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or prospected for locations.  The old army road was a sort of thoroughfare for emigrants, many of whom stopped here—in fact, there was no other road in Ohio, west of the Sandusky river.  By remembering these things we are enabled to see how this vast northwest must have looked at that time.
     Clinton township being so closely identified with Tiffin, and everything that is said of Tiffin and her people meaning Clinton township at the same time, may be the reason why neither Mr. Butterfield, in his history, nor Mr. Stewart, in his ''Atlas," had anything to say about Clinton township and her pioneers.  But there were some old settlers here, and men, too, of no ordinary grade, who should and shall be mentioned, for many of their names are too dear and valuable to be lost so soon.  These pages will preserve them for awhile.

JOHN KELLER

The lather of Levi, Lewis and Joel Keller (the sons are all still living), was an early settler and a man of wonderful industry and perseverance.  He took a very active part in all public affairs and became intimately acquainted with the business of the public offices.  He tilled the office of county commissioner several years, and after he got his mill on the river in running order, there was scarcely a farmer in Seneca county but was acquainted with Uncle Johnny Keller.  He was very talkative when he had time, and always ready to give information when required.  With his knowledge of farming he combined much mechanical skill, and he was in his place on the farm or in the mill.  His practical good sense, his friendly nature and honesty of purpose made Uncle Keller a very popular citizen.
     He was born Sept. 17, 1785, in York county, Pennsylvania, near Little York.  He was married to Elizabeth Mitsell, in 1804, and soon after moved to Fairfield county, Ohio.  At the land sales in Delaware he bought the land the old Keller mill was on, in 1821, and moved on to it in 1828.  In 1824 he let out a job of clearing four acres.  In the fall of that year he came up with a team and a lot of apple trees, with which he planted an orchard on the four acres.  When he came back the following spring, his apple trees were all gone.  Somebody had stolen them.  This was probably the first orchard planted in the county.
     Mrs. Keller died in September, 1857.  John Keller died Oct. 9, 1859.

HENRY C. BRISH.

Was a man of medium size and weighed about 165 pounds.  He was

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of fair complexion, had regular, manly features, was well proportioned and good looking, more so in citizen's clothes than in uniform.  He had deeply set, large hazel eyes.  He shaved smooth, except small side whiskers.  He had a well balanced nature, a high forehead, and turned bald at middle age.  General Brish was a polished gentleman and his home was the gathering place for many of the elite in the then rustic society.  He had a kind word for everybody, and soon became popular with all classes of people.  The Senecas were his pets and they made Rosewood a stopping place whenever they came up the river.  Dr. Cary was a brother to Mrs. Brish.  Me and Dr. Dresbach made the General's house their home.  Whenever they could not be found about town, you woukl almost be sure to find them at Brish's.  Some people thought the General was very high-strung and quick tempered, but they were only those who did not know him intimately, and judged him only from the several knock-downs he was blamed with.  The facts are, the General would bear almost any opposition in business or politics as long as his opponent would abstain from reflecting on his honor and calling him names.  He struck very quick when that rule was violated, and the size of the opponent or his standing in society made no difference.  His relation with the business of the county has been mentioned so often that it is only necessary to say that he was one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas here, and was elected a member of the house of representatives, besides filling many other local offices.
     When, on the 28th day of February, 1831, at the treaty of Washington, the Senecas sold their reservation to the United States, as already stated in chapter VIII. (and see also chapter XXIX.), General Brish, who had taken care of the chiefs to Washington and back to Seneca, was kindly remembered by them. At their own request a section was put into the treaty giving to General Brish a quarter section of land in the reservation.  The section reads as follows:

     Sec. 11.  The chiefs of the Senecas being impressed with gratitude towards Henry C. Brish, then sub-agent, for the private advances of money and provisions and numerous other acts of kindness towards them, as well as extra services in coming with them to Washington, and having expressed a wish that a quarter seciton of a hundred and sixty acres of land ceded by them, should be granted to him in consideration thereof, the same is hereby granted to him and his heirs, to be located under the direction of the president the United States.  (See vol. 7 Laws U. S., p. 350.)

     The General selected his section and sold it.  He then bought the southwest half quarter of section eighteen in Clinton.  General Brish cleared up a part and moved onto it.  He called it Rosewood, because Mrs.

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Brish raised rose bushes all around the house.  Here the General spent the rest of his days.
     Henry Colegate Brish was born in Frederick county, Maryland, Nov. 22, 1799.  At the age of ten years he became clerk in the register's office of that county, under Captain Steiner, where he remained until he was married, and where he received all the education he had.  He was married to Miss Eleanor S. Careyon the 7th December, 1824, by Bishop Jones, of the Episcopal Protestant church.
     Mrs. Brish was born July 27, 1805.  They left Frederick for Seneca county, and landed here on the 6th of July, 1828, Sunday afternoon.  They made the whole distance in a little covered carriage, perhaps one of the first that came to Seneca.  The General died at Rosewood in February, 1866.
     Mrs. Brish, who is still living says:

     I brought my old piano with me, and have it yet.  When we came here, we moved into a cabin that Agreen Ingraham had built.  It had some nice china, also, all of which, I think, were the first of the kind in Tiffin, perhaps in the county.  Our cabins were all clustered around McNeal's store, and there was the "hub of fashion."  David and Elizabeth Smith, Levi Cresey, Mr. Custar, Mrs. Mounts, Mrs. Kessler, Abel Rawson and Samuel Hoagland all lived between  McNeal's and the Campbell Camel-back bridge over the railroads.  One time we made a ball for the young people from Maryland and they called it the "Maryland ball."  The river was high and the girls from the Tiffin side could not get over on the first day, but they came on the second day.  We had young folks from Lower Sandusky and from up the river, some sixty in all.  We danced two days and three nights.  It was the first big ball in the county.  David Smith was the fiddler.  Mr. Cromise had a cornfield where the public square is in Fort Ball.  One-night Drs. Carey and Dresbach stole a lot o roasting ears there and brought them to our house to have them cooked.  We made a big feast of them.

     John Stoner lived immediately north of Rosewood.  He was also from Maryland, and raised a number of sons, who became wealthy.  I remember George, Christian and Dennis.  Dennis is the youngest of them and is still living here.  My efforts to procure a better description of this pioneer family and that of the Neikirks, who are now scattered through Scipio, Adams and Clinton, have failed also.

JOHN BEARD

settled on the northwest quarter of section thirty-four.  Leveret Beadley lived near by him on the west.  North of the road lived Wm. McEwen, with his wife and twenty-one children.  He was the first blacksmith in this neighborhood.  Thomas Vanatta came in 1825, and settled on the

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southwest quarter of section thirty-four, where some of the family still reside.  Vanatta bought out a man by the name of Stripe, who moved to Lower Sandusky, where he dealt in fish.  He died of cholera in 1834.  Joseph Richards came in 1827 or 1829, David E. Owen came in 1829, and lived on the Huber farm.  The Frees and Herin folks came in 1828.  Reuben Williams entered the Coe farm and built the saw mill, which is still in running order, in 1824.  Daniel Dildine came in the same year.  He built a cabin and planted the apple trees that are still to be seen just north of the new cemetery.  Daniel Lamberson entered the southeast quarter of section thirty-four.  James Myers came in 1833 or '34.  James Wolf used to work for Reuben Williams, and when he had earned $100, Williams bought for him the eighty acres in the southwest corner of section twenty-six, where be afterwards lived and died.
     Mr. Beard was born in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of April, 1794.  He was married to Hannah Doan in 1817.  They had eight children, of whom six are still living.  He was about five feet, ten inches high; walked very erect; had black hair and whiskers and blue eyes; he was very talkative and full of joke's and was a good neighbor and strictly honest.  He died in 1832, and was buried in the old cemetery in Tiffin.
     (I am indebted to his son, Joseph, for the above narrative.)

DANIEL LAMBERSON

Was born Dec. 13, 1783, near Belvedere, New Jersey, and died Dec. 5, 1852.  He came and located here in the fall of 1824.

JOHN CRUM.

     Mr. Hamilton F. Crum furnished the writer with the following statement concerning this veteran pioneer:
     On the 20th of February, my father, John Crum, was born in Frederick county, in the state of Virginia, and in 1813 he married Barbara Crum (no blood relation. In 1821 he moved to Ohio and settled in Columbus.  In 1822 he bought 160 acres of land in Seneca county, three miles north of Tiffin on the Fremont road, and in 1824 he moved upon his land.  We lived in a cabin for a while, not far from our land, until we could build a house.  Our house had the first shingle roof between Tiffin and Lower Sandusky.  We experienced many of the hardships common to new settlements.  Father was sick nearly all the first winter.  We lived in the woods; our neighbors were scattered, none nearer than a mile, but they were very friendly and social.  Our first neighbors were Moses Abbott, Eliphalet Rogers and Captain Sherwood, but others soon came in.
     My father was a hard-working man and did all his clearing. I was the

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oldest boy, but only eight years old when we came, and of course could not help much, but was always with him.  Mother died when I was fifteen years old.  Sometime afterwards father was married to Margaret Evans, with whom he lived about twenty years, when she died.  Afterwards father married Nancy Booth.  Father died in Tiffin on the 28th day of February, 1873.  His widow died July 8, 1874.                       HAMILTON E. CRUM

REV. JOHN SOUDER.

INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES WITHIN THE KNOWLEDGE AND ABSERVATION OF JOHN SOUDER.

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     The best part of the joke came in when Mr. Sneath jumped up after his horse fell and exclaimed that he might have gut his leg broken, regardless of the danger of losing the lives of his entire family.
     Mr. Sneath moved into his house, and I found an empty cabin in Fort Ball, belonging to Mr. McGaffey.  Mr. Spencer was the proprietor of Fort Ball.  Mr. McNeal had a small store, Elisha Smith kept tavern, Levi Reasey Creasy was a blacksmith, David Smith was a cabinet maker, a justice of the peace and a fiddler.  He lived near the river.  Dr. Dresbach, lawyers Rawson and Dickinson were here; all single men and the three occupied the same small office together.  It was about twelve by fourteen feet, and is still standing on Sandusky street.
     Dr. Dresbach's motto was, "Root, hog, or die."  Mr. McGaffey was clerk of the court at that time.  One time in conversation he predicted that within fifteen years we would have a railroad through the country.  When I left Maryland the Baltimore and Ohio company had only thirteen miles of road out of Baltimore.

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     My mother lived with me, after my father's death, until she died in 1840, at the age of 76 years.

DAVID RICKENBAUGH
 

DANIEL DILDINE, SR.

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NICHOLAS GOETSCHIUS

was a soldier in the war of 1812, under General Harrison.  He was born in Montgomery county, New York; moved from there to Franklin county, Ohio, and came to Seneca in 1825, in April.  He first located on the North Greenfield road, near Egbert's and located on the Portland road in 1835, upon the eighty acres he had entered.  He was about seventy-eight years old when he died at one of his son's-in-law in Sandusky county.  He had two sons and three daughters.

JAMES GOETSCHIUS,

his oldest son, who came here with his father, lives on the old homestead.  He was born September 24th, 1807, in Franklin county, Ohio.  His wife, Permelia Smith, came here with Joseph Biggs from Maryland.

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     When they settled in Clinton there was no house for seven miles east on the North Greenfield road.  Samuel Scothorns,  in Reed, lived there.  There was no road open to town.  They had to underbrush a road to Tiffin, and then followed the blazed trees.  Hunter's mill was built in 1825.

FREDERICK CRAMER

JAMES MYERS

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THE SWANDER FAMILY,

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JOHN SECRIST

Was born Oct. 27, 1803, in Frederick county, Maryland, and raised as a farmer.  He married Margaret Waltman, Aug. 4, 1825, who was born Apr. 23, 1803.  They settled in the woods on the farm where Judge Pittenger now lives, on the Melmore road, in  October, 18288, and took their share of the frontier joys and hardships with the rest of the settlers.
     Mr. Secrist died Apr. 6, 1848.  Mrs. Secrist lives with her daughter in Tiffin, Ohio.

MR. CHARLES KELLY.

Was  born on the 6th of March, 1798, in Huntington county, Pennsylvania.  When he was yet a child, his father moved with his family into Wayne county, Ohio, and settled four miles east of Wooster.  In the summer of 1821 he, with seven others, his comrades, started on foot to see the western country.  They came to Mansfield and from there they took a road that was called the "McCormack trail," which led through the woods to Tiffin, by way of Caroline.  They stayed here one week, and while here they helped to put up a cabin for a man by the name of Armstrong Drennin.  Mr. Hedges had made him a present of a lot with the condition that Drenninwould build a cabin upon it and move his family into it.
     The party wanted to board at Mr. Bowe's, but when Bowe found out that they were going to build a cabin on this side of the river, he got angry and refused to board them.  They put up the cabin, however, and boarded themselves.  Mr. Kelley was the cook. A man came along with some flour, which they bought, together with some pork.  Two Indians took hold and helped them some in getting up the logs, but when dinner was ready they refused to eat with the whites.  They
stayed apart by themselves, but they would eat all that was brought to them.

     The cabin was put up on the lot south of the woolen mill and on the spot where the frame building now stands, on the west side of Washington street, and is occupied by the Yingat Yingst family.  It was the first cabin erected on the plat of Tiffin.  The logs were cut in the woods around one day, and on the next morning the deer were seen browsing on the tops of the trees that were cut down on the lots where the court house now stands.
     Mr. Drennin moved into his cabin that fall, and he, his wife and three children died here within a short time of each other.  The men who helped to build the cabin were Christ, Witz, Henry Miller, David

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Fowler, Mr. Drennin, three others and the two Indians.  This cabin was put up before the county seat was located here.
     Captain Sherwood lived north of town a piece, and John Welsh about our miles south.
     Mr. Welsh acted as our pilot through the woods when we started back.  There was no house between New Haven and Fort Ball.
     Mr. Kelley is the father of Mrs. Dr. Samuel W. Bricker, in Tiffin, now on a visit to his daughter, and the foregoing statement gives his words as nearly as possible.

WILLIAM M'EWEN

     Mr. James McEwen says:
     My father, William McEwen, was born in Berwick, Pennsylvania.  He went to Northampton county, Pennsylvania, to learn the trade of a blacksmith, and was married there to Sarah Johnson.  We came here in the fall of 1823 and brought with us one half ton of hay, which we made at New Haven.  With this hay we kept four horses and two cows all winter.  There was plenty of picking in the woods all winter in 1823.  Father entered the southwest quarter of section twenty-seven, in Clinton, and put up a cabin there and a blacksmith shop. 
     Leverett Bradley settled on the southeast quarter of section twenty-eight right west of us.  Asa Crocket built the first barn on that farm.
     Cal. Williams lived north of us, on the place where old father Schwander lived and died, on the Morrison road, in section twenty-two.  He was an old bachelor, had a dog and cat, and all three took their meals together.
     Joseph Herrin's father and mother, with their families, came in 1826; the children were all single then, except Mrs. Hines; the rest were married here.
     When the Herrin's folks came they stopped at our house, and we were so crowded some had to sleep in wagons.
     My parents had twenty-one children altogether, of whom sixteen were then living.  I am the youngest of the family.
     Mrs. Rachel Frees was also married.  She was a sister of the Herrin boys also.
     Thomas Vanatta came two years after and settled where some of his daughters are still living.  Peter Schuk lived there once.
     The first school house was built on the Bradley place, and Jonas Doan taught it.  Another log school house was put up north of the road and opposite the church on Rocky creek.
     Hugh Welsh settled on the Richardson farm and lived there when we came.  Birnsides were also here before us and lived on section twenty-eight. 
     We had to go clear to Columbus for flour, and cut our way through the woods.  We lived on milk and potatoes for a good while until we could do better.  I used to plough with a wooden mold-board and wore buckskin pantaloons.

JACOB HOLTS

     Was born in Frederick county, Maryland, June 17, 1786, and was mar-

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ried to Susannah M. Fiege, who was a sister of the father of John Fiege, of Tiffin, Ohio.  They moved to this county and arrived in Tiffin on the 28th of April, 1834 and settled on the northwest quarter of section fifteen, in Clinton, where the son, Dennis, still lives.
     Mr. Holts was about five feet, eleven inches high, straight and muscular, but not fleshy; he had dark brown hair, a large, dark eye, black, bushy eyebrows and a very expressive countenance.  He spoke slow and positive, and while his conversation was pleasant and agreeable, he nevertheless carried an air of personal dignity about him that corresponded well with the general respect he enjoyed in the community.  He died Dec. 28, 1859.

PETER MARSH

Was also a Clinton township pioneer.  He settled in the northwest quarter of section twenty-seven, about the time the McEwen family came here.  He was then a young man but recently married.  He, his wife and his wife's sister, who came with them, were all three excellent singers.  They all belonged to the Presbyterian church, and were very nice, kind and quiet people.  Mr. Marsh used to teach singing school and soon became very popular in the neighborhood.  He started a Sabbath school and a prayer meeting in the vicinity and took a great interest in church affairs generally.  When the first railroad from Sandusky, by way of Republic, was being built, he took a job of grading a mile, including the fill over Willow creek.  The company failed in making payment as it was agreed, and Mr. Marsh broke up, losing nearly all he had.  He left and located in Kenton, Ohio, where he recuperated to some extent, and where he and his wife both died.

COLONEL BALL,

After whom the fort and Spencer's town were named, was present at the great Whig celebration, at Fort Meigs, in 1840, where a friend of mine saw him for the last time.  He was six feet high, well proportioned; his hair was gray and bushy; he had a florid complexion and wore side whiskers; he had gray eyes, thin lips, heavy jaw, a loud, clear voice, talked scholarly and lived with his family in Richland county at that time.  He was a powerful man and walked very erect.  Before his hair turned gray it was of auburn color.  His entire make-up exhibited great force of character and energy.
     Clinton township has an excellent market, is well watered, enjoys the privileges of the city of Tiffin with her schools and otherwise, while the land is in a high state of cultivation and very valuable.  Splendid farm houses in all directions indicate the general prosperity of the people.

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     As already mentioned, the township was organized in June, 1820, and the first election was held on the 15th of June, 1822.  The population of Clinton, including Tiffin, in 1840, was 2,195; in 1850 it was 4,330; in 1860 it was 6,041; it increased to 7,174 in 1870, and in 1880 it was 1,701.  Tiffin, in 1880, has 7,882 inhabitants, which , added to the township, makes 9,583.
     Tiffin proper, in 1840, had 788 souls; in 1850, 2,718; in 1860, 3,992 and in 1870, 5,648.

JOHN DITTO

was one of the early settlers of Clinton.  He came in 1822, and settled in section thirty-one, where he owned eighty acres and he also owned another eighty in Eden.  These lands he entered at the Delaware land office, and immediately thereafter built his cabin in the woods.  He was a small man, less than medium size, and compactly built.  He was very industrious and honest, a good hunter and interesting talker.  He verified his hunting stories by his singular habitual expression of "bei der liebens."  There was no meaning to it, but it was intended to fix the story beyond all question of doubt.  He spoke German mostly.
     Mr. Ditto was born in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, October 14, 1785.  He told the writer that he voted at the first election in Seneca county; he lived and died a Democrat.  His wife's name is Elizabeth, who is the daughter of Louis Eckhart.  She was born June 13, 1795, and is still living, enjoying good health, on the old homestead, near the Mohawk road.  They had eleven children, of whom two are still living, viz:  Mrs. DuBois and Mrs. Henry Sheets.

- END OF CHAPTER XXXII - CLINTON TOWNSHIP -