The conditions
of life in the wilderness made it necessary to obtain food from
the soil as soon as possible. It was also of vital
importance to be within reach of some channel, however difficult
and obstructed, through which trade with the outside world could
be carried on. As Lake Erie was the best natural highway
available for settlers in the Western Reserve, there was a
strong tendency to build homes near its shores. This, however,
was checked in the earliest period of settlement by the menacing
attitude of the English north of the lake, and at its western
end, and their influence over the Indian tribes of the region.
Home-seekers felt safer, and more surely in American territory
when within easy reach of the Ohio. Moreover, the soil was
more productive, as a rule, and the danger from malaria less, at
a good distance from the lake.
The result was a double line of development, one-half
governed by trade, and the other by farming. For a time the
latter so far prevailed that Cleveland had a hard and seemingly
doubtful race with other towns in the Connecticut Reserve.
As late as 1812, when the first bank was established in the
Western Reserve, it was not located in Cleveland, but in Warren,
Trumbull County.
DATE OF FIRST SETTLEMENT ON THE RESERVE.
The conditions of
life in the wilderness made it necessary to obtain food from the
soil as soon as possible. It was also of vital importance
to be within reach of some channel, however difficult and
obstructed, through which trade with the outside world could be
carried on. As Lake Erie was the best natural highway
available for settlers in the Western Reserve, there was a
strong tendency to build homes near its shores. This,
however, was checked in the earliest period of settlement by the
menacing attitude of the English north of the lake, and at its
western end, and their influence over the Indian tribes of the
region. Home-seekers felt safer, and more surely in
American territory when within easy reach of the Ohio.
Moreover, the soil was more productive, as a rule, and the
danger from malaria less, at a good distance from the lake.
The result was a double line of development, one-half
governed by trade, and the other by farming. For a time
the latter so far prevailed that Cleveland had a hard and
seemingly doubtful race with other towns in the Connecticut
Reserve. As late as 1812, when the first bank was
established in the Western Reserve, it was not located in
Cleveland, but in Warren, Trumbull County.
FIRST WHEAT CUT ON THE RESERVE.
The first wheat reaped
by white men within the limits of the Reserve was cut near
Conneaut in 17967. That was the year when the first
settlement was made in Cleveland, and the date shows that the
pioneers lost no time in getting land under cultivation and
crops in the ground
FIRST POSTAL SERVICE.
The first regular
postal service in the Western Reserve was established and opened
in October, 1801. The route extended from Pittsburg to
Warren, passing through Beavertown, Georgetown (on the Ohio
River), Canfield and Youngstown. The mail was carried on
horse back and delivered once in two weeks. The first mail
contract was awarded to Eleazer Gilson, of
Canfield, and was for two years, at the price of $3.50 per mile
per year, counting the distance one way. Samuel Gilson,
a son of the contractor, carried the mail the greater part of
the time, and as one source of information says, "on foot,
carrying the mail bag on his back," but it is probable that it
was only distributed on foot in the different towns, as,
according to old documents and papers, bequeathed by the late
Elmer Kirtland, through Miss Mary
Morse, to the Western Reserve Historical Society, the route
between the towns was covered on horse-back. Calvin
Pease was appointed postmaster at Youngstown, Elijah
Wadsworth at Canfield, and Simon Perkins at
Warren, these three men being the first post masters on the
Reserve. In 1803 the population warranted a weekly
delivery, requiring three days each way. A proposal to
carry the mail, dated 1805, reads:
"I will engage to carry the mail from Pittsburg, via
Canfield, Poland and Youngstown, to Warren, once a week, for
$850 a year."
Detroit was added to the route in 1805, but not until
1823 was there mention of stage coaches, or any vehicle for the
accommodation of passengers. The quarterly account of
Dr. Charles Dutton, who was the second postmaster on the
Reserve, being appointed in July, 1803, shows the amount of
business done by the office at that time. The amount
collected on letters was $35; on newspapers, $3.79; total,
$38.79. Postmaster's commission, $13.19; paid general
postoffice, $25.60; total, $38.79.
EARLY CONDITIONS OF LIFE.
A description of the
conditions under which the early settlers lived, and their
manner of life may be found in a small history of Ohio, by
Caleb Atwater, published at Cincinnati in 1838.
He says in substance: "The people were quite uncouth in
their aspect, but not so unhappy as one would suppose. The
greatest difficulty with which they had to contend was sickness.
The farmer kept many dogs to guard his sheep, hogs, fowls and
himself. His fences were very high ones, and his dogs were
always ready to defend their master's family and property.
Hogs became so numerous in the woods that many of them became
wild and multiplied until the War of 1812 gave their flesh a
value, and they were killed. Cattle and horses had
multiplied greatly in the meantime, and the people had begun to
drive them over the mountains at an early day to market.
The people lived in log houses, raised Indian corn for
their bread, and as to meat, they found deer and wild turkeys in
abundance in the woods. Domestic fowls and hogs multi
Page 99 -
plied wonderfully in a country where there was so little winter
for which to provide (here he seems to be referring chiefly to
the southern part of the State, and as for pleasure carriages,
we do not believe there was one in the State when it was first
organized. Not a few persons wore moccasins of deer skins
for coats or hunting skirts and pantaloons. Thus dressed,
equipped with a large knife and a good rifle gun, the men went
about their daily business. When the State was first
organized we do not believe there was even one bridge in it.
The loads were few, and it was no easy matter for a stranger to
follow them. For ourselves we preferred following a pocket
compass or the sun to most of the roads in the Virginia Military
Tract, and this even ten years after the organization of the
State government. Travelers carried their provisions with
them when starting from any of the towns into the then
wilderness." What was true in this respect of the Virginia
Military Tract was doubtless true of the Western Reserve at this
early period.
Captain J. C. Hartzell, a prominent citizen of
Sebring, who has at different times contributed much interesting
pioneer information to local journals, describes in a recent
article, the days "when our good old mothers told time by a noon
mark, and made not only their own soap, but most other useful
and needful things in housekeeping. They baked their own
bread in a clay or brick or stone out-oven, and lighted the home
with a lard lamp or cruisie, a strip of canton flannel, or a bit
of candle wick in the melted lard or candle, dipped, and later
along moulded them in tin moulds.
"Then they made their own sugar, and plenty of it; made
their own clothes from wool off the sheep's back to the woven
web, the warm and durable linsey-woolsey dress, or from the flax
patch to the linen coat, gown, or towel; doctored their own or
neighbors' families with medicines of their own garnering from
gardens, field, and forest. * * * Each old pioneer opening in
the virgin forest would have a most interesting story to tell of
the be ginning of civilized home life, if there were only some
ready writer to set it down in good black print, while there are
vet a few, a very few, of the living witnesses of the labor in
that struggle with the wilderness."
A PRIMITIVE MILL.
The Captain thus
describes a primitive hand mill: "I am reminded of an old
hand mill, the stones of which are buried in the earth, and form
part of the foot-walk from the front door of the old Snode
home to the little entrance gate into the yard.
They are about two feet in diameter, and furrowed faces tell
truthfully that this low estate in which we find them to day was
not the intent of the original designers. Our good
mother Snode says they were brought along with the
family pioneer wagon from New Jersey, when they came to this
neighborhood. The old parchment deed for the home farm,
signed, I think, by James Madison, President, is
still in their possession. Mother Snode is
ninety years old (1907), and has spent nearly her entire life
near where she now resides.
"The mill, of which the stone above mentioned formed a
part, was most likely the first grain-grinding machine in the
settlement. The stones are perhaps two and a half or three
inches thick. The upper stone, or runner, has an oblong
eye in the center, and hole or socket not far from the outer
edge, a stout stick reaching from the socket to a fixed timber
above, with a like socket directly over the center of the stones
all loosely fitted, composed the mill. The grinding, or
power, was after the Armstrong patent. The family used it
and it was free to the neighbors, and the toll executed by the
proprietor was good neighborship. Mrs. Snode
says that she has often ground grain upon it, and eaten corn
cakes and mush, and all the good things that came from the king
of grain. Then in her home you will find an old sun dial,
which, with the aid of the compass made the noon mark nearly
accurate. Here are also the cards that prepared the wool
for the spinning wheel, the big wheel, the little wheel, and the
reel, sickles for cutting grain, an old platter with the date of
1702, an old
Page 100 -
shackle, such as were used in slavery days, and the same as you
may see any day when convicts are employed on public works.
Except the shackle, the implements could have been duplicated in
almost any pioneer homestead.
OLD-TIME THRESHING.
"In separating the
grain from the straw, the flail was the primitive implement, but
quite as commonly the grain was thrown upon the great threshing
floor, and two teams of horses put upon it, and round and round
they walked, and on a cold snappy day the work was accomplished
with less labor, though by no means a light job. Flax was
pulled just before the ripening point, tied in small bundles and
again thinly and evenly spread upon the green meadow and turned
until the woody stalk was rotted; then it was broken, scutched,
hatcheled, and prepared for the spinning wheel * * *
'Tis a long job forward from the little handmill
(above-mentioned), which might have reduced from one to two
bushels of grain to fine meal in a day, to the Pillsbury mills
with their daily output of 35,000 barrels of flour.
"Old things are passing away. Very few are now
here who have lived in these primitive times and seen the wild
deer scudding through the native forest on the very site of our
thriving town, with its great stacks belching forth clouds of
black smoke that hide the noonday sun, but tell of a busy human
hive underneath.
BOUNTY ON WOLF SCALPS.
"My Uncle
Jake, father of the elder Mrs. Diver of
Beloit, used to tell me the tales of the long ago, when wild
game was plentiful. He said wolves were such a scourge
that the State offered a bounty of $5 each for wolf scalps.
His people lived then south of Damascus, and he knew the lair of
wolves near by; year after year, as the pups came on, he would
capture and scalp them. I believe he said scalps were
receivable for taxes, and he felt safe for his tax money as long
as his wolves were not waylaid in this, to him, useful
employment; but after a time Abner Woolman,
grandfather of our Abner on the hill, invaded Uncle
Jake's wolf preserve, and, not regarding family ties or
maternal affection, killed both the mother and her children, and
so destroyed Uncle's infant industry, very much to his disgust.
OLDEN SCHOOL DAYS.
"In his old wagon
house I attended a geography school in the winter evenings.
The itinerant teacher had a set of Pelton's outline maps,
and the class, when the term was over, certainly had a good
understanding of the physical earth, oceans, gulfs, bays, lakes,
rivers, inlets, countries, population, chief cities.
States and their capitals, boundaries, etc., etc., and all of
this set to a song. Each pupil, as the lesson went on,
took a turn at the maps with a pointer, somewhat resembling a
billiard cue, and pointed to each place and gave answer as to
the length of the river, or height of a volcano, or other
mountain, etc., as requested by the teacher. That was a
good school, and the knowledge we gained in that old wagon house
has stood us in good stead all along the journey of life.
Some changes have been made in boundaries and States, but
otherwise the old world is about the same as we left it when we
quit Uncle Jake's wagon shed."
The Captain, who refers to himself in the article so
extensively quoted, as "a link between the old and the new,"
came upon the scene after the roughest and most primitive
conditions of pioneer life had been supplanted, to some extent
at least, by the comforts and conveniences of a more cultivated
society. The world as he knew it "was a pretty comfortable
world, and the men who made it so were, many of them, still in
the vigor of mature manhood, but many of the primitive habits
and customs, either of choice or necessity, still clung to the
old homes for a long time, and ye scribe might write on and on
to tell of our school life, spelling schools, and the old
literaries on the hill, the old fulling, grist, and sawmills;"
religion, also, "for we had the gospel preached to us, and none
of your snippet, two-for-five sermons, but good, two-hour,
all-wool-and-yard-wide sermons."
Page 101 - BLANK PAGE
Page 102 -
[ PICTURE OF: VIEW OF ENTRANCE TO
CALVARY CEMETERY, YOUNGSTOWN;
SCENE IN MILL CREEK PARK, YOUNGSTOWN; AND
VIEW OF ENTRANCE TO OAK HILL CEMETERY, YOUNGSTOWN]
Page 103 -
"Every tinkle on the shingles
Wakes an echo in the heart,
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start.
And a thousand recollections
Weave their bright hues into wood
As I listen to the tinkle
Of the rain upon the roof." |
Dr. Manning, who settled in Youngstown in
1811, said: "The qualifications for a school teacher in
those days were few and moderate. If a man could read
tolerably well, was a good writer, and could cipher as far
as the rule of three, knew how to use the birch
scientifically, and had firmness enough to exercise this
skill, he would pass muster."
EARLY YOUNGSTOWN CITIZENS.
Some further
reminiscences of those times are found in a letter from
Roswell M. Grant, uncle of the late President Grant,
who, in writing from Mayslick, Ky., Sept. 7, 1874, in answer to
an invitation to attend the reunion of old citizens and pioneers
held at Youngstown that year, said in part:
"My father sold his tan yard to John E. Woodbridge,
and moved to Maysville, Ky., leaving Margaret and myself
with Colonel Hillman, about the year 1820.
Colonel Hillman about the same time sold his farm and moved
over to town to keep a hotel. At that time the citizens
were as follows: 1st, above Colonel Rayen
was J. E. Woodbridge; 2d, John F. Townsend,
hatter; 3d, Colonel William Rayen, farmer; 4th,
William Sherman hatter; 5th, opposite, George Tod;
6th, Mr. Abriam, chair maker; 7th, Samuel Stuart,
tavern (Colonel Hillman bought Stuart out); 8th
opposite, Dr. Dutton; 9th, Esq. Baldwin, farmer;
10th, Kilpatrick, blacksmith; 11th, Henry Wick,
merchant; 12th Hugh Bryson, merchant; 13th, Lawyer
Hine; 14th, Mr. Bissell; 15th, Mr. Bruce,
shoemaker; 16th, Rev. Mr. Duncan. The above are all
the citizens there were in Youngstown from 1805 up to 1810.
"I well remember the Indians coming down the river in canoes,
and camping in Colonel Hillman's sugar camp, at the lower
end of the farm, and upon the river bank. They would stay
some days. Also, the old chief would come to see Colone
Hillman to settle some dispute between them. They
would bring some thirty or forty warriors with them. They
would stop at the plum orchard at the upper end of the plum
orchard at the upper end of the farm. These visits were
often. I had forgotten to mention the names of Mr.
Hogue, a tailor, and Moses Crawford, who lived below
Judge Tod's, on the bank of the river. Crawford
tended Colonel Hillman's mill. Bears, wolves, deer,
and wild turkey were plenty. I went to school in the old
log school-house eight years; to Master Noyes five years
of the time. David Tod, Frank Thorne, and myself
were leaders in all mischief; so said Master Noyes.
DRAFT OF 1812
"In the War of 1812,
the whole country was drafted, and rendezvoused in Youngstown.
After they left, Captain Applegate, Lieutenant
Busnell, and Ensign Reeves enlisted one
hundred men for one year. During the enlistment Captain
Dillon's son, with an elder fife, and myself with a drum,
furnished the music. Colonel William Rayen
commanded the regiment. Judge Tod had a Colonel's
commission in the regular army. Colonel Hillman
volunteered, and after arriving at Sandusky, General Harrison
appointed him Wagon-Master General of the United States Army.
John E. Woolbridge was paymaster. Mr. Hogue,
Moses Crawford, Dr. Dutton, Henry Wick, Hugh Bryson, and
Mr. Bruce, were all the men left in Youngstown during the
war. I had forgotten Mr. Thorne, a cabinet maker,
who lived near the old school house.
"Jesse R. Grant left Judge Tod's in 1810.
Went to Maysville, Ky., and finished his trade with my brother
Peter. Went to Deerfield, O., about the year 1815.
Took charge of my father's old tan yard. Sold out and went
to Ravenna. Carried on the business until 1821. He
then went to Point Pleasant, forty miles below Maysville.
Sunk a tan yard there. Same year he married Miss
Hannah Simpson, where
Page 104 -
U. S. Grant was born April 27,
1822."
With the permission of Captain Hartzell, we also
publish the following articles, which, under the title, "Some
Reminiscences of Ye Olden Time," appeared in the issue of
The Sebring News, Jan. 29th of the present year (1907):
"Some time ago, as I was rambling through one of our
big potteries, I noticed a vessel containing soft soap.
The same looked mighty famliar and I made inquiry, only to find
that soft soap was imported from England and finds its uses in
all potteries.
HOMEMADE SOAP.
"When I was a boy,
both soft and hard soap, in fact all soap, was made by the good
house motliers. In our home I was the general roustabout,
a very present help in time of need - if I could be found.
The old Mahoning formed the north boundary of our farm and its
purling, laughing, hurrying waters, as they glide over on and on
to join the brimming river, chattering as they go, often
beguiled me from duty's path and I often found congenial company
with neighbor's boys, though if they were not present, the river
was always interesting. And why not, for when I was a boy,
any boy or man could fish with hook and line, seine or gig; so
that there were times when, mother being about to set in with
her annual soap-making, and wanting me to set up the ash-hopper
and such like needful work, I had a foreboding of the coming
siege and retired to the river for a rest, and vacation.
But when the head of the house came home, there was always a
settlement in which no compromises were admitted and I paid up.
"In those days every home used wood for fuel and the
big wide fire-places eat up a big lot of timber - good timber,
too - and the ashes thus resulting during the entire year, were
saved and safely garnered to the soap-making season. And
when the time was ripe, always spring time, when grass greened
and robins came back to their old haunts, then the old ash
hopper went into commission again, repairs, if needed, were
made, and serious work began.
THE OLD ASH-HOPPER.
"The hopper itself
was a crude affair, a thick wide slab four or five feet long
from the sawmill nearby with a gutter dug in the center the
whole length of the slab to catch the drip, furnished the bottom
and the foundation. The hopper part was of very simple
construction, made of any sort of boards cut in three and a half
or four foot lengths, made wide at the top and narrow at the
lower edge, the boards fitting into the groove of the slab
bottom. And now we are ready for operation. First,
the handy lad is sent to dig sassafras roots to put in the
hopper for a starter, and after being lined on the inside with
rye straw the ashes are filled in slowly, and tamped down solid
until the hopper is filled. When all this is in order,
water is poured on the top, perhaps a pail or two a day, and
when the mass is well wet and the lye begins to dry from the
groove to the vessel placed beneath for its holding, we may say
the enterprise is well started.
"All the waste fat from the butchering and from the
cooking, with the meat rinds sliced from the hams and bacon,
having been hoarded, are now brought into use and are added to
the kettle of lye as needed, the kettle is hung over a fire and
the sequence of it all is soap, the same as our potters are
bringing over from 'Merrie England' today.
SOAP SPOOKERY.
"There was a goodish
bit of spookery about our soap-making of years agone and a
common inquiry when neighbor women met was about the soap.
Aunt Susan would say, 'Well, Mary has had
good luck with her soap,' or mother would take her visitors out
to see her soap, thrust in her long paddle to the bottom of the
kettle and pry up the mass until it would bulge and crack and
split into a thousand tumbling bits, and finally settle back
into a solid, livery whole. Then they would say, 'You had
good luck this time!'
A barrel or two of soap was made in this way each year
and when the soap gave out, one neighbor would send to the other
for a pail of soap, borrow it. Hard soap was made by a
Page 105 -
little different handling. To me there was always a bit of
mystery in the getting of good soap, but none at all about
making and filling the hopper.
THE OLD ASHERY.
"As time passed on,
my uncle, Nick Eckes, built an ashery on the side
or slope of a hill near North Benton, on a farm now owned and
occupied by Walter Miller, and after that my
architectural genius, so often called out in the building of our
home soap factory, was allowed a vacation in that direction, but
continued to develop as we shall see further on.
"Uncle Nick, to my mind, was a wonderful
man. His ashery had several great kettles set in arches
where he boiled the lye after it had been leached through
hundreds of bushels of ashes. The hoppers were permanent
and set well above the boiling kettles, and there he made
potash, pearlash, soap and the like, barreling up the two first
named and wagoning them to market in some far off place, most
likely Pittsburg. He went from house to house with his
great wagon and team and gathered the ashes for which he paid
ten cents a bushel in trade. He had a high seat on his
wagon and a good sized box on either end with secure lid and all
fast to the seat. As he sat in the middle of the seat with
his treasures on either side where he could lift the lid and
take out vast quantities of all sorts of valuables, he was, to
my mind, a man to excite a barefoot boy's ambition.
THE STAGE DRIVER.
"There was only one
other man his superior in position, culture and training to whom
we boys offered unstinted homage and admiration and that was the
jolly stage driver, who blew his horn, cracked his long-lashed
whip over his four-in-hand team and went sailing into town,
where he delivered and took on mail, passengers and such light
merchandise as he could carry.
"In a talk with Uncle John Schaeffer on this
line, he very well remembered the same and said when the mail
was first started (I think the route was from Cleveland, then a
straggling village of a few thousand inhabitants, to
Steubenville, the land office of these parts), the road was new
and not the best. There were two bad chuck holes, one on
either side of his house and the stage drier told him that if he
would fill them up he would give him a free ride in his coach to
Salem and back. The offer seemed so generous that Uncle
fulfilled his contract with pick and shovel and the stage driver
was as good as his word.
"When the stage coach went flying by, my, oh my!
The driver fairly scorned the earth and he certainly was a grand
figure, so grand that none of us boys could ever hope to gain
such a high position. When I was a boy, there were no
railroads, telegraph, telephones and such like conveniences and
yet we didn't seem to miss them and managed to get along fairly
well.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT.
"My forebears came
from near Bethlehem, Pa., and settled about five miles north of
Sebring, near the time Ohio was admitted into the Union.
The first settlement was made just north of the forty-first
parallel and in what has long been known as the Connecticut or
Western Reserve, and by an original charter for the colony,
belonged to the State of Connecticut. Connecticut finally
disposed of the same to the Connecticut Land Company, and by
this land company to actual settlers.
"The reserve was mostly settled by down East Yankees, a
most intelligent, orderly and enterprising people. Our
family formed a colony of Pennsylvania Germans, but good
neighborship always prevailed and the location was a happy one.
"The writer was born in the year in which Queen
Victoria began her long; reign in England, and the
pioneers had passed through the hardships incident to hewing
homes out of virgin forests, inhabited by wild game and roving
bands of Indians, and had secured homes of great comfort.
When I put in ray appearance, the men and women who had borne
Page 106 -
the hardships of real pioneers, who had wielded the axe and the
rifle, were still living, and I still have a most vivid memory
of them and stories of the life they lived.
MATCHES UNKNOWN
"Matches for lighting
fires were not then known, or at least I have no recollection of
them. The evening fires in the great fireplace before
retiring, were banked. The manner of it was this way:
"The fireplace was furnished with heavy dog irons and
against the back wall was placed a great log, preferably of
green wood. Lighter wood was laid upon the dog irons and
an iron crane was swung in the side of the wall, provided with
adjustable hooks to accommodate pots and kettles with any length
of bail. The foresticks having been pretty well burned out
in the evening, the brands were laid in the center and well
covered with such cold ashes as had accumulated on the generous
and always hospitable hearth. In the mornings, all the
first fellow up had to do was to stir up the heap, only to find
that the trunks had been turned into a fine heap of glowing
coals and so we soon had a blazing, cheery-looking and very
comfortable kitchen. Sometimes, however, there were lapses
and there were no glowing coals in the heap. Maybe the
brands were too dry or the cover too thin - something anyway.
Often your scribe has been ruthlessly, cruelly, dragged from his
trundle bed when it seemed as if he had only begun to sleep and
rest his tired body from the toils of the previous day, and was
sharply ordered to run quickly over to either Uncle Billy's
or Uncle John's for fire, which was brought in a brand or
a small torch of the ever-present hickory bark.
"Well, you youngsters say, that was tough and not near
so sleek and handy as to dray a match over him, and zip, there
you have it. But, now, just see here. The times of
which I wright, an insurance company, either life or fire, was
not known in our neighborhood, and although many, in fact, I
believe the most of our old neighbors lived in log houses with
chinked walls and clapboard roofs, and the same often held in
place by heavy poles and a bit of chimney laid up in clay
mortar, I never knew a fire to occur in my youth, either of a
house or a bam. While today, with our better houses and
all the convenient knick-knacks we have about us, the fire
losses are appalling.
IF FIRES ALL WENT OUT??
"Well, I was often
worried; suppose the fires in the neighborhood should all go
out, what would we do then? So one day, I was telling my
Uncle John of my gloomy forebodings, and he went
into his house and took down his rifle from the wooden hooks
over the door, her abiding place when not in use. She had
a flint lock. Every family had a little store of punk, and
hunters carried it. Punk is a dry, white fungus and is
found on decaying logs and timber and catches a spark, and if
you have the flint and the steel you are independent of these
dangerous, modern, ready-made fire brands, called matches.
So Uncle John, gun in hand, placed a bit of punk
in the pan of his rifle, pulled the trigger, and lo, in the wink
of an eye, my fears were allayed; no more forebodings of
disaster to disturb my mind in the line of fire.
"We had a number of these old pioneer hunters in our
neighborhood and their prowess in the chase had supplied the
pioneer families with meat and they always talked of their
rifles most affectionately and gave to them, in speaking, the
feminine gender. The butts were often ornamented with
inlaid silver, shell or bone devices, and the old powder horns
were also decorated. Bullet pouches were real
curiosities.
"When I was a lad, the larger game was mostly gone, but
the wood was full of gray and black squirrel, and both pheasant
and quail were plenty. The old rifles were mostly out of
commission and were not much used except at butchering time, or
at an occasional shooting match on the river bottom. But
those days passed all too soon; the old hand-made flint and
cap-locks gave way to the muzzle-loading
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cap-lock shot gun, sometimes single and often double-barreled,
and then game began to thin out.
WILD PIGEONS: WHERE ARE THEY?
PIONEER MILLING ENTERPRISE.
SLAVERY.
"For nearly half a
century after the first permanent settlements were made in Ohio,
this Commonwealth, always opposed politically to slavery, was
curiously tolerant of the presence
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of slaves from the States where slavery existed, if they were
brought into Ohio by their masters for temporary purposes.
It was not merely that Southern slave holders were free
to visit Ohio, bringing their slave servants with them, but that
slave owners used to rent the services of their bondmen to
farmers living on the free soil side of the Ohio, when there was
unusual need of help, as at harvest. It is estimated that
fully 2,000 slaves from Kentucky and the Virginia of those days
were sometimes employed in Ohio at the same time.
Shortly before 1840 this condition finally and
completely passed away. It became practically certain that
slaves brought into Ohio would be set free or aided to escape,
and many citizens of this State took an active part in helping
them flee to Canada. A new impatience of all contact with
slavery came to be a marked phase of public opinion in Ohio.
Long before the Civil War this State had become one of the most
active in movements for the curbing and undermining of slavery
as an institution.
COUNTY SEAT LOCATED.
The County of
Mahoning was created by the legislative act of Feb. 16, 1846.
For forty-five years previous to that date it had been included
within the limits of Tnimbull County, in accordance with the
proclamation of Governor St. Clair, July 10, 1800, which
declared that "all the, territory included in Jefferson County,
lying north of the forty-first degree, north latitude, and all
that, part of county, Wayne County included in the Connecticut
Western Reserve, should constitute a new to be known by the name
of Trumbull, and that the seat of justice should be at Warren."
There was a good deal of dissatisfaction among the citizens of
this part of the Reserve at the selection of Warren as the
county seat. While Warren was nearer the center of the
territory, Youngstown was the; larger village, and nearer the
center of population. Some, of the most influential men on
the Reserve, however, were interested in Warren, either through
holding land there or by being actual residents of the place.
Prominent among them was Judge Calvin Pease,
who was brother-in-law of Hon. Gideon Granger,
Postmaster-General of the United States. Mr.
Granger, besides his interest in Pease, was himself
the owner of large tracts of land which was enhanced in value by
the location of the seat of government at Warren.
"Under the old territorial law the Governor had
authority to appoint officers for any new county he might choose
to erect. The justices associates. of the peace
constituted the general court of the county, five of their
number being designated justices of the quorum, and the others
associates. They met quarterly, and were known as the
'court of quarter sessions.' In this body was vested the
entire civil jurisdiction of the county, local and legislative
as well as judicial."
An account of the first court held in Trumbull County,
with a list of the officers appointed by the Governor, may be
found in the chapter devoted to the Bench and Bar.
EARLY ELECTIONS.
COUNTY SEAT ISSUE.
USELESS LEGISLATION
THE RENEWAL OF THE STRIFE.
SOME INTERESTING LETTERS.
THE SALARY LAW.
ANOTHER PROPOSITION.
HE URGES ECONOMY
DISCUSSES LEGISLATION.
ANOTHER COUNTY.
[ PICTURES OF: NEW MAHONING COUNTY COURTHOUSE,
YOUNGSTOWN (now in course of construction; OLD MAHONING COUNTY
COURTHOUSE AT CANFIELD (With addition) New the North Eastern
Ohio Normal College); and MAHONING COUNTY COURTHOUSE.
YOUNGSTOWN.)
AFTER WARREN PEOPLE.
COUNTY SEAT CHANGED.
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