Source:
History of Western Ohio & Auglaize County
with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of
Pioneer and Prominent Public Men
by C. W. Williamson
Columbus, Ohio
Press of W. M. Linn & Sons
1905

LOGAN TOWNSHIP
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     This township was organized in 1848, and was named in honor of the noted Indian scout, Captain Logan  (See sketch of, elsewhere in this volume.)  Prior to the organization of Auglaize county, the territory comprehended in this township formed a part of Amanda township, Allen county.  At the time of organization three tiers of sections were taken from the south side of Amanda, and one and a half from the north side of Moulton township, which sections were erected into the present township.  It is thus four and a half miles from north to south, and six miles in length from east to west, and contains twenty-seven square miles.
     Logan Township is bounded on the north by Allen county on the east by Allen county and Duchouquet township, on the south by Moulton township, and on the west by Noble and Salem townships.  The surface of this township is undulating, and is unsurpassed in its fertility.  The tortuous course of the Auglaize River presents a greater acreage of first and second bottoms hands than is to be fond in any other township in the county, except. St. Mary's.
     Entries of lands were made as early as 1821.

PICTURE OF
PORT AMANDA

This township was one of the first divisions of the Northwest occupied by the United States troops.  From about the first of September, 1812, until late in the fall of that year, General Harrison had his headquarters at St. Mary's.  Colonel Thomas Poague, in September of that year was ordered to clear and construct a wagon road through the wilderness from St. Mary's to Defiance, which road was completed some time in October, when the regiment returned to a point on the west bank of the Auglaize River, and erected a fort, which, in honor of his wife, was named Fort Amanda.  The fort consisted of a stockade inclosing a rectangular area of about an acre and a half.  The pickets were eleven feet high, and set four feet in the ground.  A two story block-

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house in  each corner of the quadrangle projected four feet over the pickets.  The block-house in the southeast corner was the largest, and was used for officers' quarters.  In the center of the quadrangle there was also a large two-story building, of which the upper story was used for a hospital, and the lower story for a storage room.  A well, ten feet in diameter, near the central building, of which the upper story was used for a hospital, and the lower story for a storage room.  A well, ten feet in diameter, near the central building, furnished an abundance of good water.  Mr. Charles Marshall of Delphos, informed the writer a few years ago that he visited the fort before any of the buildings were destroyed, and that there was stable room enough within the inclosure to accommodate twelve hundred horses.
     Whilst the fort was under course of construction, Captain Enoch Dawson placed his company, temporarily, in command of Lieutenant Nungester, whilst he went down the river a short distance to gather wild grapes, which grew there in great abundance at that time.  He was gone but a few minutes before the report of a rifle was heard.  When found, by a detachment from the fort, he was dead, and had been scalped.  He was brought back and buried beside the fort, next to the ravine.
     After the erection of the fort, it became a base of supplies for the armies of the Maumee Valley.  Many of Harrison's general orders were dispatched from here, and the office of the paymaster of the armies was located here during the war.
     The hospital within the stockade was erected in the spring of 1813, and was soon filled with sick and wounded soldiers, brought here by boat from the battlefields along the Maumee River.  Many of them had served in the Revolutionary War, and the border wars of western Pennsylvania.  Rev. Samuel Shannon, Rev. James Suggette, John Smith, paymaster, and Dr. Jacob Lewis had charge of the hospital.
     Rev. Shannon was chaplain of Colonel Scott's regiment, and was detailed to wait upon the sick.  This venerable divine, in the early part of the Revolutionary War, left Princeton College where he was then a student, to enter as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary army, in which he served to the end of the war.  He was a plain old gentleman, of fascinating manners, beloved by all who knew him.
     Rev. James Suggette was chaplain of Colonel Adams' regi-

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his professional studies, when he married and moved to Hamilton, Ohio.  Here he practiced his profession until 1813, when he was appointed surgeon of the First Regiment, third detachment of Ohio militia.  When news came that the British and Indians were collecting strongly at Fort Meigs, the First Regiment was ordered down the Auglaize to that point, but Dr. Lewis was left at Fort Amanda in charge of the hospital.
     Army surgeons were so few in number at that time that it became necessary for Dr. Lewis to visit the company at Wapakoneta, and the troops at St. Mary's, in addition to his hospital duties at Fort Amanda.*
     "The soldiers who died in the hospital were buried on the north side of the ravine, north of the fort.  The names of the soldiers buried in this cemetery are unknown, as the records of this post were destroyed at the time the national capitol was burned by the British."
     "During the winter of 1812-13, the garrison at Fort Amanda was constituted a shipbuilding company.  A number of men were detailed to select trees, another company to cut them down, a third company to saw them into boards and posts, and a fourth company to convert the manufactured lumber into flatboats.  This work was accomplished by a company of Ohio militia and a few regular troops from Fort Winchester.  Seventy-five boats were constructed here in March and April of 1813.  General Green Clay, of Kentucky, arrived here on the 28th of April on a forced march to relieve Fort Meigs, then besieged by British and Indians.  Twelve hundred men embarked on these boats and floated down the Auglaize and Maumee rivers to relieve the besieged fort.  Some of the fleet of boats were used by Commodore Perry in buoying his larger vessels over the shallows at Put-in-Bay, on the day of his celebrated victory."
     The shipyard was located on the east bank of the Auglaize River, almost due east of the fort.
     During the war the fort served as a retreat for scouts, dispatch carriers, and officers traveling from Cincinnati, Franklinton and Fort McArthur to the armies in this north.
     At the close of the war in 1814, the occupants of the fort

-------------------------
     * Dr. Lewis died in Hamilton county, Ohio, July 19, 1851, of apoplexy.

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were mustered out of service, and the block-houses thereby came tenantless for a period of three years.
     In January, 1817, Peter Diltz came up from Dayton and moved into the small block-house in the northeast corner of the quadrangle or parade ground.  In this log house, Francis Diltz was born, Sept. 20, 1817, and here the family resided until 1821, when they returned to Dayton.  Previous to leaving the county Mr. Diltz built a log cabin for the Sunderland family.
     "Andrew Russell, the second pioneer, arrived in June, 1817, and took possession of the largest block-house at Fort Amanda, the same which was used as officers' quarters in 1812-13.  Here his daughter Susanna, afterward wife of Charles C. Marshall, was born, July 13, 1817.  Here Mr. Russell died in April, 1822, and was buried in the military cemetery by Dye Sunderland, Diltz and Van Ausdall."
     "William Van Ausdall and family came up with Diltz and Russell from Montgomery county, Ohio, and made the storehouse in the center of the stockade his temporary home.  In the fall of that year he erected a log house on section 15, where he resided until 1821, when he moved to Michigan with his family.  In 1824 he returned to Fort Amanda, where he died the same year and was buried in the military cemetery."
     The settlers who came into the county, after the immigration noted, were Henry Hartel, in 1820; Dye Sunderland and family in 1821; William Stewart, George Kephart, Jacob Hartel, Peter Sunderland, Wm. Sunderland, Benjamin Russell, Samuel Stewart, Joseph Sutton, Thomas Adams, Ferd. Miller, Solomon Carr, Samuel Washburn, William Berryman and brothers, and Daniel Hoak.
     Of the early adventurers who came to Logan township, the name of John Chapman, or "Johnny Appleseed,' as he was familiarly called, must not be omitted.  He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1775.  Of his early life but little is known, as he was reticent concerning his personal history.  A half-sister of his, who moved to the West at an early date, stated that Johnny had, when a boy, shown a great fondness for natural scenery, and often wandered from home is quest of plants and flowers, and that he liked to listen to the birds singing and to gaze at the stars.  His penchant for planting apple seeds and

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cultivating nurseries caused him to be called "Appleseed John," which was finally changed to "Johnny Appleseed," and by that name he was called and known everywhere.
     The year that Chapman came to Ohio has been variously stated, but to say it was a hundred years ago would not be far.

PICTURE OF
"JOHNNY APPLESEED"

from the mark.  He was first seen on the Ohio River above Steubenville, in charge of two canoes, lashed together, and laden with sacks of apple seeds.
     The field of his operations in Ohio was mainly the valleys of the Muskingum River and its tributaries, and his mission, for the most part, was to plant apple seeds in well located nurseries, in advance of civilization, and have apple trees ready for plant-

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IN MEMORY OF
JOHN CHAPMAN,
Best Known as
JOHNNY APPLESEED,
Pioneer Apple Nurseryman
of Highland County
From 1810-1830.

     The following list of original land entries also serves as a record of the advent of the pioneers.  With a very few exceptions, the purchasers became residents of the township:

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