OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Gen. Simon Perkins [6] *********************************************************************** 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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 June 16, 1999 *********************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio The Kelley Family Collections Newspaper article, Plains Dealer compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925 And Then They Went West by Darlene E. Kelley 1998 *********************************************************************** Sixth in Series-- On Sept 11 Simon went to Pittsburgh, to attend to McMahon's return to the Reserve for trial. On Sept 15, he was back in Youngstown with the prisioner, with the sheriff and escort of twenty five troops from the Garrison at Pittsburgh, that had guarded McMahon. Then on Wed. the court opened and the grand jury, with Simon still foreman, was summoned and had bills of indictment laid before them by the State's Attorney. On Thursday the jury was summoned and impaneled. On Friday and Saturday the witnesses against the prisoner were examined and the case was argued. On Saturday evening,Sept. 20, the pople gathered to hear the verdict. It was , as Simon said, a considreable amount of people who gathered to hear the verdict. Governor Arthur St. Clair was there, for the first murder trial in New Trumbull County was an important occasion. George Tod, Yale graduate and recently admitted counsellor at law on the Reserve, was there, for he was the attorney for the people. Benjamin Tappan and John S. Edwards, also admitted as counsellors by the First Court of Quarter Sessions, for they had aided Steel Sample as attorneys for McMahon. Simon Perkins, Samuel Huntington, Calvin Pease. Turhand Kirtland, and a nephew of Mrs. Moses Cleaveland mingled with the other settlers, who came from miles away to hear the verdict. The verdict of not guilty was very surprising to the people. McMahon, Simon insisted, ought to have been punished, but there is so great a proportion of people who had much prejudice against the Indians that it was almost impossible to do them justice. The verdict was surprising to Gov. St.Clair too, for according to the angered Governor; " The homicide was clearly proved, and ---committed with delberate malice--- yet the perpetrator was aquitted---It has long been a disgrace to the people of all the States, bordering upon the Indians, both as men and as Christians, that while they loudly complained of every injury or wrong received from [the Indians]---they were daily offering to [the Indians] injuries an wrongs of the most provoking and atrocious nature, for which I have not heard that any person was ever brought to due punishment, and all proceeding from the false principle that, because [ the Indians] had not received the light of the gospel, they might be abused, cheated, robbed, plundered, and murdered at pleasure, and the perpetrators, because professed Christians, ought not to suffer for it. [ And then he demanded]; What kind of Christianity is this, or where is it to be found? " By 1802 Simon had made an agreement to buy all or part of the Connecticut Land Company holdings of Nathan Grosvenor, and he had also taken up bonds to Connectict that had been defaulted by other proprietors. Because the Company had not bee successful in selling the six townships set aside to cover the Company's expenses, it was decided to partition them among the proprietors. In 1802, Simon served as a member of the committee that arranged this land, which had already been surveyed into lots of two to one hundred acres each, into equalized drafts. It can not be determined exactly what land fell to Simon after Ephraim Root drew in 1802 for Grosvenor and other proprietors, and through them for Simon,but Simon acquired some lots in Cleveland. Later Simon took over Samuel Huntington's interest in the Erie Company, when Huntington gave up trying to develop Cleveland and moved to Painesville. By 1813 Simon owned, although not free of debt or unencumbered by mortgages, or had owned and sold land in Town 3 Range 2 [ Liberty ], Town 2 Range 5 [Milton], Town 1 Range 4 [Elsworth], Town 4 Range 3 [Howland], Town 6 Range 6 [Parkman], Town 4 Range 4 [Warren], Town 9 Range 8 [Chardon], Town 10 Range 8 [Concord], Town 7 Range12 [Cleveland], Town 1 Range 17 [Homer], and in surplus Lands, a gore of land that lay between the east line of the Firelands and the west line of the Reserve , as they were surveyed in 1806-1807. He was taxed in 1813, although part of the tax may have covered land he did not himslf own but had the agency of, on 3,000 acres in two and ten acre lots in Cleveland. At the age of 32, the Major [Joseph Perkins ], only recently married himself, played Standish in choosing Nancy Bishop of Lisbon, for the absent Simon's future wife. Nancy kept Simon waiting for an answer, however. When Simon arrived on the Reserve in April, 1803, following a visit to Connecticut, he wrote to Nancy asking her to marry him. They were married in March,1804 and in June they started for the town of Warren, where Simon had bought a lot from Ephraim Quimby and put up a log house, one of only sixteen houses then in the town,for himself and his new wife. Simon was accustomed to making the journey by horseback, but that year he and Nancy traveled in a carriage bought for that purpose. At Chambersburgh, he had to sell the carriage because he knew the roads of the Reserve were not fit for its use, and he and Nancy then continued to Warren on horseback, traveling part of the way with Simon's sister Rebecca, her husband, and their four children, who were moving to a new home in their town of Kinsman. ********************************************* to be continued--