OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 101B ************************************************************************ 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 September 6, 2006 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio Tid Bits - Part 101 B by Darlene E. Kelley notes by S. Kelly ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits - Part 101 B New Connecticut In 1809, a tall, commanding young man rode into Cleaveland with a dollar in his pocket and a set of tools in his saddlebag. His name was Levi Johnson. He sold his horse, used the capital to start the area's first construction business. In 1810, he built for John Walworth, the postmaster, a frame house on the Cuyahoga. In 1811 he built the Buckeye House, in 1812 he built a log structure for the first courthouse and jail. In 1813, he built a vessel, The Pilot; In 1817 the schooner Neptune, in 1824 The Enterprise, first steam vessel bult in Cleaveland. In 1830, he built the lighthouse for $ 8.000 ; and then he put in the government pier at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, 900 feet long, built of stone. He built the skyline of Cleaveland until 1871 when he died, leaving $1,000,000. Attorney Samuel Huntington, short, dapper, and courtly, had ridden out of Coventry, Connecticut, into the Ohio Country. He rode over the whole state then settled at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. The frontier didn't have work for such a sophisticated lawyer that early. So Huntington enjoyed himself and made himself agreeable for many months. then suddenly the frontier problems grew up to his size. and they elected him justice of quorum on the County Court of Quarter Sessions and to the State Constitutional Convention in 1802, and Senator from Trumbull County. In 1802, he became President of the Legslature and Judge of the Ohio Supreme Court. In 1807, he became Governor. He moved to Painesville and retired to his farm. Luther King, Martin Sheldon and Fidelia King of Suffield, Connecticut, were wholesale merchants in indigo, feathers, and fur. They came out to Township 5, Range 9, and opened up Aurora. After the Indian title was extingushed, Seth Pease, brother-in-law of Gideon Granger and bother of Calvin Pease of Warren, was brought back in 1806 to survey the rest of the Reserve west of the Cuyahoga, but settlement wouldn't move readily across the river. With people thus spread evenly across the Reerve in small clusters, there was not enough people in any one place really to improve the area nor to build any major commercial enterprise, nor was there any substantial market for produce. Hense there was no way to accumulate working capital. New Connecticut then was the anomalous spectacle of a superior population rapidly heading for financial disaster. The Stockholders in the Connecticut Land Company were naturally men of great accomplishment and stature back in Connecticut. But out in New Connecticut, they were living like animals. Poverty and a absolute absence of cash was the climate. Withal, the poeple were working themselves to the bone for survival. Despite the misery, New England character showed through in the uphill struggle. Young Joshua R. Giddings of Jefferson was walking 40 miles through the woods to Canfield to read law under the distinguished and impoverished Elisha Whittlesey, who would later become the great lawyer-statesman who founded the national Whig party, and become first comptroller of the U.S. Treasury. Young Giddings studied hard and well, and would return to Jefferson to join the two man office with the future Senator Ben Wade, both of them to become giants in the U.S. Senate. But meanwhile, distiguished Connecticut men walked barefoot in the Reserve. Some wore a semi-leather apron ending in half leggings, covering the front of the legs and lashed behind with leather thongs. Sheep were scarce, so women were forced to try and make cloth of poor substitutes for wool. And this was the low estate of what began a business venture. The poverty in the Reserve in no way released the settlers from these obligations. The Connecticut Land Company was committed to complete its payments to the State of Connecticut. They now also owed taxes on the unsold lands to the State of Ohio. To pay these commitments, they had nothing. The members of the Excess Company had lost all their money, The Land Company treasury received no money from the six townships it reserved for itself to furnish income. And the town lots in Cleaveland that it had reserved to itself would not sell. The Land Company stockholders who had sold land to other settlers on credit and mortgages could not collect. Meanwhile, the State of Connecticut was ready to start the school system which was the object of its sale of the Reserve to Connecticut Land Company. " The principle sum which shall be received from the sale of the lands belonging to this State, laying west o Pennsylvania shall be and remain a perpetual fund ...... and the interest arising thereform shall be, and is hereby appropriated to the support of schools ..... within the State." The Connecticut land Company had made a down payment, but quickly fell into arrears. In the first 13 years, only half the committment was paid. Interest due on the balance had by 1809; risen nearly to equal the balance of principal. Since the settlers of the land were without funds, the Connecticut legislature could see that. though it put hundreds of people in jail, it would still not realize any cash. In a desperate move, they relieved the fund board of managers and sought out one man to try and save this fast disintegrating venture. A mysterious Connecticut giant at the time was James Hillhouse of New Haven. An intimidating intelligence smoldered fromdark eyes in that craggy Indian like face, which calmly recognized no opponent as superior. As a young Captain he marched out to New Haven commanding 30 young men to meet the British invasion on July 5, 1779. A Yale graduate and a lawyer, he had a good grasp of economics. Yale made him its treasure in1782. At 26, Connecticut sent him to to the Second Congress, then re-elected him to the Third and Fourth. >From 1797 through 1803, he was re- elected three times to the Senate, and he undertook the personal mission of limiting powers of Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. When he returned from the capital to Connecticut in May 1810, the state asked him to accept the job of Commissioner of the School Fund, the first requirement being to get the money. He resigned the Senate to take on the job. When the word of his acceptance reached the stockholders of the Connecticut Land Company both in Connecticut and on the Reserve, alarm spread. It would be logical for Hillhouse to begin to jail debtors to see if the threat would spar them to uncover assets which he could sieze for the School Fund, or to try to frighten the debtors into borrowing to pay their debts to the State of Connecticut. People felt this was exactly how he would proceed. James Hillhouse began by studying every debtor. What he found was a hopeless roster of poverty and bankruptcy caused by the Land Company, sometimes wiping out two generations of the same family where stock in the Land Company had been passed on by inheritance, along with its backbreaking obligations. It was difficult to locate or even trace many of the people, but Hillhouse was relentlessly persistent and thorough. he found there wasn't enough seizable property among all the debtors to begin to matter. Then he recognized what his real job was, and it is perhaps unique in all history. James Hillhouse could see that what he had to do was force all the debtors involved to make money. Hi real job was to make them prosperous or at least solvent. First Hillhouse called on the debtors still living in Connecticut. In addition to what he had been able to learn of their financial situation, he now probed for more facts. When the whole story was finally in front of him, he applied his financial acumen to each individual case. He became a personal business councelor to each debtor family. He told them what to sell, what to retain, in many cases how to run their own businesses, to get the money to pay their debts to the State of Connecticut. In many cases the original stockholder was dead and Hillhouse was dealing with heirs. Such was the case as he approached the tangled financial affairs of the heirs of Oliver Phelps. Oliver Phelps we've alrady seen was the imaginative high flying land developer who was the largest investor in the Land Company-- $186,185, not including some he had invested in concert with Gideon Grnger. Phelps was spread very thin because beyond this development he had other large ones in work. Receiving no substancial returns on his Connecticut Western Reserve investment, Phelps could not pay his debts. His creditors swept in on him, and when he could not sell his Reserve lands fast enough to get cash, they put him in jail. He died there. His family was impoverished, and his complex legacy of debt was so involved that it seemed impossible to straighten out. But James Hillouse now headed west to see the Phelps properties on the Reserve with his own eyes. He traveled alone. Arriving on the Reserve, he was initially a cause of alarm and some malice. He had a singleness of conduct, which was the same on an Ohio survey line as on the Senate floor. He steadily went about his business of veiwing each Phelps property, slowly and relentlessly untangling the snarl. Finally the only debt remaining was to the State of Connecticut. Having seen the lands and what they could be used for, he was able now to return to Connecticut and sell them to logical buyers. From these monies, he was able to pay the debt to Connecticut from the Phelps estate, and with money left over for the Phelps family. The family was overjoyed, and they generously agreed to let Hillhouse compute the Phelps debt to Connecticut with compun interest so that his payment to Connecticut was actually $14,500 higher than required. The family was so greatful for the service Hillhouse rendered them that they gave him $6,000. Without demurring, Hillhouse solemnly accepted the money, and put it into the School Fund. Moving then to the debtor who was the next potential, Hiilhouse kept steadily at it. Each year, he hitched up the mare and went to the Reserve to see the actual piece of land involved in the debt, and to coach the debtor on how best to handle his affairs. For 15 years he labored at this work. the stockholders of the Connecticut Land Company had now multiplied to 500 as stock was subdivided. largely through inheritance. Hillhouse had not only recovered all the monies owing to Connecticut, but a half million besides. He never once resorted to litigation. There is no marker on the Western Reserve as a memorial to Hillhouse. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid bits con't in part 102.