THE CENTURY IN RICHLAND COUNTY.
pgs 1 - 11

     Standing upon the threshold of another century in the history of Mansfield, a retrospective glance at the progress made in Richland county in the hundred years past, reveals achievements of which the first settlers never dreamed.  We are blessed with natural resources, with a healthful climate and a fertile soil, which combined with the industry and activity of an enterprising people, made our success and prosperity so steadily forward.  It is a surprising fact this beautiful city of Mansfield - Richland's county seat - with a population of nearly twenty-five thousand - less than a century ago had neither habitation nor name, and its site was part of that vast, unexplored territory, whose western boundary was supposed to be lost in the golden twilight of the setting sun, and whose wild domain seemed destined to remain forever hushed in the silence of its solitude, save then awakened to remain forever hushed in the silence of its solitude, save the awakened here and there by the dismal howl of the wolf, or the fearful whoop of the savage.

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OHIO MICHIGAN BOUNDARY LINE DISPUTE.
pp. 11 - 13

THE ANCESTRY OF THE OHIOAN
pp. 13 - 15

     A. M. Courtney, D. D., in an address at Zanesville gave an interesting account of the ancestry of the Ohioan, from which, in part, this resume is taken.  At a notable assembly in one of Ohio's Universities, the Rev. Bishop paid tribute to the greatness of the state, which he ascribed to its New England origin.  This he did without qualification, as a compliment, in a confidence as have and undoubting as emphatic.  No axiom could be carved in harder outline.  He evidently believed that Ohio was, in the major part, peopled from New England, and that if there were among its settlers a few stragglers from less  favored regions, they were obscure, insignificant, and soon dominated by he persuasive Yankee notions.
     We have also been told by others that Ohio was settled by Pennsylvanians - Pennsylvania Dutch, in local vernacular.  The latter claim, is not so generally held as is the former.  We have been accustomed to hear and read assertions from our Down-East brethren to the effect that everything good and great in our civilization comes from Plymouth Rock.
     Dr. Courtenay did not question the potency of Puritan ideas, or the vigor and moral value of hte Pilgrims.  The contribution by New England to the growth of the American Republic is a fact so far beyond dispute that her sons supererogate in constant affirmation.  We all cheerfully admit that our Yankee brother has enriched the National life with every good element - except modesty.  Yet he had no option on all the virtues and valor.
     A few "first things" may here be stated and considered:  The first legislative assembly of white men on the American continent was at Jamestown, Virginia; the first ordinance of religious liberty was in Maryland; the first declaration of independence was made at Mecklenburg, in the Carolinas, the first ten thrown overboard was from the "Peggy Steward," in Annapolis harbor; the first steamboat floated on the Potomac, and the first railroad was at Baltimore.  Of course, this only means that each section of the country may have an Oliver to the others' Roland.  In the case of Ohio, one may enter a bill of exceptions, to-wit. that the marvelous development of this most typical of American states is due, not alone, nor even chiefly, to its New England blood, but to that mingling of vital currents which he has made strong the heart of the Commonwealth.
     After the Indians had suffered defeat at the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, they never rallied, and Ohio was thus left comparatively free for the settlement of the white man, and thus the new Canaan which had long lured the tribes of our Israel, as an exceedingly good land were open in part to settlement, yet the white man was withheld for some years later from entering and possessing it by fear of the "sons of Anak."  When, however, the sword of the Lord and of General Wayne hewed the way, population poured into the  land like floods, gathering to and radiating from different centers.
     Despite, however, minor differences, which entered into the settlement of the state, Ohio has attained social solidarity, and uniformity of educational system, of legal procedure, of political aspiration.  through the weaving process of ceaseless interchange of business, literary and religious interests. This has tended to the obliteration of individuality in the sections, but marks of the original variations distinguish each: for example, Southern Ohio from Northern, as clearly as the New England of today from those Commonwealths known formerly as the Border States.
     It is the mingling of these diverse elements into a new compound which has enriched Ohio.  And it is to be noted that here first occurred the blend of native blood, which has since continued throughout the West.  Up to the close of the eighteenth century the colonies on the Atlantic coast were separate.  Their people mingled little.  They were as diverse as the English, Scotch, Dutch and Irish.  But from all of them poured steams of people into that fair land which lies between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, and the children of the Puritan and Cavalier, Hollander and Huguenot, Teuton and Scotch-Irish, married and begot a new race.
     No one section can claim a monopoly or even a controlling interest in Ohio's greatness.  This is the more apparent when we examine the scroll of her famous men.  It will be found that they have arisen from all quarters and conditions.  Of the thirty-three governors of Ohio, up to 1890, twelve

THE MANSFIELD COMMISSION.
 

from the South, twelve from New England, three from Pennsylvania and six were born in Ohio of Scotch-Irish ancestry.  Further, it can not be established that any section produced the great men of any particular profession or pursuit.  Which disproves Howell's generalization that "The South gave Ohio perhaps her foremost place in war and politics; but her enlightenment in other things was from the North."
     Rawlinson has claimed "that it is admitted by ethnologists that the mingled races are superior to the pure ones."  This is perhaps true with the qualifications that the law acts within the limits of a similar origin, as in the case of the Greeks, the Romans, the British, and above all hte Americans.  Thus Tennyson sings, "Saxon and Norman and Dane are we," and he might have added, Celt and Gaul, French, Huguenot and German.  One of our own poets recited, on the Nation's century, these elements of our new type: Scottish thrift, Irish humor, German steadfastness, Scandinavian patience and English moral worth.
     A writer has put the case thus:  "Southern men of the old regime were not given to the writing of books," and when the man of New England stove forward, pen in hand, and nominated himself custodian of our National archives and began to compile the record nobody seriously contested the office.  Thus it happened that New England got handsome treatment in our National histories.  She deserved good treatment.  Her record is one of glory.  No patriotic American would detract from her merit, but her history is not the history of the whole country, and it may be added that her point of view is not the only vision for estimate.
     In the early settlement of Richland county different parts were settled by people from certain places in the East, for instance the Big Hill locality in Weller township was settled principally by English people; the southwestern part of Jefferson township was settled by Yankees from Maine; a certain locality in Washington township and another in Sharon were settled by Germans.  But those distinctions are now matters of the past and we have but one people, one country, under one flag.

THE ORIGINAL MAN FROM OHIO

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