shop at the corner of High
and Beech streets. Bryan — or Fountain Citv was then a way station
on the star route from Fort Defiance, via Williams Center, Bryan and
LaFayette (Pulaski) to West Unity. The mail was carried on horse-
back in a double-ended leather pouch and it was held in its place by
loops through which were thrust the stirrup straps of the saddle, and
there was great uncertainty about the time of its arrival in the fall and
spring when "the bottom was out of the roads." It seldom arrived on
schedule time. However, when it came Mr. Sardoris would open the
pouch, change the mail and send the carrier on his way, and if there
were not many letters he would put them in his hat and proceed to deliver
them. Sometimes there were so many letters and papers that he would
take a basket and go about town on his errand — free mail delivery. The
Bryan carriers of today have nothing on John Sardoris, aside from the
fact that they are paid for their service. His was a mission of love in
the community.
Only Bryan and Montpelier have carrier mail service, and other post-
office delivery clerks still have a busy time after the distribution of the
mail handing it out to patrons. However, few rural patrons ever ask
nowadays if there is anything for all their uncles, aunts and cousins,
beginning with the head of each family and asking in turn for each
312 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
child, many of whom were never known to write or receive a letter.
The delivery clerk still knows when school is out in some of the towns
in Williams County. Some clandestine correspondents still ask for mail
in Bryan and Montpelier, not caring to have the family know of their
letters. When a servant girl changes places, she sometimes informs the
postoffice in whose care to deliver her letters. Every postal clerk knows
that an inspector is liable to call on him at any time, and it behooves
him to have his accounts straight — to keep his house in order. Every
presidential change brings about many changes in the U. S. mail service,
such patronage being one of the inducements congressmen have to oflfer
in accomplishing their purposes, and they usually award all snaps to
their friends.
While some farmers complain about going half a mile to the little
steel mail box that connects them with the rest of the world, others living
along mail routes had no time for daily papers, but after twenty years
they would not wish to be deprived of the service. Postal clerks and
letter carriers are all under civil service regulations, and efficiency is one
of the requirements. "Where would you send this letter?" asked a
clerk in the mailing room. The address was illegible and yet it must be
sent somewhere. A card coming into his hands said. "Mother is dead,"
but because there was no superscription, the clerks in the dead letter
office were all who would ever know about it. The mailing clerk often-
times anticipates the writer in supplying missing data, but freak letters
bearing no address at all must always be sent to the dead letter office in
Washington. People stand ready to charge all mistakes to the inefficiency
of the postoffice department wlien they have made the mistake them-
selves, and quick perception by the mailing clerk often saves the day
for them.
A delayed train carrying the U. S. mail disorganizes everything, and
if the city carrier or the rural mail fails to arrive on time the whole
population is filled with wonder and disappointment. When a bundle
of daily papers is carried by, the rural subscribers all conclude there
was no issue, and when their copy reaches them next day it is ancient
history. Such is the up-to-the-minute mail service in Williams County
today. While there is no penalty attached when a man fails to mail a
letter for his wife until she finds it afterward in his pocket, when once
it enters the mail it is hurried along to delivery. Until the World war
changed conditions all Williams County postoffices were subject to orders
from Bryan, and while the aerial station does not bring anything to
Bryan it is financed through the Bryan office, but in time it will become
an independent station. People are now used to the "telly-fone, telly-
graft and the post offist in a zvaggin," and there was a letter in the
candle, and a letter that never came and withal most citizens are glad of
Uncle Sam's attentions frequently.
CHAPTER XXXII
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENTS THAT HAVE TOUCHED
WILLIAMS COUNTY
The Century Dictionary says: "The temperance movement is a
social or political movement, having for its object the restriction or
abolition of the use of alcoholic liquors as beverages," and when it
comes to technicalities there is a difference between temperance and
total abstinence. Now that prohibition has gained a foothold in the
United States, it is interesting to trace its development through the
different stages in Williams County history. _
Now people may be intemperate in other ways than in the use ot
liquor and it is in a narrow sense that temperance is applied to modera-
tion in the use of beverages alone. Temperance is habitual moderation
in regard to the natural appetites and passions, both in drinking and
eating and it is said that in temperance dining halls that is abouUall one
gets for his money. The first temperance agitation in the United States
began the year George Washington was elected President, and when old
persons sav thev "have heard temperance lectures all their lives they no
doubt speak truthfully about it. That the evils of intemperance are as
old as the race is a stock assertion in the mouth of each orator, and Noah
is a conspicuous example of the first drunkard.
While there have been temperance movements all over the world
some of the best results have been attained in the United States of
America. Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia was the f^rst writer con-
demning intemperance, and his dominant note was total abstinence
through prohibition. The first temperance work in the United States
was in the nature of a reaction against the use of intoxicants which
threatened to produce a nation of drunkards, and the first actual tem-
perance reform was among the farmers of Connecticut. Those "Wooden
Nutmeg" agriculturists would not allow the use of liquor among farm
hands, and the whisky jug in the Williams County harvest field has long
been a thing of the past. While the pioneers knew all about^ it, today it
is a story that is told, and that begins : "Once upon a time."
Now that prohibition has become a political issue, it is interesting to
know that the first political meeting in Williams County ever held north
of Fort Defiance was at LaFayette (Pulaski) in the presidential cam-
paign of 1836, when Patrick G. Goode was the speaker and that the first
political convention was in the home of Col. J. B. Kimmel m Williams
Center in 1840, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," when the campaign watch-
word was "two dollars a dav and hard cider." It was a Democratic
meeting and up to that time all political activities had been m what is
now Defiance County. While the one-armed bartender in the form of
314 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the town pump has been ba,nished from most of the towns under recent
sanitary rulings, and pure water bubbles forth from the curbstone in
many places, there is not much danger from "snake bite" and like the
rest of humanity Williams County folk will have to "worry along" with-
out whisky even for medicinal purposes. There are not so many "snake
bites," and not so many have "snakes" in "dry" territory.
Williams County Distillers of Years Ago
Jacob Householder of Williams Center was probably the first distiller
in Williams County. He never kept but a small quantity on hand, as it
was in demand as fast as it came from the still — the worm of the still,
and the nation dry was never dreamed of by this man. He would have
been dazed by some of the Twentieth Century reports of what people
have in their cellars, not having seen the caricature of William Jennings
Bryan guarding his jug of grape juice lest someone drop a raisin in it.
Jacob Householder never knew there was "kick" in raisins or dandelions
but in 1920 Williams County home brewers did not have to go far to
procure dandelions for their purpose. It is a law in economics that dis-
coveries and improvements always materialize when they are needed,
and there were never so many dandelions as when people began to har-
vest them. It will require a community effort to eradicate them, as it
did to legislate the saloon out of existence.
The "beer cellar hill" is a landmark along the Main Market road in
Williams County today. Jacob Halm, a Bryan brewer, once had a beer
cellar cut out of solid rock and there he stored his brew to age it, but
the arrangement was not continued because it was inconvenient, and
when he added to the size of the brewery he abandoned the storage place
in "beer cellar hill." Bryan boys were afraid to visit this cellar because
of the stories told about the "spooks" that infested it. The cellar was
of ample size, and for a few years it was filled with barrels and kegs
of "booze" that was cooling and aging, and in time Mr. Halm would
bring it back to town for the delectation of the thirsty in Bryan. Since
conscience is a creature of education, it is admitted that Jacob Halm
was a man of character, and that he religiously made beer of good
quality. He met with an accidental death in his brewery.
Jacob Householder and Jacob Halm are both remembered as honest
German brewers, and with the passing of the brewer, the saloon — the poor
man's club has also been banished from society. Prohibition has caused
even unbelievers to admit that they are made of dust when they are dry-
when they are a-thirst and there are no "wet" spots or oases in the
desert of their existence. One of the new drinks has been designated as
Arms and Legs because there is no body to it, and it is agreed that
"sober second thought" does not come to a man who has consumed wood
alcohol in quantity. When Williams County finally banished the saloon
the dry majority was 1,322, the movement carrying all but three out of
twenty-six voting precincts, and it closed the doors of nineteen saloons —
the poor man's club had made him poor, and his friends had removed the
temptation. There were six saloons around the public square in Bryan,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 315
and there was a more determined effort made in Montpelier to resist the
will of the majority. F. M. Ford through his newspaper, The Montpelier
Enterprise, did much toward creating temperance sentiment in that com-
munity While Edon was about the first dry spot Blakeslee was the last
wet spot in Williams County. With Indiana and Michigan dry, there
was a time when all roads led to Blakeslee. It is said the Williams
County farm vote was dry, and the farmers did not shirk the responsi-
bility for a dry county. , , ^
When whisky flowed like water, there was a different moral status
in the community. There were drunken brawls and fights in the streets,
and men would encourage boys to fight each other, but much of that
was changed when the saloon was banished from the community. One
day a bov asked a drunken man for tobacco, and he picked it off his whis-
kers for the child— but there are no such spectacles today, and John
Barleycorn will never again be welcomed to Williams County. His
uncouth habits are buried with him, and everybody is willing to forget
him In reference to the economic effects of prohibition, an editorial in
the 1920 Zeta-Cordia says : "Since the prohibition law has gone into
effect, great changes have been noticed all over the country. Crime is
lessened a great deal, hence money which would have been needed for
jail upkeep can now be used for good roads," and the suggestion seems
better than maintaining drunkards in the county jail.
Constitution of Williams County Temperance Society
A number of agencies have contributed to the overthrow of John
Barleycorn in Williams County. There was a time when it was less
popular to be arrayed with the temperance forces than today. Among
the spellbinders and real orators lined up with the temperance cause in
its early history were some prominent citizens. ^lahlon Chance, who
was called the Buckeye Broadaxe, was a second Peter Cartwright m his
masterly handling of the temperance question. Thomas McGaw was
another temperance advocate who attracted notice sixty years ago.
While both were Methodist preachers thev were no less effective tem-
perance agitators. The Rev. Alvin Bell of the English Lutheran Church
in Bryan was chairman of the local option fight when the saloon was
finally banished from the county, and W. O. Willett, who was mayor of
Montpelier, stood strong for local option, or the victory would have
been an impossibility. The saloon keepers there were hard to deal with
and Mayor Willett made many trips to Bryan m opposing the wet
propaganda.
In the Bryan library for preservation is a document yellow with age
and tied with a white ribbon and reposing in the relic case, and while it
is written in bold, legible hand, unfortunately it bears no date— and yet
the "oldest inhabitant" agrees that it must have been drawn by the first
temperance advocates— this Constitution of the Williams County Tem-
perance Society. There are seven articles and the first recites: Ihis
society shall be called the Williams County Temperance Society and
the second article defines its object— to discountenance the use of and
316 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
traffic in all distilled spirits throughout Williams County, and anyone
adopting the principles set forth by signing the pledge becomes a mem-
ber of the society. There is a provision that the society may strike out
names of members when the evidence discloses that they have departed
from the principles of the society.
The pledge reads: "We the undersigned believing ardent spirits as
a drink to be utterly subversive to the best interests of society, and
having a direct tendency to produce vice and wretchedness, not only in
the families but in the world at large, pledge ourselves neither to use it
nor give it to others except for chemical or medical purposes, and that
those having T. A. annexed to their names stand pledged to abstain from
the use of all intoxicating drinks, except as a medicine or for sacramental
purposes," and about 100 names of \Villiams County residents of other
days are affixed, led by the name : Oren Ensign, T. A., and "one of God's
elect," said an aged man who remembered him. Those who signed this
pledge had no idea that their posterity would live to see the day when
strong drink was banished from the whole L^nited States of America.
When the first century of Williams County history had cycled into
eternity their prayers had been answered in the county, state and nation.
The men and the women are in their graves today who paved the way
for the emancipation of the drink-enthralled residents of Williams
County. They helped emancipate their posterity from the worst form
of human slavery.
The Good Templars were a popular temperance organization in the
60's and continuing their operations for a generation. They had a local
organization, and while their operations were in secret some of the'best
families in Williams County were affiliated with the society. When the
crusade struck W'illiams County soon after its organization in 1873
it attracted the foremost women and the saloon keepers trembled when
visited bv them. Among the active crusaders were : Mrs. A. C. Dill-
man, Mrs. J. A. Garver, Airs. S. N. Owen. Mrs. J. M. Welker,
Mrs. A. W. killits, Mrs. William Stough, Mrs. J. W. Pollock and many
other women of so much social prominence that the saloon keepers dared
not affront them. The crusade paved the way for the later organization
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which proved a better
expression of womanhood, and which has since been an indomitable
temperance force in Williams County.
While the crusade was a demonstration in the open against the saloon,
it did not appeal to the more timid women who later connected them-
selves with the W. C. T. U., among its leaders being Mother Thompson
and Frances Willard. While none of the Williams County crusaders
were of the Carrie Nation type, using their hatchets in the destruction
of property, it was a moral wave sweeping the country and the influen-
tial women indorsed it. Judge C. A. Bowersox remembers that Mrs. Dan-
iel Farnhum of Edgerton was among the leaders, and that the women of
Edgerton, Stryker, West Unity, Pioneer and Montpelier often joined
the Bryan women in their vigils. They would visit the saloons with
their needlework, and they would often sing and pray there. In a sense
the Woman's Crusade was a boycott, as men suffering for drink would
allow the women to usurp their places at the bars. They did not have
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 317
the courage to drink in the presence of their mothers, wives and sisters.
A woman praying in a saloon had a restraining influence on most men.
A German saloon keeper named Jacob Kissel, who was a relative of
Jacob Halm, the Bryan brewer, employed a brass band in order to
entertain the women of the crusade. By "entertain" he meant "annoy."
and when they would begin to pray the band would begin to play, but one
day when the women sang "Rock of Ages." there was no musical
accompaniment from the band and when questioned by Mr. Kissel about
it, the leader said he couldn't "stand that Rock of Ages," and that was
the last of the band in connection with the crusade. When a man has
heard his own mother sing a hymn it is always sacred to him. At
another time when the women were praying in a saloon owned by Gott-
leib Kurtz he took a stein of beer in his hand and kneeled with them,
saying he enjoyed the service. There were not as many people in any of
the towns at the time of the crusade, and many business men of today do
not remember anything at all about it, while others never will forget it.
It Was a False Alarm
One afternoon when a group of Bryan school teachers were on their
way home the alarm was given as they approached the public square and
Jacob Kissel locked his door and darkened the windows. He had been
"tipped" that the crusaders were coming again. The unoffending school
teachers were : Mandana Willett, Rilla Teems, Lou and Lizzie Riggs,
Ella McCutcheon and Alice M. Walt. Not until afterward did they
know that this grog-shop had been intimidated by them, although they
knew all about the "reign of terror" in the schoolroom. All were
highly respected women, not only as teachers in Bryan, but in the rural
schools, and all unwittingly they were exerting an influence over the
keeper of a Bryan saloon. W^hen he darkened his place it was a mute
invitation for them not to visit him. It is said by many that the saloon
keepers were their own undoing, and their failure to comply with law
requirements defeated them. May the children of the future know as
little about the saloon as men and women of today know about the
crusade.
It is said there was more aggressive temperance warfare in the 70's
than since that time, and in that decade the Murphy movement was
sweeping the country. Henry M. Look was an apostle of the Murphy
temperance sentiment, and visited Williams County as a speaker. There
were then twenty-seven saloons in Bryan, but the "blue ribbon" worn
by all who signed the Murphy temperance pledge— the pledge formu-
lated by Francis Murphy, who was a converted saloon keeper, had a
restraining influence on crime and lawlessness of all descriptions. The
whole country sang:
"Ho, my comrades, see the signal waving in the sky
Re-enforcements now are coming — victory is nigh,"
although it was more than forty years until prohibition swept the coun-
t^^^ Writing on the subject in the 80's, Henry William Blair said : "The
conflict between men and alcohol is as old as civilization, more destructive
318 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
than any other form of warfare and as fierce today as at any time in
its history." The application is local, and there was a remonstrance
against alcohol in the 40's, most like the period of the activities of that
early Williams County Temperance Society.
There has always been a wet and dry element, and that long ago there
was a good deal said about the whisky jug in the harvest field. Some
Williams County farmers harvested their grain without the whisky jug
in the field, although the hired labor always went where there was a jug
of whisky. When the Civil war came on there was not so much agita-
tion of the temperance question, and for a few years afterward the dry
forces were not as well organized as they are today. The alcoholic evil
is the subject 6f crucial investigation all of the time, and the wets and
drys lie awake nights planning how they may outwit each other. While
the "blind tiger" is a bugbear and a menace, it has never been a "poor
man's club" and social center, and with the saloon out of existence some
men have cultivated the acquaintance of their own families. When the
patronage began to wane, some saloon keepers were glad of the techni-
cality in the law that closed their doors before the sheriff did it for
them.
While the women did not vote, and many do not care for suffrage
only along reformation lines they were united in support of the move-
ment when the men of Williams County moved against the saloon through
the local option process. While some women would like to grapple with
affairs of state beyond the moral question, the Williams County leaders
all rallied when there was a chance for a half loaf, although state-wide
prohibition was always their slogan. The Williams County W. C. T. U.
members call themselves the Daughters of the Crusade, and some of
them unhesitatingly say that the Anti-saloon League men who have
worked hand in glove with them in bringing about temperance measures
are sons and grandsons of W. C. T. U. mothers. While there may not
be any mothers of Presidents among them, there have been wives of
presidential dignitaries who were temperance women. All Williams
County women point with pride to Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes as an Ohio
woman who banished wine from the White House when Rutherford B.
Hayes was Pi'esident of the United States. While women have always
resorted to prayer in bringing about moral reforms, the oak and the vine
simile does not mean so much to the aggressive woman. She is inclined
to do things on her own account. While some are dropping out others
are coming in, and the Williams County W. C. T. U. is now organized in
Montpelier, Edon, Melbern, Edgerton, Pioneer, West Unity and Bryan.
These unions are social and moral developing agencies, and the Wil-
liams County unions are raising $1,000 in the "million dollar drive" now
being made by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Based on the 1919 membership roster, this means about $3 for each
woman.
The Williams County W. C. T. U. was the only organized body of
local temperance workers when local option became an issue, and they
were quick to offer their services. While Williams County women always
stood with the men in the early temperance organizations, when the cru-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 319
sade had its birth in Hillsboro, Ohio, in 1873, it attracted many of the
more aggressive women of the whole country. While it was a short-lived
movement, it left behind it a splendid offspring, the W. C. T. U. coming
into existence a year later in Cleveland. The crusade was the real
beginning of definite action, and men of today enjoy recounting the part
their mothers had in it. There was rivalry among the women as to who
should knock the heads out of whisky barrels, and it was always a
weakened article they emptied into the streets, the whisky barrels being
frequently shifted from one cellar to another to escape them;
Emotion, love and sympathy predominate the average woman, and
as an organization the W. C. T. U. is both religious and secular, and
when the men told the women of the country they should raise up
voters instead of asking for the franchise, they immediately began a
campaign of education among future voters. Through them scientific
temperance has been introduced into the public schools, and since the
child of today is the citizen of tomorrow the women are right in their
campaign of education. The Christian Alexanders have conquered the
world for temperance, and while the crusade was temporary the W. C.
T. U. is like Tennyson's babbling brook — goes on, perhaps, forever. For
many years it has been an influence for good, keeping the temperance
sentiment alive in Williams County.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE WILLIAMS COUNTY HOME
By a recent enactment of the Ohio Assembly, the name "poor house"
no longer applies to county infirmaries maintained for the care of indigent
persons unable to care for themselves. There are 280 acres in the farm
at the Williams County home, and Frank Koch is the superintendent and
his wife is matron there. This home was established November 25, 1874,
and Andrew Scott was its first superintendent. The land was bought by
the Williams County commissioners from John Hester. The purchase
price was $14,000, but today the land is not rated at $50 an acre. The
Williams County farm has always been a self-sustaining institution, and
Mr. and Mrs. Koch are doing what they can to make life pleasant for
the unfortunates who live there. The farm and housework is done by
the inmates under their supervision, and there is no odium attached to
living in the Williams County Home at all.
When a man or woman has no son or daughter, or no other kin with
whom to live, the Williams County Home is an open door, and some-
times mothers are temporarily housed there in order that they may care
for their own children until permanent arrangements can be made for
them. The superintendent is responsible to the commissioners for the
management of the home and, as superintendent, he is automatically a
member of the State Board of Charities. In some counties where there
are organized charities there are homes for children outside of the county
homes, but in Williams County there is no other charitable institution.
"Saints' Rest" is a name sometimes given to county homes because some
saintly persons always end their days there.
The Williams County Home has capacity for sixty-five inmates,
although it is never taxed in caring for the inmates. While vagrants
from outside sometimes apply there, it is the policy to let every com-
munity take care of its own indigent class, and such persons are some-
times given aid to reach their own locality. There is excellent farm land
at the Williams County Home, and diversified crops are grown there.
Electricity is obtained from the Toledo and Indiana Electric Railway
line at Stryker through West Unity, and the buildings and grounds are
well lighted and always attractive. There is plenty of shade and some
landscape beauty there. The farm lies in Jefferson Township with
West Unity as its nearest market place.
While there is no charitable institution other than the Williams
County Home, precaution was taken early to rid the community of sus-
pects, an old account saying: "To any constable of Madison Township,
greeting: whereas complaint has been made before me, Cyrus Barrett,
Jr., one of the overseers of the poor of said township, that Tallman
Reasoner and his family are likely to become a township charge ; you are
320
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 321
therefore commanded to warn said Tallman Reasoner and family to
depart from the township forthwith, and of this writ make legal service
and due return. Given under my hand and seal this 10th day of July,
1843. — Cyrus Barrett, overseer of the poor." And the return reads : "I
hereby certify that I have legally served this warrant by personally read-
ing the same this 11th day of July, 1843," and it was signed Daniel Bar-
rett, constable. This precautionary measure was resorted to thirty-one
years before the organization of the Williams County Home, although
there is no further data about Tallman Reasoner and his dependents.
In Bryan the Woman's Federation ministers to local needs, and in
Montpelier the Civic Club does the same thing, and "let not thy right
hand know what the left hand doeth" actuates many persons in such
things. Jesus said, "The poor ye have always with you" ; although they
were notified to leave Madison Township years ago. It is said that
donations are sometimes raised on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas, and
that none claim the offerings, but the worthy poor are sensitive and the
Christian cloak of charity may become a mantle for them in a way that
does not offend them. Once a year the Williams County Woman's
Christian Temperance Union brings good cheer to the inmates of the
Williams County Home by holding its flower day service there. A woman
whose life activities were devoted to orphan children once said: "A
foundling asylum is not a mansion of wealth, and the children here are
not from the best homes, but among them are some boys and girls of
good intellect" ; and the same may be said of Williams County. In more
populous counties there are more demands upon charity.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE "MEDICINE MAN" IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
One hundred years in history is not so long, and the centenary of the
birth of Florence Nightingale May 12, 1920 — just three months after the
first centenary in Williams County — shows that extraordinary strides
have been made in both the medical and nursing profession within that
period. The career of the Williams County Medical Society has been
checkered, doctors saying they belonged to it twenty, thirty and forty
years ago ; although the records of the present organization show that it
has been in existence since 1904, and the 1920 official roster is: Dr. C. M.
Barstow of Bryan, president, and Dr. J. W. Weitz of Montpelier, secre-
tary-treasurer. Doctor Weitz recently represented the society as its dele-
gate to the seventy-fourth annual convention of the Ohio State Medical
Association at Toledo.
The Williams County Medical Association is an adjunct to the State
and American Medical Associations, and any medical doctor in good
standing in the Williams County Association is eligible to membership in
the greater associations. It is said there has long been a more or less
active Williams County society, but now and then questions would arise
that would create a difference, and lack of interest resulted in the cessa-
tion of regular meetings. The service fee has always been one source of
disagreement, physicians in the larger towns rating their services higher
than the country doctors. When there were fewer people in Williams
County there were fewer ailments, and consequently fewer physicians ;
but today there is a capable group of medical men holding membership in
the Williams County society. The present organization dates back to
January, 1904, and its purpose is set forth as professional ethics, social
fellowship and scientific advancement. Its charter members are: John
W. Long, James W. Long, A. E. Snyder, A. L. Snyder, F. H. Pugh,
C. M. Barstow and J. U. Riggs, Bryan ; R. R. Alwood, Albert W. Back
and F. M. Frazier, Montpelier; Albert Hathaway, Edon. The first roster
was: J. U. Riggs, president, with the present incumbent as secretary-
treasurer.
The present-day Williams County doctors must register, and they
must have a literary education before beginning the study of medicine,
the standards having been raised recently. The early-day practitioner
knew little about anatomy and physiology, although often successful in
combating diseases. Years ago everything was bilious fever, black
measles, black diphtheria — malignant disorders with phthisic and flux
thrown in for good measure — and typhoid fever was prevalent ; but there
is not much contagion today because science has reduced it. In the
Garden of Eden under the Old Apple Tree man became wise about
322
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 323
many things, and today the human family knows more about diseases and
their prevention; an ounce of the latter being worth all the cures in the
world. Bacteria, germs — why, the shortest poem in the English language,
"Adam had 'em," was written on the subject of germs.
Doctor Plain Diet has always been regarded as a good citizen, and
there are today conscientious doctors who recommend sanitary measures
sometimes rather than prescribe antidotes. Among early Williams County
doctors were : Stough, Barkdull, Andrews, Schmidt, Wood, Long, Hatha-
way, Blaker, Willard, Hubbard, Clover, Stubbs, Snear, Hall, Finch,
Graves, Runnion, Denman, Hart, Stout, Clute, Williams, Lamson, Knoflf,
Flora, Kolby, Kent, Paul, Snyder, Mercer, Hagerty, Williams — and the
offices of some of them were regarded as so many life-saving stations.
While Mrs. Lucy H. Eckis is listed as a woman physician in West Unity,
there are none in Williams County today. She was a woman of literary
attainment, and although not a graduate physician, upon the death of her
husband she continued his practice for some years.
While Christian Science is not much in evidence in Williams County,
and osteopaths and chiropractors are not numerous, there are men and
women who still make use of the old prescription, "work it off," instead
of sending for medical advice about their ailments. Materia Medica is
subject to change, and physicians handle their patients different today.
The cheerful doctor always has a benign influence when he enters the
sick room, and metaphysics always will be his ally in handling diseases.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" ; and diet is better understood
today. "Man is fearfully and wonderfully made" ; and emphasis is
placed on the statement when woman is under consideration, and yet
since people know more of hygiene and sanitation, there is less demand
for medical advice in the community. Since people understand their
own "in'ards" better it works both ways, some feeling the complications
require attention, while others rest assured about it.
The quack doctor and his cure-all remedies answer the requirements
of some, while others want the advice of reputable physicians. When
most people grow ill the material side of their nature asserts itself, and
they send for the medical advisor in whom they have most confidence.
The Indian sachem with his herbs, and the old woman with her catnip
tea and other concoctions are all right for a time, but there comes a time
when men of learning are consulted by most families. There was a
time when the doctors depended upon Peruvian bark, quinine and calomel
in heroic doses in combating chills and fevers, and while they were not
often fatal, the victims frequently suffered greatly from them. Some-
times the doctors themselves fell victims to the dread diseases prevalent
before the swamps had been drained in Williams County. Dr. Daniel
Drake, writing in Materia Medica, cites instances where treatments act-
ing on the imagination cured some of the early-day maladies, shakes, etc.,
and who has not sat by an open window all morning with impunity while
ignorant of the fact, and yet begun to take cold immediately when told
about it?
There are county health doctors now and they designate certain
clean-up days in every community. While it is done as a sanitary meas-
324 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
ure it adds to the appearance of the town, and statistics from the depart-
ment of health in the State of Ohio show that Bryan is one of the most
fortunate communities, the people free from contagion and the condition
is attributed to the water. Where there is diphtheria and typhoid fever
there is impure water. There are families today who employ physicians
to keep them well rather than to cure them of illness. An old account
says: "At the time when the people were exterminating bears, panthers
and the vast forests there was no time to make war on such small and
ubiquitous things as mosquitoes." But they do not buzz quite so serenely
today. When the swamps attracted millions of them the doctors nor
patients neither suspected their deadly mission as disease spreaders, and
"Baby bye, here's a fly, let us watch him, you and I.'' shows the attitude
only a few years ago toward another disease disseminator — the house fly.
"Swat the fly."
At the time when housewives used peach-tree limbs and peacock tails
to "mind the flies," they did not think of them as deadly enemies. The
screen-door came along in the American centennial year, and when the
fly had been barred people began to realize advantages from it. When
the barnyards were cleaned up and his breeding places were removed,
many of the diseases he used to carry were no longer prevalent. Instead
of the lullaby about watching the fly, "Swat the fly" means more to
mothers today. It has been pointed out that disease is caused by gases
generated from decaying vegetation. While the results may not be imme-
diate, it requiring a certain period for incubation before the people were
seized with fevers, etc., all that is obviated today by removing the ofifend-
ing substances. In Bible times there were hog wallows, and as long as
there are sows they will return to them, unless their owners use some
precaution about such conditions.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness," and home sanitation has had much
to do with changed health conditions. While the pioneers were not
unsanitary, they had not studied drainage and other questions that have
revolutionized things. There are systems of ventilation today, while the
cracks in the floor and the open fireplace was about all the ventilation
known to the settlers. While there was no filth within the cabin walls,
and some of the grandmothers were scrupulously clean housekeepers,
there was stagnant water everywhere and the mosquitos and flies had
their own way about things. In 1838 was the "terribly sickly season" in
Williams County, and a writer of that period speaks of "autumnal,
bilious, intermittent, remittent, congestive, miasmatic, malarial, marsh,
malignant, chill fever, ague, dumb ague, fever and ague," and if there is
anything in suggestion the settlers had the benefit. The doctors were
disposed to mystify their patients and all these were resultant from
"vegeto-animalcular" causes, meaning that the people were infected by
organisms bred in decaying vegetation, and with that view of the situa-
tion home sanitation is largely responsible for better conditions.
One account of the "terribly sickly season" in 1838 says : "The fever
was so continuous and so frightful were its effects, that it is remarkable
the settlers were heroic enough to remain in the new country. They
stayed partly through grim determination, partly through natural indispo-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 325
sition to move backward, partly through love of the beautiful country,
and partly through that hope springing eternally in the breasts of the
pioneers to cheer them in their toil and suffering." But time has drawn
the curtain and almost cut off the memory of such things. Chills and
fevers — who has them or thinks of them today? Flu is a twentieth cen-
tury visitation that has given many people a deplorable understanding of
the chills and fevers of the pioneers. Rudyard Kipling wrote : "Lest
we forget, Lord, lest we forget," and the flu epidemic has been sufficient
to remind all. In 1872 there was epizootic among the horses that crippled
all industries requiring their use, and it left diseased and imperfect ani-
mals, and the Spanish influenza of 1918-19-20 has been just as serious
among human beings. While there are still epidemics of measles, whoop-
ing cough, chicken pox, nettle rash, lagrippe — say it softly, the seven-year
itch, bathing and home sanitation have reduced the awful effects of them.
When chills and ague were prevalent in Williams County sometimes
not a cabin escaped, and there would not be a well person in the com-
munity. In the early morning water buckets would be filled by the most
able-bodied ones and placed in reach of all, and when the shakes would
come on and the fever would follow, each one could help himself.
Those conditions were duplicated in the recent epidemic of the flu, and
people of today now understand the hardships of the pioneers. Many
times the settlers would have gone back to their old homes when the fever
was highest, but when they were better they would remain and finally
through drainage and sanitary precautions conditions were changed in
Williams County. There were always some so sick their relatives could
not leave them, and each year brought new neighbors until finally no one
wanted to leave the community.
Along with the chills and ague there were dental troubles, and when
the settlers used to twist out the teeth for each other they suffered untold
agony. Many men and women of today have never seen the instrument
of torture used by the settlers in twisting out their molars and incisors,
but knocking out teeth of horses can be no more barbarous than was the
twisting process. With a deft movement of the wrist the modern dentist
draws the tooth, and there is an aching void — and many diseases are
traced to defective teeth today. The eyes and the teeth, but this is a day
of specialists and it is quite proper to consult them. The pioneer doctor
used to bleed his patients, and they still "bleed" them. While they used
to come on horseback and at breakneck speed for the doctor, today they
call him by telephone.
There are always two sides to any question, and in commenting on
Materia Medica, one doctor said that people nowadays take time by the
forelock and they send for the doctor oftener, and save continued ail-
ments. The pioneers used more home remedies, and when the doctor
came the next thing they thought about was the funeral. The Irishwoman
thought the patient was in danger as long as the doctor continued his
visits, and again the family is under censure that does not send for the
doctor. The history of medicine in Williams County has been a study in
evolution, and but few of the present-day doctors remember when "yal-
ler- janders" was so prevalent. The good old doctor would throw his
326 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
saddle bags across his faithful horse, and start out on his rounds which
would often take all day and part of the night, and if the roads were
bad he never knew when he would reach home again. When the roads
were too bad for the horse he walked, but with better drainage and less
stagnant water there were fewer mosquitoes and consequently less malaria
and kindred diseases. The time came when the doctor had a two-wheeled
sulky, and later a buggy, and now
While the medical man is not unmindful of the faithful old horse of
other days, the apothecary's hardships are not all in the dim past. If
there isn't mud there is snow, and if there isn't snow there is mud, and
the automobile is not always equal to the emergency. When the family
telephones the doctor they ask if he has a self-starter on his automobile,
and they want to know that he will come in a hurry. The times have
changed and the poetry and sentiment of the long-ago have given place
to cold-blooded business methods.
There was a time when once the family doctor, always the family
doctor, but such is not true today. The old-time family doctor ushered
several generations into the world, but today one member of the family
calls one doctor and another calls someone else — sentiment having no
consideration. While doctors do not advertise — it is unprofessional — if
one has success in his practice his patients advertise for him and vice
versa, and while doctors used to be afraid of each other and jealous —
there is a fraternal spirit today. In the Williams County Medfcal Society
they meet and read papers, anfl discuss the treatment of diseases. Instead
of leaving powder wrapped in papers they leave tablets today. Few had
spatulas and they used to ask for a caseknife in dealing out their powders
in papers — take them every two hours, dissolved in water. There are few
prescription doctors in Williams County. When the doctors used to give
calomel there were salivated mouths unless the patients abstained from
acid foods, and people sometimes lost their teeth from salivation. They
used to follow calomel with quinine, and hold a child's nose to make him
take it; and then the capsules solved that difficulty. Who remembers
taking sulphur in stewed apples or in molasses? Who said turn back-
ward in the world of diseases and their cures?
In all the populous centers there are hospitals, and Williams County
people are familiar with such an institution in Montpelier, although recent
changes are reported there. The Wertz and Hogue hospitals have been
closed, and a new hospital has been opened by Mrs. L. M. Yoder and
Mrs. Victor Yoder. They have purchased the Hogue operating outfit
and the Wertz furniture, and as business warrants they will add more
space to their hospital department. The owners are experienced nurses,
and the physicians of Montpelier are pleased with the arrangements.
There is now a place for the proper care of emergency cases, and two
patients immediately entered the new hospital. Some Williams County
residents are practical nurses in other institutions, and some have engaged
in welfare work in the health departments of different cities. The Flor-
ence Nightingales are a blessing to every community. Clara Barton was
a nurse on the field of battle, and the Red Cross is the result of her effort.
CHAPTER XXXV
WILLIAMS COUNTY FIRE FIGHTERS
While death is regarded as the last enemy, water and fire are the most
destructive agencies unless there is system in handling them, when both
are useful elements. The most efficient fire fighters can do little to avert
impending danger unless there is a sufficient supply of water, and the
earliest record of any organized fire department in Williams County, said
C. R. Bowersox, chief of the Bryan fire department since 1912, is the pur-
chase of a steam fire engine in 1873, in Bryan. When a conflagration is
raging there are always heroes and heroines — men and women will .join
a bucket brigade in an emergency, and some have shown great presence
of mind at such time. The women have sometimes proved themselves
equal to the men as fire fighters, although the task of throwing the looking
glass out of an upstairs window and carefully carrying down the feather
bed usually falls to the men. A woman will sometimes carry a jar of soft
water to a place of safety.
Fire and water are the two great enemies of property, and water is
always employed to subdue fire, hence it is the greater agency. Fire
cannot consume water, although when a fog was raising someone gave the
alarm "The water is on fire." The fire department is the guardian of
public safety. There are always anxious hearts when an alarm is
sounded, and while the department's right of way in the street is never
questioned, since automobiles are so common the progress is often
impeded by thoughtless persons trying to be first at the destination. While
the chief and assistant chief of the Bryan fire department are on part
pay relation to the community, they do not remain on duty at the fire
department at all. While they have other vocations, they always have "an
ear to the ground" for a fire alarm. Chief Bowersox has an automobile
— private property — and he always has chemicals in it.
Alexander Partee, the fire-department driver at Station No. 1 in
Bryan, is the only man in Williams County giving his entire time to the
fire department. He is on duty twenty-four hours every day, and he lives
in the flat in the city building above the station. When there is a call for
the department his wife gives the alarm and he starts at once for the
conflagration. Sometimes the chief is there when he arrives, and some-
times he is the first to arrive with whatever firemen may have mounted
the hose wagon in its wild dash through the streets. There are twelve
volunteer fire fighters registered in Fire Department No. 1, and ten in
No. 2, and no matter where they are they are pledged to drop everything
and hasten to the scene of conflagration. They are all men of daring
who stand ready to take chances or they would be useless as firemen.
While life is sweet to a fireman he must think of the interests of the
community.
327
328 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Mr. Partee, who lives at the department station, is a mechanic and
he looks after the upkeep of the property. There is one of the best
horse-drawn engines in the Bryan No. 1 fire department to be found in
Northwestern Ohio today. The city has had a varied experience in the
ownership of fire-department horses, and it has been found expedient to
allow the driver to furnish them. Mr. Partee regards Gus and Dick as
the best fire team ever used in Bryan. They are gray horses and have
been at the station several years. They know the signals and tjjey never
make any wrong moves when there is a fire alarm. They seem to have
almost human comprehension and would reach the destination alone. It
has been found an economy for the driver to own the horses since he is
then interested in them, and they are always in condition.
Mr. Partee chooses his own horses, and when an animal is unsatis-
factory to him he changes it. Some horses learn the requirements easily
while others do not learn them at all ; and Gus and Dick know all about
it. A horse with physical defects cannot fill a place on the Bryan fire
department. Mr. Partee is not a fireman — simply the driver, and one
time when a fire was in progress a stranger arrived at breakneck speed
riding behind a fine specimen of a horse. He was a mile from town when
the alarm was sounded, and since the horse had been used many years on
the Fort Wayne fire department, he knew what it meant when he heard
the Bryan fire alarm. There is a poem reciting how a fire-department
horse, afterward used to a dairy wagon, spilled the milk in his hurry to
reach the scene of conflagration.
There is some fire-fighting apparatus in all of the towns, and Edger-
ton now has the old hand engine used in Bryan. No. 2 fire department
in Bryan gets to a fire by attaching the hose wagon to a truck. Mont-
pelier and West Unity have truck-drawn fire departments, and there is a
chemical engine used at Montpelier. There is a volunteer service and the
fire fighters reach the scene in a short time. The Civic League of Mont-
pelier has been instrumental in equipping the local fire department, and
in beautifying the engine-house property. Stryker, Pioneer, Edon and
Edgerton all have fire apparatus and volunteer fire fighters. \\'hile
recently there have been no sweeping fires, every community knows the
sad havoc of conflagration. A fire alarm always attracts a crowd, and
the crowd handicaps the department by blocking its efforts. While the
alarms are always given in some cities the destination is not indicated
since there are so many automobiles, and the reckless drivers interfere
with the efiiciency of the departments by blockading the streets. Some
automobile drivers pay no attention to consequences just so they can
witness the destruction.
In the old days when there were more wooden houses in all of the
towns, there were more destructive conflagrations. Strike a match and
burn up the town, but there have been building restrictions, and there are
building inspectors who condemn fire-trap buildings, and the danger is
lessened in that way. Since building permits must be issued inflammable
materials are not used so extensively. Since 1913 there have been build-
ing inspectors in Williams County. It is a protective measure appre-
ciated by the people generally. At one time Williams County was infested
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 329
by firebugs — insurance the seeming inducement— and when incendiarism
became so general there was reaction against it. Finally twenty-seven
firebugs were convicted and sent to the penitentiary, and incendiarism
soon waned in the community. Because property was at stake, and many
had suft'ered loss, great crowds were attracted to the courtroom when
the trials were in progress. There were more destructive fires in rural
communities than in the towns.
Rigid prosecution of offenders was all that changed conditions, and
George E. Letcher, who was given a seven-years' sentence to the peni-
tentiary, was brought from Santa Barbara, California, for prosecution.
Jack Page was a dupe of the ringleader, and sometimes homes were
burned for the insurance and sometimes it was arson and pure cussed-
ness. While that fact did not save his character, it is related that Letcher
was of blood-kin to President James A. Garfield. It is said that Page
would bore an augur-hole in a block of wood, fill it with kerosene and
paper, and that he would fire a building with it and calmly watch the
conflagration. There was once an insane man in Bryan 'who had a
mania for burning buildings. He would fire them in order to see the
department in action. It is said that West Unity and Alvordton suffered
most at the hand of the firebugs when they infested Williams County.
The first destructive fire in Bryan occurred on Sunday night, Decem-
ber 30, 1855, when the town was without fire protection other than the
bucket brigade formed by men and women. A grocery owned by Edward
Evans, a drygoods store owned by William Yates, and the postoffice kept
by George \\'alt, were swept away, and over the dying embers a bucket
brigade was organized that was effective until there was a fire engine
installed in Bryan. There are now an engine, hook and ladder truck and
two hose wagons— 1,300 feet of hose on one and 2,300 on the other— and
sometimes all are in requisition. Trucks are pressed into service when
needed, and everybody goes to the fire in Bryan. While the rainbow set
in the clouds is the token of the covenant of the Almighty that the world
will not again be destroyed by water, the fire department does not have
any surcease from duty. While everybody watches the clouds, when the
cry of fire is heard all ears are alert and all hearts beat in unison.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SECRET ORDERS IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
The older secret orders of the United States that are most popular in
other communities have representation in Williams County. However,
the fact that they are secret renders it difficult to obtain much data about
them. There is no order so widely known and yet so little understood as
the Free and Accepted Masons. The origin of Free Masonry is lost in
the mists and obscurity of the past, but well authenticated references to
it are found dating back almost to the beginning of the Christian era.
The name Free Mason is met with in connection with organization of
Masonry in England as early as 1350, but just when the title originated
is not a matter of record. What is known as the "Old York Constitu-
tion" was formulated and adopted by a general lodge of Masons in the
year 926, A. D., congregated at York, England.
In the history of English and Scotch Masonry from which Masonry
in the United States is derived, there are actual records presenting an
unbroken line as shown by the minutes of lodges beginning with the year
1599, until the present time. Mother Lodge Kilwinning which met at
Kilwinning, Scotland, is one of the ancient lodges which is universally
known and respected throughout the Masonic world. It is uncertain
when Masonry was first introduced in America, but it was in the Colonial
period. The first official authority for the assembling of Free Masons
in America was issued June 5, 1730, by the Duke of Norfolk, Grand
Master of England, to Daniel Coxe, appointing him grand master for the
provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Three years
later a grand master was appointed for the colonies of New England.
Thus Free Masonry was established within the boundaries of the United
States, and as civilization advanced Free Masonry advanced with it.
The square and compass are the emblems of Masonry, and when a
man is a Mason he is recognized as a good citizen. There are lodges in
Bryan, Montpelier, West Unity, Pioneer, Edon and Edgerton, while
Stryker citizens hold membership in the lodge at Evansport, Defiance
County. There are rural members in the Williams County lodges.
Masonry is one of the greatest factors for the good in any community.
While it makes no bid for public applause, its membership is made up of
the better class of business and professional men, and it adheres strictly
to the tenets of the order and the constitution. While in its early history
Masonry was opposed by churchmen, recently they have affiliated with
it. At all times it maintains its dignity as an ancient and worthy insti-
tution. Masonry has always performed the duties incumbent upon it
modestly and without ostentation, or the blowing of trumpets. By rea-
son of its firm adherence to its ancient tenets it is held in high esteem by
330
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 331
the community. Its branches are : Royal Arch, Council, Commandery,
Knight Templars, Consistory and Scottish Rite Masonry. The mothers,
wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, although free-born American
citizens, are ineligible to the mysteries of Masonry. The Order of East-
ern Star is their organization, and through it they approach to the
threshold of Masonry.
The I. O. O. F. Lodge in Williams County
The first Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge in America was
organized April 26, 1819, in Baltimore — Washington Lodge No. 1 — and
Thomas Wildy was its founder. After a few years the English charter
of this lodge was surrendered, and the Grand Lodge of Maryland was
organized instead of it. This original American lodge affiliated with the
mother lodge in England until 1842, and now all the lodges in the world
affiliate with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Sovereign Grand
Lodge except those of Great Britain. Friendship, truth and love
(F. T. L.) are the basis upon which Odd Fellowship is founded, and
there are lodges in all the towns of Williams County. The mission of the
I. O. O. F. Lodge is to look after both temporal and spiritual needs, and
the Bible is used in each service — part of the requirements. The Rebekah
Lodge is constituted for the women whose interests are in common with
the members. While Odd Fellowship had its origin in England in the
eighteenth century, where its meetings were little more than clubs, the
members being mechanics and laborers whose pay was small, they were
congenial spirits and mutual interest and sympathy was aroused and each
one dropped his contribution into the common treasury. In this way a
fund was created for relieving want among them. While the order came
with the pioneers into Williams County and its growth was slow, good
deeds and kindly ministrations won for it an abiding place in the hearts
of the people, and from its humble beginning its motto has been "To
visit the sick, to relieve the distressed, to educate the orphan, to help the
widow and to bury the dead," and on this foundation the order will stand
the tests of the ages.
The Knights of Pythias in Williams County
There are Knights of Pythias and Pythian Sisters in all of the towns,
and in point of numbers it is probably the strongest secret order in Wil-
liams County. The membership is made up of younger and more active
men, and they are more in evidence in the community. This order grew
out of a poem written in 1821, in which John Banim portrayed a loyal
friendship between Damon and Pythias. This touching story of friend-
ship and devotion struck deep into the heart of Justus H. Rathbone, who
read and reread the poem — this story of Damon and Pythias. In 1857-8,
Mr. Rathbone decided to form a compact among his friends, based on
the story as set forth in the poem, and when he told Robert A. Champion
of his scheme and read to him the ritual, he was so impressed with it
that they at once proposed an organization. However, the Civil war
332 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
came on and delayed things. The close of the war would mark the
beginning of their efforts, and in 1864 the order was first instituted in
Washington City, and within a few years there were lodges all over the
United States. In the creed for workers are these sentiments : I believe
in my job. I believe in my fellow man. I believe in my country. I
believe in my home. I believe in today.
There were one time flourishing lodges of Knights and Ladies of
Honor and Royal Arcanum, but with the death of the leaders those lodges
are no longer in existence. The IModern \\'Oodmen and the Knights of
Columbus have some local representation and some of the Williams,
County secret orders own their own lodge homes and have accumulated
considerable wealth. Where the church performs its perfect work there
is not so much demand for lodges, and yet there is a fraternity among
them not always manifest in the churches.
CHAPTER XXXVII
PUBLIC UTILITIES IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
While on the face of things it seems that public necessities should be
public trusts, private ownership of public utilities is the prevailing con-
dition. While government control of public utilities may be inconsistent
with private ownership, there are men who advocate it and the United
States postal system is a strong social argument. They would have public
utihties shared by all. While the Bible says : "God made man in His own
image," Disraeli once declared: "But the public is made by the news-
papers." And there are those who deny the freedom of the press with
reference to the discussion of utilities, saying the truth is unknown to the
masses about such things.
Just as the use of the word conservation causes the thoughtful mmd
to revert to the late Theodore Roosevelt, and the word reciprocity recalls
the "plumed knight," James G. Blaine, the term public utilities is always
associated with the commission or with someone promoting such things,
and the railroads, traction lines and public highways have already been
discussed, leaving the telegraph system— the Western Union and Postal
systems, both in use in Williams County. "What God hath wrought,"
was the first message ever flashed over the wire established in 1840
between Baltimore and Washington. Since then the telegraph, throug;h
its wireless branch and the cable system, has encircled the world. It is
said that a woman suggested the first telegraph message from Baltimore.
However, the noonday of the nineteenth century has been passed in the
onward march long before the modern improvements that made of civili-
zation a simplified problem had evolved from the brain of the genius,
and the element of profit from the ownership of public conveniences had
taken deep hold on the mind of the speculator.
The telegraph office followed in the wake of the railroad in Williams
County, but for a long time the public only used it when sending death
or funeral notices. M. C. McGuire of Edgerton, who is now the senior
telegraph employe along the line of the New York Central Railroad,
remembers well when nothing but market reports and death notices were
transmitted by telegraph. Now the night letters by telegraph are fre-
quently used in business correspondence when speed is necessary. It used
to cost $1.50 to send a ten-word message to Chicago. Mr. McGuire has
been an operator fifty-five years, and has been half a century in his pres-
ent position. He conducted a school of telegraphy in Edgerton forty-
four years, and he has trained 1,500 operators, 950 of whom found posi-
tions with the New York Central Railway. Mr. McGuire is now relieved
of the details of telegraphy and sells the railroad tickets in Edgerton. _
Many years ago Horace S. Knapp, a historian of some note, said:
"The transition almost confuses the mind to contemplate, when viewed in
334 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
all its length and breadth. What marvelous changes in the means of
transmitting intelligence have been produced in a period less than a half
century. Today at any railroad station in Williams County, connected
with which is a telegraph office, one may transmit a message 2,000 miles
distant, or even to Europe or the Orient, and receive to it an answer in
less space of time than a half century ago, would have been consumed by
the speediest mode of travel then known to make the distance from
Pioneer to Stryker and return, and during the January and June floods
that then appeared as regularly as the seasons, to communicate with a
neighbor ten miles distant." But A. D. 1920, Williams County residents
have known the results of the national political conventions assembled in
Chicago and San Francisco within a few hours afterward ; the telegraph
wire and the printing press combining to bring the message. The same
writer says, further: "Imagine a pioneer who about three months after
the presidential election in 1832, received an eastern letter or newspaper
conveying to him the information that Andrew Jackson had been elected
President of the United States in the previous November.
"If the settler happened to be a Jackson man he donned his hunting
shirt and coonskin cap and sallied forth in search of the few neighbors
of his political faith to communicate the glad tidings to them, and mingle
their rejoicings over it. The news of the result of a presidential election
is now known in every considerable city and town in the United States
and Europe within twenty-four hours after the close of the polls." And it
requires no stretch of the imagination to believe the foregoing statement,
since before the bandits have reached Toledo again, news of the bank
robbery in Delta, May 20, 1920. is heralded in Bryan by interurban trav-
elers who were coming into that town as the robbers were leaving it.
The Friend on the Wall
It has always been said telephone or tell-a-woman, and now that the
majority of Williams County residents are connected by the friend on
the wall — the telephone — it is of interest to know that in 1879, about the
time it was used anywhere, the telephone was first introduced into Wil-
liams County. Businessmen went to nearby cities to see it, and forty
years later there are 6,400 telephones in use in Williams County. With
a population of 24,000, that means that one in four persons have the
daily telephone service and, since the families average at least four per-
sons, all the men, women and children in the county use the telephone.
R. A. Russell of Bryan relates that a short time before phones were in
use Fred Kemp had a restaurant on the public square and his two sons,
Theodore and Fred, experimented with it, using wires and tin cans for
batteries. They punched holes in pennies and attached them to the skin
from a drum-head drawn over the cans, and with a line about town they
could talk distinctly on it. Mr. Russell thinks this was at least a year
before the phone was installed as a commercial fixture in Bryan.
It was in 1882 that the telephone came into general use locally — not
general, either, because for many years only the business houses had it.
The system has now been expanded until Williams County is a network
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 335
of telephones, the Williams County Telephone Company having extended
its lines in every direction. It has 1,400 phones in Bryan; 1,200 in Mont-
pelier ; 450 in Edon ; 450 in Pioneer, and 100 at Alvordton. West Unity,
Kunkle, Edgerton and Stryker have independent telephone systems.
There are 900 phones in West Unity ; 300 in Kunkle ; 900 in Edgerton,
and 700 in Stryker — the rural connections included in all statements.
There is a one-man telephone company at Kunkle while the others are
stock companies.
Light and Heat in Williams County
The Toledo and Indiana Electric Railway Company has a light and
power electric plant in Stryker which generates power for the operation
of its cars, furnishes power and light in Stryker, West Unity and Mont-
pelier; the Williams County Home being supplied through West Unity.
Bryan has its own municipal light and power plant, supplying light,
power and water to Bryan consumers. There have been electric lights in
Bryan since 1889 — the use limited for many years to the stores, and the
arc light being used, but this is the electric age and almost every family
uses electricity. A stock company has been organized at Stryker to light
farmhouses with electricity. A great many farm homes are lighted with
private electric plants. The Bryan municial lighting plant attracts visitors
because of its completeness, and it was built with the thought of future
needs as well as present conditions. It has a million-gallon storage reser-
voir, and nowhere is there better water than bubbles out of the curbstone
fountains in Bryan. When the municipal lighting and water plant has
completed its landscape effort there will be another attractive park in
Bryan.
The Ohio Gas Company located in Bryan and organized under state
laws, furnishes artificial gas to Bryan consumers and to other towns in
Williams County. There has been some local natural gas development
but never in paying quantities, although there is at present an experi-
mental well being sunk just east of Bryan. While there were not satis-
factory results from local developments a few years ago, some felt that
conditions were better than reported at the time — hence the 1920 effort to
reach gas or oil in the community. The price of the commodity keeps
coming up for settlement, and a sliding scale has been adopted in some
places, the price to be regulated by the expense of coal, labor, etc. ; ordi-
nances in the different towns having similar provisions governing it.
— CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE MUSICAL LIFE OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Primarily speaking, the musical life of Williams County has not been
different from that of other localities having similar opportunities and
conditions. It is simply a part of the great forward movement of the
world. It is an easy thing to imagine the boy or girl on the Sahara desert
blowing upon a blade of grass (if he could locate the grass), and where
is the boy who never whittled out an elder and made a whistle of it?
The Williams County settler was so "hungry" for music that he impro-
vised many crude ways of producing it. The Aeolian harp made from
horse hairs, or if they had it — silk thread, was a delight when they
stretched it in the window and caught the air vibrations.
The Indians who inhabited Williams County before the white man
happened along made their own music and danced around the camp fires
to the weird strains and there has been some efifort to revive an interest
in it. There was always music over the hills and dales — the first stillness
of the morning air — the blending of Nature's sounds is music with a
mesmerism all its own, the song of the meadow lark or the note of the
first robin. To keep forever in the heart the thrill awakened by the
woodland sounds is to remain forever young, and it serves to lighten
the hardest task in the world. The call of the jaybird is suggestive of
the out-of-doors. He is a restless creature and it is natural for him to
be on the wing, calling: "Jay, Jay, Jay." The frog, the locust, the katy-
did and cricket — each has its peculiar musical note, and begs pardon of
all the others. Think of the grand chorus on the morning air — the
leading musicians all in Nature's orchestra.
The musical situation years ago was simply this : prejudice, ignorance,
intolerance on the one hand and a hunger for music, an enthusiasm that
stopped at no hardship on the other. Music, however, has won the day
and this is a musical nation even though some residents of Williams
County do enjoy ragtime. There was once a Mendelssohn musical
organization in Bryan, about the earliest attempt at things musical
although it has long been a has-wasser in the community. In its day the
people enjoyed the concerts given by those old-time singers, and someone
harking back to other days has penned these lines :
"There's a lot of music in them, the hymns of the long ago.
And when some gray haired brother sings the ones I used to know
I sorter want to take a hand — I think o' days gone by,
'On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand, and cast a wistful eye,' "
and the classical music of today does not stir the heart more than the
old, old songs.
While some of the pioneers were circumscribed, in their understanding
of things, thinking that any pleasure not an absolute necessity was sin,
336
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 337
whenever the song sparrow orchestra started up with Mr. Cardinal as chief
soloist and musical Bob White as the conductor, the hoe always moved
more riierrily down the long rows of corn, and when the earth thus
seemed fair and good why should they stop their ears? Their posterity
today who enjoy good music are glad they were unable to banish it from
the world. The stately rhythm ;
"When Music, heavenly maid, was young
When first in early Greece she sung,"
should be so reconstructed that it would read in Williams County. When
Judge C. A. Bowersox used to teach singing school half a century and
more ago, there were some good singers in the northernmost county
of Ohio, and across the line in Indiana. He lived near Edgerton.
Unique in the way of anniversaries was the reunion and concert given
in Big Run Chapel across the line in Indiana, Sunday, November 28,
1915, by an old-time singing class taught by Judge Bowersox at Big
Run, Casebere's, Jerusalem, Bellefontaine. Franklin Center and Wes-
leyan Chapel half a century ago. In 1865 these singing classes were
organized and after the lapse of fifty years they sang together again.
A newspaper account says : "Think of a chorus of sixty-four voices
after a rest of fifty years breaking forth in pealing anthems, sacred
hymns and sentimental songs. Voices a little husky and rusty in the
beginning, but in a short time all were down to business like the old vet-
erans they were, the singers ranging in age from sixty-two to seventy-
four years — think of it! Where can another such a grand choir be
found? The old church was caused to ring as it never rang before and
will probably never ring again, and in reminiscence the old singing
master reviewed the history of the class."
Along about that time Judge Bowersox taught singing at Edon, and
the roads were never so muddy nor the nights so dark nor the weather so
bad, but there was a good attendance. They used the Jubilee singing
book, and were the judge to call for it how many copies are still in
existence? Would the old guard come together again? The span of a
human life has cycled into eternity since that time, and few are left
who remember the Jubilee singing l30ok of that long ago. While Judge
Bowersox sometimes encounters men and women who belonged to those
old-time singing classes, and they ask if he still carries the tuning fork
of other days, he never disappoints them. It is his pocket piece at all
times. The Olive Branch was the singing book in use when he taught at
West Bethesda.
The Ohio Harmonist is a music book published in Columbus in 1852
and Judge Bowersox speaks of it as the first music book with notes
introduced in Williams County. It was published by Alexander Auld,
and Aaron Patterson brought a copy of it to Edon. He lived in the
woods in Florence Township, and this song book had the patent of
buckwheat notes so common years ago. Three parts : treble, tenor and
bass, were written, and in it was the song: "The White Pilgrim,"
the first verse reading:
338 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
"I came to the spot where the White Pilgrim lay,
And pensively stood by his tomb.
Then in a low whisper a voice seemed to say,
How sweetly I sleep here alone,"
and the story goes that the White Pilgrim had come from the south, and
a brother who afterward came in search of him had written the lines
of the song. While it will never be a popular song again, Judge Bower-
sox says the writer of the music of half a century ago caught and
embalmed in it the spirit of the poet who wrote the words.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," and some highly
civilized peoples are carried away with it. On the fly leaf of one of
Judge Bowersox's old music books is the sentiment:
"I want to hear the old songs,
I never hear them now —
The tunes that cheer the tired heart,
And smooth the careworn brow,"
and when sufficiently urged he sings them. There were joyous gatherings
in some of the community centers fifty years ago, when people came in
wagons or walking and carried torches to light them home again. While
the trend of civilization is away from the rural church and school of
other days, it is with sad hearts that some of the older ones note the
changes. Put your soul into the music ; therein lies the magic, no matter
whether the performer be a finished musician or "just picking it out by
ear." Who would not like to hear again such numbers as : "The Maid-
en's Prayer," "An Indian Lodge," "To a Wild Rose," and "Down by the
Waters of Babylon"?
One of the early day violinists of Williams County — ^they called him
a fiddler — was John H. Stubbs of the vicinity of Stryker, and John A.
Baird enlisted as a musician in Company H, of the Thirty-Eighth Ohio
Volunteer Infantry. He was promoted to fife major and then he became
the principal musician of the regiment. Perhaps the call of the patriotic
or martial is the best example illustrating the influence of music on the
human emotions. Sometimes there is music without words that conveys
the most intense feeling, sometimes producing sadness and at other
times gladness, and the old masters felt this in all their compositions.
James Whitcomb Riley once said:
"Thinkin' back's a thing that grows.
On a feller, I suppose;
Older 'at he gets, I jack.
More he keeps a thinkin' back,"
and that is essential in gathering up the scattered threads in any depart-
ment of history.
It is said that more songs came out of the Civil war than from any
other one period in American history. "Nellie Gray" did as much to
create sentiment as did "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and "Tramp, tramp,
tramp," will not die while there are Civil war soldiers. While the old-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 339
fashioned singing school had its part in perfecting the congregational
singing of hymns — dignified verse set to stately tunes that taught the
whole saving grace, the war songs taught patriotism to all. They were
sung with spirit, such songs as : "Take up your gun and go, John," and
later : "We are coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand strong,"
and then the time came when ; "Just Before the Battle, Mother," and
"Tenting Tonight" was the expression of saddened hearts. While peo-
ple were awed at emancipation there came another song: "Wake Nico-
demus today," that was more joyful, and "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic," coming just at the opportune time from the pen of Mrs. Julia
Ward Howe, and set to the "Glory Hallelujah" tune never will be for-
gotten now since it is recognized as one of the national airs. "The
Vacant Chair" was one of the saddest songs growing out of the Civil
war.
Today people do not sing about the high cost of living, and even
woman's suffrage has not produced anything enduring, nor does the
world sing of the Panama Canal which was the greatest engineering feat
of the ages, and the fulfillment of the hopes of many years, and it is
conceded that war and love are all that stir the emotions. Perhaps "The
Rose of No Man's Land" and "Tipperary" will live in history. Nothing
else has come from the World war to compare with the songs of the
Civil war. It is said the curse of modern music is commercialism, and
people object to it because they miss something in it. Coleridge says :
"Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the
powers of manhood." and after singing schools had enabled the people
to sing collectively they began sitting In groups in the churches so they
could sing well together, and thus was evolved the choir — the war
department, of the church of today. The enriched church service grew
out of the trained singers giving their time and talent to such things.
Since 1888, Prof. F. A. Tubbs has had much to do with shaping the
musical future of Williams County. He has been 'private teacher and
supervisor of music in public schools, and his influence is not limited to
Bryan. Through his influence a course of study has been introduced
and a system of credits inaugurated that is used in other towns. In this
way pupils receive credit for private study, and it encourages them for
further effort. Bryan is the first school board in Ohio to introduce the
system, and it is a benediction to competent private music teachers.
Just so the pupil can pass the test of musical attainment it does not
matter where he obtains his musical education. For five years Professor
Tubbs was a private music teacher, but since 1893 he has had charge
of music in the public schools.
Professor Tubbs located in Bryan as a bandmaster, there having been
a band in Bryan continuously since 1852, with occasional short lapses,
and John Connin was the first bandmaster. He was a capable musician,
and today the name Connin is represented in both the Municipal Band
and the boys' band in Bryan. The name has come down through all
the years, and it had been designated as the Bryan Band, the Fountain
City Band and the Sixth Regiment Band, before assuming the present
title, Tubb's Municipal Band. This municipal organization is now main-
340 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
tained by taxation, Professor Tubbs being employed by the city, and all
who wish it may have a musical education. While Mr. Connin was
bandmaster, E. K. Ferris was an early band teacher in Williams County.
There has been a band in Montpelier "off and on" for fifty years. There
have always been private music teachers in all of the towns. The law
provides for the expense of band instruction, and other communities take
advantage of it. While there are no musical prodigies, it is said there
is considerable musical talent in all of the towns. Mr. Tubbs has a
student band of fifty boys in Bryan.
The centralized schools at Stryker and West Unity have the same
outline course in music as Bryan, since Professor Tubbs is supervisor in
those towns. Montpelier maintains a supervisor of music, and some
attention is given to musical training in other towns. When Professor
Tubbs completed his outline of the course of study in music, he sent
copies of it to The Musical Courier and to Musical America, two of the
foremost musical periodicals in the United States, and he received
some flattering comments on it. His outline has since been adopted in
many communities, letters of inquiry coming in from all over the country
about it. Young men have gone from Tubb's Municipal Band, and taken
positions in some of the best bands in the country.
The credit work in the Bryan public schools has been an excellent
thing in the musical life of Williams County. The May Musical Festival
has become a possibility, given annually by the public schools and the
community sometimes assisted by outside talent, and all the oratorios are
a possibility. There are two pipe organs in Bryan — the Presbyterian and
Methodist churches, and there is considerable orchestral music. There
are pianos in many rural homes as well as in the homes of the town, and
there are some who remember the cabinet organ and the melodeon which,
had their time of popularity when pianos were rare in the diflferent
communities. Through the player piano and the forms of the phono-
graph, the compositions of the best writers are available to all. The lack
of leadership in music has been the handicap in many communities. It
is said that singing always creates an appetite for food, and there are
some good singers in Williams County.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WILLIAMS COUNTY IN THE WARS
"In time of peace prepare for war."
The wars of the past are sufficient blot on civilization.
War is the oldest sin of the nations. It has been styled scientific
international suicide, and many people accept the trite definition original
with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman : "War is hell."
It is said that war does not determine the merit of any question. "In
time of peace prepare for war," has been the slogan although its teach-
ing is at cross purposes with the policy of arbitration. The Prophet
Isaiah said: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and
their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more," and in the face of the
foregoing Williams County has had its part in several conflicts. It
seemed that the saber had rusted in its sheath, and that the cannon's lips
had grown cold, and that the plowshares and the pruning hooks had
played their part in advanced civilization, and the "bloody shirt" was no
longer waved in local party politics at all.
It was said that with present day munitions of war, a pitched battle
would not last longer than a June frost. It would be wholesale destruc-
tion and none would be left to bury the dead. It was thought civiliza-
tion had advanced too far for warfare ever again to sway the country.
When one contemplates the horrors of war — nation against nation — he
wonders that so many centuries cycled by before the world awakened
to arbitration. The public mind had changed, and in future the battles
of the world would be fought with ballots rather than bullets, and the
average citizen had no conception of a World war, as Secretary of
State William Jennings Bryan had attempted to federate all the nations
of the earth in a peace pact universal, and many of them had signified
their acceptance of the conditions. War vessels were to be converted
into merchant marine, arbitration was to solve the problems of the
nations, and belligerent powers would soon become an obsolete expres-
sion among the nations of the world. The Peace Tribunal at The Hague
had been the solution of the whole thing.
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities ; all is vanity.
— Ecclesiastics, 2.
Because it bears the name of a Revolutionary patriot — David Wil-
liams, and because some Revolutionary soldiers found rest in its bosom
— Mother Earth, Williams County has direct point of contact with the
war that established the United States a nation, and through all its vicis-
situdes the spirit of 1776 has been kept alive, and there is divine purpose
in it all. the spirit of the Colonists have been transmitted, and a pluribus
unum is the result.
341
342 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
When one stops to enumerate the wars through which his ancestry
and his contemporaries have passed, he reahzes that time is passing and
wonders when he last Hstened to the reading of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence on a festal day. When read in the spirit in which it is written it
is a masterpiece of literature. While it is the document of the ages
humdrum reading ruins it. When it used to be read as part of every
Fourth of July celebration there were always orations dripping with
patriotism following it, and everybody seemed to enjoy it. However,
there has been a new interpretation placed on the word patriotism. It
is quite as patriotic in the light of the world's needs to take up the hoe
as the gun, and the young man may perform just as valiant service in
the cornfield as on the field of battle. It was Betsy Ross who designed
the American flag, but with no Patriotic Societies — S. A. R. or D. A. R.
in Williams County to teach the use of it, the G. A. R. would do well
to investigate and teach patriotism in displaying it. On Decoration Day,
A. D. 1920, there were many flags displayed on the line of march from
the courthouse square in Bryan to Fountain Grove Cemetery, but there
was no uniformity, and thus the "stars and stripes" seemed at war with
each other. In the Auditorium at the Memorial service, the American
flag was hanging wrong and that fact detracts from the beauty of it,
when one understands about it.
An old account says that Benjamin Fickle who was a Revolutionary
soldier died in October, 1839, in Jefferson township, and that he was
buried on the Isaac Fickle farm, and that in 1888, when the farm was
sold the body was exhumed and reinterred in April of that year in
Fountain Grove Cemetery. Considerable effort was made to learn the
life story of this soldier, and one man remarked : "The Fickles seem
to have 'faded away,' " when the clue he had given proved unavailing in
obtaining information. People who had known them in the past were
not authority about them today.
In Fountain Grove Cemetery, and under the shade of a maple tree
just north of the foot bridge across the lily lagoon is the grave of a
Revolutionary soldier, although the sexton whose book is supposed' to
contain the names of all who are buried there has no record of it. The
information in one of the old histories gives the name Benjamin, while
the metal marker at this grave has the name "D. Fickle" on it, with
seven stars indicating the Revolutionary War and "War 1776," and even
the commander of the Evans Post G. A. R. could tell nothing about it.
The grave is always decorated, but half a dozen veterans interviewed on
the subject had no knowledge that the soldier buried there was not a
fallen hero of the Civil war. If Williams County would request it,
this grave would be marked with a Revolutionary marker in addition
to the metal staff" indicating the lowly bed of this Colonial fighter who
helped make this country a nation. While one book refers to Comrade
Fickle as perhaps the only Revolutionary soldier sleeping on Williams
County soil, another speaks of Abraham Hagerman who died in Brady
township, although nothing is known of his history. While some said
he lay buried in Schiffler Cemetery, those most familiar with the ceme-
tery had no knowledge of such a grave. There was a rumor that a
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 343
Revolutionary soldier lies buried in Superior township west from Mont-
pelier, but nothing further was heard from it. The following couplet
should be true:
"On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
But glory guards with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead,"
and it will perhaps be the pleasure of the Grand Army or the American
Legion to sometime locate those unknown graves.
The biography section of this "Centennial History of Wilharns
County" shows that a number of Williams County families trace their
descent from soldiers of 1812— the second war with England, although
as yet there are no patriotic societies growing out of that war. While
at the time of this war Williams County was not on the map in definite
outline, it affords a resting place for many of them. Almost every ceme-
tery has graves of soldiers of 1812, and there are five such graves in
the Schiffler Cemetery. Some of these soldiers are represented in the
older Williams County histories.
By the time of the difficulty with Mexico in the '40s, Williams County
had attained to a population of more than 10,000— old Williams County,
but when in May, 1846, President James K. Polk issued a call for troops,
the territory had been reduced and the population had been split in
halves. Defiance County having changed things. A recruiting station
was opened at Defiance for the Fifteenth U. S. Infantry, and volunteer
enlistments resulted in the organization of Company B, made up of
local soldiers. This company was attached to the Fifteenth regiment and
went with it to Mexico. Governor Bartley was tendered the service of
more men than were required to fill Ohio's quota. The student of his-
tory knows there have been Mexican difficulties almost continuously
since the outbreak in the '40s, fourscore years ago. Captain Daniel
Chase was in command of Company B, and Lieutenants Goodloe and
Wiley assisted him. Lieutenant Wiley was then a Bryan newspaper
man. Jacob C. Ryan who lies buried in Fountain Grove was the last
Mexican soldier in Williams County. He lived in Columbiana County
and enlisted from Wooster, not having lived in Williams County until
after his service in the Mexican war. He was wounded at Buena
Vista.
Williams County's first military demonstration was in connection
with the Mexican war, and afterward the pioneers were too busy keep-
ing the wolf from the door for muster days. Fourth of July celebra-
tions, etc., and yet there was an incipient flame of patriotism that only
needed fanning to a blaze when occasion required it. Some of the town-
ships had military days, and Bryan had an artillery squad, having secured
a brass fieldpiece from the state, and:
"Into a ward of white-washed halls.
Where the dead and dying lay.
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls
Somebody's darling was borne one day,"
344 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
again meant something to Williams County in the Civil war. While they
were never any further identified with the community, an old account
says that Major Suttenfield and his wife followed the trail in the War
of 1812, passing through W'illiams County enroute from Fort Wayne to
Detroit. However, only the Indians welcomed them.
War is a conflict of ideas, and the Civil war clash was over States
Sovereignty and the slavery question. There was a clash of democracy
and autocracy that long ago. There were mutterings and evidences of
internal strife, and the question of human slavery convulsed the whole
country. Legislative compromises were no longer effective, and when
in the presidential campaign of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected it
looked like abolition of slavery would be the next thing confronting the
people of the United States. The greatest problems of the ages have
all been solved on the field of battle — war has been the solution, and
bloodshed has paved the way for many things. It seems that the events
of the ages are not mere occurrences — that they are parts of God's
eternal plans, and the lessons of the centuries have been written in
blood.
The ^^■illiams County soldiers in the Civil war wrote their chapter
in United States history, along with the rest qf the country. The Thirty-
Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was raised in Williams County, and
there were 600 Williams County boys in Companies A, E and H, with
Col. O. S. Bradley, and Captains B. F. Greenwood and W. E. Wag-
stafif in command, and the Twenty-first Ohio numbered 1,000 men — ■
Williams County's contribution to the war. None of them would brook
disloyalty, and traitors were made to salute the flag — a sentiment that
has been handed down to their posterity. There is nothing Turkish
about Uncle Sam's American Eagle — the Bird of Freedom, and when
he ruffled his feathers and spread his wings — well, thereby hangs the
story. While President Lincoln faced an unprecedented crisis in Amer-
ican history, and the people were in uncertainty and doubt, he did not at
once interfere with human slavery.
However, when the slave-holding states began passing secession ordi-
nances, South Carolina first of all, it was necessary for him to take some
decisive action in th^ matter. While the new-born Republican party had
not taken a direct stand against the slavery question, its leaders were
among the avowed opponents of that institution, and when the President
declared that the country could not exist half free and half slave, there
was response in Williams County.
The South accepted Lincoln's election as a menace, and the doctrine
of States Rights as paramount to national control was openly taught
by John C. Calhoun. It was on December 20, 1860, that South Caro-
lina took the initiative in passing a secession ordinance, other states
following in quick succession and autonomy was the rule until 1861,
when a peace commission met in Baltimore with the far-reaching purpose
of safeguarding the Union, but Jefferson Davis was chosen President
of the Confederacy and decisive action was necessary. While meetings
were being held all over the country and plans were being considered,
the gun was fired that was heard round the world — the attack had been
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 345
made on Fort Sumter. On April 12, 1861, had been inaugurated a war
— domestic strife, men and brothers fighting against each other. It was
worse than fighting a common enemy — this war to the finish among the
people of one country, and the question was whether or not it should
be rent asunder, or remain one country. It has already been said that
Lincoln's call for troops met with response in Williams County.
There must always be a planting of moral and patriotic ideas before
there is personal or national advancement, and the human voice in appeal-
ing song has always had telling effect in stirring people to action. The
songs growing out of the Civil war have never had parallel in American
history. The New England Puritan conscience was aroused by William
Lloyd Garrison, Joshua R. Giddings, Wendell Phillips, John Greenleaf
Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and
Julia Ward Howe, and the printed page — poems and song, the winged
arrows of God's truth were unlimited in their effectiveness. There was
a revival of the feeling of accovmtability to God as a result, and it spread
all over the country, Williams County being in line with the rest of the
world. When Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's great story. "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," made its appearance in serial form, there were Williams County
men and women who never needed to read it again.
Some one has said that if he could write the hymns of a nation he
would stand responsible for its religion, and the same holds good with
with reference to patriotism. The song writer teaches the morals of the
nation, and such war songs as "Three Cheers for the Red, White and
Blue," "The Army and Navy Forever," and "Hail Columbia," enable
the people to come up to Bunker Hill, Lexington and the later struggles
fully understanding their significance. Some of the war songs of the
past were as effective in the way of promoting enlistments, and arousing
men and women to deeds of sacrifice and heroism as the telling patriotic
addresses from the recruiting officers. Sometimes it is necessary to
inspire optimism in order to tide a nation over a crisis.
The American flag has never been carried into any war without
righteous cause, and it never yet has trailed in defeat and when the aged
men of the Civil war heard the country's call they were only boys, and
when emancipation became the outstanding question January 1, 1863,
and the men of the north invaded the south to remove the shackles of
human slavery, Williams County volunteers were among them. Four
days after Fort Sumter had been fired upon, there was a called meeting
in the Williams County courthouse. The speakers were: A. M. Pratt,
W. A. Smith, Joshua Dobbs, S. E. Blakeslee and others, and they said
it was a time for deeds rather than words. Isaac R. Sherwood was
the first volunteer, and two days later 112 men drawn from all parts of
the county went to Toledo to join their regiments. B. H. Fisher was
captain of the company raised at Bryan, with Lieutenants E. J. Evans
and E. M. Deucher, while Colonel Bradley who had been in the Mexican
war was in command of the company from Stryker.
The story of Israel Putnam who left the plow in the field to join
the Colonial forces has always had its influence in American history.
Professional men, business men, mechanics and farmer boys alike
346 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
responded to tlie call for troops from Williams Covinty. While some
went out for only three months at the beginning, there was never lack
of men to fill the quota. In the four years war Ohio met every demand,
and Williams County had its part in supplying soldiers. However, the
story is told that one time at Williams Center when there was seeming
lethargy, Bannister Ir'oole whose age disqualified him for service came
forward and Colonel Greenwood, the recruiting officer, thinking he
wanted to be friendly, proffered his hand, but Mr. Poole asked for the
pen, saying: "Our Union is threatened; our flag has been insulted. If
the young men don't go we old men must go," and as a result one of
the best companies in Williams County was organized there.
When Company H was being organized at Pulaski, Albert Opdycke
who was a soldier in the War of 1812 was in the community. As a
recruiting officer he was given a flag by the women of Pulaski, and when
it floated over his shoulder the young boys began volunteering for serv-
ice, and that flag though tattered still does Decoration Day service in
the community. On April 29, 1861, the women of Bryan gave a banner
to Captain Fisher who was the first to depart as leader of a company
from the county seat, and while the mothers, sisters, wives and sweet-
hearts were all filled with sentiment toward the soldiers leaving for the
fortunes of war, after a few months they all settled down to the stern
realities. While the men and boys were at the front the women and
girls were not idle, and everything on a war basis sentiment was not
wholly banished as war relief under the leadership of the sanitary com-
mission claimed their attention.
In time of the Civil war there were Chicago and Toledo papers read
in Williams County as there are today, the railroad service being excel-
lent at the time. When there was favorable news there was great rejoic-
ing, the people gathering in groups to discuss it. The women continued
scraping lint for bandages and there were public and private donations
to the Federal cause until after the fall of Appomatox. The people
of W' illiams County understand this feeling of anxiety much better today
than they did prior to April 6, 1917, when the United States Government
declared war against Germany. In many of the churches Kipling's
Recessional : "Lest We Forget, Lord, Lest We Forget," is sung as a
mental suggestion. It is known that finally there were Williams County
soldiers in the Fourteenth, Thirty-eighth, .Sixty-eighth, One Hundredth,
One Hundred Eleventh, and One Hundred Forty-Second regiments of
infantry, and the Third and Ninth regiments of cavalry, beside all who
crossed the Ohio border and enlisted in Indiana and Michigan regiments.
No complete list will ever be made showing the names of all of them.
In the Bryan library is a flag that was presented by patriotic women
when members of the Thirty-eighth Regiment were home on a furlough
in January, 1864, and Col. William Choate assured them: "We will
defend it with our lives," and the pledge was kept to the letter on the
bloody field of Jonesborough, Georgia, where on September 1, the gal-
lant colonel with many of his men laid down their lives for the Union.
Four color bearers were shot that day carrying this banner, and when
Charles Donzey finally seized it he carried it forward and through the bat-
Hiram Louden Post No. 15:
348 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
tie. When Donzey died many years later his funeral service was con-
ducted in the Bryan Universalist Church, and at his request Judge C. A.
Bowersox delivered the eulogy, telling the story of this flag. It was
draped about his casket in the service. When it was finally left to the
custody of J. R. Oldfield he placed it in the Bryan library, and there it
tells the story again and again. It is a silent lesson in patriotism.
Williams County soldiers distinguished themselves in the Civil war.
There were merited promotions and there were privates who objected to
promotion from the ranks. To them $13 a month did not seem like
profiteering, and among the G. A. R. veterans still living are men who
marched with General Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, and the camp
fire stories never wane in interest to them. The Blue and the Gray —
today the world sees visions of another color. Query to the boys of
'61: Is there a soldier blue overcoat in existence today? Some of the
members of the four Grand Army posts would like to see one again.
There are eighty members of Hiram Louden Post in Rlontpelier, and
this post owns its own property in the business section of the town.
There is a storeroom below with lodge and library above it, and Evans
Bechtol who is the central figure in the group picture did more to pro-
mote its welfare than any other soldier there. There are forty members
in the Evans Post in Bryan ; twenty veterans still survive in Rings
Post in West Unity, and there are twenty soldiers in the Slaughter Post
in Edgerton. About one-fourth of the 600 men marching away from
Williams County are living today, and most of them are enrolled in
the four G. A. R. posts of the county. Some live in other parts of the
country. In 1912, the W. A. Slaughter Post at Edgerton — G. A. R.
and W. R. C, assisted by many patriotic citizens of Edgerton and
vicinity, erected a monument in the center of the town : "To the mem-
ory of those who served the country," and on one side is the inscrip-
tion: "One country. One flag." On gala days Old Glory floats from
this monument.
W^hile Williams County soldiers were readv for the service on short
notice, the Civil war was a losing game at first for the North. The
little before breakfast job of overcoming the South was prolonged, but
as men were needed they were forthcoming from Williams and adjoining
counties with a recruiting station at Fort Defiance. The chaplain with
the Thirty-eighth Ohio was the Rev. John Poucher of the Methodist
Church in West Unity. He was an Englishman who had joined the
Ohio Conference in 1857, and he soon proved his Americanism. On the
public highway between Bryan and West LInity, near the deflection of
the Strvker road is a boulder bearing the inscription : "Old Bill," with
the information that a Civil war army horse thirty-eight years old lies
buried there. The grave is on land owned by Arthur Youse.
\^■hile the Williams County Battalion of the past has only included
Civil war soldiers, J. C. Oldfield who promotes the meetings plans to
include all military men of Williams County in its annual meetings at
the Williams County fair at Montpelier. In time he hopes to see the
men of '98 and '17 taking the lead in promoting it. In her Camp Fire
Book in the Bryan library, Kate Brownlee Sherwood, wife of the first
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 349
Civil war volunteer from Williams County, writes: "In the spirit of
fraternity, charity and loyalty to whose majestic measures the veterans
of the G. A. R. have timed their steps, I bring these simple recitals of
fealty and valor, in honor of the living and in reverent memory of the
dead, and lay them on the altar of my country, reunited, regenerated
and at peace." A nation of story-tellers was an outgrowth of the Civil
war, as there were not so many daily newspapers then to claim attention,
and all enjoyed the recitals of their adventures by the soldiers who spent
the best of their lives in the service. A grateful republic holds them in
remembrance today. A nation was plunged into sorrow and debt because
of human slavery. Northern homes are desolate because of those who
lie buried on the battlefields of the South, \^■hen the soldiers in blue
talked with those in gray as they lay dying on the fields of battle, they
buried their differences as they told of homes and friends. They were
of the same country and had interests in common, and death made them
brothers again.
In 1861 there were few whistles and quick methods of communica-
tion in W'illiams County, and when there was a call to arms the recruit-
ing officers were busy, but the onward march of civilisation has changed
things. When the call came again in 1898, a number of young men had
received military education — in time of peace prepare for war, and
"Remember the Maine," electrified the whole coimtry. When there was
a call for volunteers in the Spanish-American war, the young men of
Williams County responded instantly. All that was required of them
was to raise the Sixteenth O. N. G' to war strength, and on Saturday
and Sunday 106 able-bodied young men offered themselves, and on
Monday they were enroute to Toledo, Company E being up to war
requirements. They were at the training camp before the community
was aware that a military company was leaving Williams County. The
grapevine messages seemed to reach eligible young men and in short order
they were United States soldiers ready to go to the rescue of the Cubans.
It was an April day that the young men of Williams County went
to Toledo, and from there to Columbus where they were mustered out
of the Sixteenth O. N. G. and into the Sixth O. V. I., and they were
transferred immediately to Chickamauga Park, and from there to Knox-
ville and almost before they realized it they were in Cuba. They spent
four months in the army of occupation there, and after an absence of
thirteen months they were in Williams County again. They were mus-
tered out in Augusta, Georgia. They had uniforms of the same color
as those worn by the soldier in the Civil war. While only a few died
in service, there is but a small percentage of the Spanish-American sol-
diers who enlisted here living in Williams County today. While the
difficulty with Spain is overshadowed by the war with Germany, there
was no lack of military spirit then, and while they do not emphasize their
soldier activities, those who live in Williams County join in as private
citizens in all community affairs. They displayed sufficient loyalty at the
time, and now they are glad they encountered no worse conditions.
While the 1916 campaign slogan was: "He kept us out of war,"
Williams County citizens were again called upon to give their sons and
350 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
brothers into the World war, and questionnaire and profiteer are new
words in the Enghsh language growing out of it. While 175 young
men had volunteered, after the United States declared war against Ger-
many, April 6, 1917, there were 1,200 young men drafted from Williams
County. Again the purpose was to raise the Sixth O. V. I. to war
strength, but the lines of military demarcation soon vanished, and they
became part of the United States Infantry, Navy or whatever the depart-
ment of service. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and the
Divine Right of Kings idea suffered many jolts of criticism — was almost
lost in the shuffle. It was the pivotal hour upon which the fortune of the
world turned when the United States entered the war, and again Wil-
liams County had its part in giving of its best to the service. The Allied
Nations were standing with their backs to the wall in hopeless defense
when the young men of America entered the overseas warfare. While
there were some "flat feet," the young men of Williams County did not
shrink from overseas service.
While many Williams County boys were attached to the One Hundred
Forty-seventh Infantry, the time came when O. V. I. was swallowed
up by U. S. I., the local boys were widely scattered and connected with
many different branches of overseas service. About sixty-five per cent
of all who enlisted performed service "Over there," and "Somewhere in
France," was all their friends knew about them. While some were
killed in battle, the overseas losses were not as heavy as those sustained
in the training camps in the United States. The Charles E. Arnold Post
No. 284 in Bryan, of which Charles R. Ames is commander is in com-
memoration of a splendid young man who lost his life overseas — a fallen
hero in Flanders Field. Mr. Ames, commander of the Arnold Post
American Legion has personal knowledge of all W^illiams County's 1,200
soldiers, and the object of the organization is to promote one hundred
per cent Americanism.
While there were 175 volunteers, there were three different draft
groups of soldiers left Williams County. While married men were
exempt from the draft, some of them made sufficient provision for their
dependents while' others did not say they were married, and there were
glad days and sad days for all of them. Slackers were an unknown
quantity, and while there were men in the different officers' training
camps, none objected to service as privates. One Williams County boy
has the unique history of having registered twenty-one days before he
was twenty-one, and there were plenty of others too old and too young
who offered themselves for service. Six negro laborers on the New
York Central Railroad were drafted, and one of them entered the service
from Williams County. However, all were non-residents at the time.
There were willing hands in the home branch of the service in Williams
County, the farmers increasing their production and the women drop-
ping all social engagements and going regularly to the Red Cross work-
shops in the different communities. There were Clara Bartons among
them, and surgical dressings were no trouble to any of them. There
were Red Cross nurses in the Spanish-American War in Cuba and in
the Philippines, and in the Red Cross workshops of 1898 and again in
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 351
1917, the women of the United States did what their mothers and grand-
mothers had done in the Christian Sanitary Commission of the Civil war.
"Men wanted for the army," always attracts the young manhood
of the country. Those posters are alluring, and soldier life has always
afforded to some an opportunity of travel who otherwise never would
have seen the world. Sometimes parents favor the army on account of
the rigid discipline they have themselves failed to bestow upon their
sons, and splendid physiques and manly bearing are the results from it.
Military discipline and drill — the manual of arms and the uniform, all
have their part in the transformation. Sometimes it is an effort to escape
unpleasant environment, and sometimes it is pure patriotism that prompts
Young America to quit his home and offer himself upon his country's
altar. While America may need to be fortified some urge that it needs
to be purified, and a nation or community like the individual, will reap
what it sows — sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind. While arbitra-
tion seems the humane thing, the war record of Williams County is in
no sense a reproach to its citizenship. The United States has never
entered into war through motives of conquest. Williams County will
welcome the advent of universal peace in the world even though the
League of Nations does not seem to meet all of the requirements.
May 30, 1868, was the first Decoration Day in the United States,
three years after the close of the Civil war, it being suggested by Gen.
John A. Logan, and at that time his wife, Mrs. Olive Logan, organized
that great auxiliary to the G. A. R., the Woman's Relief Corps of
America. The 1920 Decoration Day in Williams County witnessed the
spectacle of veterans of three wars marching in the same procession to
lay flowers on the graves of the soldier dead, the battle scarred standard
bearers of '61 who wore the soldier blue, the Spanish-American war-
riors of '98, and the khaki clad youth of the World war all with brave
and thankful hearts paying tribute to those who had made the supreme
sacrifice — who had gone "over the top" in their own life history. There
were flowers on the lowly mounds in all the cemeteries, and there were
flowers on spots sacred to absent sleepers, and flowers on the water for
all who lie buried in watery graves anywhere, and there were sad hearts
of relatives unable to visit the overseas cemeteries, and the Flanders
Requiem reads : "And we shall keep true faith with those who lie asleep,
with each a cross to mark his bed," and there are sad hearts today
because of sons and brothers who sleep beneath the poppies in France.
It was the great Lincoln who in a speech at Gettysburg, said : "We
here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain," and when
Decoration Day came round in Pulaski, the oldest settled community
in Williams County, there was just one resident Civil war veteran left
to direct the distribution of flowers on the graves of 100 of his com-
rades of Company H of the Thirty-eighth Ohio — the "Last rose of sum-
mer left blooming alone," was George F. Dick at the Schiffler Cemetery
memorial service. It is said that no Williams County community has
been worse depopulated than Pulaski on muster day, and on the 1920
Decoration Day just one veteran with bent form directed the decora-
tions. The tattered flag of his regiment was draped in the little chapel
352 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
that day, and "The Sword of Bunker Hill" as sung by Mrs. Esther
Youse Opdycke stirred the hearts of all who heard it. While there
were visiting veterans present, Comrade Dick pressed the World war
soldiers into the activities of the day, and the address in this oldest com-
munity center was delivered by a khaki clad chaplain, the Rev. G. W.
Whyman whose plea for 100 per cent Americanism was appreciated by
all. Besides the flowers placed on the graves of Civil war veterans,
many made the rounds of the graves of John Hester, Benjamin O.
McCafiferty, William De Grofif, William Pepple and John Attoffer — and
perhaps there are not so many soldiers in the second war with England
in any other Williams County cemetery.
There were flowers strewn on the courthouse lawn in Bryan by
Evans Post G. A. R. and W. R. C. to commemorate the known and
the unknown dead on land or sea — No Man's Land, or wherever they
had fallen — all who had answered the last reveille, had heard "taps"
sounded for the last time, and had gone to the "Great Assembly Above."
While the United States was last to get into the World war and last
to get out of it, the policy remains : "Trust in the Lord and keep your
powder dry." To the soldiers who died at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville,
Lookout Mountain, and to the boys who died in the Argonne Forest or
at Chateau Thierry — to all Americans who died on any field of conflict
or who went down to the depths of the sea a sacrifice to the freedom
of mankind, Decoration Day is still observed in much the same way it
was celebrated fifty years ago, the spirits of the dead which sanctify
the day still a-flame in the souls of their friends all along the blazed
trail of patriotism.
CHAPTER XL
THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
There is no place where individuality may manifest itself more than
in the library. There are chosen friends and there are chosen books,
and the library is a sanctum sanctorum where none but chosen friends
presume to enter, although some families fill up their shelves without
thought of mental development and culture. The law library elsewhere
mentioned is housed in the Williams County courthouse, and it is for
the use of the members of the Williams County bar. It contains all of
the Ohio decisions and laws, and many of those from other states. Wil-
liams County attorneys may thus familiarize themselves with statutes in
other states where they may have reason for investigation. When a book
is removed the borrower leaves his card with the necessary information
about it. James Oldfield as bailiff of the court is librarian of the law
library.
The Carnegie in Bryan is the only Williams County library housed
in its own building — a gift to the community from Andrew Carnegie.
The first letter of inquiry from Bryan relative to establishing a Carnegie
library was written by Mrs. Emmett Walt, and when the way was thus
opened further letters were written by business and professional men
in the community. The ground on which it stands was purchased from
Mrs. Emily Cleveland Hiatt, widow of Seth Hiatt. She was a phil-
anthropist, giving the adjoining lot to the Episcopalians of Bryan. Judge
C. A. Bowersox was interested in securing the library and gave his serv-
ices toward it. Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, gave $10,000
toward it, and the Board of Education in the Bryan School District
levied the necessary taxes to maintain it. The cornerstone was laid
October 23, 1903, and the building was occupied December 20, 1904,
and since that time it has been open at stated intervals for the accommo-
dation of patrons. It is a resort for the intellectual people of Bryan and
community.
While the women of the Taine Club had established the nucleus of
the library, and Mrs. Walt had opened the correspondence with the Car-
negie representative. Judge Bowersox and W. H. Moore relieved them
of further business details about it. M. V. Carver was the third member
of the library board at the time of the building of the library. In a
book called "Sketches of Ohio Libraries" is the statement that the Bryan
library was established in 1882 by the ladies of the Taine Club, and it
started with 600 books. At the time of the report it contained more than
8,000 volumes. There was a membership fee of $1 a year, honorary
members paying $5 and life members paying $25, and the books were
kept in several different places before the permanent library building
was provided for them. In 1892, a basement room in the Williams
353
354 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
County Courthouse was secured and the Hbrary remained there until it
had its own building twelve years later. It was a proud day in the his-
tory of the community when the library building was opened to the
public of Williams County. It is free except that each member pays 10
cents for the cost of printing the library card issued to him.
Miss Olive Wilber was the first librarian in Bryan, and she was
assisted by Miss Mandana Willett. Miss Alice M. Walt soon became
librarian, and she remained thirty-three years in that relation to the
community. When Miss Walt was compelled because of special cares
devolving upon her to quit the library, she was succeeded by Miss Julia
S. Struble. The Bryan library is a repository for many curios, and
some very rare treasures have accumulated from different sources. Things
that are now of priceless value will increase in value with the passing
Carnegie Library, Bryan
of the years. People recognize in the library a place for safekeeping
and consign many things there that are of general interest to the
community.
The Montpelier Library containing 1,500 volumes, was accumulated
by the women of the Historical Society. The nucleus was formed in the
80's, and it was sheltered at different places, and finally the upkeep and
custody became more of a burden than the society cared to continue, and
the books were given into the custody of the Hiram Louden Post G. A. R.
and W. R. C, the post owning its own property and being in financial
condition to thus serve the community. It is now called the Montpelier
Memorial Library. Mrs. Florence Stewart is chairman of the library pur-
chasing committee, and Mrs. Hattie Oldfield is librarian. There is an
annual membership fee of $1, and the library is open every Saturday.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 355
While there is not a permanent library in West Unity, there is a
co-operative arrangement existing there, those interested in it placing
two books in an aggregate and in turn each has an opportunity of reading
them. In that way they read the popular books without buying all of
them. In all the towns the churches and Sunday schools maintain
libraries, and there is a reference library in the different public schools,
thus carrying out the Bible statement : "To the making of books there is
no end." All over Williams County are some private libraries, and some
homes are minus such a collection of books. A library is a place set
apart for the keeping and use of books, and some homes are not fitted
up in that respect at all. The Bible is an entire library — the world's
best collection of books, say some Bible enthusiasts, and there is always
something new to be found in it.
Bulwer-Lytton says: "There is no past so long as books shall
live," and Dean Swift exclaims: "Books, the children of the brain."
While Miss Walt was Bryan librarian, she made an effort to collect all
books from local writers, and there is a sacred precinct set apart for
them. Miss Struble continues the same arrangement, these volumes
not being loaned on library cards, but visitors may see them there. They
are held in remembrance of the writers of Williams County. They are :
"Notes on Travel, Including a Trip Around the World," by Solomon
Johnson. Mr. Johnson was a farmer and he liver near Stryker. He was
a member of the 1912 Constitutional Convention in Ohio.
There are two volumes : "The Breaking of the Drought," and
"Across the Deadline of Amusements," written by Henry W. Stough
who is a traveling evangelist. "A Mother's Years" is a book by his
wife, Helen Ross Stough, although she was never a resident of Williams
County.
"Aerial Navigation" is a treatise by Daniel Caulkins, M. D., who
lived at Williams Center. He was once a physician, and he made an
exhaustive study of the nervous system.
There are two volumes : "The Girls of Greystone" and "Young
Folks of Renfrew," written by Mrs. Nellie Tanneyhill Beyerle, A. M.
There are three books : "A Book of Martyrs," "The Daughter of a
Stoic," and "The Preliminaries and Other Stories" written by Cornelia
Atwood Pratt Comer.
"Campfire, Memorial Day and Other Poems" was written by
Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, a woman who claimed Bryan, Toledo
and Washington as her residence.
"Hans Brinker" by Mary Mapes Dodge has a Williams County
side to it, since the illustrations are from Allen B. Doggett who was
once a resident of Bryan.
In this sacred corner of the Bryan library is also a scrap book with
clippings from Williams County writers, some of it poetry. It is Miss
Walt's Williams County Hall of Fame, and in it are the names : Mandana
Willett, Mrs. G. W. Harding, Anna Tressler Long, Kate Brownlee Sher-
wood, Millard E. Lutz (Peter Penn), Charles Leedy, Eva Marie Ramsey
and others who have been frequent newspaper contributors : Judge
356 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Bowersox, and Silas Peoples who wrote under the nom de plume,
Upper Case, Agate and Space Box, terms familiar to printers.
Judge Bowersox writes of Tobias Wright, a Williams County man
who has been publisher. He published the "New York Genealogical and
Biographical Record," a magazine of more than 100 pages and devoted
to the interests of American Geology and Biography. His publishing
house is in New York City.
The Ohio Gazeteer of 1837 is in the library, a recent gift from
Millard E. Lutz, now a resident of North Dakota. In it there is reference
to Williams County with Defiance as the covmty seat, and Henry, Paulding
and Putnam counties attached for judicial purposes.
In the Bryan library are the following local reference books : "The
Williams County Atlas of 1874," which is the oldest reference work
extant although without local editorial supervision.
"The County of Williams, History and Biography," bearing the date
1882, with Weston A. Goodspeed, historian and Charles Blanchard,
biographer.
Commemorative Biographical Record of Northwestern Ohio" includes
Defiance, Henry and Fulton with Williams, and it is without editorial
representation, locally.
Henry How's two volume "History of Ohio," 1846 and revised in
1886, has several pages devoted to Williams County.
"Northwest Ohio" includes twenty counties of which Williams is
the northwesternmost by Nevin O. Winter.
"The County of Williams," published in 1905, is by William Henry
Shinn of Montpelier. He is a member of the Williams County bar.
"A Standard History of Williams County, A. D. 1920," is under the
editorial supervision of judge C. A. Bowersox. The introductory chapters
are by N. O. Winter, and the local chapters beginning with the centen-
nial history of Williams County, February 12, 1820, are by (Rolinda)
Rolland Lewis Whitson. He is indebted to the above mentioned publi-
cations for data, and to many kindly disposed citizens who have patiently
answered his questions about the passing of the first 100 years in
Williams County history. The biographer is W. A. High, for many years
engaged as a biography writer on county histories.
There were not as many scrap books covering local history available
as in some counties — prominent citizens having "kept such facts in their
heads," and the tragedy of it is — what they knew was buried with them,
while a well selected and arranged scrap book would have been a
monument to them. Thomas Bailey Aldrich once said:
"My mind lets go a thousand things
Like dates of wars, and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour — "
and there is always some one who knows, or has laid away a newspaper
with the information in it.
The conscientious historian gleans facts wherever he can find them,
and while middle aged persons seemingly have forgotten all, their minds
are clear about things of yesterday. However, some of them take little
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 357
note of things of today. Frequently there are such floods of memories
that one hears things about which he had not sought information, when
interviewing aged persons about the past. While history may not exactly
be a rivulet of text leading one far from the noisy haunts of the world —
while fiction alone may wind along through pleasant old literary gardens
redolent with the choicest of intellectual blossoms, it may at least be a
log across the stream — the River of Time, that lodges some of the drift
of the ages. It has been the province of "Rolinda" to dislodge some of
the accumulated debris, and set it adrift available to those who chronicle
the events of the second one hundred years in \\'illiams County history.
Those most liable to take note of such things are the men and women
who belong to the research clubs of Williams County. Those of intel-
lectual inclination who live in one community frequently meet together
and enjoy social interchange of ideas, and while some years ago there
was a Shakespeare Club in Bryan that numbered both men and women
in its roster, its members meeting to read the plays written by the bard
of Avon, this club has long since ceased to exist. There are a number
of women's clubs, the oldest of them all the Taine Club of Bryan. It is
perhaps the community's most representative feminine expression of
itself, and this club has always been a voice in the community. While
the Taine Club was organized in 1880, it was not federated until 1896,
and is perhaps the only federated club in Williams County today. This
club bears the name of Monsieur Hyppolite Adolphe Taine, who was the
most distinguished man of letters in France. A course of study is
pursued in the club with its membership limited to twenty, and as vacan-
cies occur they are filled by vote of the members. The meetings are
always held on Saturday afternoons. The Taine Club sponsored the
library in its formative period, agitated the question of a woman's rest
room in the Williams County Court House, and it has accomplished
many other things of a community nature.
It seems that the women of the Taine Club have all reared families,
thereby refuting the idea that club life imfits a woman for maternity.
In a well organized club their ideals are raised, and they are better
mothers from their increased knowledge of motherhood. The ideal
club woman finds time to rear her children and to prepare herself when
she is on duty at the meetings. Such women are not apt to take up with
fads such as the Overalls or Old Clothes clubs that have recently swept
the country. Since the neighborly visit seems to be a thing of the past,
women need some social opportunity. Since intellectual life may suggest
the school, the church or the press, it is a safe statement that the club
attracts the wives of educators, pulpiteers, editors and advance women
in all spheres, and an hour spent together in study means more to them
than just to "run in" as was once the universal custom in many com-
munities. When a formal visit is made today cards are left as witnesses,
and the time is limited to a few minutes. A generation ago a woman
brought her work and she had not thought of cards to impress the fact
of her visit. Instead of research, the time was spent in the exchange of
news and the discussion of rumors in circulation in the community.
There were not so many newspapers and magazines, and the neighborly
358 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
visit with its attendant conversation was then a physical necessity.
Women of today have an environment different from the conditions in
which their mothers lived, and why should not their individuality assert
itself differently?
The Bayview Reading Circle of Bryan is the successor of the Chau-
tauqua Literary and Scientific Circle of some years ago, the Bayview
course of study being pursued recently. Self-improvement and literary
research is its mission, and the meetings are held in the homes of its
members.
The 1905 Literary Society is now the Progress Club of Bryan. It
follows an outline course of study and its membership is limited to
twenty. Its meetings are held twice each month.
The Fortnightly Study Club is a recent organization having as its
object social intercourse and personal development. It has a definite
course of study and the members have turns in entertaining the club at
its regular meetings.
The Twentieth Century was a study club of short duration in Bryan,
and there are numerous social and sewing clubs with no course of study —
just congenial groups of women meeting frequently, in order to know
each other better and for pastime recreation.
The Women's Federation of Bryan is organized along civic lines,
and it includes all public spirited women who care to attend its meetings.
It has combined civic and charitable work, and while the entire mem-
bership is not often called together the executive board holds monthly
meetings. The women of the study clubs are enrolled in it, and practi-
cally all the women of Williams County frequented the Red Cross
workshops in time of the recent war activities there. Club life all over
the County has renewed its activities since the days when Red Cross
activities required the attention of every woman.
The Ladies' Historical Society — L. H. S. of Montpelier, was organ-
ized in 1883, and for many years it used the Bayview course of study.
It is not strictly historical and devotes some time to the study of music
and art. It is an improvement society with a membership limited to
twenty-five women. While it was organized more than a generation
ago it still has two charter members — Mrs. Mary Carpenter and Mrs. Ella
S. Ford. On account of death and removals its roster is not always full,
and nev/ members are now and then voted into the society. Recently the
Ladies' Historical Society has studied civics in connection with the
Montpelier Civic League organized in 1916, which works to promote the
social and moral welfare of the community. The League is unlimited by
numbers or other restrictions — Montpelier women who are interested
in progress. The League is making a study of Ohio, and it conducts
a school of citizenship. While the franchise is being studied, the League
is looking after community interests. It has recently equipped the
Montpelier Fire Department and it had maintained a rest room for
women until war activities claimed its attention.
The Delphian Club of Montpelier was organized in 1919, with an
unlimited membership, its pupose being culture and self-improyement.
It is made up of the younger women of the community, and is committed
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 359
to social activities as well as mental culture. It has committees on
reception, programs, memberships and publicity.
There was a William Cullen Bryant Thursday Club that had literary
programs with social features, but not enough women would study and
meet the program requirements and it went out of existence. It had
a semblance to Chautauqua work, and there are a few Montpelier women
who have Chautauqua diplomas obtained in other places, and some who
completed the course alone.
The Williams County Red Cross work was all reported through the
Montpelier chapter, and the W. C. T. U. makes a strong appeal to many
women not otherwise interested in club or research work, the women in
all the organized bodies having been active in routing John Barleycorn
from the community. On the whole, Montpelier women are in favor of
the franchise without its militant features, and the educated woman is
a force in the community.
The Olive Literary Society named in honor of Olive Wilber is the
oldest club in West Unity. It was organized in 1890, by a group of
women feeling the need of better thinking, and its motto: "Redeeming
the time," is suggestive. This club's Ten Commandments are :
I. — Thou shalt have no other clubs before this one.
II. — Thou shalt not worship any false thing, but strive for the common
good, for even thus shall a club be blessed.
III. — Remember thy club engagement.
IV.— Honor thy club sisters.
V. — Thou shalt not murder the King's English.
VI. — Thou shalt not covet office.
VII. — Thou shalt be prepared for roll calls.
VIII. — Thou shalt not at the eleventh hour begin to hunt material
for thy club paper.
IX. — Thou shalt not speak in meeting when thy sister has the floor.
X. — Thou shalt diligently keep these commandments so that thy club
days may be lengthened, and thy fame spread unto the uttermost parts of
clubdom.
The Carnation Literary Club of West Unity is made up from the
younger women, and it has always been the pride of the Olive Club.
It was organized in 1908, and its club motto is : "Study to live always.
Live and die tomorrow," and its purpose is both literary and social.
The Home Culture Club in Edgerton is organized along self-improve-
ment and culture lines. It holds regular meetings and its members are
women of influence in the community. Many Edgerton women interest
themselves in the different church activities. There is a flourishing
W. C. T. U. and there was an active Red Cross chapter.
The Progress Club of Pioneer organized in 1909, with a roster of
twenty names is the oldest literary club in the community. It has an
outline course of study and its members are committed to community
welfare movements. When the war demands were upon them all went
to the Red Cross workshops in Pioneer.
The Profit and Pleasure Club of Pioneer combines literary pursuits
with needle work, and usefulness to the community actuates the club's
activities. They were active in the Red Cross chapter.
360 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The women of Edon, Kunkle and Stryker expend their energies in
church Aid society activities, and leadership is all that is needed in
order to have research clubs among them. Edon once had a Bayview
Study Club, but it was of short duration. Town and country women
frequently come together in community efforts.
While there are no patriotic societies in Williams County, there are
citizens who hold membership in other towns. There are business men's
clubs in several communities that also have a social side to them, and
they promote the community spirit and welfare. Get-to-gether schemes
always interest them. They are "Boosters."
Many people elbow each other on the highways of life without more
intimate knowledge, and the clubs foster fraternalism. While it is said
that clubs are for women who do not know how to study alone, the
fact that they escape isolation is favorable argument.
The first woman's club in the United States met in New Harmony,
Posey County, Indiana. There would seem to be more club advantages
for men than for women, since the groups of men associated in sport,
lodges, labor unions, bands, "smoke houses," etc., outnumber the organ-
izations among women, and it is said that men better understand each
other than women. They talk about a "square deal," "honor among
thieves," and always call things by their right names, although the word
"club" would intimidate some of them. However, the club is the woman's
university — her true alma mater.
Some attention has been given to art as well as literature by residents
of Williams County, and in many homes are pictures painted by mem-
bers of the family that are a credit to them. Mrs. C. A. Bowersox
of Bryan has pictures on the walls of her home and in the homes of her
children, and the signature L. A. B. on china, indicates the fact that
she decorated it. Mrs. Bowersox is a student, and she has had training
under some of the best teachers in Toledo and Cleveland.
Mrs. Helen C. Wetmore and Miss Maud lone Wetmore are members
of the Athenia Society and of the Women Artists Club of Toledo, and
Mrs. Wetmore is a charter member of the Toledo Museum of Arts.
They decorate china and paint in pastel and water colors. As a teacher
of art in public school Miss Wetmore reports splendid interest, and
there is some incipient talent in the community.
Owen Yates who is a Bryan product has sketches appearing in the
magazines, and his art is frequently displayed in art collections. His
studio is in New York. Mrs. Bowersox was a student with him in Bryan.
His success is a source of pride to the community.
Grover Weaver of Montpelier is a commercial artist in Chicago.
He is a product of the Chicago Art Institute, and many Montpelier
families possess some of his pictures. Indian heads has been a specialty
with him.
Mrs. Ella Ford of Montpelier decorates and fires china, and Mrs. N. G.
Lash both decorates china and makes oil and water color pictures.
Mrs. John Gray of West Unity is classed among the artists of
Williams County.
Allen B. Daggett once of Bryan is recognized as an illustrator.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 361
Miss Cora Masters, Miss Metta Carter, Miss Nellie Carroll,
Mrs. Minnie Carter Grieser and Dwight Ginter — and were the inquiry
carried further, no doubt others excel in china decorations or some form
of art. Mrs. California Vineyard Ervin, once a Bryan woman, has
gained notoriety in tapestry painting, and some have displayed skill in
wood carving, pirography, etc., who would not classify themselves as
artists at all.
XLI
LEFT-OVER STORIES— THE OMNIBUS CHAPTER
The southern mammies who were reputed to concoct such toothsome
viands in the Hne of foods, did not always follow formulas in their
culinary processes, but used a "little of this and a little of that," and
their left-over dishes were sometimes their best productions. These
left-over stories might have been used in other chapters, but the
Omnibus chapter is designed specially for them.
Some persons are in position and have the disposition to aid one
inclined to investigation, and W. B. Jackson, a clerk in the auditor's
office in the Williams County courthouse has been appealed to frequently,
and although a recent acquisition to Williams County, he has been an
unfailing source of information.
Original Map of Williams County
While there is no map of Old Williams County in existence — no map
covering the first twenty-five years of local history, in the office of the
Williams County Recorder is an old map yellow with age that shows
the advancement of the map maker's art in 1864, and it is said there are
but few copies of it today. While it hangs on the wall, it should be under
glass for better preservation. It was made by D. J. Luke and A. and C. S.
Warren, and there are many quaint features about it. There are small
commercial maps that are more recent, and a commercial map of Bryan
is not in exact conformity with the map of Williams County. It includes
several townships in Defiance County since Bryan attracts trade and
business patronage from there.
The Legend of Indian Jim
It seems incredible that men and women living in Williams County
today remember the time when the Red Men of the Forest exceeded
the pale faces in numbers, and yet Judge C. A. Bowersox relates a
story told by his mother, that when the Indians came to her cabin in the
wilderness of St. Joseph township to ask some favor, she always wanted
to curry to their good will, and when their errand was accomplished
they would vanish as silently as they had approached the house. While
some of them were friendly and spoke English fluently others only made
signs, and few squaws ever came among the settlers at all. Like the
settlers who followed them, the Indians lived along the streams because
of water, and as early as 1835 there was a squaw in the vicinity of the
ancient town of Denmark that was so old she crawled instead of assuming
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 363
an erect posture in walking, and the Indian Meadow in the bend of the
St. Joseph was the playground of all the young warriors. Indian Jim
was a forlorn character among them. He was crippled, helpless and
useless in the tribe. As the settlers cleared the forest the results of the
chase were diminishing, and as the cold winter came on and the scarcity
of food was apparent to all, a council of war was held and with all the
stoicism of the race this crippled Indian accepted the decree when told
that death was his portion, and there would not be so many hungry
mouths among them. When Indian Jim indicated that he was ready to
depart for the happy hunting grounds, the warriors bound him to a tree
and pierced his body with arrows. The Great Spirit was in waiting and
accompanied him to the Hunting Grounds of the Fathers. There were
no Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes that long ago, and Williams County
children went to sleep dreaming about such horrible things. While
there were not many books the children all craved a good story. Try the
story of Indian Jim on a timid child and note the effect today. In these
days of newspapers and magazines there are bedtime stories of different
types, and the reader may choose his own dreamland suggestions.
Wild Gooseberries on the Streets of Bryan
Time was when Mrs. Susan Walt who has passed her ninety-sixth
birthday anniversary gathered wild gooseberries on the streets in Bryan,
and baked them into pies to be served at dinner in the courthouse square
when the whole town turned out to the Fourth of July celebrations.
Everything was new when she came to Bryan, and there were wild
gooseberries all over the town. While she was homesick to return to
the old home at Circleville, the time came when she did not want to go
^way from Bryan. She would be glad to pick wild gooseberries again.
The Water Supply in Bryan
Early residents of Bryan were always explaining the water question,
and an old newspaper comments thus : "Upon what authority the local
editor of The Toledo Blade represents Bryan to have been unhealthy
in times past, and to have swamps which required draining we know
not, as there is not a swamp of any kind within several miles of Bryan,
and probably no county in the state has less (meaning fewer) swamps
than Williams. The statement that Bryan has heretofore been unhealthy
is equally erroneous — there being no more healthy town in Ohio or
elsewhere, as all who have resided here well know and attest by their
robust appearance," this paragraph appearing in 1855, and a recent state-
ment elsewhere mentioned shows Bryan to still be in the health zone.
Soon after it was on the map of Ohio an unexpected source of water
wealth m.anifested itself in the form of an artesian flow, the first one
developing in 1842, and it is said the water has its source in the Erie
clay strata underlying Williams County. Bryan families were supplied
with plenty of artesian water until since the municipal water plant was
located, and it seems to have tapped the same water veins underlying
364 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the town. Some of the wells are now almost entirely inactive, a source
of much disappointment to housewives who had always had running
water. However, there is a million gallon storage tank at the municipal
plant and there is excellent water bubbling from all the curbstone foun-
tains. Bryan was once called Fountain City, and the name is applied
to many things. The name Fountain is coupled with the names of
Williams County farms because of this artesian flow of water. The
theory is that each new municipal water well developed in the com-
munity diminishes the flow of those near it, and thus the water head
affording the local pressure is lowered, and it is a drain on the supply
stored beneath the surface that was one time considered as a subter-
ranean ocean.
A Hamilton Township Bear Story
It was on a winter day in 1839, that Josiah Woodworth and Daniel
Barrett, two pioneers in Hamilton Township, killed two bears in that
locality. The passerby would not look for bears amid the highly improved
farms of that community today. These two settlers were in the vicinity
of Kunkle's Corners when they discovered tracks in the snow, and they
did not go far until they saw the bears that had made them — no, they
did not make tracks themselves, but they shot at them. While the
bears made their escape, there were two cubs on limbs above them watch-
ing them. There was so much underbrush the men could not pursue the
old bears, and when Barrett came up to where Woodworth was standing
he leveled his gun bringing one of the cubs to Woodworth's feet, the
first he had known of their existence. The weather was so cold he could
not load his gun again, and Woodworth brought down the other cub and
both families had a supply of bear steak, and they sold the hides at $3
a-piece, thereby realizing a good sum for their adventure.
His Welcome to Bryan
William and Emanuel Stern were early Jewish merchants in Bryan.
William had already opened a store, and Emanuel was coming in a one-
horse wagon from Fort Wayne to bring more stock, and when he
encountered John Saddoris who had a wagon-maker's shop, he inquired
the way to Bryan. Looking the arrival over, Saddoris answered: "Why,
you blankety blank fool, you are there now," and when Emanuel Stern
asked if a man named William Stern had a clothing store in the com-
munity, Saddoris answered : "There's a blankety blank Jew got some
blankety blank goods," and thus a future Bryan merchant learned that
he had reached his destination. While Saddoris may have been courteous,
there is a different brand of courtesy in Bryan today.
A Makeshift Sidewalk in Bryan
Before there were cement sidewalks in Bryan, the Ward girls who
lived on East Mulberry street pulled the weeds along the space for a walk,
and their brother hauled tanbark from the tannery and covered it. Miss
Alice M. Walt and other girls in the community joined forces with
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 365
them, and through their combined efforts they were able on a wet day to
leave their homes without soihng their clothing. In time there were
boards laid down with their ends together, and thus the improved side-
walk of today is a product of evolution.
An Old Time Market for Milk
The old Kimble cheese factory in Pulaski Township that was dis-
mantled recently was once the Williams County milk market, its owners
paying 60 cents a 100 pounds for it. This factory was about three
miles southeast from Bryan, and the last traces of it have just disappeared
from there. The Van Camp Packing Company pays a minimum price
of $2.70 a hundred, with a maximum of $3.72, and Williams County
farmers one time thought they had an excellent market at the old Kimble
cheese factory.
Indian Collectiox .\t Pioneer
Because much of the material in it was obtained in Williams County,
mention is herein made of a collection of Indian relics owned bv Rev.
J. F. Slough of Pioneer. He has 500 pieces that are distinctly Indian
in their origin, and all are arranged in cases showing them to advantage.
While there are many other interesting curios in the collection, they
are not Williams County products except a picture frame that has been
made from 1,864 separate and distinct pieces of walnut taken from fence
rails on the Slough farm in Bridgewater township, and cut into cubes
with a pocket knife. In the winter of 1873, when Reverend Slough as
a young man was convalescing from typhoid fever he whittled them out,
and this unique frame encloses a picture he bought on the Williams
County fair grounds at Montpelier.
An Eccentric in Jefferson Township
George Washington Perky who was an early settler in Jefiferson
township is spoken of as an oddity. While he was intelligent he was
queer — all the world is queer but me and thee — and one time when he
was chopping in a swamp, he said to a neighbor who was passing: "We
read that God divided the land from the water, but here is one place he
forgot," and all this in the days before drainage had transformed con-
ditions. The time was when they cooned the fences in traveling through
Jefterson Township, and tripped from log to log in going through the
woods, but today there are not any such drifts for a footing and travelers
keep to the highways in passing through the country.
1837-8 — The Cold Winter in Williams County
The cold Saturday, January 12, 1918, must have been duplicated in
Williams County in the winter of 1837-8, from an old account of the
weather. It is said that a heavy snow fell, November 1, and lay on the
366 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
ground until the following April. The old settlers often talked about
that hard winter, and when they were going to the spring elections they
crossed the streams on the ice. They used to "talk their heads oflf"
about that cold winter. There was little food or feed, and for weeks
the livestock subsisted on "browse." When a farmer wanted to feed his
stock he put his ax on his shoulder and went to the woods. The live-
stock interpreted the meaning and followed him. He would cut down
basswood trees, and the cows and horses would consume the tender
' shoots. A great deal of livestock perished from the cold, exposure and
starvation. In that awful winter — says an old account, a cloud would
appear in the southwestern heavens having the shape of a cow's horn,
and they regarded it as an evil omen, and while there was suffering two
years ago, there was little superstition connected with it.
The Man Who Placed Bryan on the Map of the World
When he was a youngster and went swimming in Williams County
streams, Harry Six of Bryan used to startle other boys by headlong
diving from the trees into the water. When he was older he traveled
all over the United States and in foreign countries as a professional
swimmer and high diver, entertaining vast crowds in amusement parks
and at street fairs for years. For six consecutive years he held the
world's championship as to the height from which he would leap into
shallow water. Mr. Six was a well-known character in Madison Square
Garden, New York City, and when people inquired where he was from,
he would say : "Bryan, Ohio, the capital of the world," and stage folk
would all respond : "Oh, yes, we remember that town. They have high
chairs for seats in the theater there," and it seems that in the Jones
theater now used as the Overland Service Station there were some good
shows staged in the days of legitimate drama before the movies had
revolutionized theater conditions. Mr. Six who is blind lost his eyesight
through injury to the optic nerve and retina in striking the water with
such force, and specialists are unable to relieve him at all. He is the
most widely known man in Williams County, and it is said that he placed
Bryan on the map of the world.
A Mental Giant in Those Days
An early writer pays tribute to John H. Stubbs who located in Wil-
liams County in 1833, living in Springfield Township in the vicinity of
Stryker. He was an extensive reader and investigator who made a
special study of metaphysics always advocating mental supremacy —
mind more than matter, and he always did his own thinking, never
allowing creed makers to forge any fetters for him. He argued that
material things were formed in obedience to certain immutable laws, and
that law and matter were eternal and indestructible, and the word "cre-
ate' should be stricken from the English language. There is nothing new
under the sun, and energy always overcomes resistance. Intelligence or
soul is a manifestation of energy, and he believed in the entity of the
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 367
individual mind, and that all mental improvement is but accumulated
thought or energy and must go on forever. There are few such thinkers
in any community, and Stubbs was an outstanding character in his day
and generation. His idea of religion was to deal justly and love mercy,
thereby making his fellow creatures happy, and being of social nature
he was peculiarly adapted to pioneer conditions. He was a violinist and
was regarded as indispensable at social gatherings in the huts of the
widely separated neighbors. He served to cheer and enliven them, and
inspire their courage to renewed efforts. Such a life is a benediction in
any community.
Wild Honey in Williams County Years Ago
In the good old days when the settlers went to the forest for their
table delicacies, Cyrus Barrett and his sons who lived in Madison Town-
ship came across a bee tree, but they were unable to take the honey
because of the fury of the bees until they smoked them away from their
storehouse. While some persons never find four-leaf clovers today and
others are continually plucking them, some of the settlers were always
finding bee trees and others never found them. Sometimes many gallons
of wild honey would be taken, and it was always welcome on the set-
tler's dinner table. It was served on the johnny cakes the housewives
baked on the hearths, and they sweetened their cranberry sauce and
wild crabapples with it. The scarcity of sugar was never a problem with
the Williams County settlers. The bees were always industrious, and
they had no compunction of conscience in the matter of robbing them.
The forests were their apiaries.
The Wild Life of the Williams County Forest
Time was when bears, wolves and deer were abundant, but there is
little wild life in Williams County today. The forest has given way to
the cultivated fields, and there are no longer hiding places for the birds
and beasts that once infested the country. Like the rest of the world,
Williams County folk are in quest of the profiteer, and after the war
product in human guise, but as yet none have been corraled within the
limits of the northwesternmost county in Ohio. In the formative period
of Williams County history, deer used to come in on the fields at night,
and the settlers lying in wait would shoot them with ease, and thus
supply their table's with forest delicacies. The deer would sometimes
come so close that the men would shoot them from shelter of the farm
buildings, and with wild turkeys and squirrels in abundance there was
always meat on the settler's tables, although accumulating enough money
with which to pay taxes was a different proposition.
The wolves were the menace of the settlers. Their flesh was never
used for food, and they destroyed sheep, and made night hideous when
they came in packs howling with hunger. They were cautious and fewer
wolves were killed than of other pests from the forest. Traps were usu-
ally set in advance for wolves and bears, the latter often injuring hogs
368 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and sometimes killing them outright, and thus the horrors of frontier
life will never all be related to posterity. Many of the settlers killed
bears in the vicinity of their cabins, among them John W. Bowersox,
father of Judge C. A. Bowersox, who killed a large one in the vicinity
of his home in St. Joseph township. While bears were very dangerous
among domestic animals it is not related that they ever attacked the
settlers themselves. The regulation bear trap had a chain attached with
four hooks turning in either direction, and when one was trapped he
never traveled far until the hooks caught to something that held him,
and his howling soon brought the settlers from their cabins.
The Wolf! The Wolf! The Boy in the Tree
Wolves Were the Menace of the Early Settlers
There are few men living, A. D. 1920, who can relate personal adven-
tures with wolves or any other wild animals in the Williams County
forest, but a unique experience is related by John Wesley Bowersox,
Junior, of St. Joseph Township today. Mr. Bowersox is shown in the
picture standing by a fence that was made from white ash rails split
on the Bowersox farm in 1844, and in more than, three-quarters of a
century there has been no repair on this fence. When Mr. Bowersox
was a lad, he was sent by his mother to bring home the cows one eve-
ning. It was in the days when there were boundless outside pastures,
and there was always a cow bell to direct the farm boy in his otherwise
hopeless search for them. The settlers all had dogs, and in the Bower-
sox household there were two canines that were their inseparable com-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
369
panions whenever the children went on errands. The mother was never
uneasy when the dogs accompanied them.
In the Bowersox family the little brown dog was Roily, and the
big white one was Caesar. When the boy and his dogs were a mile
from the cabin in the clearing, they were attacked by a pack of hungry
wolves. The timber wolves were ferocious at any time, and when driven
by hunger they were a dangerous "breed of cats." When the pack of
wolves were upon him. young Bowersox scaled a tree the lower limb
breaking in his hand, but by Herculean effort he reached a place of
safety. However, he had not yet overtaken the cows browsing some-
where in the wilderness of that sparsely settled community. There
was a stretch of timber between the boy perched in the tree and the
family hearthstone, and his relatives were all unconscious of his predica-
ment. The cows were still in the distance. When the trio — the boy
Where Are the Wolves and the Dogs?
and two dogs — were surrounded by the ravenous, hunger-driven wolves.
Caesar stood his ground and warded off his enemies, while the little
dog annoyed them in the rear until one turned on him, and he went
yelping homeward and gave the alarm in the Bowersox cabin.
From the pitiful wail of the dog, the woman in the cabin knew some-
thing unusual had happened, and as best he could the dog told her the
story. He had been forced to retreat from the conflict, and it was with
a cry rather than a joyous bark that he entered the cabin. Scenting
danger from the warning of the dog, the mother blew the dinner horn
to attract her husband and the settlers in the communitv. A searching
party was soon in pursuit of the boy with visions of all kinds of horrors.
In the meantime Caesar had withstood the advance of the wolves, and
when they gave up the attack and fled young Bowersox climbed down
370 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
from the tree, and found his way through the woods to another cabin
and safety, and while he was relating his adventure his father overtook
him there. The incident is as fresh in his mind today as if it had hap-
pened yesterday.
John Wesley Bowersox, Junior, who relates the foregoing incident,
was born August 25, 1836, in Stark County. Although not a native of
Williams County, he was but ten years old at the time of this adventure.
It is an unusual story coming from the lips of one who had the unique
experience of climbing a tree as a safety precaution in the early days
of Williams County history. Today the unwary are still pursued by the
wolves — wolves in sheep's clothing, and perhaps in some households there
always will be difficulty in keeping the wolf from the door, and strange
as it seems today the foreging is a true story of the wilderness days
in Williams County. The man who relates it is known as a person of
truth and veracity. Perhaps no other living man can relate such a
story.
Unique in the Way of Taxation
Although there is no record of a tax on bachelors, in 1842 taxes were
levied on lawyers and physicians in Williams County. There were eight
attorneys and twelve doctors who paid it, but today there is no discrim-
ination against the professions, and lawyers and doctors only pay taxes
as do other citizens.
Some Williams County Hostelries
It was in 1841 that Thomas Shorthill opened the first tavern in
Bryan. While service is the idea today, it is said the traveling public
used to demand food at the hostelries. An item in The Fountain City
News, Friday, May 18, 1855, referring to Bryan hostelries says : "There
are two good hotels here, and we do not often sit at a better table than
is furnished at The Exchange. The Fountain City House is also said
to be a good house," and as much may be said A. D. 1920 about The
Christman, Hotel Jefferson and The Ruth. While twentieth century
epicures pay for service the menus are always satisfactory. It is said
The Burke on the site of The Jefferson was the earliest hotel except
the Shorthill tavern, and that some notables were entertained there.
Weston, the coast to coast pedestrian, stopped in Hotel Burke. J. M.
Free — the Immortal J. N., was a frequent guest. He was an eccentric
character once known all over the country. When the landlord would
throw off half his bill, the Immortal J. N. who was never outdone in
generosity would promptly throw off the other half, and he rode all
railroad trains the same way. Older people in Williams County all
remember him. The Fountain City Hotel occupied the site of the Epis-
copalian Church adjoining the library. It was later called The Brunswck.
John Sherman one time stopped in The Brunswick. The three hotels
in .Montpelier are : Louden, Smith and Daniels, and the Hotels Burns
in West Unity cares for the traveler today. The Thursby Exchange
hostelry in Edgerton dates back to 1857, and it was once a noted place.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 371
The office fixtures today are the same as were used there in the long
ago. It is said that great men visited this antebellum hostelry, and it
was a rendezvous for recruiting officers in the Civil war. When the
writer had dinner there, A. D. 1920, some belated travelers were turned
away because of shortage of help, the landlady who is cook feeling
unequal to the requirements in preparing the second repast on the same
day. The European plan prevails in many hotels because of labor diffi-
culties, the sleepy man faring better than the hungry man. The Amer-
ican plan hotel operates under many diffitulties.
Bov Scouts in Williams County
While the ever present Boy Scouts were in evidence on Decoration
Day in Bryan, there were conflicting reports about their local organiza-
tion. They are confused with the boys' band, and while Myron Lang-
worthy had been recognized as Scoutmaster, the boys seemed to be with-
out organization. Some people wonder how the different communities
managed to exist before there were Boy Scouts to look after every-
thing, and there are troops in other towns but the uniform was more
in evidence than the organization. The Boy Scout is pledged to do some
good every day, and the community should encourage him.
When Nettle Lake Gives Up Its Dead
While only two young men were ever reported drowned in Nettle
Lake and both were found, it is frequented by pleasure seekers today
and stories of drowning are frequent newspaper features. Philip Knight
and John Crum were drowned in Nettle Lake in the '40s, while out
fishing one afternoon. It was thought by their friends that they were
able to take care of themselves, and when they did not return there were
no serious misgivings for a day or two when search was instituted for
them. Thomas Knight discovered the canoe floating bottom upwards
and he immediately began dredging for them, and an hour later both
were rescued from their watery grave. It was one of the unexplainable
happenings in the early history of Williams County. The Knights were
among the first settlers in Northwest Township, and the boys were noted
for their spirit of adventure.
Nettle Lake was always a great resort for deer. They would come
from the salt licks for water and the settlers would watch for them
under the cover of darkness. The Knight boys had dugouts on the water,
and with a beeswax candle on the bow of a boat they would float near-
the edge and with green branches concealing them the deer would come
near them. Fascinated by the light on the water they would stand
motionless until the canoe floated near them, and it was an easy matter
for the boys in hiding to shoot them. They sometimes killed half a
dozen deer in a single evening. Thomas and Philip were the most daring
of the Knight boys and they were often on the water. One time they
were in pursuit of some deer when a buck showed fight and pinioned
Thomas to a tree between his antlers. When he shouted to his brother
372 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
the buck soon fell dead at his feet, and while truth is stranger than
fiction today, those Knight boys would not have believed the story that
the tractor or Ford would sometimes roll along where they enjoyed such
a carefree existence. While today there is more or less prejudice against
trappers, they had a good income from such operations. They suffered
loss of livestock from wild animals, and when a bear killed a brood
sow, Thomas Knight shot the bear and its forepaw was exhibited for
many years in the state house museum in Columbus. Northwest and
Nettle Lake present a different environment today, and the custodian
of the resort had never heard the story of the boys drowned there so
long ago.
A Wireless Operator
The press dispatches recently carried the story that Carl E. Peugeot
formerly of Stryker had passed an examination in Washington and had
obtained license for maintaining a wireless telegraph station. He is
located at Arlington and takes messages and weather reports from the
air, and will soon have equipment for gathering wireless messages from
European as well as American wireless stations.
Tribute to a Bryan Officer of the Law
There is an unwritten law that while a man is living his bust shall
not be placed in the hall of fame — that while he is living he does not yet
belong to history, and he might later disgrace himself. A Bryan citizen
wishing tribute paid to the memory of August Heidley told his story —
that for twenty years he was marshal of Byran, and that he was a
terror to evil doers. He was unique in his dealings and always held
the lawless element in abeyance. He worked quietly and offenders knew
that a second oifense meant the penalty — if he spoke again he "took care
of 'em," and while Mr. Heidley was marshal law and order prevailed
in Bryan. It is said that a police officer who asks a culprit to please
desist, does not long maintain the dignity of the law, and while Mr.
Heidley was a democrat he had a life lease on his office. All recognized
his integrity and when he died the whole populace wept at his bier —
the entire community paid tribute to him. Criminals in Bryan are
detained in a city lockup until there is an order from the court to trans-
fer them to the county jail, and Mr. Heidley incarcerated all who did
not respect themselves sufficiently to respect others.
Lack of Courtesy for a Woman
It is a matter of record that Abbie Bey Kelley — a woman of high
standing and intelligence who had been invited by the "incendiary abo-
litionists" in 1856, to address a public meeting in Bryan was assaulted
on the street after the lecture. She was on her way from the meeting
to the house of a friend in Bryan where she was entertained for the
night. A mob followed her, using coarse language and hurling eggs
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 373
after her. Where are the ruffians today? Would such a thing happen
in Bryan again? Education is the leaven of the community, and the
above incident serves to illustrate the change time has wrought in the
sentiment of the public since the birth of the republican party. John
C. Fremont was the candidate in that political campaign, and the abo-
litionists supported him. Lincoln was elected four years later. An inci-
dent on a 1920 Saturday night in Bryan is almost as startling. Three
young fellows were amusing themselves unconscious of who might be
listening when a young man approached them, saying: "I've been fol-
lowing the plow all day and I come from the woods, but I don't run
when an owl hoots," and the boys had difficulty convincing him they
meant no offense at all. It is said there are exceptions to all rules, and
citizens of Bryan to whom the foregoing story was related said it was
an exception — that farm and town boys are not at all antagonistic toward
each other. The writer of the story heard it from two of the boys
approached by the would-be ruffian.
A Mammoth Tree in Williams County
It is related that many years ago there was a walnut tree cut on a
farm in Jefferson Township that was sixty feet from the ground to the
first limb, and that the stump was nine feet in diameter. When the
log lay at the station in Bryan ready for shipping, it had to be guarded
to keep souvenir fiends from chipping the bark off of it. The tree was
shipped in the log to Germany, but there was no market for it and it
was finally sold in Boston. It is said that on a Pulaski farm there are
three walnut stumps in a group that are from five to seven feet in diam-
eter, and that from the center of one of the stumps is another tree fifteen
inches in diameter. It is hollow and the theory is that a bird must have
deposited the seed there.
In the Wilds of Florence
The story is always told about the skunk that went into a hollow
tree and followed by a porcupine, neither came out again. If the porcu-
pine had gone in first, there would have been a different ending to the
story. While the porcupine might escape at the other end it could not
retreat, and the story is handed down that when David Singer was
hunting in the woods of Florence, a neighbor named Niehart came to
him with the informaion that he had seen a bear in a tree. This was
in 1845, and when Singer hurried with Niehart to the spot he saw the
cub sitting on a limb, that had impressed itself on Niehart as a bear.
A shot frightened the cub and it fell to the ground, and Singer captured
it without injury. Knowing the mother bear must be near they called
in other settlers who joined in the search, and when they suspected her
presence in a hollow tree they began chopping it down, and a porcupme
emerged from the top of the hollow part and as they chopped on the
bear came out from the same opening, and when Singer leveled his gun
one shot brought bruin to earth. There was bear steak for all, and they
sold the cub for fifty cents to some travelers who took it east with them.
Bears Were Numerous
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 375
On Brush Creek in Springfield
B. F. Hoffman of Bryan relates that in the '40s his father, Valentine
A. Hoffman, killed his first deer by watching a deer lick with his brother,
Chris Hoffman. They lived on Brush Creek in Springfield Township,
and from long observation they knew the habit of the deer — that they
would come to the lick for salt and to the stream for water. They had
heard that a wounded buck always plunged in the direction from which
the bullet came and attacked his persecutors, and that sometimes hunters
were killed by them. Accordingly the boys selected trees into which
they might climb for safety, should the deer stampede them and when
they secreted themselves near the water they did not wait long for the
appearance of a deer. When it lowered its head to the water, V. A.
Hoffman leveled his gun and having an attack of buck fever, he immedi-
ately climbed a tree for safety. From his place on the limb he could
see the deer had fallen in the water. It had been a fatal shot, and when
the boys came down they assisted the dog that had already gone to it
to draw it from the water. The boys tied its feet together, and swing-
ing it on a pole they carried it home in triumph. The land on which
the deer was killed is now owned by George Buchrer in Springfield, and
it is still near to nature. Before the road was leveled there were nine
hills in a single mile, and it was a terror to travelers. There is no sign
of the salt lick there today, although Brush Creek still ripples through
the valley toward Tiffin River.
United States Money '
When Enos Morton came to Williams County in 1871, from Canada,
he heard all kinds of stories about wildcat currency. He was afraid of
United States money and put all his Canadian money into gold to protect
himself in the United States markets. When he converted it into Federal
money again in the banks was allowed 40 per cent premium, but in the
stores they only counted out as much change as if he had paid them in
the ordinary circulating medium. In a short time his confidence was
such that he converted all his gold into United States money.
Income from Wood Ashes
The Williams County settlers were always able to realize a little
money from the sale of wood ashes at the asheries that used to be main-
tained in the different towns. The wood ashes were used in the manu-
facture of pearl ash that used to be a marketable product, and families
in need of exchequer could have money or commodities in exchange for
their supply of ashes when delivered at an ashery. There came a time,
too, when families would leave an ash barrel at the country schoolhouse
asking the teacher to fill it. They would utilize the ashes in making lye
soap, but when did the last ash hopper disappear from Williams County?
The' ash hopper and the rain barrel belong to the past in local history.
376 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Sugar Versus Furniture
In a study of economics in the light of contrast and comparison, in
these war time measures people have been forced to recognize, it seems
incredible that there ever was a time when the settler did not have chairs
for his guests, and would roll kegs of sugar before the fire as seats
for his friends. Today the chance visitor is ofifered an upholstered
chair, and if he wishes sugar he is supposed to bring it — a condition
not dreamed of by the settler. The pioneer had not learned to be lavish,
and lack of such things was not so much of a hardship to him. The
child of today is unable to imagine conditions of yesterday. The school
boy who knows him cannot think of Judge C. A. Bowersox as a mill
boy, and yet he relates that his father used to place him astride a horse
with a bag of grain, and he would ride to the grist mill at Edon with
it. When he was only twelve years old he was the mill boy for the
Bowersox family, and has many times made the trip with wheat on
horseback when only a birdie path had been cut out through the woods.
The sawmill and the grist mill were indispensible to the settlers. A town
always sprang up where a mill was located, but today some of them are
only shadows of their former usefulness. The lure of the larger centers
tells the story.
A recent writer has said : "Not less tragic than the desertion of the
farms has been the desertion of the villages, and Williams County resi-
dents have noted the passing of Lockport, West Buflfalo, Northwest,
Bridgewater Center, Primrose, Hamer, Pulaski, Denmark and the people
who once frequented those hamlets are scattered — ask of the winds,
but there remains one consolation : "Out of the small towns have come
some of the greatest characters of our national history — statesmen, min-
isters of the gospel, leaders of industry, teachers, artists. It has been
the peculiar forte of the villages to breed men and women of sturdy mind
and muscle, and when we lose these small communities * * * we
lose a tradition of mutual helpfulness, and a sweetness and poise of
living which nowhere else exist." William Cowper said : "God made
the country while man made the town." The decadent village, the
decadent farm, the decadent church, the decadent school — when will
there be a difYerent construction placed on social economics?
The Mystery of the Lone Bird
(Adapted from a Diary)
There are mysterious things occurring frequently. The settlers were
not without mysteries among them. The comet of 1856 was still a sub-
ject of conversation in the community. While all had seen the north-
western heavens aglow, none attempted to fathom the phenomenon. The
most learned persons among the settlers could not understand some of
life's subtlest mysteries. As yet there had scarcely been a death in the
community. It was in the early spring when the first wild flowers were
appearing^ the buds were swelling, that the lone bird visited the pioneers
in the night, and what of calamity might portend — its swan song might
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 2>77
mean anything at all. Those who heard it were united in one bond of
common sympathy. No note of bird, cry of wild beast or wail of night
wind like it had been heard at all. Those who heard the sound were
unable to describe it. Some likened it to the tap of a bell, sometimes in
the tree tops and sometimes in mid air. They said it was not unlike
the note of the night bird, and yet it was different.
The mystery of the lone bird came at a time when there was much
wild land in Williams County, and the songsters of the woodland were
unafraid because they were seldom molested, and one mystery con-
nected with pioneer life has remained unfathomed to this day. There
were shadowy creatures and strange sounds everywhere, and the Bower-
sox homestead in St. Joseph was no exception to the frontier homes in
Williams County. There was a mystery and weirdness about frontier
life that neither science nor learning can explain, and the settlers encoun-
tered many strange incidents, and there were students of nature among
them. When swains and lassies were going home from neighborhood
parties the lone bird would often startle them, its haunts seemingly in
the neighborhood of "the white schoolhouse" north from Edgerton. The
youngsters would tremble when they heard the sound, and would hasten
to their own hearthstones. When two or three neighbors were together,
it was always a subject of conversation. When the settlers were along
a lonely road at night, the apparition seemed to pursue them.
The young men would hear the strange, melancholy sound all about
them and would see nothing at all. Sometimes the sound would come
as from one lone creature, and then it would seem like many were
united in producing it. Men and women spent sleepless nights because
they could not fathom the mystery. Finally half a dozen young men
met and bound themselves in solemn pledge to discover the source of
the mystery. They would investigate the habits of the mysterious creature
— bird, beast or whatever the species, and if it were a mere sound in
the air that had attracted their attention, they would understand about
it. They would follow the sound at night through hills,, dales and swamps
and they would see nothing. The recurrent sound would whet up their
. curiosity and they would go again. One night they heard it again — •
their hair stood on end, and all halted save one and as he cautiously
crept along the air seemed to be full of sovmd — vibrant with many inde-
scribably mysterious notes, but undaunted he advanced upon it.
As the young man neared the source of the mysterious sound he
thought he discerned on the limb of a tree, an object that resembled a
bird in the twilight. To his dying day he was uncertain about it. He
had seen something with form and then it seemed to be without form
and all the time sounds issued from it. With the courage born of the
wilderness conditions this young man had pressed close to the strange
creature, if creature it were, when all of a sudden it vanished and as
well as he could discern the same sound was heard again in the distance.
His nerves were tense and his vision uncertain. If the thing had form
at all it was a bird brown in color and the size of the quail. He was
not certain that he had seen it when he heard the sound again. However,
no one had ever approached so near it. The strange creature did not
378 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
invite intimate acquaintance, and from that time no one ever heard it
again.
The advance of civilization was not agreeable to this nocturnal crea-
ture of the Williams County wilderness days. If it were a bird it flew
away as mysteriously as it came, and if it were a mere sound it was
never heard again. While different suggestions were offered, many
thought it was the wandering spirit of some murdered settler, or that
some reincarnated American Indian was returning to his former happy
hunting ground wearing the plumage of some strange creature, while
others said it was the complaining spirit of Indian Jim who had been
killed by members of the tribe in order to save food among the Red Men
of the Forest. While the boys who pursued the phantom sound are now
gray haired men, and some have gone the way of the world the mystery
still remains a mystery, and the curtain is drawn upon it.
CHAPTER XLII
NORTHWEST TOWNSHIP AND COLUMBIA
Since December 7, 1840, Northwest, which was the last township to
have local organization in Williams County, has been on the map of the
world. It came into existence the year the courthouse was located in
Bryan. The northern part of Williams County had but little recognition
while the county seat was at Defiance. When Williams County was
organized in 1824, its whole population was all south of its southern
boundary today. The Red Men of the Forest controlled the situation
in Northwest Township. Its position is unique on the map of Williams
County, inasmuch as it is the northwesternmost township in the north-
westernmost county of Ohio, bordering on both Michigan and Indiana.
Northwest Township is so far from the center of things from both a
Williafns County and an Ohio viewpoint, that its social, business and
intellectual life is merged with Michigan and Indiana. While the wild
life of the forest does not recognize township, county and state lines,
there are some restrictions on the people and Ohio claims them if they
sleep on the Williams County side of the line, even though some of
their realty may be across the line in Michigan or Indiana. North-
west has produced its mede of citizenship, the marts of trade and the
professions having drawn from its hearthstones, although the quietude
is little disturbed by agencies from the outside world. While there are
no cattle killed by railroad trains, automobiles whiz by the farm houses
there and the housewives know all about the loss of their choicest young
chickens from the recklessness of chauffeurs.
There was once a railroad in prospect, and some of the track was
built — the story related in the chapter of transportation. Had the dreams
of the promoters come true, Columbia would have been a shipping point
and a trading center of more importance. While James Guthrie who
lived on the Tiffin River is reputed to be the Adam of Williams County,
a namesake of Aaron Burr — Aaron Burr Goodwin, who came in 1837,
was the first settler of Northwest township. He was there three years
before its organization. "Far from the madding crowd," was his theory
and when others began locating near him, he like the Arab folded his
tent and silently went into the newer country. Westward, ho, the Star
of Empire takes its way, and there is little further knowledge of him.
Aaron Burr Goodwin seemed to anticipate Horace Greeley who advised
all young men to go west and grow up with the country. While he grew
restless because of the encroachments of civilization, there is said to
have been both romance and mystery connected with him. He had a
fine education and was considered an excellent frontier surveyor. He
had been an Indian trader in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and as a
gunsmith he had a good income from both whites and Indians. He sold
powder, lead, calico, whisky, tobacco — the Indians and settlers frequently
379
380 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
coming to his cabin. He would sell whisky to the Indians and when
they were drunk he would take advantage of them, and he had dealt
with 100 of them at one time and cleaned up some money.
When one of the Indians wanted some more grog and Goodwin
refused him, his evil nature was stirred and from that time on the
trader's life was in the balance. When the Indian struck home with
the tomahawk and had his scalping knife in readiness, Goodwin sprang
into his cabin and barred the door, and with his rifle he drove the Indians
away from there. One time he had cheated another Indian named Big
Jack out of a bear skin and there was a feud existing. In all Goodwin
spent about five years in Williams County, serving the community as a
mail carrier for a time and carrying the valuables in his hat until deliv-
ered to the rightful owners. When he incurred the displeasure of the
Indians there was no more safety for him until they were removed to
the reservations and so he quietly and silently left the country. He was
a man with an ungovernable temper, an old account saying "it raged
like a conflagration." When both the whites and the Indians questioned
his honesty there was little left for him there. He had two orphan
children he brought from Cleveland, and Anne, the girl, married Hiram
Russell. The Russells lived for a time in the Goodwin cabin after Good-
win had left the country.
In 1838, a more permanent citizenship began locating in Northwest
Township, William Billings coming in from New York, and he opened
a store on his frontier claim as soon as there were others in the com-
munity to be his patrons. On June 20, 1839, a party of three came
at one time — Adolphus Rogers and the Whaley brothers, Thomas, T. F.
and J. C. Whaley. They all secured Government land at pre-emption
prices, and their advent was really the beginning of the community.
When there were ten voters in the township an election was held, Decern-
ber 7, 1840, which was the beginning of organization in the last of the
Williams County townships — the last shall be first in relating the history.
In some instances there were two voters by the same name, and the
voters were : Billings, Whaley, Russell, Butler, Rogers, Parish and
T. T. F. Whaley. Mr. Billings and Adolphus Rogers were elected town-
ship trustees, and Billings and Rogers had further honors thrust upon
them since they were elected justices of the peace. However, there
were few difficulties in the community, and there is no record that they
qualified for their offices. J. C. Whaley was elected treasurer, and T. T.
F. Whaley was constable.
In the organization of the township the settlers of Northwest were
building for the future, and while it was a sparsely settled territory and
the wet land was being held by speculators, within a short time the com-
munity was changed, and aside from the ten original voters were the
names : Bancroft. Beatholf , Baldwin, Bigelow, Bealls, Barnes, Ripel,
Baker, Brewer, Camp, Comstock, Dodge, Devoe, Ellis, Forsythe, Foster,
Lester, Hance, Green, Hornbeck, Huntington, Johnson, Joy, Keith,
Morris, Mather, Perkins, Reed, Root. Rowe, Steely, Sumner, Staunton,
Southard, Talbot, Trumbull, White, Prescott, Rodman, Morgan, Watson,
Whitney, -Waite, Welcher and Petty. In 1841, there was not a horse in
the township, the settlers using cows for their milk and working them,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 381
and there were twenty-three of them in what is now an excellent dairy
country. As in other communities, many of the settlers listed above
are not now represented at all by posterity. Many of them He buried
in unmarked graves, while some of the names would still be found in
the community. There are names on gravestones long after they have
disappeared from directories.
When there were only a dozen names some were of unmarried men,
but today the stranger in Williams County dare not discuss personalities,
as intermarriage plays havoc with relationship and one's relatives are
sacred to him. James Knight who was among the first to locate in the
vicinity of Nettle Lake had five sons : Thomas, Philip, Samuel, James
and Joshua ; and while he had been a professional hunter he was afflicted
with white swelling and became a hopeless cripple, finally losing his eye-
sight, and the care of the family devolved upon the oldest son. Thomas,
who developed into the most expert hunter and trapper ever living there.
He sold bear skins for from $3 to $8, and made five times as much money
as any farmer in the community. Now that tractors are used in plowing
the fields one hardly understands that bears were ever found there. In
his history of Williams County, W^ H. Shinn relates his experience visit-
ing Mr. Knight, who was a soldier in the War of 1812, and who always
enjoyed telling about it. There was a look of kindness beaming from his
sightless eyes and he would "look the children over with his fingers who
visited him," and he would say how much they had grown since he "see"
them last.
The drowning of one of the Knight boys in Nettle Lake is elsewhere
related, and while the area of this beautiful expanse of water has been
materially reduced by drainage, it still covers about three hundred acres.
There is a chain of ninety-six lakes in Steuben County, Indiana, and Net-
tle Lake belongs to the same group and it is the largest natural body of
water in Ohio. The place is being converted into a summer resort, and
a group of cottages there gives it an inviting appearance. Bryan, Mont-
pelier and Pioneer families already own cottages there, and there are
cottages to rent, owned by C. B. Pickle who owns land adjoining and
who is making the lake an attractive spot. He owns a number of boats,
and there is fishing in the lake. Water lilies flank the edge of the water,
and there is plenty of shade around it. Sunset Beach is the local name,
although visitors think only of Nettle Lake. While the water in Nettle
Lake was lowered about fifteen feet in 1905 when the outlet to Clear
Creek was cleaned, it is well stocked with fish and the fish commissioner
recently placed some young fish there.
The school, the church and the social life of the dififerent townships
have all been written in a collective way, and yet Abigail Hill, who was
the first teacher, was married to T. T. F. Whaley and finished the term
afterward. The first M. E. Church was in Columbia, and while the U. B.
Church establishes similar claims, the Baptists had the first resident
minister in the person of Elder L. Dean. The first wedding was cele-
brated in 1840, Chester Hill and Laura Stanbaugh the "high contracting"
parties, and there was wedding cake and everything. On July 4, 1841,
J. C. Whaley went across into Indiana and married Rhody Phelps, the
first bride imported into the township. Their child was the first person
382 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
buried there. The western part of Northwest seemed most attractive to
the settlers, as there were fewer marshes and less drainage difficulty.
The spade and the ditching machine have had their part in the
development, the settlers finding little time to play or spend in idleness.
There were stalwart characters among them — men of action in every
community — suited to the frontier or backwoods conditions. There were
serious problems confronting the settlers that the young manhood and
womanhood of today know nothing about, and it required determination
on their part to conquer the wilderness conditions in Williams County,
although the other townships had all been settled earlier. The emigrants
could not return to Europe with 3,000 miles of ocean rolling between,
and by 1840 the conditions were such that none wanted to leave Williams
County. "Ground hog case" has its meaning, but not so many came into
the wilderness without some idea of the hardships they must encounter.
In 1843 there was a postoffice at Northwest, the mail coming there from
Pulaski, although the place is little more than a memory today. Wil-
liams County rural free delivery carriers will be interested to know that
Jabez Perkins was the first rural carrier, making the trip once a week on
horseback, a long time in advance of the daily mail and the parcel post
accommodations of the present time. The local postmaster was William
Billings, and Billingstown was then on the map of Williams County.
The settlers in Northwest were a long way from the markets in
Defiance, or in Michigan and Indiana, and their oxen were too slow to
make the journey. Today the touring cars have annihilated distance, and
Northwest is a desirable residence community. Would the youngsters
of today be able to accommodate themselves to the environment of those
sturdy pioneers? They cleared away the forest while basket ball is the
recreation today. Time was when the grain and other farm products
were scarcely worth hauling to the market, but with greater population
centers there is demand for everything. The log rollings of the past
paved the way for the farmsteads in Northwest today. There were
home industries — factories at every fireside — and the settlers underwent
privations unknown to the present generation. Recent war conditions
have caused people to turn back the sun dial of their years, and some were
not quite patriotic in the use of substitutes while the pioneers had never
known the better things. In these days when houses are framed at the
factory and shipped into Williams County, people forget about the saw-
mills of the long ago.
Columbia was organized in 1854, and it is the principal community
center in Northwest. The wealth of the township is in its agriculture,
and it is a progressive farming community. The daily mail reaches
Columbia and surrounding country from Edon, and while the Liberty
Loan was met each time, in the first and second loans there is no report
from Columbia. In the third loan 111 people registered from there sub-
scribed $11,000, and in the fourth loan 285 people handled $41,000, while
in the Victory Loan sixty subscribers took $12,500; making $64,500 in
Government bonds from that locality, not counting what Northwest
Township may have given through underchannels of subscription. The
northwesternmost township in the northwesternmost county always counts
one in county, state and national enterprises.
CHAPTER XLIII
BRIDGEWATER TOWNSHIP AND BRIDGEWATER CENTER
Until 1839 Bridgewater and Northwest had been part of Florence
Township for all governmental purposes. Much of the territory now
embraced in Bridgewater was entered for speculative purposes^ long
before the settlers came in numbers, and Daniel M. Jordan who "came
and went" is considered as a squatter, and a family named Smith came
across from Lenawee County, Michigan, and occupied the cabin vacated
by Jordan. Daniel Smith had come from New York to Michigan. It is
said a daughter of Daniel Smith married CarUon and to this marriage
was born a son. Will Carlton, known to the world as the author of
"Over the Hills to the Poor House." However, the "poor house" was
not in Bridgewater.
Bridgewater Center was laid out in 1871, and it is the only community
center. Its name implies its geographical location. There was a store
at this point in 1850, and Eddington Sterner was the first merchant.
While the passerby only thinks of a country road today, the principal
streets are State and School, and the succession of merchants includes
such names as Robert Scannel. Clark Backus, Henry Bennett, Putnam
and Corbett, Horace P. Moore, James Beatty, Waldo Corbett, T. E.
Whitney and John Hagerman, and all along there has been business
transacted at Bridgewater Center. Where the timber was once thickest
on the ground is now like the unbroken prairie, so well did the pioneers
clear the surrounding country. In its organization there is no mention of
a trustee in Bridgewater, but among the settlers as early as 1837 were :
Follett, Smith, Backus, Back, Holt and Putnam. They knew the hard-
ships of the pioneers, and provision was hard to obtain, the route to mar-
ket being by water, the St. Joseph River through one of its tributaries
accommodating them.
Mention is made in the old histories of two Pottawattomie chieftians
— Beaubice and Mitea — who had more than local reputation while they
still roamed the forests of Bridgewater. The rattlesnakes— their techni-
cal name being Massasaugas — were especially obnoxious along the streams
and in the marshy, undrained land until there were clearings, and the
settlers endured miasma, ague, shakes — everything in reclaiming the
country. The first Bridgewater Township election was held in 1840, and
there were thirteen voters, although some were illegal, not having been
residents the requisite time, and the election resulted as follows : Township
clerk, Anson Smith; supervisor, Asa Holt, and while C. Holt and D.
Smith were elected justices of the peace they did not qualify because
there was no litigation among them. In October, 1839, E. G. Back and
Lucy Sumner were married by William Ogle, justice of the peace, there
being no resident minister. The Church of God, built at a cost of $3,000
384
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and dedicated January 1, 1871, was the first church in the community.
Bridgewater and Northwest both have their quota of abandoned churches
today. E. G. Back who was the first bridegroom was also the first
carpenter. The first birth was in the Smith family, and the first burial
was a Mrs. Adams.
There was a sawmill operated by Worthington and Van Court at
Bridgewater Center as early as 1844, and since they soon installed a flour
mill the settlers had white bread without taking the long journey to
Defiance. Holt was postmaster and J. M. Face had the first blacksmith
Rattlesnakes Abounded in Pioneer Times
shop there. Dewey was the merchant and Smith was the shoemaker.
The first physician was W. D. Stough. However, sawmills and gristmills
were of brief existence. There was a cross roads designated as "Fuddle-
town," and in 1870, Babcock and Strong opened a lumber business there.
While there was timber there were sawmills in the country. Curtis
Cogswell had the first tavern in 1848, calling it "Traveler's Home," and
it was a frontier welcome to tourists. Mr. Cogswell had the first orchard
in the community, and elsewhere in the history the first silo is credited
to Bridgewater.
While there were foreigners in the population of Bridgewater from
the beginning, some of them studied local institutions and developed into
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 385
good citizens. The branch of the St. Joseph River in Bridgewater is a
very crooked stream. While it affords little waterpower, there was suf-
ficient fever and ague along it until drainage changed the conditions.
While Bridgewater citizens had their part in the war loans, they were
counted with other localities. It is a front-line township from the stand-
point of citizenship, livestock and agriculture.
CHAPTER XLIV
MADISON TOWNSHIP, PIONEER AND KUNKLE
It is understood that James A. Rogers was the first citizen of Madi-
son Township. While there is nothing known of his early history, in
1845 he was injured while building a house for P. W. Norris, and his
death was the result of this injury. Another story goes that Cyrus Bar-
rett was the first settler, arriving April 21, 1841, and that the first child
was William H. Barrett. This conflict is easily understood since the
people of Williams County today are derelict when it comes to statistical
information. A Kansas woman has just refused to register as a voter
because she must tell her age, and after 100 years have cycled by in
Williams County history, there is not much detail as to who was first in
the different communities.
The larger American cities have constant difficulty with physicians
and midwives as to vital statistics, so the settlers should be exonerated
from blame in the matter of birth and mortuary records. On March 7,
1843, the Williams County commissioners made an entry providing for
the recognition of Madison as an organized township, and it was named
in honor of the fourth United States President, James Madison. A branch
of the St. Joseph River with Silver and Clear creeks, and some smaller
rivulets and spring branches give the township an undulating surface.
While it was once a hunter's paradise because of the wild life in the for-
est, bears, wolves, wildcats, panthers endangering the lives of domestic
animals; bearsteak was frequently used on the dinner tables, and there
were deer and wild turkeys for the effort of shooting them.
As time went by Madison Township had its full quota of sawmills,
gristmills, and as the forest gave way before the settler the improved
farms of today became a possibility. In October, 1853, Pioneer came
into existence, and while it never experienced a boom it is a good business
center and draws patronage as well as its quota from Williams County,
overlapping the bounds of Madison Township as a commercial center. It
is a livestock shipping point, and is in touch with the outside world over
the Wabash and by trolley to Toledo. The main street and the business
houses of Pioneer are all on filled land along Clearwater Fork, a tributary
of the St. Joseph, and the unique thing in Williams County history — the
stream runs under the town, while in its earlier history it sometimes
spread out all over it.
"When I was a boy I used to skate all over this town," said a pioneer
in Pioneer, and then a group of elderly men sitting in the shade pointed
out the lower level of the town a short distance from the pavement.
When they direct a stranger to cross the bridge, he wonders when he
will come to it. A platform orator one time delivered a public address
from the bridge in Pioneer and did not see it. He had not heard its
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 387
history. A. F. Norris and G. R. Joy were early settlers who owned land
on opposite sides of Clearwater Fork, and each was ambitious to locate
the town. They had married sisters and they "fit" about the town, each
platting some land for it. However, the advance of civilization bridged
over the difficulty by bridging the stream so completely the whole width
of the street, that strangers do not known when they cross it.
Mr. Norris, who planted one side of the town of Pioneer, came into
Williams County in 1838, and working for Jacob Dohn he helped to build
the first water mill on the St. Joseph River in 1853, and two years later
he helped Owen McCarty construct the first water mill in Bridgewater.
One account says that Norris built a steam mill and that Dohn built a
water mill. Mr. Norris was at one time president of the Williams
Wild Turkey Being Plentiful and Costing Nothing but Shot
County Pioneers' Association, and he had the laudable ambition to some-
time write the local history. He was a citizen of Pioneer until 1867, when
he went West where he traveled extensively. Norris Basin in Yellow-
stone Park is named in his honor. The story goes that when Norris died
in the West and Mrs. Joy died in Pioneer, that Mr. Joy married Mrs.
Norris and then both sides of Clearwater Fork belonged to one family.
One time a house in the Joy addition was sold, and when the buyer
attempted to move it across the stream into the Norris addition, the whole
proceedings were stopped by Mr. Joy. However, all that is forgotten in
Pioneer today. The citizens are busy with other things.
The Pottawattomie Village in Madison Township was a place where
all the trails converged near the mouth of Clearwater Fork, and Mr. Nor-
388
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
ris was there before laying off the town of Pioneer. He was born
August 17, 1821, in Wayne County, New York. He was an active man
and is spoken of today as the outstanding character in Pioneer and
vicinity in the formative period of the community. When he built his
first cabin in 1840, those assisting him were : Putnam, Lindsay, Drake
and Waterman ; and eighty years later none in the community know any-
thing definite about them. Kvmkle is an enterprising village although it
has never been plotted into lots as other towns. It is a business center
and a community social center. The name Kunkle is frequently men-
tioned in other chapters. The older histories speak of its as Kunkle's
Korners. There is a Mennonite colony in Madison not far from Pioneer.
While the wealth of Madison Township is its agriculture, there are
Street Scene, Pioneer
some pay rolls in Pioneer. Its Liberty Loan investments amounted in all
to $240,250, distributed among 1,138 subscribers, while Kunkle reported
$693,300 divided among 3,510 subscribers, making a showing of $933,550
from Madison Township and its contributing territory. Madison had
all the business and social advantages, and "Woodman, spare that tree,"
has definite significance at Buckeye Corners, there being a buckeye in
the, center of the four corners one mile south from Pioneer. The four
sections of land corner at the root of this tree, and some call it the Land-
mark tree. It is in the middle of a hard surface highway, and because of
public sentiment for its perpetuity, there is a five-foot space left about
its roots to allow the sunshine and the rain to reach them. There is
pardonable pride in this landmark unique because of its location on the
four corners in the crossroads — a thrifty buckeye in the Buckeye State,
and it has valiant protectors in the person of each citizen.
CHAPTER XLV
MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP, ALVORDTON AND HAMER
Northwest, Bridgewater, Madison and Millcreek are the four town-
ships acquired by Williams County from the Michigan strip, and smce
they are bounded north bv the Harris and south by the Pulton Imes,
there is little regularity about either the northern or southern boundary,
there being fractional farm lands and much confusion about their records.
Theron Landon who arriyed Noyember 17. 1835, was the first settler m
Millcreek, while Josiah Woodworth came in the following l^ebruary.
George Berone, James Black, John Haines and others followed m the
summer of 1836, and in a short time came Talman and Joseph Reasoner
Justice Alyord and Samuel G. Wallace. At the time ^lillcreek extended
three miles further east, that much territory having been cut otf m 183U,
when Fulton blossomed into an organized county and had to have more
land to reach the 400 square miles requirement. Among those locating
on the strip later transferred to Fulton were: Abijah Coleman, David
Severance and A. Gillette, who resented the change and sold their pos-
sessions and returned to Williams County. Others transferred froni \\ il-
liams to Fulton by this method of increasing territory were : Alanson
Pike Nathan Fellows, Calvin Ackley and Elijah Masters. Jacob Landis
and Joseph Miller were among early settlers locating farther west in
Millcreek. . ^ , ., , , • .u
Hannah Woodworth, born in 1837, was the first child born in the
township and Mrs. Rachel Aldrich who died April 18, 1836, vyas the first
person buried there. The first school was taught by Joseph Reasoner
who was also among the first settlers. Theron Landon who was the first
settler was also the first bridegroom, although he went into Brady town-
ship to find the woman. George Berone built the first waterpower mill
and Landon and Haines had the first store. Hamer, Millcreek Center and
Primrose all gave promise of commercial prosperity, but with the coming
of the railroad Alvordton sprang up on land owned by Justus Alvordton.
While Alvordton is at the junction of the Wabash and the Cincinnati
Northern Railroad, the Wabash coming in 1882 and the Cincinnati North-
ern in 1888, there has never been a great deal of shipping from Alvord-
ton. Because of its excellent shipping advantages, there seems to be a
future for Alvordton. . .
While Alvordton is in the center of a good farming community tne
town has suffered from incendiarism. Hamer, Millcreek Center and
Primrose are little more than memories today. While the township was
organized in 1839, a strip three miles wide from the east side of it is
now part of Gorham Township in Fulton County. Mill and Brush Creek
are the streams draining the township, and when a steam gristmill was
located at Primrose in 1855, the people had some prospect of white
390 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
bread. The sawmill always preceded the gristmill, and some of the early-
merchants were enterprising enough to operate a chain of stores. The
flour mill was a welcome adjunct to any community so far from markets,
and Adrian, Michigan, seemed like a long distance for the mill-boy with
a bag of grain thrown over the back of a horse.
There is a triangular piece of land surrounded on three sides by iron
bands, the Wabash and Cincinnati Northern being intersected by the elec-
tric road from Pioneer, a condition not duplicated anywhere else in Wil-
liams County. In a ride of only a few miles the automobile passenger
crosses the track on all sides of this triangle, and Alvordton is the nearest
railroad point, the station being at one side of that town. While Alvord-
ton was not represented in the first Liberty Loan, eight citizens from this
community subscribed for $1,900 in the second and in all $49,000 were
taken by 361 buyers, and while Alvordton has had a precarious existence
because of its shipping facihties it will always be a town. The north
and south roads offer an opportunity for the residents of the north tier
of townships in Williams County to reach Montpelier and Bryan, although
their border location divides their patronage and their social relations.
Dairy farming is a recognized industry in Millcreek, and there are
silos about as close together as in any of the border townships. It bor-
ders on Michigan and on Fulton County. There is a commodious looking
barn in Millcreek with an unusual history. Its roof has been put in
piecemeal and the owner has been five years doing it. In June, A. D.
1920, there was still some unfinished roof and passersby were all taking
note of the progress there. They wonder about the durability of the
shingles, and how long it will take to repair the roof.
CHAPTER XLVI
FLORENCE TOWNSHIP AND EDON
The organization of Florence Township dates back to the first
Monday in 1837, and for some years it embraced Northwest, Bridge-
water and Superior townships for governmental purposes, and it had
once belonged to St. Joseph since an old record credits all the territory
lying to the north as part of St. Joseph Township. As other townships
were organized its area was reduced, and Northwest was the last to be
set off from Florence. The oldest inhabitants are not agreed as to who
was the first settler in Florence, but it is the consensus of opinion that
there are no better townships' in the even dozen that make up Williams
County today. The first tax money was paid in 1837 by John Case, his
taxable property being four head of cattle valued at $32, and the amount
of the tax was 51 cents. No one in Florence escapes with that much
tax today.
While John Case was the first taxpayer, many are of the opinion
that David Singer was the first bona-fide settler. His wife was an
authority for the statement that for three years after they lived in the
wilds of Florence she did not see another white person. Their only
visitors were the red men of the Forest. There had been other land
entries previous to the coming of the Singers, speculation always prompt-
ing investments. Depew, Webb, Martin and Burke were among the
first settlers known to Singer and his wife. He married Margaret Kra-
gore and brought her as a bride into the wilderness and they both had
prowess as hunters as elsewhere related in this history.
David Singer was always lucky in locating bee trees, and their cabin
board was frequently graced with a dish of strained or candied honey.
They endured many hardships for awhile, and although sometimes they
had no bread to break into it, they always had soups and fresh meats
from the wild life of the forests. The time came when they had no
difficulty in feeding and clothing themselves. One night Singer was
caught in a rainstorm and was lost in the woods. The moss on the trees
■was not visible, and he was uncertain about the directions. He was
alone in the woods and she was alone in the cabin. Their thoughts were
their company.
At another time when Mrs. Singer was left alone in the cabin, she
built a bonfire for the protection of a brood sow with young pigs from
the pack of wolves she heard howling as they came toward her. By
keeping the fire through the night she saved the porkers, and there are
women today who protect livestock when necessary. However, the pio-
neer women had tests of their courage that would be sore trials to some
of their posterity. The Singers had tamed a deer and with a bell about
391
392 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
its neck it often decoyed wild deer near enough to the cabin that
Mr. Singer would shoot them, and Mrs. Singer became an adept in cur-
ing venison, often curing wild meats for the Indians. She was a thrifty
woman. She was adapted to frontier conditions.
While Edon points with pride to a modern grist mill, the first mill
of any description was at West Buffalo. Daniel Farnum, who had been
an active man in the development of some older localities, helped to build
the mill in West Bufifalo. While visitors would not recognize the town
Street Scene, Edon
today, Williams County people talk about West Buffalo. There were
tamarack swamps awaiting drainage in the early history of Florence
Township, and it is related that in the days when the settlers could only
see straight up from their cabin homes because of the timber, Florence
Beach said to her brothers : "John, did you ever think about how far
you can see when you get out into the road?" and the question serves
to illustrate the changes that have come within the memory of men and
women not yet old, the homes of neighbors now seemingly much closer
together with the intervening timber removed, and distance annihilated —
neighbors too close with no intervening forest. The Beach homestead
was then a mere pocket by the wayside in the clearing under progress in
Williams County.
The maiden name of Edon was Weston, and sometimes people say
Mudsock in speaking about it. When a name is once applied to a place
it usually sticks, although there is no better agricultural center in Wil-
liams County today. There are brick streets as in other towns, and
splendid homes and while it was about the first dry community in Wil-
liams County, Blakeslee was the last oasis in the desert to which travelers
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 393
journeyed from many miles away from there. It was on the map of
the wet world long, after the dry towns were no longer meccas for the
thirsty. There was a time when all roads led to Blakeslee, and citizens
grew tired of seeing so much drunkenness along the highways of Wil-
liams Coimty. Local option was always both local and optional, but the
day came when the open saloon was banished from Blakeslee, and many
citizens of Florence claim other honors.
In the war loans Florence and its two towns — Edon and Blakeslee —
handled $284,350 worth of Liberty and Victory bonds, there being 1,112
persons interested as investors. The second loan amounting to $11,400
was all taken by one subscriber, according to the reports from Wash-
ington. ^^'hile Florence is six miles wide it is seven miles long, and
thus its area is six square miles more than the townships north from it.
The realty about Edon is rated along with the high-priced farm lands
in Williams County. However, not many farms are on the market. The
owners dare not price them if they wish to continue their homes in the
vicinity. Diversified farming is practiced, and it is said the rural popu-
lation is recognized as a social factor in Edon. Perhaps the same condi-
tion prevails in other localities, but members of the booster organiza-
tion— the business men of Edon, emphasized the matter.
CHAPTER XLVII
SUPERIOR TOWNSHIP AND MONTPELIER
An old account says of Superior that it is one of the best townships
in Williams County, and that it was settled by an intelligent, thrifty
class of citizens and that few foreigners ever located there. While the
first clearing was made by George Wisman, it was not long until Joseph
Pew built and moved into his cabin on Columbus day — October 12, 1836,
and settlers multiplied rapidly from that time. William Ogle came in
1837, and Jacob Schall in 1838, and in due time the settlers' roster
embraced the following names : Wisman, Pew, Bible, McDaniels, Bech-
tol, Anspaugh, Brannan, Kollar, Knepper, Riley, Teats, White, Starr,
Dellinger, Griffith, Brundyge, Dunlap, and all of them men who left their
impress upon the community, and are all those names still heard along
the highways and byways of Superior Township and within the bounds
of Williams County?
Superior had been attached to Florence for governmental purposes
until 1839, when an election was held and the township was organized —
Clark Burgoyne and George Wisman being elected trustees ; clerk,
George Bible ; treasurer, Robert Ogle, and some years later George
Bible was elected the first justice of the peace. The first birth in Supe-
rior Township was a pair of twins in the Wisman family, and the first
funeral service was for a man named Mick. John Melville Crabb was
the first Presybterian minister, and Abner Aikens was the first school
teacher. The formal organization of Superior Township occurred June
3, 1839, and one account says the settlers were from the older parts of
Ohio, Virginia,, Pennsylvania and New York. It is said that with Mont-
pelier in its bounds, Superior is the most cosmopolitan township in Wil-
liams County. "But whatever their ancestry or wherever their birthplace,
the people of Superior Township are a class of intelligent and progressive
citizens, many of whom are highly cultured and intellectual."
While there is no complete record in any locality, Superior has its
mede of traditions and folklore. The father to son and the mother to
daughter stories serve to keep memories green, and there is reliable
information that George Bible constructed his cabin in 1834, says one
writer, although other accounts make it two years later. However, he
was a good marksman and in a contest with Frederick Miser he shot
ninety-nine deer against sixty-five to the credit of his friend. It was a
disappointment to Mr. Bible that one more deer did not come in range of
his rifle, and this is the contest referred to on the tire company's sign on
the road leading into Bryan from the northeast, saying that 164 deer
were killed by them.
Robert McDaniels was an early settler — reputed to have built the
second cabin, and this is the family to which Arvilla McDaniels else-
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 395
where referred to as a teacher belonged — the woman who taught for
forty years. The St. Joseph River crosses Superior, and this locality
was a favorite rendezvous of the Indians. There was a camp on the site
of Montpelier for many years after there were white men in the com-
munity. In 1835, the village was established that has since become the
second city in Williams County. Dan Tucker and his grist mill were
about the first indication of the future town on the St. Joseph River.
Mr. Huston joined him in the enterprise, and G. and R. Brown were
soon installed as dry goods and grocery merchants there. For thirty
years Montpelier remained a crossroads trading point, having no unusual
growth or boom until 1875 when it was incorporated, the coming of the
railroad putting a bright future before it.
The site of Montpelier was the farm owned by W. S. Miller who
Montpelier Residence
sold it to Jesse Tucker and I. K. Briner whose names go down in history
as founders of the town. It is said they purchased the land on a con-
tract, but as there was no immediate boom and sale of lots, the transfer
of property was never recorded and the realty reverted to Miller, and
four years later W. S. Miller sold it again to John Miller, and when he
inaugurated a sale of lots Montpelier was soon on the map of the world.
Since 1849 Montpelier has had steady growth and development. C. W.
Mallory had a store there in 1845, and prior to that time Jacob Snyder
and William Crissey had a store and ashery at Tuckertown, a short dis-
tance west of Montpelier. However, the place never developed into a
village. The business growing up there was removed to Montpelier, and
this ashery was a thriving industry for many years. Sawmills, asheries
and tanneries all had their day in early history.
Montpelier is a French name, and when it was appropriated by the
Williams County hamlet, the residents only knew of the Vermont town
396 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and of the country place owned by President James Madison. The first
election in Montpelier was April 5, 1875, resulting as follows : Mayor,
Joel D. Kriebel ; clerk, Jacob Leu; treasurer, John Allen; marshal, Jesse
Blue ; the election board of judges was : Frank L. Speaker, Nathan E.
Fry and W. M. Gillis. J. T. Kriebel and T. E. Lamb were the clerks.
Mayor Kriebel was a manufacturer, and the official honors were dis-
tributed to the different local industries. The postofflce was opened
there, December 28, 1846, and Conroy W. Mallory was the first post-
master. The Empire was the first hostelry, and since the coming of the
Wabash there have been rapid manufacturing and commercial develop-
ments. While Montpelier is a manufacturing center, it is surrounded
by splendid farming country, and the livestock and shipping facilities
are elsewhere mentioned — the farm bureau chapter dealing with that
question.
Street Scene. Montpelier
The four divisions of the Wabash Railroad centering at Montpelier
help to swell the tax duplicate, and the Commercial Association recog-
nizes the importance of the railroads to local industries. People living
in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit or Toledo may reach Montpelier without
change, and yet the freight competition in Montpelier is unusually strong
because of the number of trucks in use there. There was a rapid
growth apparent about 1908, when the railroad shops were removed from
Ashley, Indiana, to Montpelier. In all there are about 800 men living in
Montpelier who are employed by the Wabash Railway. There are 250
men in the mechanical division — the shops, who keep the locomotives
and the cars in order, and about seventy-five who clean and repair cars,
always overhauling all rolling stock after each trip, and the transporta-
tion department includes more than 400 men — engineers, conductors,
HISTORY OF \MLLIAMS COUNTY 397
brakemen, firemen, trainmen in all capacities, and since February 1,
1916, the maintenance of way office has been located in Montpelier. On
May 1, 1917, the supply office was removed from Detroit to Montpelier,
and the roundhouse has been there many years.
Montpelier is a recognized railroad center, and the employes of the
WabasK spend their money in the town. While there has always been
Montpelier boosters, the Montpelier Commercial Association under its
latest organization was organized A. D. 1920, and two good industries
had already been located by it. W. H. Shinn is president, F. E. Beach
is secretary and A. P. Rothenberger, treasurer. The board of directors
includes these names: F. E. Beach, L. L. Boone, J. M. Hodson. L. C.
Lantz, W. H. Shinn, G. Grant Stahl and A. M. Strayer. While there
were already some splendid industries the policy of the Montpelier Com-
mercial Association is to foster them and encourage others. The Elk-
hart Stamping and Tool Company had just been located by the Commer-
cial Association, the local industry to be known as the Cause Manufac-
turing Company of Montpelier. It has a variety of specialties, including
"Kant-Break-em Toys." and it is regarded as a good industry. The
William A. Waggoner Talking Machine Company is an acquisition com-
ing from Ft. Wayne. When it is in full swing it will employ 1,000 men,
and the Commercial Club located it.
The W. C. Heller Company manufactures hardware store shelving
and fixtures, and it has the world for its market. It is a well-established
industry giving employment to seventy-five men, and its products go
into all civilized nations.
The Boone Lumber Company — well, the mind of man runneth not to
the contrary, said a local booster in speaking of the time it had been a
Montpelier enterprise. It is an old institution with a fine business, and
it is a valuable adjunct to the community.
The Montpelier Creamery means the monthly distribution among
Williams County farmers of a great deal of money. It is a local market
for milk, and many cities use the Rose brand of butter made in
Montpelier.
Storrer Brothers operate a grist mill that has been on the St. Joseph
River since 1840, and The Pride of Montpelier is a brand of flour
everywhere popular with housewives. A milling industry on one spot
for four score years is a unique thing in local history.
There is a bottling works where soft drinks are put on the market,
and there is a cement products factory. Building materials and mate-
rials used in street improvements — and the first asphalt street in Williams
County was made in Montpelier.
There are good stores and progressive dealers and no one need leave
Montpelier for the necessary commodities. It is considered among the
most thrifty business centers in northwestern Ohio. It has excellent
schools, prosperous churches, good streets and utility homes and men-
tion is elsewhere made of them. It is said there are self-reliant women
in Montpelier who have carried on whatever had been the industry
established by their husbands, and some of them have been singularly
successful in the business world.
398 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The total Liberty and Victory loan reported from Montpelier amounts
to $693,300 and with some patrons of each loan the money came from
3,510 different persons. The Williams County Red Cross workshops
all reported through the Montpelier chapter, and through its central
location it was convenient to all the other chapters. There is as much
local pride to the square inch in Montpelier as anywhere else in the
world. In its business and social life it is always abreast of the times,
and once a resident means always a booster.
CHAPTER XLVIII
JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP AND WEST JEFFERSON
Florence, Superior and Jefferson townships have the same area, and
they are the largest townships in Williams County. Jefferson is with-
out a community center, although West Jefferson still has a store and
there is a church and some rural schools in the vicinity. The settlers
were there about the time they began locating in adjoining townships —
1833-5, among those coming early being : Eli Otwer, Turner Thompson,
John and Henry Miller, Thomas Reed and John Shankster. While
George Rudisill had entered land prior to this time he had not setUed
on it. The Reeds furnished the first and second brides to the settlers,
Andrew Hood having married Betsey and James Pattee selecting Lottie,
the marriage service in each instance being performed by Judge Myers.
On June 6, 1837, the first effort toward organization in Jefferson
Township occurred when the board of county commissioners ordered an
election to be held on the first Monday in July, at the home of Andrew
Farrier, Jr., and the records show that until this time Madison had
been attached to Jefferson. There were changes in the map in 1839, and
since then Jefferson has had its present outline. The Fulton line or the
old Michigan boundary is the north line of the three large townships,
and there is a tier and a fractional tier of sections across the north end
that renders them civil instead of congressional townships.
While half a dozen men are mentioned, another account says that
John Perkins was the first settler, although Pulaski also claims him as a
citizen. It was a case of the mountain coming to Mohamet, since when
the final boundary was established he was thrown into Pulaski. It is
said he had no objections to living in Jefferson, and the case is paralleled
by the story of a woman who lived on a disputed strip between North
Carolina and Virginia. She preferred North Carolina as she had heard
that Virginia was an unhealthy country. While the survey changed her
from one state to the other, she remained on the same spot of ground
even though she were thrown on the unhealthy border. Prejudice
enters into a good many things, and where ignorance is bliss it is better
not to acquire knowledge, although it is common knowledge that the
Perkins family stock came from Virginia, and the sawmills and other
early day industries claimed attention from different members of the
Perkins family. John Perkins had married in Ross County, and when
he came to Williams County he had three sons and four daughters.
The early citizenry of Jefferson embraced these names: Perkins,
Oliver, Jones, Myers, Opdycke, Boyers, Perky, Bible, Ferrier, Smith,
Newman, Moudy, Plummer, Shankster, Bush, Snyder, Barger, Dor-
shimer, Andre, Engle, Thompson, Fickle, Miller, Burns — but today many
400 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
of these names are on tombstones rather than in local directories. While
the settlers have all joined the silent majority — their names are writ on
their tombs, some of them are survived by posterity. Thomas Reid was
chosen justice of the peace July 2, 1837, but since JefTerson is without
a commercial center it has not had the need of officers beyond the trus-
tees found in every township. The county farm — the Williams County
Home, is located in Jefiferson.
The surface is level and the drainage is through Beaver Creek into
the Tiffin River. Leatherwood and Bean creeks are smaller streams,
and while it was once a timber covered country, the soil is a heavy bed
of clay with sand and gravel cropping out at spots, and withal it is well
adapted to fruit culture and the dairying industry. The people of Jef-
ferson are in direct communication with several towns, Montpelier and
West Unity being about equal distances away and Pioneer and Bryan
easily accessible to them. While no Liberty loans are reported from
Jefiferson, its citizenship is represented in the loans from their own
direct trading points, none being allowed to escape because there were
no banking houses in the township to take care of the loans. Jefiferson
had its part in the different communities.
CHAPTER XLIX
BRADY TOWNSHIP AND WEST UNITY
While Brady Township is seven and a fraction miles long — its length
uniform with Florence, Superior and Jefferson, when West Unity entered
the contest for the county seat the Ohio Assembly clipped off two tiers
of sections on the east and added them to Fulton County, thereby throw-
ing the town as near the county line as Bryan, and it had no further
argument in the matter. It seems that the first settlers in Brady were
on this strip of land, Joseph Bates having located there in 1833, and later
in the year came J. B. Packard, John McLaughlin and Daniel Osman.
While they were settlers in Williams County by a peculiar turn of the
wheel of fortune they found themselves citizens of Fulton County, not-
withstanding the dangers of malaria from this sudden change of resi-
dence. While their land was not confiscated, they found themselves
paying tribute to another goddess of liberty.
By March 7, 1836, there were enough settlers to establish township
government and Brady was set off from Springfield Township. Accord-
ing to accounts John Miller entered the land in April, 1834, where
West Unity is now located, and while John Bohner entered land in the
same month he was not living on it until June. Warren Hancock, John
Rings and Abner Ayres all came at different times that year. Samuel
Snyder came in 1836, and Henry L. Flowers and David Loutzenheiser
came a year later. Walter Coleman, William Miller, J. Hollinshead,
William H. McGrew, William Stubbs, George McGarah, W. L. Smith,
Robert Bodell and A. F. Hull were all early arrivals in Brady. An old
account says : "The experiences of the early settlers were similar
regardless of locality," and all those pioneer experiences have been
detailed in county-wide chapters.
When W^est Unity was located in 1835, it was little more than a
clearing, and it was not an incorporated town until 1866, when H. H.
Peppard was elected mayor, and the first council was made up as fol-
lows : Dr. G. W. Finch, Dr. J. N. Runnion, J. M. Webb, George Rings
and John Cline. C. W. Skinner was the clerk. While Charles Coleman
was the first white child born in Brady Township, Susan Rings was the
first one born in West Unity. Mariah L. Dunscomb was the first person
to die in Brady Township. While Lockport once rivaled West Unity,
the stranger today is reminded of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," when
he passes it. There was a sawmill there, and the pioneer merchant came
along but the advance of civilization has almost obliterated all traces of
the town. In 1835, A. F. Hull brought a stock of goods from Maumee
and embarked in business at Lockport. In 1834 Wertz Brothers had
located a sawmill there, but to reach Defiance by water they must travel
vol. 1-26 4Q1
402
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
eighty miles via the Tiffin and Maumee rivers, and since they were sickly
in the climate they did not remain long in the community. While they
operated the mill they lived on wild meats, and J. Hollinshead was
employed by them to keep a supply in readiness.
When the mill was completed they added a flour mill and they raised
hogs, the old query always arising as to whose grain the miller fed to
them. He took toll from all, and by common agreement what he fed to
the hogs belonged to him. There was once a postoffice at Lockport, the
mail coming by carrier from Defiance. In 1836 the grist mill in Lockport
was operated by oxen power — most likely a tread mill, and Walter Cole-
man was the proprietor. Until then the settlers had taken their grain
to Pulaski, where a sawmill had installed "nigger heads" for crushing it.
Think of electricity and its uses today. It would be hard to locate mill
burrs anywhere today.
BiRDSEYE View. West Unity
There are two "first" marriages reported from Brady: George
Johnson and Hannah Donutt, and Theron Landon and Harriet Bates,
the connubial knot being tied in each instance by Jabez Jones. Men and
women have been taking each other "for better or worse" ever since that
time. At the suggestion of Gilbert S. Dunscomb, the township was
named in honor of Capt. Samuel Brady.
West Unity is a trade center watered from springs about eight to
twenty-five feet from the surface, and it has shipping facilities to take
care of its local industries. A Detroit packer reports more eggs shipped
from West Unity than from any other point in the LTnited States except
Petaluma, California. While Montpelier and Bryan are larger towns,
the home consumption is greater than at West Unity. George W. Bond
of West Unity, "A servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and wholesale
dealer in butter, eggs and poultry," was the first man in the United
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 403
States to pack quality eggs, the famous red, white and blue brands, and
the handwriting on the wall is Bible texts wherever there is space suf-
ficient for them. West Unity is the shipping point for eggs gathered up
all over the country, Mr. Bond having stations in other towns and bring-
ing all the eggs to West Unity. The Cincinnati Northern road affords
quick transit to Detroit, and there the red, white and blue brands are
routed to the different markets. Mr. Bond is a follower of the late
Alexander Dowie of Zion City, and when he was in active control of the
packing house industry in West Unity, for twenty-nine years the
employees began the day's activities after a season of prayer, and the
business proved a blessing to the community. In all those years Mr. Bond
educated Williams County farmers in the care of poultry. The four
g's-^-grain, greens, grit and gumption — are all essential in the poultry
business, and left to their own resources the hens follow the above for-
mulas in egg production. West Unity is a livestock shipping point, and
Favorite flour is a much heralded product of the town.
There is an excellent farming community about West Unity, and
there is wealth in the town. Although the township is only four miles
wide it purchased $373,150 worth of bonds, and in all there were 1,242
buyers, some of them buying in each of the loans. In the fourth loan
there were 554 investors, and with Jefferson and Millcreek to draw from
with no other bond-buying center in those townships, it was an easy
matter for Brady to go "over the top" in all of them.
CHAPTER L
ST. JOSEPH TOWNSHIP AND EDGERTON
While to James Guthrie on Bean Creek or Tiffin River is usually
accorded the honor of priority in Williams County citizenship, Samuel
Holton who settled on Fish Creek in St. Joseph Township was on the
ground in the same year — 1827, and if Samuel Lewis, who arrived April
13, 1834, was the second settler Holton lived seven years alone. There
were a good many miles of timber country between them, and it is quite
likely Guthrie and Holton never knew each other. There were not many
white people anywhere in the present limits of Williams County for a
few years after the advent of these two men.
Among the early residents were : Holton, Lewis, Zediker, Fee, Craig,
Aucker, McCullough, Lewis, Haskins, Jolly and Talbot, some of them
not permanent in the community. Daniel Farnum, who had much to
do with the development of the western part of Williams County, was
also among its early citizens. His mother and a sister accompanied him.
Within a year or two came Parker and Bratton, and in 1838 came John
W. Bowersox and his family, destined for many years of activity in
Williams County history. He was born January 10, 1808, in Frederick
County, Maryland. When the family had been sixteen years in the
county, Mr. Bowersox bought a Clinton airtight cookstove, supposed to
be the first one in Williams County, and it is retained as an heirloom
today. Judge C. A. Bowersox remembers when his father brought it
home in 1854, and since the old homestead came into his hands he closed
the house and goes there every summer for temporary residence. The
house in which this stove is sheltered was built in 1859, and much of the
furniture belonging to the Bowersox family is intact, the tenant on the
220-acre farm living near it. This stove would be an interesting feature
if transferred to the Bryan library. Many housewives of today never
saw one like it.
Soon after the advent of the Bowersox family came Cornell, Long,
Blair, Skelton and some of the villages sprang up that have long since
disappeared from the community. Judge Parker was the founder of
Denmark, and the place had its public square, store room, school, church
and ashery, but only older persons recognize the spot today.
Steps were taken toward township organization as early as April 4,
1832, elections being held at Denmark and Edgerton. Preston, Tanner
and Kearns were early township officials, and that long ago a fence
viewer was chosen, but since no one sought the office it was soon
removed from the election tickets. It really required two persons — one
long and one short, in order to see the top and the bottom and line fences
were sometimes a source of community differences, although devil's
404
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 405
lanes do not flourish recently. It is said that Vohiey Crocker who
chopped the trees from the pubHc square in Bryan one time hved in
St. Joseph, akhough another account tells of him living at Williams Cen-
ter. The first white child was born in the family of the first citizen —
Samuel Holton. The widow Fee who lived in St. Joseph had three
daughters, and in 1836 there was a double wedding at her house.
Samuel and John Holton were the bridegrooms, and later on William
Bender married the third daughter. Daniel Farnum was a guest at the
double wedding, and many visitors arrived by boat on the St. Joseph
River. The home of widow Fee was a social center.
John Casebeer entered land in St. Joseph Township, but his home
was across the line in Indiana. Although the date and the cause of his
demise are unknown, a Mr. Wilson was the first person to die in the
Street Scene, Edgerton
community. Daniel Farnum reported that there were three graves at
Denmark when he came into Williams County. He was an enterprising
citizen, and identified with many sides of the community development.
The graves of which he speaks have been lost, and the plow has con-
verted the land to other purposes. There was much dissatisfaction with
the original survey in St. Joseph Township, the lines established fre-
quently being incorrect, and sometimes cutting off orchards from the
farm buildings and working many hardships on those who had opened
their farms in advance of the establishing of definite cornerstones. As
a result of this survey, many farmers had to buy and sell in order to
shape up their land again. The same condition prevailed in some of the
other townships in Williams County.
Edgerton, which is the business center in St. Joseph, bears the name
of A. P. Edgerton, a public spirited man who donated the land for the
406 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
railroad track, and the survey was made in 1854, by Sargent, Crane and
Bement, the latter an engineer in the employ of the Lake Shore & Michi-
gan Southern Railway Company. In a community like Edgerton they
speak of the arrival of trains by number, saying 64 is due at 7
o'clock, and the passing of those transcontinental trains that whizz by is
not noted at all. While Edgerton is only three miles from the Indiana
line, it has excellent patronage from both Ohio and Indiana, and draws
from a large area in Williams County. There is a good line of mercan-
tile establishments and the community takes care of itself as a business
center.
There is a social and business activity, with doctors, dentists,
ministers and all that tends to make a community, and there are some
good-sized industrial payrolls in Edgerton. There are a number of local
industries that furnish employment to all in the community.
The Van Wye Glove Company employs twenty people and it puts a
cotton working glove on the market. The Edgerton Milling Company is
known by the Crown brand of flour.
The Oak Manufacturing Company employs sixty people, and its
product is all kinds of commercial baskets. It uses both hard and soft
wood timber, and the ancient art of basket-making is not forgotten there.
This factory affords a market for native timber, and there is a caterpillar
tractor used in "snaking" logs about the mill yard, instead of the team
of oxen under the lash when : "Gee, haw, Buck," used to be the clarion
cry of the driver. H. L. Poole operates the plant.
In making up its quota for the different war loans Edgerton and
community subscribed for $377,150 worth of Liberty and Victory bonds,
there being 1,727 individual purchases in the five loans. The people of
St. Joseph Township always have met their requirements in the way of
community service. It is among the older sections of the county and is
abreast of the time in all kinds of improvements. While it took Samuel
Holton four days to go and come from the mill, there is now every
commodity in Edgerton and people are loyal to the community when it
comes to the distribution of their patronage.
CHAPTER LI
CENTER TOWNSHIP AND WILLIAMS CENTER
The four townships constituting the southern tier in Williams County
are all congressional, the sections numbering from one to thirty-six
without any irregularities. They all embrace thirty-six sections of land
with but little waste except for the towns. There is not much undulation
except along the St. Joseph River in St. Joseph. In the days before
Williams County had submitted to vivisection, Center Township was
named from its geographical position, and Williams Center was not far
from the exact location although now it is a border hamlet. While
Melbern is on the railroad, it is not larger than Williams Center. In the
old days Melbern was called Kansas. The residents of Center are well
served in commercial way at Bryan, Montpelier or Edgerton when they
must quit the township — Melbern or Williams Center for commodities.
The southern tier of townships were settled a year or two earlier than
those lying farther north, and Frederick Mizer took up his abode in
Center in 1833, only to remain along until the next year, when Dilman,
Overleas, Brant, Frame, Kinzie and the Stinsons were on the ground,
followed soon after by Daniels and Weaver, and the time was when
Williams Center entertained certain ambitions before eight townships
lying south of there "run away from home with Fort Defiance," and
since then the name Center has been a misfit for both the town and town-
ship, although no effort has been made to change it.
It was Frederick Mizer who engaged in the deer shooting contest
with George Bible, and who killed sixty-four of them while the Superior
man was superior as a hunter. The tire sign referring to the contest
says 164 deer, and it is known that Bible killed ninety-nine, and regretted
the fact that he could not secure one more pair of antlers. Mizer was
the first bridegroom from Center. He married Kate Leonard, and the
ceremony was performed by Justice of the Peace Jabez Jones. The
first child was born to Bastian and Elizabeth Frame. The first death
was Jacob Fetter, who was soon followed in death by a son. They were
buried on the Fetter farm, a neighbor named Lloyd serving as a clergy-
man at each service. The first blacksmith was George Arnold. The
first sawmill was owned by John Bowman on Lick Creek.
There were tamarack swamps in Center in an early day, and there
was difficulty about the water supply. The quality was poor and in the
dry season it was a minus quantity. The drainage was into Lick Creek
and its tributaries. While in the main the land is unbroken and level,
the soil is fertile and it is good farm land. Some attention has been
given to fruit culture. The settlers in Center came from the malaria
infested bottoms of the Maumee, seeking higher ground in order to
407
408 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
escape the pestilence. However, drainage has changed it all and the
valleys are as desirable for residence as the hills. There is very little
w^aste land in the township, and there are excellent farms today.
Center became an organized township March 7, 1836, the citizens
meeting the first Monday in April to choose their officers. The first
election was held at the residence of Jacob Dillnian. It is said that Dill-
man came into Williams County with more wealth than most settlers,
and that he was a public spirited man. He was interested in the build-
ing of churches and schools and gave his money liberally for such things.
Wealth is not an incumbrance when rightly used, and there are always
demands for money. Prominent among the settlers in Center were:
Mizer, Dillman, Overleas, Brant, Frame, Kinzie, Stinson, Daniels, Wea-
ver, Arnold, Bowman, Leonard, Hickman, Skinner, Fetters, Poole, Nei-
Reclamation of Swamp Land
hart, Sheridan and Hannon. Some of those names are still known in
the township and in other parts of Williams County.
In 1833 Mrs. Mary Leonard arrived bringing with her three married
daughters, and it was quite an influx to the community. The four fam-
ily names : Leonard, Overleas, Frame and Hickman, have been connected
with many phases of local development. \\'ith her own sons and her sons-
in-law, the widow Leonard encountered few difficulties in the new coun-
try. They came from Montgomery County with ox teams, and they
came as permanent citizens. The widow settled in the timber with her
family all about her. Sebastian Frame, a son-in-law to Mrs. Leonard,
was a Dunkard preacher. He was a man of imposing character, and he
was the first man to conduct religious services. Sometimes the meetings
were in his own home, but oftener in the home of Mrs. Leonard. The
settlers met frequently for religious services and to discuss the outlook
for the future in the community.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 409
It is said the widow Leonard had unusual courage, and coming with
her family into the new country, they all lived in the wagons until the
sons and sons-in-law could construct cabins. Some of them lived in
temporary abodes made from brush, and brush fences were frequently
used by the settlers. "Out of the old house into the new" never meant
more to any family than when the widow Leonard quit the wagon for
her round log cabin. It is related that George Skinner, who later sold
his land to Jacob Dillman, had "underbrushed" it, and sowed what he
thought was clover seed, and Mr. Dillman reaped a crop of Canada
thistles from it. It is said he left the country, and that the thistles are
not yet wholly eradicated from the community. The ground was cov-
ered with the pest, but gardeners today sometimes buy seed that is not
"true to name." Center is counted in with towns outside the township
in the Liberty and Victory loans, but its patronage was in proportion to
its wealth, and there are thrifty citizens in the township.
CHAPTER LII
PULASKI TOWNSHIP, PULASKI AND BRYAN
One account says that away back before calendars were invented,
when time was measured by the moon, and directions were determined
by the moss on the trees, there were but two main traveled thoroughfares
through Williams County, and they crossed each other at Pulaski. One
of the trails was from Ft. Wayne to Detroit, and the other led from
Columbus past Fort Defiance through Pulaski and into Michigan. It is
said that Judge Perkins who surveyed the wild lands of Williams County
was so impressed with the possibilities of Pulaski on account of the
intersection of these two trails that he concluded to locate there and lay
out the townsite, which was to become not only the county seat of Wil-
liams County, but the metropolis of the northwest. The public square
was located where the schoolhouse now stands, and other blocks were
designated as sites for public buildings, parks and other utilities.
"Thereby hangs a tale," for the same writer says that among the
ancestry of William Jennings Bryan was another oily tongued orator
who learned of the plans at Pulaski, and visited the Ohio Legislature in
session in Columbus. The town was named Lafayette in the beginning,
in honor of a certain distinguished Frenchman who aided the country in
its struggle for freedom from England, and whose memory is still dear
to the heart of every patriotic American. When it was found that Allen
County had already appropriated that name, and since the citizens
desired the town and postoffice to bear the same name, they decided to
honor the chivalrous Polish patriot, Count Pulaski, who also engaged in
the Revolutionary struggle with the colonists. Lafayette was christened
Pulaski, and the village gave promise of future growth.
It seems that John A. Bryan with his rabbit's foot worked a hoodoo
on the Ohio Legislature, and it granted to him the permission to "locate
the county seat under a swamp elm tree in the prickly ash thicket about
four miles southwest of the Perkins townsite. After this bit of per-
nicious activity, the latter place didn't appear to metropolize any more,
but settled down into a peaceful back number hamlet, and such it remains
today." The location of Pulaski was as good as could have been hunted
out of the woods at the time, and one of its citizens remarked: "It is in
the middle of the puddle, just halfway between Boston and Indepen-
dence mission where the Santa Fe trail begins," and it seems that the
place deserved something better than Goldsmith's cognomen — "The
Deserted Village." While the Ft. Wayne-Detroit trail remains unchanged
the intersecting line has been lost in the shuffle, although Pulaski is still
on the map of Williams County.
Until March 3, 1834, Pulaski Township was attached to Tififin, but
when the wheel of fortune revolved again Tiffin was in another county.
410
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 411
There is something said about Carryall and Beaver townships, in describ-
ing the relation of St. Joseph, Center, Pulaski and Springfield townships
to the rest of the world, but since December 4, 1837, Pulaski has had
its present boundary. The first township election was held December
16, 1837, in the home of Thomas Shorthill, who is frequently mentioned
in other chapters. While the land in some of the townships was held
by speculators, it is said there was a bona-fide class of settlers in Pulaski.
John Perkins had come as early as 1833, and he is considered the first
settler. Later came Plummer, Moss, Lantz, Jones, Hood and they all
located on Beaver Creek. In another year or two the names : Boynton,
Davidson, Pickett, Rawson, Gilson, Thompson, Swager, Wyatt, Kil-
patrick, McKinley, Gleason, Jones, Wilson, Kauffman, Landaman,
Shepard, Oakes, Johnson, Shook, Beavers, Montgomery, Caszet, Deck,
Harris, Smith, Peddycoast, Flannahs, Capsil, Baker, Kent and Everett
had been added to the Pulaski directory.
An early account says: "Pulaski does not diflfer materially from
the other townships. Its early industries were its mills and distilleries,"
and since there are no striking physical features its agriculture and live-
stock production are about on a par with other townships in Williams
County. Wheat and corn are the principal grain crops, although recently
farmers are growing alfalfa and sugar beets, although livestock produc-
tion and dairy farming now claim almost universal attention. There are
fountain watered farms across the southern tier of townships, and while
there is not much variety in local scenery a farm in Pulaski is a fortu-
nate investment. Bryan is west of the center, and before the eight town-
ships constituting Defiance County seceded, it was in the heart of
Williams County.
Bryan has always been known as Fountain City because of its
abundant water supply, and the story has been told in connection with
the migration of the courthouse. The town was platted in 1840, although
not incorporated until nine years later. The original plat of Bryan con-
tained 180 lots exclusive of the public square which was a bequest, and
the lots were four rods in width and eight rods in length, with an alley
one rod in width between abutting lots. Main and High streets were
planned to be 100 feet wide while all other streets were to be four rods
or the width of one lot, and since it was virgin forest there is something
left to imagination. The story of Volney Crocker would bear repetition,
but all that is told in the courthouse chapter. When William Yates, who
was the first merchant, came from Defiance to Bryan in 1841, he used
ox teams in bringing his stock of dry goods and his wife and ten children
to town, but from the beginning the aqua pura underlying the town was
an attraction, although some foresaw calamity from the subterraneous
ocean.
While the municipal water wells weakened the flow of the artesian
veins at the homes in Bryan, the light and water plant furnishes the
town with light and power and pumps the water. The new reservoir
holds 1,000,000 gallons, and the Bryan water system has attracted many
visitors bent on investigation. The municipal plant has unusual facilities
for lighting and power, and it is an economy to Bryan manufacturing
412
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
plants. The early business competitors of William Yates were Thomas
McCurdy, John McDowell and Daniel Langel, and since that day there
have been wide-awake, progressive citizens supplying the need of the
community. While they would all be listed in a directory such a thing
is impossible in a history. Andrew J. Tressler and Olivia Kent were the
first couple to apply for a marriage license after the courthouse was
located in Bryan. On Washington's birthday, 1841, Thomas Shorthill,
who kept the tavern, became Bryan's first postmaster.
As president of the Bryan Business Men's Association, E. T. Binns
said its membership is unlimited, and that it includes all progressive
citizens. It is the "booster" club of Bryan. It has been in existence
since the Century year — 1900, and "nobody ever gets cold feet," and
there is no coercion about it. While Mr. Binns is nominal president,
he disclaims official relation only when there is some communitv move-
AuDiTORiuM, Bryan
ment and all turn to him for leadership. "If you want to know who is
boss start something," and there is no dearth of activities. Plenty of
citizens would flock to the rescue, and the Bryan Business Men's Asso-
ciation has had its part in fostering industries already established, as
well as in locating others, and it meets any legitimate enterprise with
open arms that brings employment to Williams County citizens.
Every man, woman and child in Bryan points out the Auditorium
already mentioned in the educational chapter, as one of the community
attractions. While it is located in Bryan it is used by all of Williams
County.
Bryan is known as the show case town, and the Bryan Show Case
Company employs seventy-five men in the manufacture and sale of its
products.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 413
The Ohio Art Company employs 250 people — more women than men,
but it is regarded as a valuable asset to the community.
The Van Camp Packing Company employs thirty-five men in the
condensary, and it is in direct business relation with 1,500 farm homes,
distributing much money in the community.
The Vail Cooperage Company uses thirty-five men in converting
staves into barrels and placing them on the market.
. The Kelly Construction Company employs twenty-five men in turning
out cement blocks and building materials.
The Bryan Manufacturing Company employs twenty-five men in
making and marketing its specialty — wheelbarrows.
The Farmers Co-operative Elevator Company uses six of the stock-
holders in operating the plant.
The Spangler Manufacturing Company uses twenty people in placing
an assorted lot of candies on the market.
The Bryan Pattern and Machine Company attracts more outside
skilled labor than any other enterprise, and it uses 150 men all the time.
Stine & Son Lumber Company employ five men and deals in builders'
supplies of all descriptions.
The Campbell Lumber Company employ ten men and places all
kinds of building materials on the market.
Neff & Son use twenty men in placing brick and tile on the market.
Yunck & Son Manufacturing Company use five men in producing
store furniture.
Pulaski Township and Bryan through a combination of circumstances
subscribed sufficient money in the sale of Liberty bonds to require six
figures to estimate the amount in each separate loan, and the sum totals
$1,340,860, with 6,931 buyers, but the county seat draws from all the
county, and some of the townships are not represented by banking insti-
tutions to handle their funds for them. However, Pulaski Township
and Bryan were not derelict in any of the war measures at all.
CHAPTER LIII
SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP AND STRYKER
While the question of seniority is ever present, St. Joseph, Pulaski
and Springfield all harking back to the beginning of things, since March
30, 1835, Springfield has had a separate existence. Until that time the
jurisdiction of Tiffin now in Defiance County had extended north to
the Michigan line, and Springfield is the only border township on the
east that did not lose any territory to Fulton County. The first election
in Springfield was held May 16, 1835, in the home of Sarah Luther.
J. B. Taylor was elected clerk; Bruce Packard, John Stubbs and Har-
mon Doolittle, trustees; the fence-viewers were Joseph Stubbs, John
Fields and Joseph Bates ; supervisors, John Lindenburg and Joseph
Bates; constables, John H. Stubbs and Calvin Gleason ; overseers for
the poor, Daniel Colgan and Abram Werts, and this was perhaps the
beginning of charitable work within the present limits of Williams
County. It seemed that an office was created for each voter. Thomas J.
Prettyman who was elected treasurer died July 28, and on September 5,
Daniel Colgan was appointed his successor by the trustees of the town-
ship. There must be somebody to handle the money, and at this time
Jonathan B. Taylor and Harmon Doolittle were elected justices of the
peace.
The poll book of this first election in Springfield Township which
seems to be the first election in what is now Williams County has been
preserved in the archives of the county, and may be seen at the court-
house in Bryan. There were men of honor and ability among those
pioneers, and while some of them filled more than one office of public
trust, John Stubbs who came into the community in 1833 was an unusual
character and is elsewhere mentioned in this history.
To James Guthrie who came to Springfield Township in 1827 is
accorded the honor of priority of citizenship. He lived on the Tiffin
River and was the first permanent citizen of what is now Williams
County. Rachel Guthrie was the first child born in the community, and
Malinda Knipe was the first to die there. Since Springfield is the old-
est township, the birth of this child and the death of this woman is per-
haps the first vital statistics in what is now Williams County. Among
the early residents are ; Packford, Hollinshead, Stubbs, Coonrod, Knipe,
Colgan, Sprague, Luther, Lindenberger, Clark, Taylor, Coy and Doolit-
tle. John Coy and John Snyder, who operated the first sawmill, were
community benefactors as there was little advance in civilization until
there was lumber to be used in construction.
While there were settlers in Springfield Township as early as 1833,
it was twenty years until there was a town in the community. James
414
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
415
Lathe first settled on the site of Stryker, and when John A. Sargent and
E. L. Barber finally platted the town they named it in honor of John
Stryker. He was a promoter of the Air Line Railroad that failed to
materialize, although the town has always reflected honor upon his
memory. Silas Orcutt located the first saw'mill in" the town and William
Pinkley was the first blacksmith. Blinn and Letcher opened a store and
Stryker was on the map of the world.
Springfield ranks as one of the foremost townships from the stand-
point of its agriculture and improved livestock, and the conversation
heard in passing: "See the silo here, see the silo there — see all those fine
farm buildings?" emphasizes the fact that the farmers are thrifty. It is
said that Springfield and Brady townships had the first hard surface
roads and the first centralized public schools in Williams County. The
experimental rural free delivery started in Stryker, and the local tile
factory supplied its product to those ambitious Springfield Township
Street Scene, Stryker
farmers before drainage was widespread in Williams County. Here and
there is a forest and the largest sugar camp in Williams County is on the
Coy farm along the Tiffin River. Men who went there to a sugar camp
when they were boys still go there.
The Tiffin River has been straightened at the Coy bridge, and the
danger from overflows has been reduced from it. While there are four
distinct channels to be seen from the bridge, in two of therii there is
dead water, and in time the .beds will fill and the water will no longer
make the circuit there in periods of high water. It was only necessary
to cut a channel twenty rods long and the wonder is that the settlers did
not assist nature there long ago.
416 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
While Stryker has no organized commercial club, there are boosters
in the community — ^yes, and the knockers are not all at the bottom of
the sea, but there is a good community spirit.
Among its natural resources are the mineral baths, and a hospital
there attracts invalids who find remarkable advantages in it.
The Stryker Boat Oar Lumber Company is the oldest manufacturing
industry there, and it has been in operation fifty years. It is a stock
company and was located there because of the abundance of ash timber.
Von Behren and Shaffer were the originators of the business, and the
products are shipped all over the world. There are forty men employed
and the company had a $500,000 contract in the time of the World war.
There is little competition in the manufacture of boat oars, and the
product is marketed through the New York Boat Oar Company.
The Fred L. Mignin sawmill has just closed down after a successful
run of half a century.
The Stryker tile factory has had its part in reclaiming the waste land
in Williams County. It has been there a long time.
The Stryker Village School District draws from the surrounding
country, and it is now doubling its housing facilities.
Stryker has the Toledo and Indiana power house which consumes a
carload of coal a day, generating current for the road and supplying
light and power in several towns.
The Stryker Urban Power and Light Company has been organized
on a $25,000 basis with the first installment of 10 per cent paid in, and
its purpose is to furnish light and power at farmsteads in the vicinity.
It is in the center of an excellent agricultural community, and this enter-
prise meets with the approval of many patrons.
There is a great deal of wealth in the community, and Stryker reports
the sale of $389,800 worth of Liberty and Victory bonds, the amount
being distributed among 1,858 buyers. The third loan which amounted
to $71,100 was taken care of by 711 persons, which averages $10 to the
share, but not so many buyers were interested at any other time. North-
west was the last township to eflfect an organization, and Springfield
was first, thus exemplifying the Bible statement about the last being
first and the first being last, although at the outset the only thought was
geographical distribution.
CHAPTER LIV
YESTERDAY AND TODAY IN WILLIAMS COUNTY
As men and women grow older they always multiply their yesterdays.
When thev begin living in the past it is an unfailing index that their
todays mean less to them than their yesterdays. It is true that the peo-
ple of yesterday in Williams County discussed the weather and ^ their
prospects for crops about as readily as men and women of today rake
over" such things, never failing to give attention to the needs of any
poor among them, but again : "The shadow moveth over the dial plate
of time," and the personnel of the community is different today._
'"Some of us have been here a long time and we have witnessed
many changes," said a venerable looking citizen of Bryan. To him the
yesterday and todav in Williams County shows great strides m human
progress. Today the world is one vast whispering gallery with inter-
national problems confronting it, while yesterday the simple life lulled
all into peaceful anticipation. Today the sons of yesterday must meet
and master the difficulties as they present themselves. The Methuselahs
in every community unite in asserting things that seem improbable today.
They used to take their guns and shoot squirrels in the woods where_ the
populous centers are todav, and the evolution of industrial conditions
is a problem in economics seemingly beyond solution. Time was when
there was a factory before every hearthstone, the father making the
shoes and the mother weaving and making the garments. The sawmill
was here and the grist mill was there, and both are practically unknown
todav Who knows the story of the mill boy with a stone in the other
end 'of the bag to balance it on the horse? What has become of the
swav-backed mare astride of which the boy went to the mill with the
grain? What has become of the boy himself? The stories of today
differ from the stories of yesterday. Automobiles? Aeroplanes? Who
said, "Backward, turn backward, oh, time in your flight?" However,
most people would like to be children again.
The Williams County settlers all knew the process of pounding corn
on a stone or in a mortar, and those who know the story of the hearth
loaves— the bread the grandmothers baked before the fire, unite in say-
ing nothing better has supplanted them under present day conditions of
civilization. Thev would be content with a half loaf today if they were
certain of quality. While these men and women of the past made the
most of their day and generation, and the viands prepared by the grand-
mothers were of excellent quality, what would they accomplish under
present day environment? Would they be able to adapt themselves to
changed conditions? Would the men and women of today be able to
cope with their difficulties? What about the hospitality of yesterday as
compared with human relations today?
Vol. I— 27 417
418
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
While the corn pone of the past would be consumed with relish by
the rnen and women of today, there are among them some who tired of
substitutes and the bread made from corn as a war measure recently.
Unfortunately the corn was of an inferior quality just when this measure
was incumbent, and only as a patriotic duty did some people use it. How
would they have survived the log cabin period in Williams County his-
tory? While the more thrifty pioneers sometimes had potatoes they
could live without them, and the transition from wilderness conditions
to the cultivated fields and their products, meant self-denial of the
strictest nature to the settlers in any frontier community. Conditions
imposed by the World war have caused people of today to understand
the privations of yesterday.
While the settler used to go to the woods with his gun and provide
Corn
the meat for his dinner table, the citizen of today depends upon Armour
or Swift for sugar cured hams and bacon, or if he has a smoke-house
there is usually a lock and key for it. It is an old, old story that the
settler did not steal the meat — he only held the smoke-house door open,
and his dog carried it out for him. Time was when the Williams County
housewife went to the woods for her brooms, making them from hickory
saplings. That long ago people swept their yards, and they wore out a
lot of hickory brooms. The settlers used to dig sassafras roots for the
family beverage, and from them the housewives would brew a tea that
served as an excellent spring tonic. Who has not heard the stories of
.sassafras and spicewood tea thinning the blood, and insuring the health
of those who drank it? Today the town people know that spring is
coming when they see sassafras on the market.
In the days when the Williams County settlers lived on salt pork and
but few vegetables, there was not much said about diet and printed
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 419
menus were an unknown quantity. Perhaps there was plenty of protein
in the bill of fare, but nothing was ever said about balanced rations for
man or beast. It was heavy diet all of the time, and under those condi-
tions sleepers had dreams and they always told them. There was better
health in some families than in others, because here and there a pioneer
mother varied her cooking by serving something from the kitchen garden
instead of a continued meat diet. While people have not always under-
stood it. vegetables always have given them better digestion. The pioneer
doctor prescribed medicine for others, but ordered vegetables for his
own houshold, and the law of balanced rations is not new at all — people
simply did not understand about it. It is little wonder the blood used to
run thick in the spring time, and there was need of the quinine bottle on
the mantel where all could help themselves.
When the settler's diet was always the same: "Yesterday, today and
forever," he wondered why so many ills overtook him. In the light of
domestic science as it is understood at present, there are not so many ail-
ments of domestic character. It is generally understood that the best
spring tonic is plenty of fruit ancj^ green stuff, and the doctor is seldom
called because of improper diet today. As long as the U. S. Govern-
ment expends a quarter of a million dollars annually for garden seeds
every Williams County family should appeal to the local congressman
for a supply, and thus defeat the medical man in the community. "An
apple a day keeps the doctor away," and the same thing may be said of
vegetables. While some economists say that government seeds is a
waste of money, and they manage to have good gardens and the neces-
sary variety in food products, there is no gainsaying the fact that the
best spring tonic is plenty of early vegetables. How is your garden?
Are you thinking about the welfare of your immediate household in these
twentieth century days, when the world is full of economic problems?
The day was in Williams County when the passerby recognized the
Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, New England — yes, the English
farmstead by the character of the improvements upon it — this settler
was from Pennsylvania and that one from New England, but time has
amalgamated conditions, and while some of the landmarks remain
unchanged today, intermarriage has removed the lines of demarcation
and little is said in Williams County about where a citizen came from,
now that the community has begun its second century in local history.
The topic uppermost today is whether or not he is making the most of
his opportunity. The character of the improvements now that all have
become bona fide citizens indicates the degree of thrift, and the lines :
"Go make thy garden as fair as thou canst,
Thou workest never alone,
For he whose plot lies next to thine.
May see it and tend to his own," ^
is a safe rule in any community. As he did yesterday, the passerby of
today will comment on the surroundings, and the careful husbandman
will have his farmstead free from negligent criticism.
420 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
In the old days there were livery barns in every town, and the well-
to-do families all had driving horses, but Dobbin is too slow and the
speed maniacs have the right of way on all the highways today. They
whizz by the farmsteads so rapidly they do not see .the' details, and yet
if a place is in dishabille they always note it. The livery barn has long
since been converted into a garage, and there are all descriptions of cars
and trucks at your service. The child of the future will know as little
about the livery barn as about the American saloon, and yet there was
no sorrow on its trail. The livery barn, the saloon, the rural church and
school — well, civilization has changed its methods today. While the
twentieth century methods of travel are different and some people hold
their breath in passing, tourists usually have a rather comprehensive
idea of wayside attractions.
While in the architecture of the past the cabin roofs were held in
place by weight poles, and the primitive American dwelling was built
without nails, and there were stick-and-clay chimneys everywhere, that
kind of domicile long since had its day, and it exists only in memory.
With increased wealth came more commodious homes, and the hardwood
floors of today are in decided contrast with the puncheon floors split
from native timber. In the architecture of yesterday the bathroom was
an unknown quantity, and only when the boys went swimming did they
bathe at all. In most families they washed their feet when they had to,
and a washrag was brought into requisition when clean underwear was
given them, but in some of the yesterdays there was no underwear worn,
and just as little bathing. Instead of the sanitary plumbing of today
the dishwater was thrown out at the kitchen door, creating danger of
diphtheria and yet the people survived it. When the grandmothers
used to scour their kitchen tables with the daylight streaming through
greased paper windows, nothing was said about home sanitation.
The Williams County children of today have no conception of an
aperture in the cabin wall with greased paper keeping out the cold and
admitting the light of the sun. What does the present generation know
about the chinked and daubed log cabin of other days? What do the
youngsters of today know about the broad fireplace and the mantel piece
where the grandfathers and grandmothers always looked for their pipes,
their spectacles, and where they kept the family Bible? While the
fathers and sons once went to the woods with axes when these mammoth
fireplaces must be kept a-glow, today they haul coal from the towns and
furnace heat is another story. When they stand over a register they do
not freeze one side while burning the other, and some would not care to
reverse the sundial of their years and return to such conditions. A lot
of heat went up the chimney when there were wood fireplaces in all the
houses in Williams County. If there was plenty of wood who would
sacrifice the straight saplings for cabin logs today? Whose tongue does
not trip in repeating: six long, slick, slim, slender saplings?
While the stick chimneys caught fire, there was always someone at
home to bring a pail of water, a precaution rendered necessary because
of the intense heat going up the chimney from the old-fashioned fire-
place, both the backlogs and the foresticks asserting themselves in an
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
421
effort to warm the room, and thus insure the comfort of those sitting in
the fire Hght. Aye, when the father made the shoes and the mother knit
the stockings for the household, they knew the meaning of sitting before
the fire and freezing one side and burning the other. In these days of
furnace heat — registers or radiators all over the house, there is little sug-
gestion of the old time methods of warming the cabin, and yet there are
some who say they would gladly turn back and live the old days over
again.
Time was when there were sawmills, tile mills, brick kilns, sorghum
and cider mills, but what would the returned settler find today? If a Rip
Van Winkle were to happen along he would lose himself in Williams
County today. The old time industries have all been wiped out, and
there is no longer a factory at every fireside where the homespun worn
Pioneer Log C.-\bin
by the families is manufactured by the mothers and daughters at their
spinning wheels and looms, and there is no household today where all the
food is prepared on the hearthstone as it is brought from the clearing
or the forest. Where are the industries of the past in Williams County
and the rest of the world? Ask of the winds and ask of the older men
and women in the community, and you will hear of the changes wrought
in the onward march of civilization. In the reconstruction period fol-
lowing the Civil war the changes became apparent, the spinning wheel
and loom being left in the distance by the factory and combinations in
the commercial world. The slow but sure processes of the past have
all been supplemented by the rush and bustle of the present, and as
people have had need of them inventions have removed all difficulties.
There has always been a seed time and harvest in Williams County.
However, the methods of preparing the seed bed and planting have
422 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
changed, and the care of the products is different from the days of the
forefathers when the reaping hook accomplished what is done with self-
binder machinery today. Who remembers when the dealer weighed
commodities over the counter to you with the old time steelyards instead
of using the computing scales of today? They said the butcher always
put his hands on the scales, and the customer paid for something not
delivered to him when the grocer or butcher handed him the package.
A recent newspaper squib says :
"The sugar prices still remain,
Both lofty and unstable.
We'd bring them down by raising Cane,
If only we were Abel,"
and some economists say the high cost of living may be reduced when
the men and women of today are willing to return to the simple life of
the pioneers. It is the producer instead of the consumer that regulates
the price of commodities. The law of supply and demand always will
control the situation.
When the grandmothers cooked before the fire, they knew how to
get along without commercial commodities, and yet in these days of high
prices the people pay them without protest and the profiteers have their
own way about everything. The Arkansas Traveler may have been
improvident, but he was not alone in the world. When it is raining one
cannot repair the roof, and at other times it does not require attention,
although an enterprising manufacturer of patent roofing has put it into
the mouth of the field robin to sing: "Lee-ke-ruf, lee-ke-ruf," and there
are fewer makeshift methods today. The man of today knows "A stitch
in time often saves nine," as well as the modern woman knows that it
frequently saves exposure, and the thrifty citizen is inclined to take time
by the forelock, and look after such trivial things.
Lord Byron once said : " 'Tis strange,^but true, for truth is always
strange; stranger than fiction; if it could be told, how much would
novels gain by the exchange ! How differently the world would men
behold; how often would vice and virtue places change," and while the
passerby along the Williams County public highway of yesterday saw
the farm boy pumping water for the cattle, expending his energies turn-
ing the grindstone, today power is applied to everything. While the boy
used to turn the cornsheller or pull one end of a crosscut saw with
someone at the other end and telling him not to ride it, it is an easier
process today to attach a gasoline engine and put into motion all sorts
of machinery. The farm boy of the twentieth century hardly compre-
hends what was required at the hand of his counterpart a generation ago.
The boy on the farm is no longer a slave to his environment. The ele-
ment of drudgery has been removed from it.
Time was when home-made bread figured in family life and there
used to be biscuits for breakfast, but today the farm boys ask for town
bread and they are no longer ridiculed by their city cousins — perhaps
because they have their hair cut oftener by an up-to-date barber. What
has become of the old-fashioned mother who used to invert a milk
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 423
crock over her boy's head and trim the hair at the edge of it? When the
farm boy appears on the streets today the garb is the same as that worn
by the boys in the town, and there are not many fights between them.
The old line of social demarcation between town and country has practi-
cally disappeared from the face of the earth. One time the question as
to who was the best man always had to be settled at the point of fistic
contact, and ruffians pulled their coats at the slightest provocation, but
people are forgetting about such things. When the bullies used to form
a ring and fight to settle the question of manhood, there were always
abettors, but since liquor has been eliminated such things do not occur in
the community.
While farmers used to fence against outside livestock now they are
in no danger from it, but they must fence to keep their own in bounds
or there would be difficulty. A woman in a town complained about her
neighbor having open post holes, and her chickens fell into them. The
man reminded her that the post holes were on his own ground, and that
if her chickens had been at home they would not have fallen into them.
With twenty-five, fifty or seventy-five milking machines in operation in
Williams County today, the laborious process of dairy farming is reduced
to the minimum, and the family income is from the sale of dairy products
as well as from "corn and hog" operations. With twenty-nine hundred
farms, even the sliding scale applied to the number of milking machines
the figures obtained from diff"erent sources, is far from universal, but
diversified farming is the order of the day on the average twentieth
century farmstead in Williams County.
While there were 387 white persons in Williams County when it
gained its first recognition from the Ohio Assembly, February 12, 1820,
they were all in what is now Defiance County, and after it was formally
organized in 1824, it was a long time before the twelve townships making
up Williams County today attracted many settlers. Through the
process of vivisection the county lost its earliest development, and the
name is about all that was retained by the northern townships. How-
ever, the people had the determination and today Williams County is
what they made of it. The trees and the wild life of the forest knew
nothing of political boundaries, and what is common history in Springfield
is practically true in Northwest, although one was first and the other last
in point of local organization.
St. Joseph's individual story runs along with the history of Millcreek,
and naturally enough it was the prime object with the settlers to lay the
ax at the trunk of every tree. They would chop it down or girdle it,
thus interfering with the circulation of sap and ultimately causing its
decline, but all of that is so long ago that the youth of today does not
understand the meaning of the deadening, and of the cabin in the clearing
so common in the early history of Williams County. There are lease
fields on many of the older farms, some one camping in the woods long
enough to clear them, and having the crops from them until they were
paid for their labor. They would cut all kinds of timber without dis-
crimination, not even sparing shade trees near their humble dwellings,
although those who came after them would have appreciated such fore-
424 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
thought by the pioneers. It is a case of hind sight being better than
foresight, and the reparation will not come in the next century. The
story goes that the hollow but-cut of a walnut tree one time lay at the
Bryan railroad station, and it was so large that a horse was led through it,
and it required more than one lifetime for it to attain to that
circumference.
Black walnut timber was frequently used in making fence rails, the
rail splitters of the past having no thought of future scarcity of such
timber, and today in some parts of the country connoisseurs are visiting
old farmsteads and carrying away walnut fence rails from which artistic
and rustic picture frames are made, and artistic and rustic are the words
that describe them. Sometimes the fungous growth is left on them.
Trees of all sizes and varieties were regarded as encumbering the ground,
and the ambition of the settler was to rid the earth of its earliest product
forthwith, not taking into the account the wisdom of the Almighty in
thus clothing it. Through the enterprise of the United States Tire
Company there is a History of the United States, a book sign placed on
the trail one-half mile from Bryan toward Pulaski that reads: "When
Bryan was first settled in 1840, deer and bears were abundant. Two
pioneers, George W. Bible and Frederick Misner in a two months' com-
petition killed 164 deer, and Bible won the contest," and this unique
contest was a possibility because of the timber sheltering the wild life
of the community. It is elsewhere stated that Bible lived in Superior
and Misper in Center, and that Bible only lacked one of having 100 deer
to his credit.
Here and there in the towns of Williams County are some fine old
trees that have been standing "the mind of man runneth not to the con-
trary," and yet it is said there is now hardly a tree from nature's own
planting, although in 1840 there was a dense forest where the Williams
County temple of justice points skyward, and for miles arovmd in every
direction there was as fine a body of forest timber as covered any portion
of the earth, but the woodman and his ax certainly changed the contour
of things. The Volney Crockers were multiplied, and reforestration
long ago became a necessity. This test of strength and endurance in
chopping was the ruination of the Williams County forest. No one
caught the vision until the trees of the town had been removed, and then
everybody regretted it. The graceful elms shading the home of Judge
C. A. Bowersox are the result of his own planting, and there are few
larger trees in the corporation limits of any Williams County town.
An old account says : "On many of the streets in the towns and
lining some of the public highways in the country, are discoverable the
pestilential silver maple whose multitudinous roots strike the wells and
insinuate themselves through the walls, and defile if they do not poison
the water. The introduction of small pox into the country and towns of
Williams County could scarcely inflict greater evil on animal life than
the transplanting of some of the foreign shade and so-called ornamental
trees that have superseded the ones that God planted upon this soil,"
and now comes the scathing criticism in the guise of truth : "Some of
the streets in the towns, as if it were mockery, bear the names : Beach,
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 425
Lynn, Walnut, Cherry, Mulberry, Maple, Sycamore, Elm, Hickory, Oak,
Ash, etc., but the native trees will not be understood Ijy future generations
by the mere names of streets, which to them will be meaningless and
have no significance," and the time has come when reaction has set in,
and progressive citizens today are planting native trees to adorn their
premises, both in town and country.
There are bureas of forestry now, and every effort is being put forth
to perpetuate the life of the native trees. In the log-rolling days in
Williams County history, the settlers burned up many fortunes although
at the time there was no market for the splendid timber that must be
removed in order that the pioneer might tickle the bosom of Mother
Earth and coax from it his sustenance. From the twentieth century
vantage ground it looks like profligate waste, but the Williams County
settler is exempt from censure since there were no transportation agencies
opening to him the markets of the world, such as are vouchsafed to his
posterity just now beginning the second lap in the Century run in
Williams Couifty. In the mind of the settler, he must rid the ground
of its encumbrance, and the cultivated field would then become a possi-
bility. The pioneer lived up to the light he had, and even the timber on
the public square in Bryan was burned in self-defense — no market
for it at all.
Indeed, the problem of the settler was how to get rid of the magnifi-
cent forest, his interpretation of the Bible injunction about earning
his bread by the sweat of his brow being an eloquent appeal to him to
enter the forest with his ax and grubbing tools, thus overcoming the
wilderness conditions in Williams County. While the settler was con-
fronted with the gigantic trees of the forest, the question confronting
his posterity and not many generations removed from him is where the
next cord of stove wood is coming from, and in the meantime the average
Williams County farmer visits a coal yard in town. In war times the fuel
administrator ruled against him, and today miners' strikes are of vital
concern to him.
The settlers were busy from morning till night, their work always
crowding them and while the same conditions prevail today, it is less
laborious and machinery does the most of it. While men and women
may be happiest when they are working hardest, it holds good in Williams
County as in the rest of the world that "All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy," and the farmer as well as his city friend has respite
today, and sometimes visits a pleasure resort while drudgery was all
that either of them knew a generation ago. In the old days of back-
breaking, hard work, men and women of Williams County had little time
or inclination to plan intellectual improvement, but for many years the
Grange, the W. C. T. U. and study clubs have been a mitigating influence
in the rural communities as well as the towns. Through those social
avenues of escape, and through recent transportation methods the
citizenry of Williams County is escaping its thralldom, and farm life of
today is no longer characterized by its isolation. The daily mail, the
telephone and the automobile have revolutionized conditions in Williams
County as well as in the rest of the world.
426 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
The traveler seeing Williams County by automobile or aeroplane gets
an eye-ful in a day's ride, and when one notes the atmosphere of pros-
perity everywhere, it is difficult to reconcile some of the stories of the
long ago. The daughter in the home has studied the piano, and the son
no longer plays the fiddle but draws his bow across the strings of the
musical violin, and all of this within the memory of men and women
not yet old in Williams County history. There were hardships and
privations when every home was a factory, and beside the hearthstone
sat the shoemaker in every family. There were no shoestores in
the wilderness days of Williams County history, but where is the youth
of today who has ever visited the shoemaker and left his measure? The
fathers know all about the split leather red top boots of yesterday. They
know all about the copper toes and the common sense heels, before the
French heel had been seen in the community. What has become of the
split leather boots that used to become so water soaked the school boys
could not get them ofif or on without using the boot jaclj that has now
been consigned to oblivion in economic history? Perhaps it is much the
same kind of leather today, but drainage and improved roadways have
brought about the changes so noticeable to one who looks backward
over the lapse of half a century. If it were not for the changed physical
conditions, the boot jack would have to be resurrected again. The boys
of today are no more inclined to take care of their leather than were the
boys of yesterday. However, some of them would not recognize a boot
jack if they saw it.
Aye, the dress suit of cabin days in Williams County was buckskin
breeches and a flax shirt, with home made moccasins for the feet — ^all
products of home industry — home tailors and bootmakers. The women
cut their garments by guess and experiment, since fifty years ago they
could not buy those marvelous patterns in stores, and they sewed by
hand until the first rude sewing machines were on the market. When
the first models of sewing machines were introduced a woman would go
many miles to have ruffles hemmed *on the chain-stitch hand-sewing
machine that would ravel when a stitch was broken, and all her trouble
would be for nothing. Although they covered honest men and women,
there was not much design to the garments of the long ago. Today the
clothier carries all sizes and textiles, and the mothers are no longer
the home tailors, some not even making their own kitchen aprons. The
woman who can knot a thread on one hand is the exception.
While those who are willing to pay more still visit good tailors, most
Williams County men are content with hand-me-downs except one good
suit each year perhaps, and misfits do not distress them. There are
good furnishing stores in the different towns. The old fashioned grease
lamp or tallow dip has been succeeded by the candle and the coal oil
lamp, and in many homes both in town and in the country it is only
necessary to touch the button on the wall and the rooms are flooded
with light. Aye, men and women may "see to read the Scriptures day or
night," some rural homes having independent lighting plants, while
stock companies are being organized with the avowed purpose of lighting
farm homes and supplying power for operating machinery. While there
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
427
has been and still is some natural gas, it has never been a universal com-
modity in Williams County. An artificial product is used in the towns
today. Perhaps in an emergency there are still some who could strike
fire from a flint, but it has been a long time since any one borrowed
fire, nor are the coals kept alive on the hearthstones. The woman who
lighted her pipe with a coal has long since gone the way of the world.
■ The pleasures of horseback riding render that old fashioned method
of travel a pastime today for those who can afford it, but there are
men and women still living who witnessed the transformation. When
the Cincinnati cheap bugg}^ was put on the market in the '80s. horseback
riding waned in popularity among the well-to-do young folks. All the
horses were broke to "carry double," and bridal parties have traveled
Will
W;
Automobiles in Brv.\n
in that way. The pioneer mother had an up-on-block outside the yard
fence when the chip-pile was in front, or if the wood was in a side lot
the up-on-block was there. When there was sickness she would mount
a well trained "critter" and ride to a neighbor's house, and who says
there is the same neighborly hospitality today that prevailed fifty years
ago? When sickness overtakes the family today it is usually a trained
nurse comes into the home instead of the friendly ministrations of some
neighbor woman. When the death chill had overtaken a woman of
ninety years, she asked for a neighbor woman she had known in the past,
saying: "She will warm me up," but her neighbor had already gone on
to that bourne from whence travelers do not return, and she had not
accustomed herself to the ministrations of strangers.
The woman of today finds time to go to the club, while the pioneer
mother always ironed every dish cloth on both sides, and when she had
finished she found some other task. She was always busy with much
428 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
serving, regardless of the fact that Mary of old had chosen the better
part while Martha neglected nothing at all. There are Marys and
Marthas today, and Mary seems to get the most out of her life because
she omits some of the unnecessary details. The minister's wife who
admitted that she would rather read a good book than shine a cook stove,
was perhaps a truthful woman. However, times have changed, and there
are mothers who pat their pickles as they can them, while their daughters
are inclined to hurry through such operations, and find some time for
magazines and books, and who is right — mother or daughter ? On account
of her much serving Martha becomes a bundle pi nerves sometimes,
while Mary escapes the thralldom of servitude by asserting herself in
the club and intellectual life of the community. Martha has need of
the physician much oftenerthan Mary.
The story is told that the pot once called the kettle black, and there
are still men and women in every community who insist on the right
names for things. Some families in Williams County today still serve
breakfast, dinner and supper while others have a cup of coffee in the
morning, and a lunch at noon and in the evening the more formal dinner
makes up for what the others lacked in variety. However, it behooves
the citizen of the twentieth century to make obeisance to those who
operated the spinning wheels and looms, and who knew so well the
secrets of good cookery before the fire when there were no cookstoves
in Williams County. The household arts as practiced by the pioneer
mothers would be a revelation to many who are on the firing line of
civilization today.
CHAPTER LV
GOD'S ACRE— WILLIAMS COUNTY CEMETERIES
There is a Reaper whose name is Death, and he has been abroad in
Williams County as well as in the rest of the world, and yet there are
some who wonder if God has not forgotten them. There are some who
have been spared beyond the allotted years of man. who have lingered
so long that they feel the import of "The last rose of summer left
blooming alone, with its lovely companions all faded and gone," and
who are more or less impatiently waiting the summons from the Mes-
senger reputed to ride the pale horse, and they say : "O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
The shadowy boatmen carries passengers only one way across the
river of death — he never ferries them back again. In Hebrews, IX, 27,
it is written : "And so it is appointed unto men once to die," and Job
inquires: "If a man die shall he live again?" In Ecclesiastes it is
written : "For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know
not anything," and the grave seems to end it all. While in Westminster
Abbey the graves are on top of each other, that condition will hardly
prevail in Williams County before cremation becomes more popular,
or the many burying grounds are more crowded than they are today.
While the proverbial six feet of earth is all the realty some people ever
expect to occupy — hardly a possession after they attain it, others are
cremated and thus escape the long wait in the grave. The press dis-
patches say the body of Emery Lattanner once well known in Williams
County, and who died recently in Texas, was cremated in St. Louis,
and the story goes that Beniah Calvin was cremated, although cremation
does not prevail in Williams County at all.
When men and women have rounded out their lives in one com-
munity, they usually look forward to being buried there. "Live where
you will, but after all you owe this sacred spot your bones." and it is
but natural that local residents want to be buried in Williams County.
While in life they may wander far from their native heaths, in death
Williams County soil suits them better than any other spot in the world.
With reference to a cemetery between Bryan and West Unity, that
veteran Ohio historian. Henry Howe, says: "Here lie the dead and
here the living lie," and with that thought in mind the writer scanned
many gravestones in Schiffler Cemetery on Decoration Day, A. D., 1920,
but there is nothing unusual in epitaphs there. Better than epitaphs :
"Let us bring to the living the roses.
And the lilies we bind for the dead
And crown them with blessings and praises —
Before the brave spirit has fled,"
429
430 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
and it is said there are few noteworthy inscriptions on Williams County
tombstones. The epitaph hunter would never visit local cemeteries in
quest of the unusual, love of the dead in most instances manifesting
itself in the form of suitable markets at the graves.
When the time comes in family history that more of its members
are sleeping in the cemetery than are sitting about the fireside at home,
relatives and friends — so many times the remnants of once large families
— are impressed with the sacred duty of keeping their memories green,
and God's Acre will always be hallowed to them. "A spirit that from
earth had departed, looking back in its upward flight, saw the friends — ■
broken hearted," and the couplet goes on to enumerate how much better
it is to give the flowers while the persons are living and can appreciate
them. While some regard it as morally wrong to speak the praise of a
man to his face last they minister to his vanity, thereby encouraging
personal pride, when kind words no longer comfort him, why extol his
virtues on gravestones? In discussing the high cost of living, a Williams
County citizen referred to the higher cost of dying, and when grief
possesses the family, the expense account is seldom taken into con-
sideration at all. "Money to burn," is the commonplace expression, but
unless the undertaker is alert he sometimes buries his money, and never
has any returns from it.
When the country was new and there were no community cemeteries
the pioneers buried their dead on their own farms, an example in point
being the Revolutionary soldier now sleeping in Fountain Grove Cemetery.
The Rev. Elijah Stoddard who was among the first to be buried in
St. Joseph Township was later exhumed from a grave on the farm, and
reinterred at Edgerton. An old account says : "In the early times the
dead were often buried in some favorite spot at home. Here and there
on the farms of the early settlers are those graves now almost forgotten,"
and there are many hallowed spots of earth where the present day under-
takers have never stood, and although sacred to the pioneers posterity
knows nothing at all about them. Springfield, Pulaski, Center and
St. Joseph townships vie with each other in point of seniority, and some
of the earliest graves in Williams County were made in this tier of
townships.
There is a well founded belief that the mounds left by the mound
builders contain the bones of their dead, and Dr. Frank O. Hart of West
Unity once wrote of some skulls he discovered in a Williams County
mound as follows. "They were very thick; the superciliary ridge was
very prominent; the orbital processes were profoundly marked; the
average distance between the temporal ridges of the frontal bone was
three and one-half inches," and to make such a find a local possibility,
the living personage must sometime have inhabited what is now Williams
County. It is said that Doctor Hart was interested in archeological
subjects, and that he possessed a rare collection. There is also an account
of a burial plot in Brady Township where a skeleton was exhumed
supposedly of an Indian. It was about eight feet in length, and a gun,
knives and cups — such things as he might use in some other happy hunting
ground, were buried with him. There was a braid of black hair about
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 431
the neck, and there were thirteen silver brooches worn as ornaments
in this long sleep in the grave. Today men and women do not ask to
have their gold and silver buried with them, as the streets of the city—
so reads the comforting Bible story, are paved with it.
All over Williams County the dead have been removed from abandoned
cemeteries to recently opened ones where more care is given them. It
used to be that funerals were conducted from rural churches, and the dead
was carried by loving hands to the church yard without the body being
placed in the hearse again. Those funerals of other days are sacred
memories, while today it is oftentimes a hurried trip to God's Acre, and
sometimes burial is private, only the relatives standing by the new made
grave. Customs change, and before there were hearses in Williams
County farm wagons were used in carrying the dead from the homes of
the settlers, and later spring wagons were used — always some neighbor
volunteering the service. While the rural church is passing, the church
yard near it is like Tennyson's Babbling Brook — it seems to go on
forever.
While friendly visitors sometimes remove the bodies of the dead,
body snatchers used to rob the graves in order to supply medical colleges
with cadavers, and there are some hair-raising, blood curdling stories
told about such things. When the country was new the settlers guarded
the burial plots from the Indians, and from the wild animals of the
forest by locating them nearby, and today the plow turns over the soil
without the knowledge of the plowman that some one is sleeping the
sleep of the ages there. If bodies are removed in the interests of science
today, the fact seems to escape the newspapers. Newspaper readers would
stand aghast at such recitals, although the children growing up when
word-of-mouth was the only source of information frequently heard
them. They used to say of the hyenas carried about the country in
the menageries — the animal shows, that if one were to escape it would
dig up a whole grave yard in a night, and nervous children did not sleep
well until the show was gone from the country.
In contra-distinction to what Alice Morse Earle writes of New
England burial customs : "In smaller settlements some out-of-the-v;ay
spot was chosen for a common burial place, in barren pasture or on lonely
hillside," are some of the burial places in Williams County. The lines
from John Greenleaf Whittier :
"Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,
Our hills are maple-crowned,
But not from them our fathers chose
The village burial ground.
The dreariest spot in all the land
To Death they set apart ;
With scanty grace from Nature's hand
And none from that of Art,"
may describe New England conditions, but they are not applicable to
Williams County cemeteries.
432 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
Mrs. Earle writes further : "To the natural loneliness of the country
burial place and to its inevitable sadness, is now too frequently added
the gloomy and depressing evidence of human neglect. Briers and weeds
grow in tangled thickets over the forgotten graves," and it may be some
such spots exist in Williams County. The same writer contmues : "In
many communities each family had its own burying place in some corner
of the farm, sometimes at the foot of garden or orchard," thus showing
that Williams County settlers patterned after older communities when
they buried their dead near their homes before there were community
burial plots in so many localities. However, another writer adds,
graphically : "Truly our fathers find their graves in our short memories,
and sadly show us how we may be buried in our survivors," and there is
truth in the suggestion.
Fountain Grove Cemetery adjoining Bryan is one of the beauty spots
in Williams County today. Mathias Blessing, who was the third cus-
todian, spent exactly thirty-one years as sexton there. He began working
there on Decoration Day, 1880, and died May 30, 1911, and his mantle
descended on a son. Mot Blessing. O. L. Brown was the first sexton,
and Jacob Shartzer dug just three graves in the interim between the going
of Mr. Brown and the coming of A'Ir. Blessing. The records show that
Mrs. Sarah Middlefur was the first person interred there, April 15, 1878,
being the date of her burial, and for several years not many families used
Fountain Grove as a place of burial. Mrs. Henrietta Arnold who was
buried November 23, 1881. was the first person buried by Mr. Blessing
one and one-half years after he assumed the care of the cemetery. While
a landscape artist planned the drives, Mr. Blessing graded the cemetery
and planted all the trees and shrubbery there. The lagoon was excavated
by order of the cemetery trustees, and Mr. Blessing sodded its banks
and remained in the cottage there until the end of his days. He was a
Blessing to the community.
The Fountain Grove Mausoleum was built in 1912, in accordance with
the specifications and patent processes of the American Mausoleum
Company. It has 168 crypts and when it was in process of building
they were nearly all sold, and when all are disposed of the mausoleum
becomes the absolute property of the Fountain Grove Cemetery Asso-
ciation. It was built by the trustees under contract with E. T. Binns,
C. D. Gardner and F. R. Parker, and when all crypts are sold they have
no more authority over it than any other crypt owners, the Cemetery
Association controlling it. The mausoleum was built at a cost of
$25,000, and there is a fund of $1,000 set aside to be expended in its
upkeep and perpetual care, only the income to be used from this money.
Longfellow says : "Dust thou art and to dust returnest was not spoken
of the soul," although "earth to earth and dust to dust" is the way most
people think about the final disposition of their earthly tabernacles. It is
said the community mausoleum has a better ventilation system than is
possible in the private one, and through this process all the moisture soon
leaves the body. While there is slight discoloration, the body mummifies
rather than decays, and the community crypts are entirely sanitary.
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY 433
The different community centers all have their burial plots and
Riverside at Montpelier ; Floral Grove at West Unity ; the shaded retreat
at Pioneer; Maple Lawn at Edgerton, and at Edon in the Edon and
Florence township cemetery is another community mausoleum containing
seventy-two crypts that were sold from the beginning, and there is an
upkeep fund as required by the laws of Ohio for its maintenance. Brown
Cemetery is used by many families, and Schiffler — few rural cemeteries
show so much care, and all over Williams County, are costly monuments
to the memory of those who once lived in the community. There are
two cemeteries at Stryker — Boynton and French, and West Jefferson has
long been landmark on a Williams County highway. There is a Catholic
cemetery at Blakeslee, and all are hallowed ground to those who have
followed their friends to sequestered graves in any of them. An old
account says of the Edon cemetery : "There are now as many tombstones
marking graves as there were trees growing out of the soil in the early
days," and the same words apply to other burial plots in Williams County.
Marking the grave is the last tribute of respect, and many plant shrub-
bery or deck the lowly mounds with cut flowers.
It is impossible to mention all the private and smaller burial plots
unless one followed the highways and byways in s^artfh of them, and
an old account says : "The names of those buried in the woods of
St. Joseph were: Baker, Horton, and Staley. They were probably the
first, but of what they died or when and by whom they were buried is
impossible to find out. A little farther south and nearer the river bank
is the grave of Zediker who once owned the land : he died at an early
period and was buried in he woods. By his side was buried a child, an
infant daughter of one Thomas Hill," and what is true of one locality
may be true of another. The Recording Angel must have noted their
burial, since "Not a sparrow falleth but its God doth know," and the
same local writer says further, in describing an abandoned burial plot:
"There was quite a number buried in this early graveyard, but at present
it is difficult to find their graves," and the above was written before
the time of expensive tombstones in Williams County.
While in many instances the churchyard has survived the rural
church, and the living now worship in the towns, the dead sleep on
peacefully where worship was once their privilege, and in the hereafter
angels may roll from their graves the stones away, and there will be
further trace of them. The passerby today is unconscious when he
treads on some of those lowly mounds of earth, and why should the sleep
of the ages be disturbed in the onward rush of humanity? When an
aged man with unimpaired memory dies, it is like burning a book from
the public library because so much of past history must be buried with
him.' Along in the '50s, so the story goes, there was a grave outside the
fence near a cemetery in Superior Township, northeast from Montpelier,
on an angling road that has long since been closed to the public. The
sorrow of the family must have been increased because that long ago a
suicide was denied burial among others in the community. It was like
adding insult to injury, but the cloak of charity is not always donned
434 HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY
by all. When such visitations come home to people, they are more
charitable in the future.
It is related of a Williams County pioneer that his explanation about
his age and the condition of his health not admitting of long rides in
attending funerals, said: "But it does give me great pleasure to attend
the funerals of my friends." It is a counterpart to the story of the
woman who called where the family had just moved into a new house.
W^hen the visitor remarked that it would be a fine place to hold a funeral
service, the woman never liked her house again. Customs change in
funerals as in other things, and while in some families relatives prepare
the body for burial the family grief seemingly mitigated by those sad
offices, in others everything is left to the undertaker even to the minutest
details of the funeral service.
Those who have followed friends to city cemeteries where single
graves are purchased, and the spot thereafter designated by number,
better understand the beauty and sacredness of a rural God's acre, where
one does not require the service of a guide in locating the lowly mound
again. There are always tired feet awaiting the rest that is promised in
the grave, and those who remember the funeral along in the '80s and
'90s will recall the obituary notices sent out by most famjlies — mailed
to out-of-town triends, but left by carrier at every house in town. They
used to toll the church bell — the number of strokes indicating the number
of decedent's years, and usually everybody knew who was seriously
sick in the community. While six feet of earth is allotted to every man,
some find their allotment in the potter's field, there usually being a place
in every cemetery and at the county farm where indigent persons may
be laid to molder back to earth.
Some Attractive Spots in Williams County
While the last resting places of Williams County residents are attrac-
tive spots, made so by loving hands and by some who now rest in the
grave, there are breathing spots for the living who do not care to frequent
cemeteries in order to be near to Nature in God's great out-of-doors.
"All Williams County a park," would be an excellent slogan, and yet
some farmsteads and city homes are well kept because of the inherent
love of the beautiful in the hearts of those who live there. In some
places nature has done the work, while in other spots the hand of man
is necessary in order to make the most out of the surroundings. The
landscape gardener should be employed by the community, and then
there would be harmony in decorative schemes that would add to the
attractiveness of the picture.
The public square in Bryan is a breathing place for all of Williams
County, and it is a philanthropy to have the seats scattered about for all.
Garver Park, which is the Bryan playground, takes its name from the
donor of the five-acre tract at the entrance, and it is a pretty little fresh
air zone centrally located in Bryan. It is called Garver Park because
the original site was given the community by John A. Garver and the
stone gateway leading into it is the gift of M. D. Garver. While in
HISTORY OF WILLIAMS COUNTY'
435
early life J. A. Garver lived in Bryan, he had lived for some years in
Des Moines, Iowa. In 1905, he was a visitor in Bryan, and he felt inclined
to do something for the community that had been his home when he was
young. The school board owned some adjoining property, and the park
board purchased more land until now there are thirty acres — the public
school athletic ground and Garver Park not being separated at all. There
is some natural shade and some shrubbery has been added, and the drive-
days and walks are flanked with flowers.
Montpelier has utilized its opportunity in beautifying the Williams
County fair ground as elsewhere mentioned, and the square about the
town hall is a central breathing spot for its citizens. There are back-
yards at many homes with all the accessories of a public park, and
people need not quit their homes to escape the noontide heat in the
middle of summer — just repair to the backyard, and it is more com-
fortable and less expensive than many of the summer resorts visited
by others in quest of comfort. There is a shady spot in Edgerton await-
ing the necessary park seats, and the philanthropist has a rare opportunity
there. When the town was platted this shaded spot was given it by the
real estate firm on condition that it be used as a park, and lying along
the New York Central tracks all it lacks is the benches. The town hall
is on this tract, placed there by special concession of the Ohio Legislature,
but when the real estate firm, Bement, Sargent & Crane, who platted
Edgerton thought to hold the property by locating an office on it, they
wakened one morning to find the office across the street, the citizens of
Edgerton having taken snap judgment on them. While Edgerton has
shady dooryards it also has its park in the center of the town. Everybody
say it : "All Williams County a park."
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