OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 7 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 February 14, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And They Went West S.L. Kelly diaries Series of Articles by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - part 7. ************************************************************************** Ohio- The New Connecticut. " With Ticket in Hand " If you drive along both banks of the Cuyahoga and if you look at a map of the Western Reserve area just astride it, you'll see names of towns and streets and creeks which, in most other regions, would tell a reconstructionable story of a natuaral settlement. But the Western Reserve was settled unnaturally by a precisely plotted and platted system, revolving strangely enough around a lottery type mechanism, the usual rules for reading the land does not apply. Back in Hartford, Connecticut, deeds were made out to the original 35 parties for as many 1/1,200,000ths of the three-million Western Reserve acres as their investment indicated, the whole price being $1,200,000. But specific plots of ground were not assigned. When the survey was finished and the land assessed, a ticket was made out for each specific section of land, classified as first, second or third class land. The tickets were then separated into those categories, and five separate drawings held over a period of five years. A man entitled to a thousand acres, drawing tickets from the three piles, might draw land in three different townships in three different ranges. Nothing prevented him from swapping tickets with someone else to consolidate his holdings, but that was his business. He then might elect one of the areas as his personal home-site, or he might not go to Ohio at all, merely selling the ground indicated on his ticket. Or he might elect to put the ticket into the hands of a land agent who was going west. At any rate, immigrants did not usually come west and look over the ground to see where they would settle. They generally had a ticket in pocket as they sailed or wagoned to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. [ A few entered from the south via Pittsburgh.] From there they inquired where to find the stake for the horizontal line to their township. They traveled upstream to that stake, then inland along the survey line until they came to their particular township, then along the township line until they found their section. Townships were five miles on a side, 16,000 acres. Thus the pioneers of the Western Reserve did not settle in the traditional economic clusters at river mouths and trail crossings. They chose instead to live in geometric clusters --neat and impractical. Settlers chopped holes in the big woods, and put up isolated cabins surrounded on each side by hardwood loneliness. To the thoughtful men who conceived this plan it promised certain theoretical advantages. It was eminently fair and it so dispersed settlement that the whole area could be developed simultaneously rather than concentrating population around attractive land features as under the casual method. It also placed people throughout the area in order to encourage defense against the British and Indians. Nevertheless these advantages broke up natuaral economic combinations which make for development. The farmer found himself arbitrarily located near fine deposits of red kidney iron ore, which was to him only a nuisance. The ironmaster, who would normally settle near the ore, drew good farmland that he did not appreciate. Under the casual method of settlement, the ironmaster would seek out the ore. The miller, the fine millsites. The gunsmith or ironwright would locate near the ironmaster, the sailor near the port. But the drawing of lots created an economic incompetence which was about to turn to disaster. This fact only heightened the heroism and drama as this competent body of settlers invaded a hostile geography. Those settlers who came first, though they came in their own self-interest, necessarily broke trail for hundreds over the next three decades. being Connecticut men, they were accustomed to cleared land already mature and crop bearing. Despite the discription from the surveying party, these immigrants were not prepared for a land already forested with no break in te cover except in waterbodies, and no axle-width gap in the undergrowth. The trees held a piece of night all day. In spite of all this, the immigrants still came, with ticket in hand. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Joshua Stow Important among the Town builders along the Cuyahoga was Joshua Stow ( Stowe ) of Middletown, Connecticut, a $ 6,000 investor in the Connecticut Land Company. He had come out with General Cleaveland's surveying party in charge of commissary. He was a tough 34-year-old outdoorsman who often moved in advance of the surveying party hunting for game to preserve their regular rations. The Cuyohoga valley was rattlesnake country, and Josh ( as he was called ) Stow became expert at finding and killing snakes. To carry them, he would wrap them around his waist, six or eight per trip. In camp, he would clean, cook, and serve them. They were good and tasted like a wild chicken. After the survey, Stow drew 5,000 acres north of Akron, and he came back to Ohio to oversee the surveying of his acreage for resale. Establishing the Town of Stow, he then went into real estate operations in the Eastern part of the Reserve. many thousands of property deeds in the Reserve today go back to an original land title signed by Stow in partnership with one of the Kelley brothers. But beyond Stow's individual pioneering in the Reserve, his influence becomes enormous in another way. It was Stow who brought the enterprising Kelley brothers who stayed to mold New Connecticut by selling land, establishing towns, moving rivers, building canals, laying railroads, making laws, and developing islands. In Middletown, Connecticut, Josh Stow's sister, Jemima, married Daniel Kelley. her son's grew up hearing about their dramatic uncle Stow at work out in New Connecticut. It became a place of high adventure, and these boys were adventurers, Datus, Alfred, Irad, Joseph, and Thomas. But they come later when the troubles worsened. Meanwhile, the lot drawing system of land ownership continued to cut isolated, helpless clearings in the three-million acres of virgin oak, beech, maple, chestnut, and walnut. Judge Austin pushed in to the norteast corner with a small party to start Austinburg. He brought 150 cattle, the first real herd on the Reserve. Lewis Day and his boy came out of Granby, Connecticut, with two others in a wagon, and pushed 25 miles west of Youngstown in 1799. That brought the first wagon width trail to Deerfield. Caleb Atwater then cut a township road into Deerfield from the west, hence that area had good communications. Very few ventured west of the Cuyahoga, though a dozen from Waterbury, Connecticut, pushed across into Ridgeville, Amherst, and Eaton. David Abbott purchased 1,800 acres astride the Huron River and settled there in 1809. Vermillion was ocupied in 1808. Jemima Kelley and her husband were much less than enchanted with Josh Stow, but the magic had happened, and one by one their sons went west. Arriving in Cleveland in June 1810, Alfred Kelley , the most distinguished, road west beside Joshua Stow at age 21 with lawbooks in hand. He was almost immediately made County Prosecutor. In 1811, Datus Kelley arrived and in 1812, young Irad Kelley bought his way out of the militia assignment and came to join his brothers. The sheer capability of the Kelley brothers. drafted them into many frontier Jobs of public service. They were an asset that Josh Stow knew they would be. He died October 10, 1842 in the family homestead in Middletown, Connecticut. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Early Days " Twas in the earliest twenties When the wild and savage race Departed with their wigwams. and Log Cabins took their place: The bear and deer and wild fowl Remained awhile to show What food kind mother nature on The Red Man did bestow. In all the streams the finny shoals In great abundance grew While in the air, the feathered tribes In flocks unnumbered flew. Tranquility and peace prevail Upon each settler's farm. For scalping knives and tomahawks Had lost their power to harm. The music of the axe rang clear >From early morn "til night, While heaps of burning brush and logs Sent forth their gleam of light. The new log cabins now were seen Fast springing into view; And ox-team " schooners' from the east were six weeks coming through. The little clearings that were made soon brought enough to eat, For in each rooty, stumpy field Grew Indian corn and wheat. We struggled hard those early days To keep privations down, We hauled our cord wood many miles To what was called a 'town' With ox-team, ' geeing,hawing,' through The wild woods we would go, With snail like locomation that Was awkward, quaint and slow. We drove the oxen through the gap And down the barnyard lane, Unyoked, and housed and fed them well With fodder, hay and grain; Then, to the new log cabin door, Our weary footsteps led, We pulled the latchstring, entered in, And found the table spread With mush and milk, and pork and beans, And good old pumpkin pie, No Angel food in heaven or earth Could better satisfy. Around our rustic cabin door The climbing roses grew, The fragrant honeysckle bloomed With flowers of varied hue. The sunflower and the hollyhock, Snowballs and lillies white, The daisies, pinks, and daffodils With lovely colors bright. The poppies, phlox and vilets, And morning glories gay All scent the air with odors sweet In memory of today. A flickering tallow candle there Was all the light we had, Except the roaring fire-place, That made us warm and glad. We made those tallow tapers by A process wonderous slow, We dipped the wicking in the grease, Then out to see them grow, No strong electric light or gas illuminated our pathway bright, And yet our tree of knowledge grew By that dim sweet candle light. Dear mother had been spinning yarn, And reeling knots and skeins, And knitting socks and mittns With cheerfulness and pains; And there she was, that time of night To welcome pa and me, He angel face with loving smile Methinks I still can see! How plainly I remember now, Though weary, old and gray, When death came in our cabin home, And God took her away. Let's climb the little stairway here, And walk the puncheon floor, To trundle bed, where mother tucked Us snug in days of yore, And gave us good-night kisses When our little prayers were said, Twas ' Now I lay me down to sleep' And 'Angels guard our bed', Those lessons taught by mother dear Will follow you and me, And cling forever round our hearts As Ivy round the tree." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ To be continued in Part 8.