ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY (Part 6) (published 1898)
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

        To illustrate the fruitfulness of the land Mr. Howells showed me
thirty-six pears clustered on a single stem only about twenty inches long;
the entire weight was eleven pounds. He told me that this county last year
raised 587,000 bushels of apples. One cider factory, that of Woodworth, at
West Williamsfield, sent off in 1885 twenty car loads of sixty barrels of
each, fifty-two gallons in a barrel - in all 62,400 gallons.
        The old-fashioned cider mill is here a thing largely in the past -
the rustic cider mill, unpainted and brown as a rat, with its faithful old
horse going around in a circle turning the cumbrous wheel, was always a
picturesque object, and the spot attractive by its huge piles of apples in
many colors, especially to the boys and girls who flocked hither to "suck
cider through a straw.
        ANECDOTES OF GIDDINGS. - Mr. Howells gave me some anecdotes of the
renowned Joshua. When he came home from Congress after the long session
often prolonged into the heated term of midsummer he would as one might
say, "turn out to grass." He went about the village barefoot with old brown
linen pants, old straw hat, and in his shirt sleeves engage in games of
baseball of which he was very fond, and enter people's house and talk with
the women and children, for he knew everybody and was eminently social. "On
an occasion of this kind," said Mr. Howells, "he picked up my wife, then a
child and illustrated his prodigious strength by holding her out at
arm's-length, she standing on his hand.
        To a question Mr. Howells answered me that Mr. Giddings was such an
even common sense man so devoid of eccentricities that there were but few
floating anecdotes in regard to him. "I once, however," said he, "remember
hearing him relate this startling incident. When a young man clearing up
the forest he one day leaned over and grasping at both ends of decaying log
he lifted it up with outstretched arms to take it away, and had it drawn up
to within a few inches of his nose when he discovered curled up in a hollow
place within  a huge rattlesnake." I presume at this discovery Mr. Giddings
gently, very gently laid down that log; it would be characteristic of him
if characteristic of anybody.
        The homestead of Giddings and Wade were near each other in the
centre of the village. Mr. Howells showed them to me and then we went to
visit their graves in the cemetery. I felt as though he was an eminently
proper person to pilot me to the graveyard, for only a few weeks had
elapsed since he was in the most noted graveyard in Old England, the scene
of Grays elegy; there he stood by the grave of Gray and witnessed an
old-fashioned burial, that of a rustic borne on the shoulders of four men,
with four others for a relief - they had brought the body two miles over a
country road.
        THE VILLAGE CEMETERY is in a forest half a mile from the centre and
a beautiful spot it is showing evidence of great care. Rustic bridges cross
a ravine there, at times a brawling stream: I pencilled some of the
fancifully trimmed evergreens. Such a handsome tasteful cemetery as this
little village posses a hundred years ago would have been world famed, now
such are scattered over our land. Even the first graveyard on the globe
laid out in family lots dates only to 1796, that at New Haven, Conn. and by
James Hillhouse, the man who planted the elms. The monument to Wade is
granite, about twelve feet high; that to Giddings is taller and more
ornate, and one side is occupied by a fine bronze portrait in bas-relief.
The inscriptions are:
        Benjamin F. Wade,
        October 27, 1800.  March 2, 1878

        Joshua R. Giddings, 1795-1864

        JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS was born in Athens, Pa. in 1795, and at eleven
years of age came to Ashtabula county with his parents. In 1838 he was
elected as a Whig to Congress, but soon became prominent as as advocate of
the right of petition and the abolition of slavery and the domestic slave
trade.
        In 1841 the "Creole" an American vessel, sailed from Virginia to
Louisiana with a cargo of slaves, who got possession of the vessel, ran
into the British port of Nassau and in accordance with British law were set
free; whereupon Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, wrote to Edward Everett,
United States Minister to London, saying that the government would demand
indemnification for the slaves. In consequence Mr. Giddings offered in the
House a series of resolutions in which it was declared that as slavery was
an abridgment of a natural right it had no force beyond the territorial
jurisdiction that created it; that when an American vessel was on the high
seas it was under the jurisdiction of the general government, which did not
sanction slavery, and therefore the mutineers of the "Creole" had only
assumed their natural right to liberty, and to attempt to re-enslave them
would be dishonorable. Although he temporarily withdrew the resolutions the
House passed a vote of censure, 125 to 69., whereupon he resigned and
appealing to his constituents was re-elected by an immense majority. For
twenty years he held his seat in Congress, opposing every encroachment of
the slave power with a boldness and strength that won the fear and respect
of its advocates. Whenever he spoke he was listened to with great
attention, and had several affrays, in which he always triumphed. He
declined re-election from ill health in 1858, and died at Montreal in 1864,
and while holding the position of United States Consul in Canada. His
disease was atrophy of the heart. Towards the close of his Congressional
career he had one time, while speaking, fallen to the floor. The members
gathered around, thinking he was dead
         For eight minutes his heart ceased to beat. He was the author of
several political works, mainly essays bearing upon the subject of slavery.
        BENJAMIN F. WADE was born in Feeding Hills Parish, Mass., in 1800.
His parents were miserably poor and he received but a limited education.
For a while he supported himself by hard labor, first at farm work and then
as a digger on the Erie canal. About 1821 he removed to Ohio. At that
period he had been a great reader, mastered the Euclid and was well versed
in philosophy and science. He read the Bible through in a single winter by
the light of pine torches in his wood-chopping cabin. In 1828 he was
admitted to the bar and eventually became a partner with Mr. Giddings. He
soon took a prominent stand from his industry, plain, strong common sense
and aggressive courage. In politics he was originally a fervid Whig but he
soon came to sympathize with the anti-slavery views of Mr. Giddings. In
1851 he was elected to the United States Senate, where his long years of
service won for him a never-ending reputation. He was in the advance in the
anti-slavery movements, while his indomitable pluck, hard-hitting speech
without a particle of polish rendered him a most conspicuous, effective
champion. The public prints of the time abound with anecdotes illustrative
of his fearlessness and ready wit. At the time of the Nebraska debate Mr.
Badger, a member from North Carolina, hypothetically described himself as
wishing to emigrate to the new territory and to carry his old colored mamma
with him - the slave woman who had nursed him in infancy and childhood, and
whom he had loved as a real mother - and he could not take her. The enemies
of this benevolent measure forbade him. "We are unwilling you should take
the old lady there," interrupted Wade; "we are afraid you'll sell her when
you get her there." Roars of laughter followed this stinging reply, which
was said by Judge Jerry Black to have been the most effective single blow
ever dealt a man on the floor of congress. As chairman of the Committee on
the Conduct of the War no words, says Whitelaw Reid, can give an idea of
the value of his services, the energy with which he helped to inspire the
government, of the zeal, the courage, the faith which he strove to infuse.
He was elected President of the Senate, and consequently acting
Vice-President of the United States, shortly after Mr. Johnson's accession
to the presidency, and had the attempt at his impeachment been successful,
would have become President. In person Mr. Wade was six feet in height,
very finely proportioned and of great physical power. An original thinker,
bluff, hearty and plain spoken, he withal under his rough exterior carried
a tender heart, as is illustrated by his once discovering a poor man, a
neighbor, entering his corn-crib and carrying off his corn, when he quietly
moved out of sight so he should not pain him with the knowledge that he saw
him, no doubt reasoning in this way; "Poor devil, he has a hard enough time
any way, and I don't care if he does now and then help himself to my
abundance."


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