|
ABANDONED TOWN SITES
Pg. 468
The pioneer idea
of a town site was a desirable location as to the ground, with
springs of running water adjacent. But it is different
now. A town locates itself, as it were, at a place
convenient for traffic or for other commercial reasons.
The springs of water with their copious flows determined the
location of Richland's county seat, but those springs are now
but little used, and some of our people do not even known of
them. But Mansfield would not have grown after the "spring
period" was passed had not other conditions favorable to its
growth and prosperity been developed.
Then, too, there was the centrifugal theory that the
marts of trade, like the dews of heaven, should be distributed
over the country. Later came the centripetal idea of a tendency
to the center, to the county seat, to the commercial and
political metropolis. Therefore, as Mansfield grew and
prospered the country towns went the other way.
There were exceptions, however, to this rule, and the
town of Shelby is one of them from local causes; first, on
account of its railroad facilities and advantages, and,
secondly, by reason of its public-spirited and enterprising
citizens. Bellville, another exception, was selected as a
town site for its admirable location and natural advantages, and
being on the State road between central Ohio and the lakes had
advantages, and being on the State road between central Ohio and
the lakes had advantages as a stage town, which drew it
sufficient trade to foster its growth until the railroad came
that way, after which its continued prosperity as assured.
There are other towns that are more or less prosperous,
but it is the purpose of this chapter to treat of the other
class.
The first town founded in Richland county was at
Beam's Mills, on the Rockyfork of the Mohican, three miles
southeast of Mansfield. this town was intended for the
county seat of the newly-to-be formed county, but within a year
or two the Beam site was abandoned and a new site
selected further up the Rocky fork. That is the site of
the present town of Mansfield. The change of location was
made principally on account of the famous springs where
Colonel Crawford's army rested in 1782. There is a
tradition that Major Rogers and his Rangers also
bivouacked at these springs in December, 1760. It was the
water of the springs that the pioneers considered that caused
the county-seat site to be permanently located here. The
site of Richland county's first town and settlement is now a
part of the Mentzer farm, and a farmhouse and a Grange
hall mark the place of the town site of 1807.
Winchester was once a promising little village in
Worthington township, this county, but its site is now
cultivated as fields. The county records show that
Winchester was platted Mar. 31, 1845, but otherwise the town
exists only as a memory. Winchester was situated on the
west bank of the Clearfork of the Mohican river, half way
between Butler and Newville.
There were several reasons why Winchester was founded,
the principal one perhaps being on account of the large grist
mill at that point. Another reason was that Newville, the
only other town then in Worthington, was situated within a half
mile of the north line of the township, which made it
inconvenient as a township seat, as some men had to go nearly
six miles to vote on election days. The town of Winchester
was within a half mile of the township center.
The mills - then known as Calhoun's - consisted of a
grist mill, a sawmill and a carding and fulling mill, around
which several dwellings clustered, but the land in that
immediate vicinity was too rough and uneven for a town site.
Therefore the plat was made and the town founded upon a more
eligible location on the opposite side of the river, where a
half dozen or more houses were subsequently built, and the
business of the place, in addition to the mills, increased and
soon included a store of general merchandise, a blacksmith shop,
a cooper shop, a shoe shop and a weaver's shop, and the village
bid fair for the future.
But soon that great revolutionize of affairs and
annihilator of time and distance - the railroad - went that way
and the old-time calculations of the town were upset. The
Sandusky, Mansfield & Newark railroad, when extended from
Mansfield to Newark, went within two miles of Winchester, and
that sealed the fate of that village.
A new town was laid out along the railroad in January,
1848,and was locally known as Spohntown, because the town was
platted on Spohn's land. The town, however, was
called Independence, perhaps in defiance to Bellville, six miles
distant, which was supposed to be unfriendly to the new town.
When the postoffice was established at Independence it was
called Butler, and the first postmaster was Thomas B.
Andrews. Mr. Andrews was a Democrat and he called the
postoffice Butler in honor of General William O. Butler,
of Kentucky, who was the candidate for vice president on the
ticket with General Lewis Cass in 1848. The name of
the town has since been changed to "Butler" to agree with the
name of the post office. Butler now is a thriving village
of good size and is an important shipping point on the Baltimore
& Ohio railroad.
Winchester was named for Winchester, Virginia, where
the Hammon Family emigrated from. Winchester almost
"died a bornin'," for Independence, the railroad town, grew and
prospered, while the little mill hamlet went to the wall.
The second grist mill in Richland county (Beam's
being the first) was built by John Frederick Herring on
the Clearfork in Perry township, afterwards known as the
Hanawalt mills. Later Herring sought a new
location farther down the stream in Worthington township, where
he built another grist mill and founded the town of Newville in
1823.
David Herring, John Frederick Herring's youngest
son, built the Winchester mills in 1840. The building was
forty by sixty feet, three full stories high above the basement,
and was for many years the largest frame building in Richland
county. its glebe comprised three hundred and twenty acres
of section 9. Herring operated these mills
successfully for a number of years, and shipped part of the
products of the same by flatboats from Newville and Loudonville
to New Orleans under his personal supervision. After
selling his cargo in the Crescent City Herring would sail for
New York, where he would buy a stock of goods; then return home
via the Erie canal, the lake and stage of Mansfield.
But in years financial misfortune came to Mr.
Herring. Having signed papers as security for a friend
for a considerable amount he had to pay the same, and when he
saw the disaster coming he shipped flour to a firm in Detroit
and let the purchase price remain with them until the final
shipment, so that he could draw the whole amount at once to pay
the claim for which he was surety. But a few weeks before
the stay on the paper became due the Detroit firm failed, and on
account of this double misfortune Herring had to incumber
his property and finally lost it all.
The Winchester grist mill building was converted into a
woolen factory in about 1856, but as time was then relegating
woolen mills to the past it only had a run as such a few years,
and the building now stands as a relic of change and of passing
time. The head-race was quite long. After leaving
the dam some distance it widened into a reservoir, at the lower
end of which was a "spill," and between that and the mill the
race resumed a canal-like channel. Between the reservoir
and the river there is an island field of about five acres, and
it was from this island that persons had to be rescued in canoes
at the time of the Victoria flood in 1838.
The Hammon family, whose lands adjoin the site
of old Winchester, owns broad acres and is wealthy and
prosperous.
The old-time settlers of that locality, like those of
other places, have passed away, and old-time affairs are held in
bad repute by the "smart sets" of today. It is a pleasant
relief to turn at times from the styles of today to the
old-fashioned ways of former years. Old-fashioned women!
God bless them; yes, He has always blessed them. They
never attempted to improve upon the teachings of St. Paul.
They never clamored to vote, not even for members of the school
board. It was "woman" and "wife" then; it is "lady" now.
An old English story states that the wife of a bishop
once called at the rectory of a country parish. The
servant announced that "The bishop's lady has called." The
vicar innocently inquired. "Is she the bishop's lady or
the bishop's wife?
A girl once called at a house in answer to a want ad
and inquired, "Are you the women who advertised for a lady to do
housework?" Innovations are sometimes made at the expense
of good taste.
It is said that the eyes of the pioneer maiden were
like those of a child, being expressive of satisfaction of home
life. Cynics claim that now women lose that child-like
expression after they get into society: that social
artifice, affectation and insatiate vanity that modern life
encourages soon do away with the pellucid clearness and
steadfastness of the eye: that that beautiful expression
which, though so rare nowadays, is infinitely more bewitching
than all the bright arrows of coquetry that flash from the
glances of even well-bred women of society, who have taken more
care to train their eyes than to cultivate their hearts.
OCTORORO was once a
promising little village in Monroe township, with a church, a
grist mill, a store and a hotel, and a number of residences, but
a rival town (LUCAS) was platted up the Rockyfork,
scarcely a mile distant, and Octororo quietly passed away,
leaving only a little cemetery to mark the locality where the
town once stood.
SIX CORNERS, locally called "PINHOOK' was
another little town which bid fair in the early '50s to make a
place of some importance. Its site was also in Monroe
township on the road leading from Lucas to Perrysville. It
was situated at the crossing of three roads, making six corners.
The town in 1852 contained a Masonic temple, a church, a store,
a wagon shop, a blacksmith shop, a shoe shop and a number of
dwellings, and also had a postoffice. The Masonic lodge,
however, for which the Masonic building was erected was never
instituted and the building was used for other purposes.
After a few years' existence some of the buildings today on the
old town site. The location is a commanding one, affording
a good view of the Blackfork valley and the Mifflin hills, and
upon a fair day the old village of Petersburg, now called
Mifflin, can be seen nestling upon the Ruffner plateau, six
miles away.
SALEM, in Cass township, was founded in 1830.
Two churches were built and a store and shops were opened.
But the place never succeeded as a town, as the Cleveland &
Columbus railroad was soon built through the township, but the
road ran too far west of Salem to be of any benefit to the town,
but it had the opposite effect and caused a new town to be
platted a mile west of the original Salem. The new site
was called SALEM STATION. Later it was decided that
the location of Salem Station was too low and swampy, and
another site was selected farther south, where a fine village
now called SHILOH was soon built up. The Salem of
old is a town no more. A church building is still on the
old site, and several farmhouses are near. The location
being at the crossing of the road leading from Planktown to
Huron, running north and south, with the section line road
running east and west; also a third road which obliques to the
northwest.
LONDON, in the south part of Cass township, has
an admirable location - but whether the verb should be used in
the present or past tense is an open question. The town
was platted at the crossing of the Mansfield-Plymouth road with
one running east and west. A few houses cluster around the
corners of the old village site, but the town plat was vacated
years ago.
Richland, locally called Planktown, also in Cass
township, did a thriving business in the stage-day period, being
situated at the junction of the stage roads leading from
Mansfield to Huron and from Wooster to Tiffin. Only a few
of the buildings remain. Here is where Return J. M.
Ward committed two murders, the baneful influence of which
seems to hang over the town.
NEWCASTLE and MILLSBOROUGH, in
Springfield township, were aspiring villages sixty years ago,
but have ceased to exist as towns.
CRESTLINE is situated in both Crawford and
Richland counties, more largely in the former. Crestline's
predecessor was Livingston, nearly a mile north of the railroad
crossing; but Crestline, in its prosperity, has extended so far
to the north that the old site of Livingston is now a northern
suburb of Crestline.
When the Ohio & Pennsylvania railroad was being built,
the Cincinnati, Cleveland & Chicago road did not want the
Pennsylvania road to cross its line and bought land to control
the situation. This necessitated a curve to be made in the
survey of the Pennsylvania road, and later the town of Crestline
was laid out at the junction. The Cleveland road yielded
to the inevitable and made Crestline its station also.
It is not the purpose of this sketch to consider causes
which led to changes of the towns mentioned but to simply state
that conditions work wonders for the prosperity or adversity of
a town. Take Kaskaskia, once the capital of the Illinois
territory and the metropolis of the West - a town that has been
so reduced in population that the government a few years since
abolished its postoffice, claiming that the place was not of
sufficient importance to maintain an office there. The
case of Kaskaskia is cited to show that towns elsewhere as well
as in Richland county sometimes fall into decay or ruins.
The fundamental maxim in the dynamics of progress is everywhere
the same - that the weaker goes to the wall - and the same rules
apply to towns. |
