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tion to aid each other, may be applied to the old settlers of this whole community; the same wild adventures are also equally applicable, and older settlers than myself will be more competent to portray them.  I will, however, here state that some other old settlers' names should be mentioned in connection with early pioneer life in Urbana.  Thomas PEARCE, father of Harvey, as I am informed, before Urbana was located, built and occupied a log cabin on what is now known as market space, and opened a field north of Scioto Street, and cultivated it for some years.
     The following additional names may be noted as very early settlers in this town:  William BRIDGE, James McGILL, James HULSE, Folsom FORD, Joseph GORDON, William MELLON, Samuel GIBBS, Hugh GIBBS, Benjamin SWEET, Martin HITT, A. R. COLWELL, William McCOLLOCH, William PARKISON, Curtis M. THOMPSON, George MOORE, Alexander ALLEN, and others.  At this point it may be noted that Harvey PEARCE and Jacob Harris PATRICK are believed to be the oldest male settlers now here who were born in Urbana, both of whom are over sixty years old.
     Through the kind assistance of Col. Douglas LUCE, who has been in Urbana from 1807 to this time, I am enabled to present the following list of old settlers of the township of Urbana.  It is to be regretted that it will be impossible to extend to them individually anything more than the mere names, which will divest them of much interest, as each one of them might be made the subject of interesting pioneer experience.  It may be here noted that as other persons who live in the other townships of the county are engaged in presenting the names of old settlers in them, it will supercede the necessity of my extending them beyond the limits of Urbana township: Samuel POWELL, Abraham POWELL, John FITZPATRICK, Joseph KNOX, James LARGENT, John WILEY, Joseph PENCE, Jacob PENCE, William RHODES, John THOMAS, Joseph FORD, Ezekiel THOMAS, John TREWITT, George SANDERS, Jessie JOHNSON, Benjamin NICHOLS, William CUMMINGS, John WHITE, Robert NOE, Robert BARR, Alexander McBETH, Isaac SHOCKEY, Major Thomas MOORE, Thomas M. PENDLETON, Elisha TABOR, Bennett TABOR, Tabian EAGLE, Job CLEVENGER, James DALLAS, John WINN, S. T. HEDGES, Jonas HEDGES, Rev. James DUNLAP, John PEARCE, John DAWSON, Charles STUART, Christopher KENAGA, Minney VOORHEES, Jacob ARNEY, John G. and Robert CALDWELL, Richard D. GEORGE, ____WISE, (near the pond bearing his name.)

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Thomas DONLIN, Isaac TURMAN, William McROBERTS, ____ LOGAN, Andrew RICHARDS and Thomas WATT.  Many of the above settled in Urbana Township as early as 1801, and all of them before 1820.
     These fragmentary and desultory sketches have almost entirely been grouped together from memory, and if some errors as to exact dates, and even as to matters of fact, should have crept into them, they must be imputed to that common frailty that is in separable from humanity.  It is believed, however, that as a whole, the statements are all  substantially warranted by the facts and circumstances from which they are delineated.
     Many things perhaps might have been omitted, and supplied to advantage by others that have been left out.  This would be true if the Pioneer Association depended upon the pen of only one individual.  But as I understand it, the object is to solicit contributions detailing pioneer life from many writers, and throw them together in such order as to make one collection of facts and incidents in relation to the whole subject-matter; the versatility thus united contributing matters of interest to all classes of readers.
     I need not therefore continue these sketches, but leave to more proficient pens the task of filling out omissions, and will in that view make this summary remark, that in the sixty-six years, since my first acquaintance with Ohio, great changes have taken place.  She had then been recently carved out of a wilderness of limitless extent, called the North Western Territory, and still more recently merged into an infant State Government, containing nine counties, with less population than is now contained in one of our present towns.  It was then a wilderness, with here and there a small settlement, with a few scattered cabins, surrounded by new openings or clearings, without roads or other conveniences.  At a few points small towns were laid off, and a few rustic cabins built; such was Ohio in 1802.  Seventy years later, and she presents the panorama now unfurled to our view, and which needs no pen painting sketch, as it is all before us. What a contrast!  And pursuing the thought, let us bring it home, and apply it to Urbana and Champaign county, in 1802, when all the territory from Hamilton county north to the Michigan territory line, was a vast, unorganized wilderness, abounding with wild game, and the hunting grounds of the Indians interspersed here and there with small cabins, surrounded with clearings of white adventurers. In 1803, Butler, Warren, Montgomery and Green counties were organized . In 1805 Cham-

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paign county was formed, embracing the territory north from Green county including what are now Clark, Champaign, Logan, Hardin, &c., and the same year Urbana was located as the seat of justice.  But extending it six years forward to 1811, we find Urbana as heretofore described containing forty-five rustic log cabin family residences, surrounded with a few hardy adventures, widely scattered upon wild lands, erecting cabin and opening up clearings, and throwing around them brush or pole fences to ward off stock running at large, as a beginning point to farms without any of the facilities of travel or transit.  Such was the picture then:  What do we behold now?
     This same Champaign county, subdivided into new organizations containing populous towns, and all over dotted with large cultivated farms, upon which fine family residences and commodious barns stand out in bold relief, all over its original limits; and rustic Urbana, advanced from its rude beginning, without any improvements upon her streets, to a second class city, with well graded and ballasted streets, bordered on each side with substantial pavements, end side walks, and being behind no town of her population in railroad facilities; being in telegraphic connection with all the outside world; and in the midst of a county fully developed in an agricultural point of view; with a net-work of free pikes in all directions, leading to her marts of trade, and traffic, as an in land commercial center; such is Urbana in 1872, under her present extended area, claiming a population of 5,000 inhabitants, with her public buildings, churches, school edifices, superb business emporiums, palatial family residences, and surrounded as already indicated, by highly cultivated farms, teeming with the products of the soil, in return for the toil and indomitable industry of her first-class citizen farmers.
     And now, finally, dear Doctor, I will close these sketches, prepared by a nervous hand with a pencil, and which were full of blurs, erasures, and interlineations, abounding in orthographical and other errors, resulting from hasty preparation, by the single remark, that they could not have been presented as they are, had not my grand-daughter, Miss Minnie M., kindly tendered her services in transcribing, correcting and revising them to my acceptance.  Therefore if they have any merit in their present dress, she is entitled to her share of the awards.  This deserved tribute she delicately declines, and asks to be excused from copying, and for that reason this closing paragraph appears in my own hand writing.
     Jan. 22, 1872.              WILLIAM PATRICK

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HULL'S TRACE.

     The following facts in regard to Hull's Trace, I obtained from several pioneers that were here and saw HULL when he passed through with his army.  I will give the names of some of my informants:  Judge VANCE, of Urbana, John ENOCH, Wm. HENRY, and Henry McPHERSON.  It was in the year 1812 he took up his line of march from Urbana.  Their route was very near the present road from Urbana to West Liberty, a few rods east until they reached King's Creek.  About two miles beyond this they crossed the present road and continued on the west until they arrived at Mac-a-cheek, crossing that stream at Capt. BLACK's old farm.  Coming to Mad River, they crossed it about five rods west of the present bridge at West Liberty.  Passing through Main street, they continued on the road leading from the latter place to Zanesfield until they reached the farm now owned by Charles HILDEBRAND.  Here they turned a little to the left, taking up a valley near his farm.  Arriving at McKees Creek, they crossed it very near where the present Railroad bridge is; thence to Blue Jacket, crossing it about one mile west of Bellefontaine on the farm now owned by Henry GOOD.  They continued their line of march on or near the present road from Bellefontaine to Huntsville.  They halted some time at Judge McPHERSON's farm, now the county infirmary, passing through what is now Cherokee, on Main street, to an Indian village called Solomon's Town, where they encamped on the farm now owned by David WALLACE.  The trace is yet plain to be seen in many places.  Judge VANCE informs me there is no timber growing in the track in many places in Champaign county.
     I forgot to say they encamped at West Liberty.  James BLACK informs me he saw Gen. HULL's son fall into Mad River near where Mr. GLOVER's Mill now stands, he being so drunk he could not sit on his horse.

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PHENOMENAL

    There has been, as the reader will see elsewhere, two dreadful tornadoes in these counties; one at Bellefontaine, the other at Urbana.  In addition to these phenomena this county was visited by several earthquakes.  These shocks were distinctly felt in Champaign and Logan counties.  They were in the winter of 1811-12.  See PATRICK's and my accounts of tornadoes elsewhere in this volume.
     On the 7th day of February, 1812, at an hour when men were generally wrapt in the most profound slumbers, this country, generally, was visited by another shock of an earthquake.  It was of greater severity and longer duration than any previous one yet.  It occurred about forty-five minutes after three o'clock in the morning.  The motion was from the south-west.  A dim light was seen above the horizon in that direction, a short time previous.  The air, at the time, was clear and very cold, but soon became hazy.  Two more shocks were felt during the day.  Many of the inhabitants, at this time, fled from their houses in great consternation.  The cattle of the fields and the fowls manifested alarm.  The usual noise, as of distant thunder, preceded these last convulsions.  The shock was so severe as to crack some of the houses at Troy, in Miami county.  The last shock seemed to vibrate east and west.
     This shock was felt with equal severity in almost every part of Ohio.  Travelers along the Mississippi river at that time were awfully alarmed.  Many islands, containing several hundred acres, sunk and suddenly disappeared.  The banks of the river fell into the water.  The ground cracked open in an alarming manner.  Along the river, as low down as New Orleans, forty shocks were felt, from the16th to the 20th.  At Savannah, on the 16th, the sock was preceded by a noise resembling the motion of the waves of the sea.  The ground heaved upward.  The people were affected with giddiness and nausea.

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TORNADO AT BELLEFONTAINE

     Tornado at Bellefontaine, June 24, 1825, as related to me by those who witnessed it:  About one o'clock, there was a dark mass of clouds seen looming up in the west and seemed to increase in volume and in terrific grandeur as it approached the town.  The mass of black clouds now intermingled with others of a lighter hue of a vapory appearance, all dashing, rolling and foaming like a vast boiling cauldron, accompanied by thunder and lightning, presenting a scene to the spectator at once most grand, sublime and appalling.  A few minutes before its approach there seemed to be a death-like stillness, not a breath of air to move the pendant leaves on the trees.  It seemed as if the storm king, as he rode in awful majesty on the infuriated clouds had stopped to take his breath in order to gather strength to continue his work of destruction.  Man and beast stood and gazed in awful suspense, awaiting to all appearance, inevitable destruction.  This suspense was but for a moment; soon the terrible calamity was upon them, sweeping everything as with the besom of destruction, that lay in its path.  Fortunately this country was then new and almost an unbroken forest, consequently no one was killed.  It passed a little north of the public square, however within the present limits of the town, struck Mr. HOUTZ's two story brick dwelling, throwing it to the ground, and a log spring-house, carrying it off even to the mud sills; it picked up a boulder that was imbedded in the ground, weighing about three hundred pounds, carrying it some distance from where it lay.  Mr. CARTER, who was there at that time, informs me it stripped the bark off a walnut tree from top to bottom, leaving it standing; it carried a calf from one lot and dropped it into another.  Mrs. CARTER says she saw a goose entirely stripped of its feathers.  Passing through the town its course lay in the direction of the Rushcreek Lake, passing over the little sheet of water, carrying water, fish and all out on dry land.  The fish were picked up the next day a great distance from the Lake; even birds were killed and stripped of their feathers. 

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The writer of this followed the track of this storm for nearly thirty miles.  Its course was from the south-west to the north-east, passing through a dense forest.  I don't think it varied from a straight course in the whole distance.  Its force seemed to have been about the same.  It did not raise and fall like the one that passed through Urbana some years after.  Last summer the writer visited the track of this storm where it crossed the Scioto near where Rushcreek empties into that stream in Marion county, where the primitive forest stands as it left it.  There as elsewhere it is about one-half mile in width.  In the out-skirts of the track there are a few primitive trees standing shorn of their tops looking like monumental witnesses of the surrounding desolation.  But for five hundred yards in the center of the track there is not one primitive three standing, they have fallen like the grass before a scythe.  If such a storm should pass over Bellefontaine now, there would be nothing left of it.

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THE LOST CHILD.

     About two miles directly west of Lewistown, in Logan county on the farm now owned by Manasses HUBER, was the scene of this melancholy event.  Abraham HOPKINS (son of Harrison and Christiana HOPKINS) about five years old, was lost November 13, 1837.

"Heaven to all men hides the book of fate,
And blindness to the future has kindly given."

     How cosily this little fellow slept in the arms of his mother the night before this sad event.  The father and mother likewise slept sweetly, unconscious of the sad calamity that was then at their very door.  They got up in the morning, ate their breakfast as cheerfully and with as great a relish as they ever did; the father goes singing to his daily toil, while the mother attends to the ordinary duties of her house, cheered by the innocent prattle of her happy boy.  Everything passed off pleasantly till about 2 o'clock, when Mrs HOPKINS started with her little son to visit a neighbor, about a half mile distant - a Mr. ROGERS.  She had to pass by a new house, now being built by Charles CHERRY, an uncle to the boy.  When they got there, they stopped for a few moments.  The little boy wished to remain with his uncle; he did so, and the mother passed on to Mr. ROGERS'.  The little fellow got tired playing about the house, and said he would go after his mother, and started.  There was a narrow strip of timber between the new house and ROGERS', and nothing but a dim path through it.  Mr. CHERRY cautioned the boy not to get lost.  It seems he soon lost the dim path, for he hollowed back to his uncle, saying, "I can go it now; I have found the path."  These were the last words he was ever heard to say, and the last that was ever seen of him.  Mrs. HOPKINS having done her errand, returned to the new house where Mr. CHERRY was still at work, and inquired for her boy; and what was her surprise, when she was told he had followed her and not been seen since!  Immediate search was made by the frantic mother and father, and Mr. CHERRY.  They immediately went to Mr. ROGERS'

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and to another neighbor living but a short distance from him, but no tidings could be had of him.  It was a pleasant day, and he was barefooted.  They could see the tracks of his bare feet in the dust in a path that led through the field to the house.  It seems he had gone to the house, and not finding his mother there (for she, finding the family absent had gone to another house) he attempted to return to his uncle at the new house, where his mother had left him.  Soon the alarm was spread far and near, and people collected from all parts of the country.  There were at times over a thousand people hunting him.  They continued their search for three weeks.  Every foot of ground for three miles from the house was searched, even the Miami river was dragged for miles; but all in vain - not a track could be seen in the yielding allavial soil of the neighborhood - nothing, save the imprint of his little feet in the dust of the path in the field above - mentioned; not a shred of his clothing was to be seen anywhere, and to this day his history is a profound and melancholy mystery.  It is, however, the opinion of Mr. CHERRY, the uncle of the child, that he was stolen by the Indians.  He says there was an Indian who, for many years, had been in the habit of trapping in the neighborhood, and suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen there since.  There was a deputation of the citizens sent out where the Indian lived, and accused him of the crime, but he resolutely denied it.  Mr. HOPKINS has been singularly unfortunate with his family; one son died in the army, and another was crushed by the cars, near Champaign City, Illinois, where he now resides.