HISTORICAL SKETCHES
Concerning that Portion of Ohio Embraced within
the Present Limits of

RICHLAND AND ASHLAND COUNTIES.

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THE PIONEERS.

AMERICA is the only country of the earth that has produced pioneers.  European counties were peopled by men moving in large bodies from one place to another.  Whole tribes would move cu masse and overrun, absorb or extinguish the original inhabitants of a country, dispossess them and occupy their territory.  But in America we had the gradual approach of civilization and the gradual recession of barbarism.  The white man did not come in columns and platoons, but came singly as pioneers.
     When civilization crossed the crest of the Alleghanies, Ohio was looked upon as the garden of the west, and soon various settlements were made in the territory now known as the state of Ohio.  Casuists claim that the deer was made for the thicket, the thicket was made for the deer, and that both were made for the hunter; and in further correlations state that the soil was not only intended for those who would cultivate it, but that, if the valley produces corn and the hillside grapes, people suited to the cultivation of such productes take possession of these localities on the theory of the eternal fitness of things.
     The first white man "to set his foot," on the land now embraced in Richland county, Ohio, was James Smith, a young man who was captured by the Indians near Bedford, Pennsylvania, a short time before the defeat of General

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Braddock.  He was adopted by the Indians into one of their tribes and finally accompanied his adopted brother, Tontileango, to the shore of Lake Erie, passing through a part of what is now Richland county.
     Next came Major Rogers, who, with his rangers, passed through here in November, 1760, en route to Detroit.
     The next white people to see this county were Moravian missionaries, who, with their converts, passed this way when they were being removed from the Muskingum country to that of the Sandusky.
      In June, 1782, Colonel Crawford with his army made a halt "by a fine spring near where the city of Mansfield now stands," while on their ill fated expedition to the Sandusky country.
     Following Crawford's campaign, the next white man in this part of the state was Thomas Green, a renegade, who was the founder of Greentown, in 1782.
     The successful campaign of "Mad Anthony" Wayne in 1794 and the peace treaty of Greenville in 1795 secured comparative safety on the frontiers, and immigration began.  The surveys of the public lands, which had been
practically stopped, were resumed and extended to the northwest.  Surveyors tried to keep in advance of the settlers, and land offices were established for the sale of land in several places.  There was not a settler here when the survey of Richland was begun by General Hedges in 1806.
     On the 16th of January, 1803, a bill passed the Ohio legislature creating the counties of Knox, Licking and Richland, with a provision placing Richland under the jurisdiction of Knox county, as it had been before under Fairfield, “until the legislature may think proper to organize the same;” and on June 9, 1809, the commissioners of Knox county declared “the entire county of Richland a separate township, which shall be called and known by the name of Madison.”
     At an election in 1809 but seventeen votes were cast in the entire town ship (county), showing that but few settlers were here at that time.  Richland remained under the jurisdiction of Knox until 1813.
     Thomas Green lived at the Indian town of Greentown several years, but he was not a settler.  Other renegade white men may also have lived there temporarily.  But the first bonafide settler in Richland county was Jacob Newman. who came here in the spring of 1807.  General James Hedges,
a Virginian by birth, was here prior to that date, but he was in the employ of the government as a surveyor and did not become a resident until some years afterward.
     Jacob Newman was originally from Pennsylvania, but had been living

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CAPT. THOMAS ARMSTRONG.

     Captain Thomas Armstrong was a chief of the Turtle branch of the Delaware tribe.  He was said to have been a white man who had been stolen when a mere child and was raised by the Delawares and adopted into their tribe.  Other authorities say he was of mixed blood.  He was the chief at Greentown and was aged when he was forced to leave the village.  All the Indians, however, at Greentown were not Delawares.  There were a few Mohegans, Mohawks, Mingoes, Senecas and Wyandots there also.

CAPTAIN PIPE.

     Captain Pipe was a chief of the Wolf branch of the Delaware tribe and ruled at Mohican Johnstown, and never resided in Richland county.  There was a Captain Pipe at Greentown who was supposed to be the son of the old chieftain.  He was a young man and was described as small, straight and very affable.  He later became a half-chief with Silas Armstrong on the reservation at Pipestown, six miles from Upper Sandusky, and died in the Indian Territory in 1839.
     Old Captain Pipe was a large man.  He had the blandness and oily address of the cringing courtier, the malignity of the savage and the bloodthirsty ferocity of the skulking panther.  With his own hand he painted Colonel Crawford black, and by his order he was burnt at the stake.  While paint

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ing the colonel the treacherous Pipe feigned friendship and joked about him making a good-looking Indian, but the black paint belied his words, for it portended death.  It has been stated that Captain Pipe refused to join with the British against the white settlers in 1812; but as he was a consummate dissembler the statement should be received in accordance with the character of the man.  After Hull's surrender, Captain Pipe was never seen in this part of the state, and his fate is unknown.

GREENTOWN AND THE WAR OF 1812.

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KILLING OF TOM LYONS.

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     Lyons' Falls was not named for Tom Lyons, the Indian, but for Paul Lyons, a white man, a recluse, who lived there for many years.

FIRST SETTLEMENT AGAIN.

     We return to the first settlement to note what progress had been made there.
     In the soring of 1800, the Newmans built a sawmill - the first in the county - near the place where the Amsbaugh gristmill now stands.  It was a crude affair, but it could saw a few logs a day, and sawed boards were preferred to skutched puncheons.  The number of families at the settlement increased and in 1810 a gristmill was built.  It was equipped with "niggerhead" buhrs, and the floor made was not of the roller-process kind, but it may have been as healthful.  It was better, however, to have a mill at home than to have to pack grists on horseback to the mills at Clinton, Knox county, as they had previously done.  Then, too, things are considered good by comparison and in those days, so far as flour was concerned, the positive, comparative and superlative adjectives of “good, better, best” were unknown.
     The Newmans soon removed to Mansfield and while acting as a guide to General Crooks, in the winter of 1812, Jacob Newman contracted a disease from which he died.
     Michael Beam bought the Newman land where the first settlement was made, including the mills, which he put in better equipment and operated for several years, and the place has passed into history as Beam's Mill.
     But adversity and misfortune often lurk in the pathway of the most industrious and worthy, as was the case with Mr. Beam.  To accommodate a friend he became surety for a large bill of merchandise, which he had to pay and that took his all, and he never got a start again.  Parties at Pittsburg got possession of the property and a Mr. Rogers was sent here to superintend the same.  Rogers built a more pretentious dwelling than those of the other residents.  This house was situated just east of Mr. Mentzer's residence, and the ground upon which it stood is now cultivated as a garden.  There, a few years since, a stone mantel was dug up and is now used as a step-stone at Mentzer's back porch.  It is, no doubt, the first dressed stone mantel made in the county.
     The scenery along the Rocky Fork, at different places below Beam's Mills, was said to have been quite picturesque in those days and is interesting still, especially where the stream makes a bend to the right, as it approaches the mound or knoll where the soldiers are buried who gave their lives for their

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INDIAN CIVILIZATION

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EARLY DAY MUSTERS

     Richland county history contains no more interesting feature than the narration of the military musters under the old laws of Ohio requiring the

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PIONEER GATHERINGS.

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THE HEROES OF '76.

     Richland county contains the graves of several Revolutionary soldiers.  While the list in the possession of the Historical Society is not complete, the following may be noted:

     Henry Nail, Sr., is buried on lot 1218, Mansfield cemetery.  He was born in Germany in 1757; came to America in 1777, and some time later enlisted in the Continental army and served until the close of the war.  He came to Richland county in 1816 and remained here until his death.  He was the grandfather of our A. F. Nail, who was soldier in the war of 1861-5, and is the son as well as the grandson of a soldier.

     John Jacobs, another soldier of the war of the Revolution, is buried

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in the Mansfield Roman Catholic cemetery.  Jacobs died about seventy years ago and was first buried in the old cemetery, but the remains were later removed to the present burial-ground.

          On the Memorial Day list is the name of Jacob Uhlich as having been a Revolutionary soldier.  The name should be George Uhlich, a soldier of the war of 1812.

     James McDermot, a Revolutionary soldier buried in the Koogle cemetery, east of Mansfield, was a native of Pennsylvania and served two years at Fort DuQuesne, then marched over the Alleghany mountains and joined Washington's army at Valley Forge.  He was at Princeton and other battles.  He died in Mifflin township, this county, June 25, 1859, aged over one hundred years.

     Christian Riblett enlisted in the Continental army in Pennsylvania in 1779, at the age of eighteen years, and served to the close of the war.  He died Apr. 6, 1844, and is buried at the east line of Sandusky township, on the road leading from Mansfield to Galion.  Daniel Riblett, a son of this Continental soldier, represented Richland county in the legislature (senate) in 1854.

     William Gillespie was a major in the Revolutionary war and is buried at Bellville, and a headstone marks his grave, which is yearly decorated with flowers by the comrades of Miller Moody Post. G. A. R.  Major Gillespie died Feb. 17, 1841, aged one hundred and four years.

     Samuel Poppleton was one of the Green Mountain boys who fought under Colonel Ethan Allen, and as color sergeant planted the American flag upon the walls of Fort Ticonderoga at its surrender and heard the historic words, “In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental congress.”  Major Poppleton died in 1842, aged ninety-nine years, and is buried in the Evart graveyard, a mile south of Bellville.  The inscription on his headstone has been somewhat effaced by the frosts and storms of time.  The Major was the grandfather of the late Hon. E. F. Poppleton.

     Adam Wolfe, another Revolutionary soldier, is buried at Newville.  He was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, Dec. 10, 1760, and came to Richland county, Ohio, in 1816, and entered the southeast quarter of section 26 in Monroe township.  He died April 24, 1845.

     The Memorial list also gives the name of Jacob Cook as a Revolutionary soldier buried in the Mansfield cemetery.  This statement is also incorrect.  On the Cook monument are several cenotaph inscriptions,—those of Jacob and Jabez Cook.  Jacob Cook was the great-grandfather of the late J. H. Cook, and died in 1796, aged eighty-four years, and was buried in Washing-

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ton county, Pennsylvania.  Noah Cook, a son of Jacob Cook, served several terms of enlistment in the Revolutionary war, and at one time was the chaplain of the Fifth Regiment of Continental troops in General Sullivan's brigade.  He came to Lexington, Richland county, in 1814, and died in December, 1834, and is buried at Lexington, but has a cenotaph inscription on the monument of his grandson, the late James Hervey Cook.
     While the victories and achievements of our recent wars take the attention of the people of to-day, the soldiers of other American conflicts, especially the war of the Revolution, must not be forgotten, for to that struggle we owe our existence as a free and independent nation.  And in no other period of the world's history were events more deeply fraught with interest or more full of moral and political moment than in the era in which American independence was achieved.
     It is said that the noblest work of the pen of history is to state facts, describe conditions and narrate events which illustrate the progress of the human mind; that in the coming age the history of wars, even when presented in the fascinating garb of brilliant achievements, will be read more with sorrow and regret than with satisfaction and delight.  But who would obliterate from Roman history the record of the heroism of those who drove the Persian hordes into the sea at Marathon?  No Englishman desires to take from the history of his country the deeds of her Wellington or her Nelson.  The French point with pride to the man whose frown terrified the glance his magnificence attracted.  What patriot would rob American history of the record of the victories of our army and navy in the several wars in which our nation has been engaged, and deprive the people of the benefits and results of those grand achievements.
     Memorial Day is a tribute to patriotism, a tribute of utility to gratitude, a confession that war is at times necessary, that life has nobler things in it than mere business pursuits, and that men sometimes rise to those sublime heights when life is looked upon as of secondary consideration, and that honor and liberty and law are the only things for which the heart beats in pulsating flow.  The people of to-day are far removed from the events of the war of the Revolution, but the principles for which the patriots fought underlie our political superstructure and permeate every department of the government, and the heroism of the Continental soldiers shines with effulgent glory through the mists of a century.
     Thirteen soldiers of the war of 1812 died while doing their duty at the Beam block-house, and are buried on a bluff near to the left bank of the Rocky Fork, three miles below Mansfield.  The writer recently visited the

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place of their burial.  The weather was fair for a December day; the sky was in misty blue, with the sun's rays shimmering through the hazy atmosphere askance upon the bluff.  Then the mist cleared away and the full sun shine came in sheens of golden glory upon the unmarked graves of the heroes whose bodies have lain there for well-nigh a century, and where they will continue to repose, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” until the graves shall give up their dead, mortality put on immortality and death be swallowed up in the victory of the resurrection.

OF GREAT PROWESS.

"Oh, it is excellent.
To have a gaint's strength; but it is tyranous
To use it like a giant."

     Richland can compete favorably with other counties in Ohio in the records of her giants,—not those of world-fame, but of local renown.  The man pre-eminently entitled to be called Richland's giant was Christopher Burns, although he stood only six feet, two inches in his stockings and weighed but two hundred and twenty-five pounds.  His title as gaint was not so much on account of his height and weight as in his great strength.  A better appellation, perhaps, would have been a “modern Sampson;” but “giant” was what the people called him then.
     When the Wiler house was being built in 1828.  Burns attended the brick-masons as a hod-carrier, and occasionally gave exhibitions of his strength and athletic capabilities.  A man named Johns, a noted foot-racer, came to Mansfield and a match was gotten up between him and Burns.  Johns appeared in running undress, while Burns wore his hod-carrier clothes and heavy boots.  Burns ran part of the way backwards, and even then easily distanced his competitor.  A pole was then placed on the heads of two tall men and Burns jumped over it with apparent ease.
     Freight at that time was hauled from the east in heavy wagons, drawn by from four to six horses.  A wagon of this kind, heavily laden, was once temporary standing in front of the Wiler, where Burns was working.  To show their strength, several men had tried to lift a wheel of the wagon, but were unsuccessful in their attempts.  Burns looked upon their failure with contempt.  He went to the wagon and had three of the heaviest men in the crowd to add their weight to the wheel, by one standing upon the hub, the others on the spokes.  Burns then lifted the wheel, men and all, with apparent

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     Of the lawyers who in the early days were prominent in their profession, the most complimentary mention could be made of the Hon. John M. May, Judge Jacob Parker and Judge James Stewart.  Mr. May was the first resident lawyer in Mansfield, and Parker and Stewart attained distinction upon the bench as well as at the bar.
     The 3, whose body was interred in the Mansfield cemetery October 25, 1900, had been congressman, senator and cabinet minister.  His public life, extending over a period of nearly fifty years, is so well known and so closely identified with American history that an extended notice of his career is here unnecessary.
     What a galaxy of distinguished names are among those of our dead!  Governors, jurists. warriors and journalists are gone and statesmen have been
transferred from the American congress to the “parliament of the skies.”

ASHLAND COUNTY.

     The law to erect the county of Ashland passed the Ohio legislature Feb. 24, 1846.  Of its townships, some were taken from Richland county, others from Lorain, Huron and Wayne.  For many years after its organization Richland county contained a larger area than any other county in Ohio.  Historian Knapp states that this fact gave rise to a number of new county schemes, and the legislature was annually beleaguered with applications for the creation of new counties.  Prominent among these was one for a new county of Ellsworth, with the seat of justice at Sullivan: the county of Mohigan, with the seat of justice at Loudonville; another for the county of Vermillion, with the seat of justice at Hayesville.  There were also similar applications—Jerome, Orange and Savannah.  At a later date application was made for the county of Ashland, with Ashland village for the county seat.  The erection of this new county robbed old Richland not only of much of her most valuable land but also of a part of her historic territory, for some of the most stirring scenes and tragic events of our early history transpired and were enacted within that part of Richland which now forms a part of Ashland county.  One of the most notable places which Ashland county gained was the old Indian village of Greentown, situate on the Black Fork, three miles above Perrysville.

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     For a number of years there was an Indian village on the west bank of the Clear Fork of the Mohican, a mile below Newville, called Helltown,—signifying “town on the clear water.”  This village was on the path of travel between
Gnadenhutten and the Sandusky country.  After the massacre of the Moravian Indians—ninety-six in number—at Gnadenhutten, Mar. 8, 1782, the Indians evacuated Helltown and the Clear Fork valley, and founded Greentown, on the Black Fork, for greater safety.  Greentown was situate on the
east bank of the Black Fork, about three miles above Perrysville, and the buildings were log cabins and pole huts. 
Greentown was burned in August, 1812. by a party of soldiers who were absent from their commands.  To understand the burning of the village it is necessary, at least briefly, to review the situation of the country at that time,—the summer and early autumn of 1812, especially that summer in the Black Fork valley, a summer in which the earth was bringing forth a bountiful harvest; a summer luxuriant with flowers and musical with the carol of birds by day, while at night the moon was wont to peer atwixt the leafy branches of the forest, casting its pale glimmers of light through the languorous atmosphere ere it sailed forth into the open space of the sky to keep watch and ward over those who slept, as if to say, “Peace! be still.”  But those peaceful days and restful nights of nature seemed but a mockery, for there were days of toil and nights of watching for the white settlers who worked hard and dwelt in insecurity, for the Indians were liable to come upon them, like the proverbial “thief in the night,” unawares.
     As the times became more threatening, with indications of an Indian out

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break probable at any moment, the several families kept sentinels on guard to warn them of the approach of stealthy foes. It is easy to conceive how, from long apprehension of danger, the minds of the whites could be wrought up until they imagined they could see ominous signs in the rays of the sun as they glinted over the hills and flecked the tree-tops here and there with touches of red, and tinted the fleecy clouds with gorgeous hues and colored the western sky with crimson dye, all of which seemed to foretell that the red blood of human life would be shed in the conflict that all realized was then impending.
     To understand this state of apprehension and the results which followed, let us briefly consider the condition of the country and the menacing attitude of Great Britain, which culminated in the war of 1812.  For years previous to this period Great Britain had been impressing our seamen and trying to deprive American vessels of the rights of commerce upon the high seas, and British ships of war had even been stationed before the principal harbors of the American coast to board and search our merchantmen departing from or returning to the United States, and a number of vessels had been captured and sent as prizes to British ports. From 1805 to 1811 over nine hundred American vessels laden with valuable cargoes had been captured by British cruisers, and hundreds of American citizens had been impressed into British service.  The contempt in which the British officers held the American navy led to an action prior to the war. The frigate President, commanded by Commodore Rogers, met a vessel one evening off the Virginia coast, which he hailed, but for an answer a shot was fired which struck the mainmast of the President.  The fire was instantly returned and was continued until Commodore Rogers ascertained his antagonist was disabled, when he desisted.  The vessel proved to be the British sloop-of-war Little Belt. carrying eighteen guns.  There was no loss on the American side, but thirty-two were killed and wounded on the British sloop.  This was the first lesson.
     Early in Nov., 1811, President Madison convened congress and his message to that body indicated apprehensions of hostilities with Great Britain, and co gress passed acts increasing the efficiency of both the army and navy.  Although continuing to prepare for war, the administration still cherished the hope that a change of policy on the part of Great Britain would make an appeal to arms unnecessary.  But in May, 1812, the Hornet brought still more unfavorable news from across the waters, and on the 1st of June the president sent a message to congress, recounting the wrongs received from Great Britain and submitting the question whether the United States should continue to endure them or resort to war.  The message was considered

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with closed doors and on the 18th an act was passed declaring war against Great Britain, and the next day a proclamation was issued by the president to that effect.
     For a while the American army met with reverses, defeat being added to defeat and surrender following surrender.  General Hull, who was the governor of the territory of Michigan, commanded our troops at Detroit, then considered the most important on the lakes.  With a flourish of trumpets, he crossed the river on the 12th of July, to attack Malden. with Montreal as an ulterior point.  But, receiving information that Fort Mackinaw had surrendred to the British, and that a large force of red-coats and red-skins were coming down to overwhelm the American troops, General Hull hastened to leave the Canadian shore, recrossed the river and returned to Detroit.  General Brock, the commandant at Maiden, pursued General Hull and placed batteries opposite Detroit.  The next day, meeting with no opposition, General Brock marched directly forward as if to assault the fort.  The American troops, being confident of victory. looked with complacency upon the approach ot the enemy and calmly waited the order to fire; but, to their dismay and consternation, Hull ran up the white flag and surrendered.  An event so disgraceful has no parallel in history.
     Later General Van Rensselaer, with headquarters at Lewistown, led his troops across the Niagara river to attack a fort at Queenstown, but after a long and hard-fought engagement was forced to surrender.  In that action General Brock was killed.  While these reverses prolonged the war and emboldened the Indians to commit greater atrocities, the Americans never lost confidence in the final 1'4-salt.  While the army suffered defeat, the navy gained victory after victory, which was particularly gratifying to American pride, for they were won by that Class whose rights had been violated; and these victories were gained over a nation whose navy was the “mistress of the seas.”  These naval victories were extended from the ocean to the lakes, where Perry, on the 10th of September, (1813), “as we all well remember, “ won imperishable fame.   The army finally achieved successes. as had the navy, and these led up to the final defeat of the British by General Jackson, at New Orleans, in January, and to the victorious peace proclaimed Feb. 18. 1815, just two years and eight months from the day war had been declared.
     In this war the Indians acted as the allies of the British.  History states that Lord Dorchester, then governor general of Canada. industriously instigated the Indians to hostilities on our northern frontier, and that he had agents throughout Ohio and elsewhere distributing blankets,  food, ammuni-

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tion and arms among the Indians, and at Malden a reward was paid for every white man's scalp brought in by the Indians.
     The Indians at Grcentown and Jeromeville had received supplies from the British.  This fact, coupled with their suspicious action and warlike demonstrations, gave the white settlers reasonable cause for believing that their savage neighbors contemplated a murderous assault upon them.
     At the time of which I write Colonel Kratzer, who was in command of the troops at Mansfield. received orders to remove the Indians from both Greentown and Jeromeville, as a precautianary measure against an outbreak, and for that purpose sent Captain Douglas to enforce the order.  There were about eighty Indian “braves” at Greentown, and it has been doubted whether Captain Douglas could have successfully coped with them.  But such questions are only discussed in “piping times of peace.” for in times of war American soldiers whip the enemy first and discuss the matter afterward!
     Armstrong was the Greentown chief, and at first refused to consent to be removed.  Captain Douglas then sought James Copus, who lived a few miles further up the valley, and requested him ta persuade the Indians to comply peacefully with the order.  Copus was a local preacher in whom the Indians had confidence.  He refused to interfere against them.  After entreaty had failed Captain Douglas is reported to have said, “Mr. Copus, my business is to carry out the instructions of my superior officers, and if I can't persuade you to comply with my request.  I shall arrest you as a traitor to the government of the United States.”  Mr. Copus then consented to go. the officer assuring him that the Indians should be protected in both person and property.
     When the officers returned to the Indian village, accompanied by Mr. Copus, another conference was held with the chief, at which Mr. Copus repeated the assurances that had been given him.
     Captain Douglas again explained that his order was mandatory and that the Indians had to comply with its mandate or take the alternative.  After conferring with his counselors. the old chief reluctantly announced that they would go, and Judge Peter Kinney and Captain James Cunningham took an inventory of their effects. and the Indians were formed into line and marched away under guard from the place that had for thirty years been the home of that part of their tribe.  They had not  proceeded far when, looking back, they saw a cloud of smoke ascending from their burning village!
     The burning of Greentown has been criticised and censured by sentimentalists, who regarded it as a breach of faith with the “noble red man,” who

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to the Beam block-house, the distance being about thirteen miles, where they arrived safely in the evening.

THE MISSING SOLDIER FOUND.

     Several weeks afterward a squad of soldiers accompanied Henry Copus, a son of James Copus, to the cabin, and on the way, some distance from the Copus cabin, they discovered the missing soldier (Warnock) sitting against a tree, dead.  They buried him near where he was found.  They also found the bodies of two Indians, which were left to their fate.
     Mrs. Copus and children remained in the block-house about two months and were then taken to Guernsey county, where they lived until the close of the war, when they returned to their home on the Black Fork, and where Mrs. Copus reared the family and lived to a good old age, beloved and respected by her neighbors and friends.  Sarah Copus, the daughter, became Mrs. Vail, and lived to be present at the unveiling of the  monument, Sept. 15, 1882, erected to the memory of her father and the soldiers who were killed in that awful tragedy at that humble cabin in the wilderness, Sept. 15, 1812.
     Among the incidents of the fight it is stated that Copus and an Indian fired at each other simultaneously, the former receiving a mortal wound and the latter being killed instantly.  Copus did not fall when he was shot, but staggered back across the room to a table, from which he was assisted to the bed.  He told his wife that he could not live and that she would have to rear the children as best she could.  A number of times while the battle lasted the savages tried to take the cabin by storm, but the soldiers had taken the precaution to barricade the door and windows with puncheons removed from the floor.

A GOOD SHOT.

     George Launtz, the soldier who had an arm broken by a bullet, caught sight of an Indian peeping around a tree, and, taking deliberate aim, fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the savage bound into the air and then roll down the hill, dead.  Another redskin, who had been shot, fell in the yard.   His groans were heard as he attempted to crawl away, but a well-directed bullet from the cabin put an end to his suffering.  Forty-five scoop-outs where fires had been, were afterward found in the cornfield, where the Indians had roasted corn, and from that it was taken that there had been forty-five savages

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in the assault. Of that number, nine were carried away by the Indians when they retreated, which, with the two bodies found later, made their loss eleven, killed and wounded.  During the greater part of the battle the Indians fought from ambush, taking refuge behind the trees on the hillside in front of the house.  On the same day that the Copus battle took place the cabins of Newell, Cuppy and Fry, farther east, were burned, and the Indians who attacked the Copus family were supposed to have been the incendiaries, as they went in that direction.  Those families were at the Jerometown block-house.
     After the close of the war a number of the Indians returned to this county.  Sarah Copus, the girl who had seen the redskins lurking around the day before the attack was made on their home, did not seem to be in favor with the savages.  Going on the hill beyond the spring one day, after the family had returned from Guernsey county, she saw one hiding behind a tree.  She ran toward the house, the Indian pursuing her almost to the door.  They said the girl “knew too much”—was too observant of them and their actions.

KNEW ABOUT IT.

     Tom Lyons, an ugly old redskin of the Delaware tribe, in a conversation with Mrs. Copus in 1816, admitted he knew all about the attack on their cabin, but denied that he took part in it.
     After the times became more secure the settlers returned to their homes, but affairs were more or less troubled until the close of the war.

MONUMENTS REARED.

     At a meeting of the Ashland County Pioneer Society, held Aug. 18, 1881, the matter of erecting monuments to those who fell in the Zimmer Ruffner and Copus massacres was considered, but no definite action was taken until at a special meeting held September 10 of the same year, when Dr. S. Riddle introduced the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted: 
     “Resolved, That we erect suitable monuments to the memory of those pioneers and soldiers who were killed by the Indians in the fall of 1812 and buried in Mifflin township.”
     A committee was appointed to conduct the canvass for funds, and two

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hundred and fifty dollars were contributed.  Dr. Riddle was the secretary of the Ashland Pioneer Society, and to him credit is due for the conception of the thought, the formulation of the plans and the raising of a large share of the funds that finally placed monuments to mark the graves of those pioneers and soldiers who fell victims to Indian rapacity, hate and vengeance.

THE FUND RAISED.

     The fund having been raised, the committee met at Ashland June 10, 1882, and ordered two monuments. at one hundred and twenty-five dollars each, of Dorland & Kerr.  The monuments were put up, one at the Copus place, and the other on the site of the Zimmer cabin, and were unveiled with great ceremony Friday, Sept. 15, 1882, in the presence of a multitude of ten thousand people.  The day of the unveiling ceremony was warm and perfect in the blending of the elements, in the beauty of its light and color, and in the mellowness of its atmosphere.  An early frost had touched the tops of the trees with its icy fingers and colored the leaves here and there with shades of red and gold, while in the soft shelter of the hills some yet waved their green boughs in the mild September air; still others, standing in some open space, spread out their tremulous panoplies of unbroken amber.  And while the whole landscape was suffused with the loveliness of early autumn, yet nowhere was nature more replete in its beauty than on the hill where the exercises were held and at whose base the Copus monument was unveiled.
     The exercises were opened with music by a brass band, followed by prayer by the Rev. A. Hall.  Short speeches were made by Dr. William Bushnell and others.

GUESTS OF HONOR.

     Mrs. Sarah Vail, aged eighty-four, and Mrs. Elizabeth Baughman, seventy-nine, were given seats of honor on the platform and were introduced to the audience.  Mrs. Vail was the daughter of James Copus and was the girl who saw the Indians lurking near the corn-field the day before the attack on the cabin and was in the house when her father was shot at the door.  Mrs. Baughman was the daughter of Captain Cunningham, who was a prominent actor in the events of the pioneer days.

THE ADDRESSES.

      At the noon hour a recess was taken and a picnic dinner partaken of,

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THE BLACK FORK SETTLEMENT

     The location where James Copus lived is on the east side of the Black Fork, about midway between Mifflin and the old Indian village of Greentown.  As we look about the place, the various scenes of that bloody battle come up from the history of the past like panoramic views before us.  But few can walk indifferent and unmoved over fields of bloodshed and strife, and the lapse of time only serves to enhance the memories of other years.  And these are heightened by the thought that our ancestors shared in the early struggles and conflicts of the Mohican valley.

LOCALITIES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST.

In this asynartete* sketch only a brief mention can be made of several places of geographical and historical interest in the valley of the Black Fork.  The Petersburg Lakes are well known.  There are three and are fed by springs.  They form a chain of lakes, the largest covering an area of about fifty acres, the middle about thirty and the smallest ten acres.  These lakes were a favorite fishing resort in the Indian times, as they are to-day.  The Copus spring flows from the base of a hill on the east side of the valley, near where the Copus cabin stood.
     Early in the summer of 1782 Colonel William Crawford's ill-fated expedition crossed the valley of the Black Fork on its way to the Sandusky country and to the defeat and the horrible atrocities that followed.  Caldwell's Atlas says: “Colonel Crawford's army passed up the old trail which crossed the Killbuck some twelve miles south of Wooster; thence to the north side of Odell's lake; thence across the southern part of Ashland county to the vicinity of Greentown. passing from George Guthrie's to the old Baughman farm, and from there to the point where the Rocky Fork empties into the Black Fork, where the army crossed the stream and proceeded up the former via the present sites of Lucas and Mansfield to Spring Mills, and thence west to the Wyandot country.”
     General Robert Crooks, with an army of over two thousand men and a large number of heavy wagons loaded with army supplies, stopped a few days at Greentown shortly after the Indians had left, and confiscated their green corn; and four weeks later Colonel Anderson, with about one hundred and fifty men, with a train of twenty-five cannon and fifty covered wagons, each drawn by six horses, hauling munitions of war, made a halt at Greentown, then followed Crooks' trail to Fort Meigs.  All three of these expeditions
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Sharon Wick's Notes:
* 1. Asynartete (adj.): disconnected, not fitted or adjusted
   2. (poetic) Being or relating to a verse of two members, having different rhythms, as for example when the first consists of iambuses¹ and the second of trochees².
     ^1.  A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in delay.
          A metrical foot in quantitative verse composed of a short syllable followed by a long one.:
     ². Trochee:  a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by one short syllable or of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable

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passed over part of the ground where the city of Mansfield now stands, and camped over night in the vicinity of the big springs on East Fourth street.  One of these springs is at Lampert's and one on the lot on the northwest corner of Fourth and Adams streets, known for years as the Clapp Spring.

PIONEER INCIDENCES.

     Abraham Baughman, the first settler on the Black Fork, bought a calf from an Indian, paying him the price asked.  A year later an additional sum of money was demanded, as the calf had grown larger, and the amount was paid to avoid trouble; but still a year afterward another supplemental price was demanded and paid under protest.  To prevent the heifer from growing bigger still, it was slaughtered for beef, as the owner did not want to pay for its growth every year.
     Abraham Baughman was the first white man to make his home on the Black Fork; but ere long came the Coulters, the Crawfords and others, and soon quite a settlement sprang up around him.  As the population increased a distillery was put in operation, as was then the custom in the west.
     One evening, when Baughman and wife were at a neighbor's. two Indians called at the Baughman cabin, and, finding the boys in bed, ordered them to get up and give them something to eat.  After they had partaken of the luncheon they ordered Jacob, the older son, to go to the “still house”—as distilleries were then called—and get them whisky, and held George as hostage, threatening to scalp him if Jacob delayed or gave the alarm.  For the want of a more suitable vessel, Jacob took his mother's tea canister and made the trip as expeditiously as possible.  Upon his return the Indians cautiously smelled the whisky, and, detecting a peculiar odor, suspected it was poisoned, becoming enraged and flourishing their tomahawks about the boys' heads in a lively manner.  Then they made the boys drink of it and waited to see the "poison” take effect on them; but, as no had symptoms were noticed, the red skins finally accepted the tea explanation and proceeded to drink the contents of the canister and were howling drunk when the parents returned.

TWO BATTLES OF COWPENS.

     There are two battles of Cowpens recorded in history, - one fought in South Carolina during the war of the Revolution, and the other in Ashland county - in our own Buckeye state - in the war of 1812.  The former was a terrible reality; the latter a bloodless incident.

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     "The soldier flew, the sailor, too," and spread the news that is chief was brewing, that the "rebels," packed up like pickled herring, were coming down to attack the town, and the most frantic scenes were enacted.

LYONS' FALLS

     There are traditions that are not historically correct.  For years past it has been generally believed in these parts that Lyon's Falls were named for the old Indian chieftian, Tom Lyons.  It may seem like uncalled-for iconoclasm to dispel belief in such a mythical personage as Lily Pipe, or to rob Lyons' Falls of Indian traditions.  But history should be accurately given; and its correct narration is more instructive than the erroneous one, and can be as entertainingly told as though its warp were woven with the woof of fiction.
     Lyons' Falls are situated in Ashland county, about fifteen miles south east of Mansfield.  There are two falls, and the place. which has been a noted picnic resort for many years, is wild in its primitive forest and grand in its rugged picturesqueness.  During the past summer a party of ladies and gentlemen, whose names are conspicuous on the list of Mansfield's “400,” took a day's outing at these falls, and a grave was pointed out to them as that of “the noted Lyons;” and like many others they inferred that the Lyons buried there was the notorious Indian chieftain of that name.  Upon their return to Mansfield they told entertainingly of the wooded hills and sylvan dells, of the overhanging rocks and of the eighty-foot leap of the waters from the edge of the precipice to the basin at the bottom of the chasm, casting its sprays into the cool grottos which the hand of nature chiseled out of the everlasting rocks.  And the further fact that the party had seen the grave of a great warrior lent additional interest to the story and to the locality.
     With such allurements it was not long until another detachment of the “400” also visited these noted falls, and the gentlemen of the party fired

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volleys over the grave, danced a war dance and gave Indian funeral whoops and came home satisfied that they had held suitable commemorative ceremony over the earthly resting place of the body of an Indian chieftain!
     Tom Lyons, the Indian, who took a prominent part in the Wyoming massacre (1778), and was afterward a notorious character in the early history of Richland county, was killed by a young man named Joe Haynes, to avenge the murder of a kinsman, and he buried the old chief in Leedy's swamp in Jefferson township, Richland county.  The Lyons buried at the falls was Paul Lyons, a white man.  He was not a hermit, as one tradition states, for he took to himself a wife, who bore him a son, and he did not particularly shun his neighbors, although he did not admit them into his confidence.  What Paul Lyons' object and motives were for leaving the civilization of the east and seeking a home amid the rocks and hills of that wild and uninhabited part of the country are matters only of conjecture, for he never gave his antecedents, and refused to explain or to give reasons for hiding himself away in the forest and leading such a retired life.  He had “squatted” on land too rough to till, and he never attempted to clear off the timber nor to cultivate the rocky soil.  He simply built a cabin amid the trees and passed his time principally in hunting and fishing; but, as the country became settled around him and farmers needed help to harvest their crops, he often assisted them in such work.  He never made any exhibition of money, yet always paid cash for what he bought.  He has been described as a large man, and that he had ability and education is shown by the statement of a lady now living, who says that he was an intelligent and entertaining conversationalist and that at the funeral of a neighbor he read a chapter and sang a hymn, and that it was the best reading and singing she ever heard.
     About 1856 Lyons, while assisting in hauling logs, met with an accident which resulted in his death, and he was buried upon the hill, between the two waterfalls.  The late Rosella Rice had a headboard, painted and lettered, put up at the grave, but visitors shot at the board for a target until it was riddled into slivers by bullets, and later the body was exhumed and the skeleton mounted by a physician.  A slight depression in the ground is now the only sign showing where the body had been interred.
     Lyons' wife was not an intellectual woman, and it is said that she was sent away and died in an asylum.  It is also reported that the boy was taken to an eleemosynary* institution after his father's death, and that when he grew to manhood he went west and prospered.
     The most noted personage for many years in the region of the falls was Lewis M. Lusk, who in his time played the fiddle for hundreds. of dances.
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Sharon Wick's NOTE:   Eleemosynary definition: of or relating to alms, charity, or charitable donations; charitable

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In past seasons there were dancing floors at the falls, and Lusk furnished the music with his "fiddle and his bow," while the dancers kept step to its enlivening strains.  He is now deceased, but tourists will long remember seeing him sitting in the door or in the yard of his cabin playing his fiddle, while the ripples of the waters of the Mohican seemed to echo the refrain of the music as the current of the stream swept around its graceful bends in front of the humble dwelling, the rugged rocks forming a rustic background to the picture framed by the encircling hills, all combing to impress the passers by with the thoughts how sweet is music, how dear is home and home inspiring is all the handiwork of the Creator.

ANCIENT MOUNDS.

     There are a number of ancient mounds in Ashland county, the majority of which are no doubt of prehistoric origin and were built by the "Mound-builders."  It is claimed by some who have made archaeology a study that a number ot these mounds are of a more recent period,- That they were built in the seventeenth century by the Eries to protect their people from the invasions of the Iroquois tribe.
     It is claimed by many that the "Mound-builders were of Asiatic origin, and were as a people immense in numbers and well advanced in many of the arts.  Similarity in certain things indicate that they were descendants of the ancient Phoenicans.  Of the "Mound-builders" we have speculated much and know but little.  But the mounds at Greentown are so small and so unlike the others that they evidently do not belong to that class.

CONCLUSION.

     We should not ignore our obligations to the pioneers, but rather congratulate ourselves that we live in an age of improved utilities.  They were the manufacturers of almost everything they used, not only their farming implements, but also the fabrics with which they were clothed.  How different now!
     All earthly things are given to change, and the firesides of the pioneer period have given place to the furnaces and registers of to-day.  Still the remembrance of the associations of the past has an attractive charm and a strong hold on our sentiments and affections.  Though the scenes of our memory may be darkened with shadows, yet still it is a sweet indulgence to recall them.  The rose and the thorn grow on the same bush; so the remem-

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brance of our friends who have “crossed over” is mingled with both pleasure and sorrow.
     The “fireside” is typical of a home and is endeared by many affectionate recollections.  At the fireside our parents recounted the history of their earlier years, the difficulties they had encountered and the objects they had sought to attain; and of all the members of the family circle who gathered around that fireside the mother is the most lovingly recalled. “My mother! ” is an expression of music, of melody and of love.  It takes us back to the days of our childhood and places us again kneeling by her side to receive her caresses and loving benediction.