ALLEN COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: Part 2 (published 1898)
***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Gina M. Reasoner
AUPQ38A@prodigy.com 
March 15, 1999
***********************************************************************

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

        LIMA was surveyed in 1831 by Capt. James W. Riley. Christopher Wood
was one of the commissioners appointed to locate the county-seat, and was
on the board to plat the village and superintend the sale of lots. Both of
these were remarkable men. Wood was born in Kentucky in 1769, was an Indian
scout, and engaged in all the border campaigns, inclusive of the war of
1812. Riley was the first settler in Van Wert county. He was a native of
Middletown, Connecticut. Early in life, while in command of a vessel,he was
shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and fell into the hands of the Arabs;
his history of his adventures reads like a romance. For a fuller account of
him see VAN WERT county.
        Lima was named by Hon. Patrick G. Goode. In August, 1831, a public
sale of the lots took place. A few months later came John P. Mitchell,
Absalom Brown, John P. Cole, Dr. William Cunningham, John Brewster, David
Tracy, John Mark, and John Bashore, all with families, except Brewster, who
was a bachelor. Absalom Brown was the first white citizen, and his
daughter, Marion Mitchell Brown, the first white child born here.
        Three years later, the picture Lima presented is thus given in the
cheery reminiscences of Robert Bowers:

     My father brought me to Lima in the fall of 1834. I was then a boy of
twelve years of age, and as green as the forest leaves in June-a rare
specimen to transplant on new and untried soil, where there was nothing to
develop the mind but the study of forest leaves, the music of the bull-frog
and the howl of the wolf. The boys and girls were their own instructors,
and the spelling schools that were held by appointment and imposed upon our
fathers by turns, were our highest academical accomplishments, and
unfortunately for myself I never even graduated at them. Lima was then a
town of very few souls. I knew every man, woman and child in the
settlement, and could count them all without much figuring. No newspaper
office, no outlet or inlet either by rail or earth. In the spring we
travelled below, in the summer, we travelled on top. Our roads were trails
and section lines. Emigrants were constantly changing the trails seeking
better and dryer land for their footing and wheeling. Yet
under all our disadvantages we were happy, and always ready to lend a
helping hand and render assistance wherever it was needed. The latchstring
was always out and often the last pint of meal was divided, regardless
where the next would come from. The nearest mills were at settlements in
adjoining counties, and the labor of going thither through the wilderness
and the delays on their arrival in getting their grain ground, so great
that they had recourse to hand-mills, hominy blocks and corn-crackers; so
the labor was largely performed within the family circle, (A very pleasing
picture of this is given in the reminiscences of Mr. Bowers; he says;) The
horse and hand miller, the tin grater were always reliable and in constant
use as a means of preparing our breadstuff. I was my father's miller, just
the age to perform the task. My daily labor was to gather corn and dry it
in a kiln, after which I took it on a grater made from an old copper kettle
or tin bucket, and after supper made me
al from the johnny-cake for breakfast; after breakfast I made meal for the
mush, for supper. And now let me paint you a picture of our domestic life
and an interior view of my fathers house. The names I give below; a great
many will recognize the picture only too well drawn, and think of the days
of over forty years ago. Our house was a cabin containing a parlor, kitchen
and dining-room. Connected was a shoe shop, also a broom and repair shop.
To save fuel and light and have everything handy, we had the whole thing in
one room, which brought us all together so we could oversee each other
better. After supper each one knew his place. In our house there were four
mechanics. I was a shoemaker and corn-grater. My father could make a
sledge, and the other two boys could strip broom corn. My sisters spun yarn
and mother knit and made garments. Imagine you see us all at work; sister
Margaret sings a song, father makes chips and mother pokes up the fire;
Isaac spins a yarn, John laughs at hi
m, and thus our evenings are spent in our wild home, for we were all
simple, honest people, and feared no harm from our neighbors.

        The want of mills is everywhere a great deprivation in a new
country; varied have been the devices for overcoming it. The engraving
annexed shows a substitute for a mill that was used in early settling of
Western New York, and probably to some extend in Ohio. It consists of a
stump hollowed out by fire as a mortar, with a log attached to the end of a
young sapling bent over to act as a pestle. The process was slow and
tedious, it being a day's work to convert a bushel of corn into samp.
        The early settlers in Western New York when they owned a few
slaves, which some of them did, employed them in this drudgery, hence the
process was vulgarly termed "niggering corn." People of humanity in our
time would not be guilty of using such an expression as this. No one thing
shows the general moral advance of the American people more strongly than
their treatment of, and increased consideration of or, the humbler classes
among them.
        Lima, the county-seat is on the Ottawa river, 203 feet above Lake
Erie, 95 miles west-northwest of columbus, and on five railways: the P. Ft.
W. & C.; D. & M.; L. E. & W.; C. A., and C. L. & N. W. County officers in
1888: Probate Judge, John F. Lindemann; Clerk of Court, Eugene C. McKenzie;
Sheriff, Moses P. Hoagland; Prosecuting Attorney, Isaac S. Motter;
Auditors, William D. Poling, Cyrus D. Crites; Treasurer, Jacob B.
Sunderland; Recorder, George Monroe; Surveyor, James Pillars; Coroner, John
C. Couvery; Commissioners, John Akerman, Abraham Crider, Alexander Shenk.
Newspapers: Gazette, Republican, Republican, daily and weekly, Long, Winder
& Porter, publishers; Times, daily and weekly, O.B. Selfridge, Jr.;
Courier, German, Democratic. Churches: two Methodist Episcopal, one Colored
Methodist, Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Old School Presbyterian, one
Mission Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Colored Baptist, one German
Catholic, one Evangelical Lutheran, two Lutheran, one G
erman Reformed Lutheran, one Episcopalian, one United Brethren, one
Christian, one Reformed English. Banks: City, T.T. Mitchell, president,
E.B. Mitchell, cashier; First National, S.A. Baxter, president, C.M.
Hughes, Jr. cashier; Lima National, B.C. Faurot, president, F.L. Langdon,
cashier; Merchants', R. Mehaffey, president, R.W. Thrift, Jr., cashier.
        MANUFACTURES AND EMPLOYEES. -The Lima Engine Manufacturing Company,
6 hands; Sinclair & Morrison, well-drilling tools, 10; W. Schultheis,
leather, 23; E.F. Dunan, builders wood-work, 8; C.H. & D.R.R. shops,
railroad repairs, 154; Lima Machine Works, locomotives, 150; the Cass
Manufacturing Company, handles, sucker-rods, etc., 10; E.W. Cook, job
machinery, 37; the Lima Paper-Mills, straw-board and egg-cases, 128;
Enterprise Cracker Company, crackers, 10; Woolsey & Co., bent wood-work,
etc., 78; Castle & Muller, drilling and fishing tools, 8; Lafayette
Car-Works, railroad cars and repairs, 300; L.E. and W.R.R. Company,
locomotive repairs, 103; Dr. S.A. Baxter, boxes and staves, 8; -State
Report 1887. Population in 1860, 2,345; in 1880, 7,567; school census 1886,
3,345. Estimated population in 1888, 18,000.
        Lima has several fine business blocks. The court-house is one of
the most imposing in Ohio; it covers half an acre, and was erected, with
the stone jail adjacent, at a cost of $350,000; it is constructed of Berea
stone, ornamented with red granite columns. It is 160 feet in height, and
has a tower and clock. Its interior finished in granite, and with encaustic
tiled floors, is furnished in the finest cherry, and is adorned with
statuary. It is the large structure with a tower shown in the street view.
        The Faurot Opera Block, finished in 1882, contains not only an
opera-house (which is said to have only equal to it in the State) and a
fine music-hall, and the Lima National bank, facing upon Main and High
streets, and remarked for its beauty.
        Annexed is a view of Lima, drawn by us in 1846, when the place was
but a small village. It was taken near the then residence of Col. James
Cunningham, on the Wapakoneta road. The stream shown in the view is the
Ottawa river, often called Hog river-a name derived from the following
circumstance: McKee, the British Indian agent, who resided at the Machachac
towns, on Mad river, during the incursion of Gen. Logan in 1786, was
obliged to flee with his effects. He had his swine driven on to the borders
of this stream; the Indians thereafter called it Koshko sepe, which
signifies Hog river. The eccentric County Coffenbury, in his poem, "The
Forest Rangers," terms it Swinonia. A sketch of the count is given
elsewhere in this work, with extracts from his amusing poetry.


==== OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List ====