THE SETTLEMENT OF NORTHERN OHIO BY INDIANS.

     It is often asked whether the Wyandots were the earliest inhabitants of Ohio.  And who were they, and where did they come from:  I quote from the very best authority that can be obtained.  They came immediately from their homes about Detroit.  They were formerly a powerful tribe, called Hurons by the French, and lived in the country between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario until about the year 1650, when they were routed by the Five Nations of New York (afterward Six nations), and then driven to the shores of Lake Superior.
     About the year 1655 the Five Nations annihilated the Eries, called by the French the Cat Nation, who inhabited the southern shore of Lake Erie.  For many years Ohio was uninhabited, and visited only by the hunting parties of the Five Nations, and their war parties passing to the West to attack the Miamis and Illinois.  This tribe once roamed over grand prairies that are now cultivated fields of the great State of Illinois.  But the Wyandots, or Hurons, having settled meanwhile about Detroit, made a treaty with the Five Nations in 1694, and gradually extended into northern Ohio; after the Delawares moved in from the East, the Miami from the West, and the Shawnees from the South.  The Mingoes of Ohio were a fragment of the Six Nations.  It is said that they were called Mengive by the Delaware, and Mingoe was habitually applied only to the colony that lived in Ohio at that time.

HOLMES COUNTY PREVIOUS TO ITS SETTLEMENT BY WHITE INHABITANTS.

     With regard to the period that preceded the settlement by white people of Holmes County, very little of course is known.  The space indicated comprehends an indefinite rule of darkness and barbarism, and the investigation of its traditions and imperfect annals and their embodiment into historical form are not consistent with this work.  Many of the acres that are now embraced within the limits of Holmes county have been, no doubt, the theatre of events that would render them classic grounds; but the history of those are buried in oblivion and not attainable.  We find by the early history of Ohio in reference to the Indian trail leading from Fort Duquesne by the way of Sandusky to Detroit, one of these trails passes through the northern part of this county.
     Col. Crawford with his army of 1782 passed through the northern part of Holmes county, about two and a half miles north of Millersburg.  Then they marched up the Killbuck.  At not a great distance the army reached a large spring, known at the present time as Butler's or Jones' Spring, near the line of Wayne County, it being about twelve miles from Wooster, where, on the evening of Tuesday, May 30th, the volunteers encamped.
     At this spring one of the men died and was buried.  His name was cut in the bark of a tree close by his grave.
     From this point the army moved westward, numbering 480 men at this time and place.  Thence the army moved on westward along the north side of what is known as Odell's lake, passing between two small lakes; thence passed near the spot where was afterward the Indian village of Greentown, in what is now Ashland County.
     From this point they struck across to the Rocky Fork of Mohican, up which stream they travelled until a spring was reached near where the city of Mansfield now stands, in Richland County.
     This route was supposed to have been opened soon after the erection of the fort at Pittsburg in 1754.  We also find that Hutchinson's History of Boquet's Expedition in 1764 gives five different routes through the Ohio wilderness.  Second route on page 163.
     Referring to Pownal's Map, published in 1776, which located various Indian tribes then in Ohio, Mr. Taylor infers that the west branch of the Muskingum, known on our map as the White Woman or Mohican, was assigned to the remnants of the Old Connecticut tribe.

REFUSED LANDS, CONDITION OF EARLY AGRICULTURE, THE OPENING OF MARKETS, &c.

     It is a fact, probably not known, but yet one well authenticated, that the lands which now produce most abundantly of the great cereal staple of Holmes County, were regarded by the early settlers as utterly valueless for purposes of cultivation.  The bottom, or valley lands, were the first and only sought by the pioneers.  The monarch oak and luxuriant herbage which adorned the sides and summits of the lofty hills, at length suggested to those who had a better knowledge of agriculture as a science, that such production could not spring from a soil naturally sterile.  This idea of the barrenness of the upland soil is supposed to have had its origin from the fact that the substance of its surface had been, for a considerable period, annually exhausted by fire.  These fires, for obvious reasons, rarely swept over the lower plains, and hence their fertility continued unimpaired.  The practice of devastating by fire the upland forests, and thus defeating the operation of nature, doubtless had its origin with white hunters from the tramotane regions, who had introduced this with other more flagrant vices of civilization among the aborigines, after the latter became instructed in the use of firearms and the practice of the white hunters.  The effect of the fires was to change the natural qualities of the soil - to incrust the surface of the earth with a material similar to a vast sheet of brick, and where anything like pulverized earth made its appearance, it bore the semblance of brickdust.  Notwithstanding this periodical exhaustion, the natural vigor of the soil during each so far recuperated as to produce a very rank growth of vegetation, known as sedge grass, pea vine, &c.  This vegetation afforded excellent pasture from early spring until about August.  The sedge grass, when cut in July or earlier, afforded very nutritious and palatable food for domestic stock during the winter months.  In the lapse of time it became a matter of necessity with the cultivators of the soil upon the bottom and valley lands to fight and subdue these autumnal fires, for the protection of their own fences, cabins, and granaries.  When protected from the exhausting process, the uplands very soon resumed their natural fertility; a radical chemical change became apparent all over the surface of the soil, and efforts at cultivation demonstrated the fact that those rejected acres are now among the most fertile of any in Ohio for the production of the staple which is the chief source of our agricultural wealth.
     The Indian tribes who inhabited this section were Delawares and Wyandots.  game was plenty for several years after the first settlement.  The streams and ponds that are so numerous, had far more water than now.  The general health was pretty good, considering that the climate was much damper than at present; the principal diseases were intermittent fevers and rheumatism, ague, and chills.  The early labors of he husbandman were not attended with very good success; to account for this, we must consider that the implements of the farm were rude and imperfect - principally the tiller's own handicraft - and that the seeds first planted or sowed, were placed in ground but imperfectly cleared and partially covered with stumps and roots, and shaded by trees or larger growth, that had been deadened, but still retained their leaves.  Hence the "soft" corn, water-soaked potatoes, and perhaps the sick and smut-stricken wheat, sources of general complaint among the earl cultivators.  The absence of foreign demand for produce during the first twenty years, offered no incentive to a production beyond family and neighborhood wants.  Aside from the supply of such wants, there was no stimulus to agricultural enterprise.  It is related, on good authority, of a merchant in Wooster, who had accumulated in store a considerable quantity of wheat, for which he had paid the farmers, as an especial favor, twenty-five cents per bushel in goods, that finding his grain would not pay cost of transportation to the lake markets, he transferred his wheat from the warehouse to the street, where it was partly devoured and trodden under foot of swine and other animals.  Except spasmodic demands, explained among the narratives of the early settlers, the first encouragement the farmer of Holmes County received for growing grain, or domestic animals for market, was after the completion of the New York and Erie Canal, in 1825, and the opening of the Ohio Canal at Massillon, in 1827.  Since then railroad facilities have been added.
     The Cleveland, Mount Vernon, and Delaware Railroad was completed as far as Millersburg in 1854, and in 1873 was completed to Columbus; it is now called Cleveland, Mount Vernon, and Columbus Railroad.  This road runs down the valley of the Killbuck as far as Oxford, and at that point leaves the Killbuck and follows the valley of Black Creek as far as Napoleon, and at this place leaves Black Creek.  All along the railroad can be seen extensive hills, valleys, and rocks, which afford some of the finest scenery for the travelling public; and we feel free to say that no other railroad in this State can afford more pleasure and admiration to the travelling public than all along this line.  The road also provides the people of this day a choice of markets, some of which give value to certain products of the farmers that in the times of the pioneers were worthless, securing to them remuneration in every department of agricultural enterprise, and consequent increase in the value of real estate far beyond the hopes of the first settlers of the country.

PIONEER LIFE OF THIS COUNTY.

     We must confess to a feeling of veneration for the characters of those noble men who penetrated the wilderness and inaugurated civilization and its train of blessings in a region where savages and wild boasts had maintained undisputed empire.  The scenes through which they passed are suggestive of rich fields for the genius of the poet and painter; fields that it is hoped may be hereafter occupied; would not the reader furnish a night scene for an artist where our friend, Jams Liggett, was reosing in his log cabin, his faithful dog, who always stood ready and willing to do his part as a protector, and the fire which always blazed at night a few feet distant from his hammock, his trusty rifle, supported by his left arms, the reptiles coiling upon the ground beneath him, the hordes of ravenous wolves, attracted by the venison, the ___or of which during the process of cooking had impregnated the atmosphere a___, stimulating their voracious appetites to a point of uncontrollable fury?  Would not this and many kindred scenes described in the history of those times, constitute material worthy the genius of the best painter?
     There is much embraced in the personal history of the pioneers that might interest the general reader, if space would permit me to give it more fully.  All efforts at adornment of those narratives, however, would only impair their value.  They are most attractive in the simplest form.  No county settled at and prior to the date of the portion which now forms the State of Ohio, ever had but one race of pioneers; men who penetrated the wilderness, endured all the hardships incidental to its subjugation, and transmitted to their successors the comforts and convenience of a high civilization.  When this class of men pass of a given spot, they disappear for all time; the country which was first redeemed by them, will know them or their like no more forever.  If the collection of materials for a history of this county had commenced earlier, it might have been made vastly more interesting and instructive, but the grave has closed over most of the men of that generation, and anything like a faithful and correct history of those times cannot now be produced.
     The present generations might derive an instructive moral lesson by contrasting the privations and discomforts which b__t the first settlers, with the happy circumstances by which they are surrounded; such contrast should inspire the latter with feelings of gratitude for the blessings which they now enjoy, and should stifle the disposition to complain, which has become almost as chronic with us as it was with the ancient people who were fed with bread from heaven.  In the social customs of our day, it may be doubted