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Chapter XXVII.
pg. 270
HISTORY OF
RICHFIELD
TOWNSHIP
THIS was one of
the five townships originally organized in the territory at
present embraced in Henry county. We know that it was
organized as early as 1837, but the misfortune of the fires
makes it impossible to even approximate its limits at that
time, it certainly included, as late as 1854, the township
of Bartlow, which in that year was detached and given an
independent organization. The township, as now
organized, embraces the thirty-six sections of land
contained in the government survey of township four, north
of range eight, east. The growth and improvement of
these sections were very slow and limited, and became marked
only in the last few years, and it remained among the last
of the hunting grounds reluctantly surrendered by the
professional hunter and the delighted sportsman. The
onward march of progress, however, compelled these men, step
by step, like the poor Indian, to turn their footsteps
westward, or yield and adopt the habits of civilization and
the customs of social life.
The fragment of the duplicate which remains of the year
1837, shows that at that time there was but one piece of
land listed for taxation - the east half of section one- in
the name of Dewald Macklin, valued at $321.
Buildings were assessed at $321. There were four
horses, forty-six head of cattle. The total value of
chattel property was $328, and the aggregate tax $6.70.
The personal taxpayers were Angel Arnold, Peter Hewit,
Joseph Macklin, John Mason, David Murdock, William Piper,
John Rowland, Jacob Sowers and John Sturgeon.
In 1839, came Silas and Robert Rowland. The
duplicate of that year shows 1,281 acres of land valued at
$3,042, subject to a tax of $53.23, and chattel property
worth $720, taxed with $12.60. A few of these early
comers, a few only hunters, left as civilization and
cultivation arrived, the majority, however, died on their
first settlements, which are now converted into fine and
valuable farms, and occupied by their descendants. We
believe there is not one of the original stock now living.
A contrast will show the rapid growth and improvement
of this township. In 1860 its population was only 277;
this, in 1870, had increased to 396, and in 1880 to 857, and
may at present be safely estimated at 1,200. The
duplicate of 1887 shows 23,003 acres of land, valued at
$179,870, and $41,190 worth of personal property subject to
a tax of $4,194.94. The township is divided in eight
school districts, and contains in each a good, comfortable
school building. There is but one church in the
township, and this belongs to the denomination of United
Brethren. The township has no railroads and no
villages, except in the northeast corner of section six were
the "Clover Leaf" nips. At this point Peter
Brillhart, on the 19th of May, 1881, laid out an
addition to the hamlet of Grelleton, platted into twelve
lots and four alleys, and four acres for stave factory
grounds. The southeast corner of section sixteen has
been named West Hope, and a post-office of that name is
established there; there is also a small country store, but
no plat has ever been made, nor any division of lots laid
out.
For many years the roads in this township were in a
miserable condition, and during the wet seasons of the year
ingress and egress were almost impossible. This
was due mainly to the absence of drainage, the natural
facilities for which were not good. Beaver Creek is
the principal, in fact the only, natural water course.
The west branch of this creek enters the township in the
center of section thirty-four, running northeasterly to the
center of the south side of section twenty-four. The
east branch enters at the center of section thirty-five,
winds through sections thirty-five, thirty-six and
twenty-five, uniting with the west branch at twenty-four,
and then northeasterly through sections twenty-four,
thirteen, twelve and one. The artificial drainage,
both surface and sub-soil is now good, and money and labor
expended on the roads have made them very fair and passable
during the greatest part of the year. There is yet
considerable very good and fertile lands to be obtained in
this township at a moderate price. They are, however,
being rapidly taken up by actual settlers, and as the
valuable timber is about used up, these lands mu7st be
converted into farms, and in a few years Richfield will rank
among the best agricultural parts of Henry county.
When these lands are once improved and brought under
cultivation, as many acres already are, the owner and
occupant should indeed be a happy and contented man.
There is certainly no happier or more independent life than
that lived by the farmer. No worry of business, no
fear of bankruptcy, no bills to meet need disturb his sleep
when his day's toil is ended. He, too, has the
consolation of knowing that he is a producer, adding daily
to the necessities and comforts of his fellow man and to the
substantial wealth of the world. The soil and the
muscle of labor must produce all the wealth that is
possessed, and he who cultivates a hill of potatoes, raises
a bushel of grain, fashions the product of the mine into a
useful implement of husbandry has done more for his fellow
than all the millions who ever lived since the accumulation
of wealth began.
And think of the improvements which then and since have
been made, and the aid they have rendered to agricultural
labor. Farming has almost ceased to be labor and has
become pleasure. Every day something new is introduced
into farming and yet old things are not driven out.
Every one knows that steam is now used on the farm for
plowing and threshing and working machinery, and one would
have thought that by this time it would have superseded all
other motive powers. But while new things come the old
do not go away. One life is but a summer's day
compared with the long cycle of years of agriculture, and
yet it seems that a whole storm, as it were, of innovation
has burst upon the fields ever since we can recollect.
The sickle was in use in Roman times and no man knows
how long before that. With it the reaper cut off the
ears of the wheat, only leaving the tall straw standing,
much as if it had been a pruning knife. It is the
oldest of old implements - very likely it was made of a chip
of flint at first, and then of bronze, and then of steel.
Then came, in England, the reaping hook, which is still used
there on small farms, and to some extent on large ones, to
round off the work of the machine. The reaping hook is
only an enlarged sickle. The reaper takes the hook in
one hand and a bent stick in the other, and instead of
drawing the hook toward him, the reaper chops at the straw
as he might at an enemy. In America we had the cradle;
then came the reaping machines, which simply cut the wheat
and left it lying on the ground. Now there are the
wire and string binders,, that not only cut the grain, but
gather it together and bind it in sheaves, a vast saving in
labor.
On the broad page of some ancient illuminated
manuscript, centuries old, you may see the churl, or
farmer's hired man, knocking away with his flail at the
grain on the threshing floor. The knock, knocking of
the flail went on through the reigns of how many kings and
queens we do not known (they are all forgotten, God wot),
down to the edge of our own times. The good old days
when comets were understood as fate, and witches were
drowned or burned - those were the times of the flail.
The flail is made of two stout staves of wood joined with
leather. They had flails of harder make than that in
those old times - hunger, necessity, fate, to beat them on
the back and thresh them on the floor of the earth.
There was an old wagon shown at the Royal Agricultural
show in London said to be two hundred years old.
Probably it had had so many new wheels and tongues and other
parts as to have completely changed its constitution - still
there were wagons in those days, and there are wagons now.
Express trains go by in a great hurry, slow wagons gather up
the warm hay and the yellow wheat just as they did hundreds
of years since. You may see men sowing broadcast just
as they did a thousand years ago on the broad England acres.
Yet the light iron plow, the heavy drill, the steam plow,
are manufactured an cast out into the fields and machinery,
machinery, machinery, still increases.
Machinery has not altered the earth, but it has altered
the conditions of men's lives. New styles of hats and
jackets, but the same old faces. The sweet
violets bloom afresh every spring on the mounds, the
cowslips come, the wild rose of mid-summer and the golden
wheat of August. It is the same beautiful country,
always new. Neither the iron engine nor the wooden
plow alter it one iota, and the love of its rises as
constantly in our hearts as the coming of the leaves.
The wheat, as it is moved from field to field, like a quarto
folded four times, gives us in the mere rotation of crops a
fresh garden every year. You have scented the bean
field and seen the slender heads of barley droop. The
useful products of the field are themselves beautiful, while
there are pages of flowers that grow at the edge of the
plow. |
