until early in 1790, when the Governor proclaimed Hamilton County, which included all the territory between the Big and Little Miami Rivers, and extending north to the "Standing Stone Forks," on the first name stream.
     The following is a list of all the territorial counties organized; also the date of organization, with their respective county seats:

     Wayne was established by proclamation of Gen. St. Clair, August 15th, 1796, and was the third county formed in the N. W. Territory.  Its original limits were very extensive, and were thus defined in the act creating it.  Beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, upon Lake Erie, and with the said river to the Portage between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum; thence down the said branch to the forks at the carrying place above Fort Laurens; thence by a west line to the east boundary of Hamilton County, (which is a due north line from the lower Shawnee town upon the Scioto River;) thence by a line west-northerly to the south part of Portage, between the Miamis of the Ohio and the St. Mary's River; thence by a line also west-northerly  to the south-western part of the Portage, between the Wabash and the Miamis of Lake Erie, where Fort Wayne now stands; thence by a line west-northerly to the south part of Lake Michigan; thence along the western shores of the same to the north-west part thereof, including lands upon the stream emptying into the said lake; thence by a due north line to the territorial boundary in Lake Superior, and with the said boundary through Lakes Huron, St. Clair and Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, the place of beginning.

_EFUSED LANDS, CONDITION OF EARLY AGRICULTURE, THE OPENING OF MARKETS, ETC.

     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 Monroe County, were regarded by the early settlers, as utterly valueless, for purposes of cul of Monroe County were regarded by the early settlers as utterly valueless for purposes of cultivation.  The bottom, or valley lands, produced 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 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 and rheumatism, ague, and chills.  The early labors of the 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 hand-craft - 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 of 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 early 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.

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 (after-ward 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 PIONEERS AND THEIR TIMES.

     One hundred years have elapsed since the first settlement was commenced within what is now the organized territory of Monroe County, what changes have been wrought within the last cen-

there had been no sale of produce except for neighborhood consumption in Monroe, and a small river market, while westward of this, during the last 25 or 30 years particularly, artificial communications by means of river, turnpikes and railroads, have advanced almost paripass_ with the van of the immigration column, and agriculture, commerce and manufactures, with all the happiness they bestow, have been enjoyed, with the exception of brief delays, by the first populations of the new states and territories.  Steam and electricity, as agents of transit, have wrought a wonderful revolution in accelerating the distribution of population and wealth.
     The early settlers made their way hither from their former eastern homes, by tedious process of horse and ox teams, and some even on foot, occupying weeks in their journeys.  They were the manufacturers of almost everything they used, including their farming implements, and the fabrics with which they were clothed.  Their food, also,  as well as their raiment, was the exclusive production of their own farms.  There was no importation of goods.  Their mode of life, created by their necessities and their isolations, made them a race (sui generis).  The world will "ne'er look upon their like again.
     How different has it been with those who first settled the states and territories northwest and west of us; themselves and families, stock of clothing, farming implements, merchandise and abundant supplies of provisions, embracing even the luxuries of life, conveyed from their eastern homes to within a stone's throw of their place of destination in the far west, by means of the modern facilities which steam employs on natural and artificial channels, performing in a single day a distance which, fifty years since, would have occupied nearly or quite a month to accomplish.  These transportations, too, were conducted on a scale of cost corresponding in reduced amount with the difference in time employed.  Thus, comparatively, has time and space and expense been equally annihilated by the magical improvements of the utilitarian era which has handed it down since the first white settler commenced his improvements of the soil within our limits.  Had anything essential to comfort been forgotten by the pioneer families to the west of us, commerce meets them almost at the doorway of their cabin and supplies the needful commodity.  The privations of the pioneer's life as it formerly existed, the accidental adventurer may have heard of or read of, but it is a matter altogether outside of his own experience.

PIONEER LIFE IN MONROE 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 beasts 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 that reader furnish a night scene for an artist, where our friend, J. A. Terrel of Woodsfield, was reposing 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 arm, the reptiles coiling upon the ground beneath him, the hordes of ravenous wolves, attracted by the venison, the savory of which, during the process of cooking, had impregnated the atmosphere around, stimulating their veracious appetites to a point of uncontrollable fury.  Would not this and many kindred scenes described in the history of those times constitute material worthy of 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 these narratives, however, would only impair their value.  They are the 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 conveniences of a high civilization.   When this class of men pass off a given spot, they disappear for all time; the county which was first redeemed by them will known them nor their like no more forever.  If the collection of materials for a history of this county had commenced earlier, it might have been made very vastly more interest-

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; afterward the Delawares moved in from the East, the Miamis 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 Delawares, and Mingoe was habitually applied only to the colony that lived in Ohio at that time.

WAYNE COUNTY PREVIOUS TO ITS SETTLEMENT BY WHITE INHABITANTS.

    With regard to the period that preceded the settlement by white people of Monroe 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

tury!  The first pioneers found the country without churches, schools, markets, roads, merchants, mechanics or cultivated acres, if we except a few spots that may have been marked by the rude efforts of tillage by the Indians.  Savage beasts and uncivilized men were in deadly conflict throughout the domain of the wilderness, except when winter withdrew them to their caverns.  The earth teemed with venomous and loathsome reptiles.  The country was utterly destitute of any of the moral and material resources that bear relation to civilized life.  Such, in brief, was its condition when that band of moral heroes, the pioneers, entered the county, and grappled with dangers and privations altogether unknown to the generation who know occupy the country, and even in the experience of those who have of later years undertaken the subjugation of the vast forests that once covered our lands.  There exists no analogy between the habits and modes of life of those who were backwoodsmen at the commencement of the present century, and those who have peopled the new states and territories of the west.  Here, until the opening of the Atlantic market, by the completion of the New York and Erie canal, in 1825.