OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 16 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 05 : Issue 16 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Tid Bits -- part 6 ["Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0ec401c51704$43f317c0$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits -- part 6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 1:25 AM Subject: Tid Bits -- part 6 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley Feb. 8, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West S.L. Kelly Diaries Series of Articles by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits --Part 6 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ohio and Mr. Lincoln. With all the accounts of Historical notes of Abraham Lincoln, the most cherished are the accounts of the ones he made to Ohio. These significant events and facts add a measure to Ohio's history and the States little known lore. Among Ohio's is the contention that most Lincoln scholars classify, was Lincoln's political campaign through Ohio in the fall of 1859, as an extention of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Lincoln followed Douglas in his footsteps through Ohio, the Buckeye State with speeches in Columbus, Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati. Thus, these cities outside the State of Illinois, might be considered " debate towns." Then there is the fact Ohioans can be proud of is that the Greatest President ( as President Elect ) spent his 52nd birthday, Feb. 12, 1861, in Ohio. During his stay he slept in a bed at the Burnet House in Cincinnati. The old bed is preserved at the Abraham Lincoln museum at Lincoln Memorial University. Of all the 139 portraits made of the President, Three reliable accounts of sittings of the picture taking event were in Ohio: one recorded at Columbus, and one in Dayton. The origin of one obscure Lincoln Photo's that have been found shows him, without his famous beard and hat. On Friday, September 16, 1859, Mr. Lincoln had made two speeches in Columbus. At that time many in Dayton were hopeful that he would speak in their town when enroute to Cincinnati. Fortunately, word did come by telegraph in time for inclusion in the Dayton morning papers: " Hon. Abe Lincoln of Illinois will speak in Dayton at the courthouse on Saturday at 1-1/2 o'clock, let the people attend. " Political excitement was running highin the fall of 1859, and it was this ocassion which allowed the opportunity for Lincoln to jot down a few lines between handshakes and socializing. So on Septemeber 17, shortly before noon, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln arrived at Dayton's Union station from Columbus, and proceeded to the Phillips House in the center of town, near the courthouse. Accounts of the visit appeared in newspapers all through Ohio as follows: " The Hon. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who was defeated for the United States Senate last fall by S.A. Douglas, arrived at the Phillips house today and in the company of Hon. Robert C. Schenck of this place, Hon. John A.Gurley of Cincinnati, and our would be Senator F.P.Cuppy, occupied a table all by themselves, enjoying their wine and their jokes extensively. After lunch other dignitaries met at the hostelry, and a Dayton Lawyer, Samuel Craighead, proceeded to show the distinquished visitor around town. A visit to Cridland's Photographic Gallery a few doors to the east was scheduled, and Mr. Lincoln posed for his picture. At ten minutes to two o'clock Lincoln held forth for two hours. After his stirring address on anti-slavery, he rejoined his wife at their Presidential suite at the hotel. After a brief time the party left for Cincinnati on the 4 o'clock train. " While at the Phillips house, Ohio Senator John Williams Harries and his daughter Annie, asked the famed debator for his autograph. Mr, Lincoln obliged on the only paper that was available, the flyleaf of Annie's pocket Bible from her handbag. Under her name he wrote: " Dayton, Ohio Sept 17, 1859 Miss Annie Harries -- Live by the words within these covers-- and you will be forever happy. " Yours truly, A. Lincoln. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Marietta In 1788, a group of Revolutionary War Veterans traded in their Continental Army IOUs for 1.5 million acres in Ohio. They went down the Ohio River in flatboats to the point where it met the Muskingum River and founded Marietta, the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory. Origionally known as Adelphia, meaning " brotherhood, " the company's investors decided to name the community after Marie Antoinette of France, in honor of France's contributions to the American victory in the American Revolution. The first settlers were led by Rufus Putnam, who chose a site along the Ohio River not far from Fort Harmer. Originally, settlers from New England made up the population of Marietta, although eventually people moved from Virginia and Kentucky to the area as well. Putnam and his followers tried to recreate the type of community that they were used to back east, including a school and a church. The town was laid out much as communities were organized in new England, with settlers receiving both a lot outside of town for agricultural purposes. There were four common areas throughout the community and wide streets planted with mulberry trees. The people of Marietta left some of the Indian Mounds in the region intact, including one that became the centerpiece of the town cemetery. The early settlers also built a fortification known as Camp Martius to protect from Native American attacks. The name Campus Martius was given to the fortifications of Marietta, and was chosen as a reference to the civilization of ancient Rome. Located within the settlement, Camp Martius had log walls surrounding the outside of the fortifications and within their confines were four blockhouses. In the early days of the settlement, one of the blockhouses served as the communities school and anoter as a church. Camp Matrius was also the original location for town meetings, the New Englander's form of local government, and the first court in the region. It represented order and a civilized society to the town's residents. Because of its prime location along the Ohio River, Marietta grew quickly. It became a key trading center for the Northwest Territory and eventually for the State of Ohio. The community was one of the earliest settlements in Ohio to have a state chartered bank founded in 1808. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Journey to Marietta With the passage of the Ordinance of1787, in July of that year, events for the settlement of the Northwest Territory moved rapidly. On August 29 the directors of the Ohio Company of Associates met again at " The Bunch of Grapes " tavern where Rev. Manasseh Cutler reported that a contact with the Board of Treasury had been drawn up for a million acres of land north and west of the Ohio River. On Sept 1, the contract was approved and the first payment made. The signatures of the Board of Treasury were affixed Oct 27, 1787. "... At a meeting of the directors of the Ohio Company at Bracket's tavern, in Boston, Nov 23, 1787, it was ordered that four surveyors be employed, under the direction of the superintendent, hereinafter named: That 22 men shall attend the surveyors, that there be added to this number 20 men, incluing six boat builders, four house carpenters, one blacksmith, nine common workmen, in all 48 men: that the boat builders shall proceed on Monday next, and the surveyors rendezvous at Hartford, the first day of January next, on their way to the Muskingum: that the boat builders and men, with the surveyors, be proprietors in the company: that their tools and one axe and one hoe to each man and thirty pounds weight of baggage shall be carried in the company's wagons, and that the subsistence of the men on their journey be furnished by the company..." In pursuance of the above order, 21 men assembled at Rev. Cutler's church in Ipswich, Mass some hours before daylight on Dec. 3, 1787 and there made final preparations for the journey. Rev. Cutler accompanied them as far as Danvers, where he placed them in charge of Maj. Haffield White. After a hard journey of seven weeks, the first party arrived Jan 21, 1788 at Simeral's Ferry, where boats were to be built for the remainder of the journey down the Youghiogheny to the Monongahela and the Ohio Rivers to the mouth of the Muskingum. The men of the second party of pioneers assembled early in January, 1788, in Hartford, Ct. Here they were met by Gen. Rufus Putman, superintendent of the company, and Col. Ebenezer Sproat. Gen. Putman, who before departing for the Western country had business in New York, placed Col. Sproat in charge of the party., which had the same destination as that of the party led by Maj. White. gen. Putman overtook Col. Sproat's party at Sweetara Creek near Harrisburg, PA. The second party, after delays caused by heavy snows in the mountains, reached Simeral's Ferry on Feb. 14. Under the leadership of Gen. Putnam, the men constructed the boats which were to carry them to their new home. The largest of these boats was named the " Adventure Galley " and, afterwards, renamed the " Mayflower " in honor of the first settlers of Massachusetts. March 31 found the boats completed and loaded with provisions which had been procurred in Virginia ( Now West VA ) and loaded on the boats at Buffalo Creek, now Wellsburg, W.V. On April 1, the flotilla departed Simeral's Ferry. After a journey of 6 days, the men on the large boat sighted Fort Harmar and " came to the east point of the fork between the Ohio and Muskingum." The men of the first pioneer party, with very few exceptions, became inhabitants of the new colony. Several of them, and their descendants, became influential in building of the commuity and the new state. Following are the names of the 48 original settlers; Jabez Barlow; Daniel Bushnell; Phineas Coburn; Ezekiel Cooper; Evenezer Cory; Samuel Cushing; Jervis Cutler; Israel Danton; Daniel Davis; Jonas Davis; Allen Devol; Gilbert Devol, Jr.; Jonathon Devol; Isaac Dodge; Oliver Dodge; Samuel Feishaw; Hezekiah Flint; Hezakiah Flint, Jr.; Periegnne Foster; John Gardner; Wm Gray; Benjamin Griswold; Elizer Kirtland; Theophilus Larnard; Joseph Lincoln; Simeon Martin; Wm Mason; John Mathews; Henry Maxon; Return J. Meigs; Wm Miller; Edmund Moulton; Wm Moulton; Joshiah Munro; Amos Porter, Jr.: Allen Putman; Jethro Putman; Rufus Putman; Benjamin Shaw; Earl Sproat; Ebenezer Sproat; Anselm Tupper; David Wallace; Joseph Wells; Halfield White; Pelatiah White; Josiah White; and Josiah Whitridge. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Continued in part 7. ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 23:27:06 -0500 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0eca01c51704$6fb26f00$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits - Part 7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 2:57 PM Subject: Tid Bits - Part 7 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley Feb 14, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then 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. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V05 Issue #16 ******************************************