A Philadelphia company that had entered as a competitor of the Connecticut Land Company in
bidding for the Western Reserve in 1795 had been persuaded to accept instead all the surplus
lands over 3,000,000 acres. As the total acreage outside the "Fire Lands" was below this figure
nothing came of this arrangement.
To say that the Connecticut men were the first white persons to trod the soil of the Western
Reserve would be a manifest error, of coutse. There were French voyageurs who probably passed
through Northern Ohio more than 100 years before Connecticut offered the Reserve for sale.
Pennsylvanians visited the Salt Spring tract before and during the Revolution, and traders
threaded their way through the Ohio, forests to and from the lakes and the Pennsylvania
settlements. Yet when the eastern part of the Reserve was apportioned among Connecticut Land
Company shareholders in January, 1798, the sole settlements were at Youngstown, Cleveland
and Mentor. Youngstown had a population of ten families, and was the largest of the three
villages. It was the 1798 distribution that opened the lands for general settlement.
Perhaps the first actual permanent emigrants to the Western Reserve were James Kingsbury,
wife, and one or more children, who reached Conneaut soon after the surveying party under
General Cleaveland landed there on July 4, 1796. When the surveyors returned to Connecticut in
the fall of that year the Kingsburys remained, occupying one of the cabins built by the surveying
party. Elijah Gunn and wife occupied the other. In the fall Kingsbury found it necessary to go
back to his old home in New Hampshire, for what he believed would be a short stay. While there,
however, he was taken ill and his return was long delayed. While absent his wife gave birth to a
child. When able to travel Kingsbury started back anxiously to the Ohio country, but an early
winter and
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 55
a disabled horse delayed him and it was Christmas Eve when he reached home to find his family
starving. Although still weak he started with a sled for Erie for provisions, and obtained but
meager ones. During the winter, it is related, the cow that was a greatly needed possession of the
Kingsbury family, died. With the mother ill-nourished and unable to give her child sustenance
the death of the cow doomed the babe and it died of starvation. This was the fate of what was
undoubtedly the first white child born on the Western Reserve,
The Connecticut Land Company gave recognition to the three brave women who spent that first
winter on the Western Reserve. On the company's minutes, under date of January 29, 1798, we
find it recorded that the company "gave to Tabitha Stiles, wife of Job Stiles, one city lot, one
ten-acre lot and one 100-acre lot; to Ann. Gunn, wife of Elijah Gunn, one 100-acre lot; to James
King * and wife, one 100-acre lot; to Nathaniel Doan, one city lot if he would stay as a
blacksmith." All these properties, of course, were located in Cleveland. The Stiles family had
settled there in 1796 and later returned east. The Gunns went on from Conneaut to Cleveland
early in 1797, and also returned east a few years afterwards. The Kingsburys journeyed to
Cleveland with the Reserve surveying party in the spring of 1797 and remained on the Western
Reserve.
The difficulties of the Connecticut Land Company did not end, however, with the distribution of
the lands in the eastern part of the Reserve in the opening month of 1798. In a sense they had just
begun, for the grave questions of ownership of the Western Reserve and jurisdiction over that
Reserve could no longer be avoided. The Federal Government had ignored Connecticut's claim;
Connecticut had evaded any direct test of the Federal Government's claim. Now a situation had
arisen under white man's rule almost identical with that which prevailed in what is now
Northeastern Ohio under red man's rule. It was a "No Man's Land," claimed by several, actually
owned by none.
In ceding its other claims to the United States in 1786, Connecticut not only reserved ownership
of the Western Reserve lands, but adhered as well to the right to govern those lands. It was
apparently the intent that residents of the Reserve were to be subject to the government at
Hartford, just as though the Ohio country were contiguous to Connecticut. But when the
Northwest Territory was created under the Ordinance of J787, all the present state's of. Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were included within it, Connecticut's claim being
ignored. In 1788 Governor St. Clair included all that part of the Western Reserve lying east of the
Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers in the County of Washington, Northwestern Territory, the
county seat being at Marietta. In 1796 he included the western part of the Reserve in Wayne
County, with the county seat at Detroit. To him Connecticut's claim merely did not exist at all.
Being Connecticut men, it is but natural that the members of the. Connecticut Land Company
should have been in sympathy with the aims
* While the name is given as King in the Connecticut Land Company's minutes, this is
unquestionably an error. The grant was undoubtedly to James Kingsbury and wife.
56 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
of their mother state. Furthermore the success of their entire enterprise depended upon the
maintenance of Connecticut's claim, for unless that claim were sustained then Connecticut could
not sell the Western Reserve lands and they could not buy them. By 1795, however, there was
probably considerable doubt of Connecticut's ability to govern this great stretch of territory so far
removed from the parent state, for in that year the Connecticut Land Company petitioned
Congress to set up a territorial government in "New Connecticut." Congress apparently did not
even dignify the petition with a hearing. In 1797 the land company reverted to the original plan of
jurisdiction by passing a resolution, on January 27th of that year, asking the Legislature of
Connecticut to erect the Western Reserve into a county of the state of Connecticut, with suitable
laws to govern the territory for a limited time, the cost of administration to fall on the land
company proprietors. Connecticut was equally as coy as the Federal Government. Being
sound-minded, the Connecticut legislators knew that any such action would be illegal and
inoperative, as it would be in direct contradiction of the Ordinance of 1787. Furthermore it might
precipitate an actual test of Connecticut's right to the Reserve, and Connecticut was not so certain
of its title that a direct contest was invited.
Six months after the Connecticut Land Company appealed to the home state for the creation of a
county government the Northwest Territory again tried to enforce its claim to jurisdiction over
the Reserve. This was in July, 1797, when Governor St. Clair created the county of Jefferson,
with the county seat at Steubenville. In doing this he annexed to Jefferson County much of
Washington County, including that part of the Western Reserve lying east of the Cuyahoga
River.
This was the situation when the movement for a general settlement of the Western Reserve began
in 1798, following the division of land among the company shareholders. It was a condition of
divided allegiance—and yet no allegiance—that lasted for two and one-half years. Once the
Federal Government's Northwest Territory claim to jurisdiction was advanced—but only once.
This was in 1798 when Jefferson County sent Zenas Kimberly, its taxing officer, to the Western
Reserve to assess taxes. He was met with jeers and laughter and retired in discomfiture. His visit
was profitable in experience but wholly profitless financially. Again in 1799, when the first
election was held in the Northwest Territory, Jefferson County chose a representative in the
territorial legislature, but Western Reserve residents seem to have had no part in the election.
This chaotic state of affairs could not last indefinitely, of course. It was well enough between
1786 and 1796 when there were no permanent white residents on the Western Reserve ; it was
well enough even in 1796 and 1797 when the Reserve was an unsettled land except for the tiny
villages of Youngstown and Cleveland. But with the partitioning of the land in the opening
month of 1798 immigration began in earnest, and the roads to the Western Reserve were much
traveled highways in 1798 and 1799. Appeals to Connecticut to set up some kind of government
were futile ; appeals to the Federal Government to introduce gov-
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 57
ernment other than that of the Northwest Territory, which held nominal jurisdiction over the
Reserve, were even more futile.
Meanwhile the Western Reserve lived without law or overlordship, a most vexatious situation.
There was perhaps little need of criminal law, of courts, or of the exercise of police powers. The
unique manner in which Western Reserve lands were taken up precluded lawlessness. The
dissolute, the refugees from justice, the restless outlaws who swarm to frontier communities were
missing, for the Western Reserve settlers had bought their land before they came to the Ohio
country, or came here prepared to purchase ground and build homes. They were adventurers of
course, for only adventurers pierce the wilds and assume the burdens of the frontiersman, but
they were adventurers of the best type. With the growth of the villages they set up their own
forms of law and order and these sufficed.
But without legal officers there could be no transfers of property, no enforced collection of
property payments or other debts, no legal exchange of land ownership. And even the title
granted by the State of Connecticut to the Connecticut Land Company—the basis on which all
land titles in the Reserve rested—was still in jeopardy. The situation was so grave in fact that
even the Federal Government could ignore it no longer and, in April, 180o, Congress granted a
hearing to Connecticut, its representative being the great John Marshall, afterwards chief justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States. The magnificent argument he made on Connecticut's
claim finally resulted in a proposal to the state that the United States would quit claim all right to
ownership of the land in the Western Reserve if Connecticut would cede to the Federal
Government the right of jurisdiction over that land. This agreement was accepted and was
ratified on May 30, 1800.
Thus ended one of the most unique contests in American history. It was a bloodless struggle,
differing in this respect from the similar contest over Connecticut's claims in Pennsylvania. The
chief asset of the Connecticut people was a typical New England determination in the face of
odds—a Yankee unwillingness to surrender anything they had once gotten hold of. Ostensibly it
was a compromise—yet it is noticeable that Connecticut compromised by keeping the lands it
wanted and surrendering a jurisdiction that it already refused to exercise and probably realized
was untenable. The Connecticut Land Company and the purchasers of land from that company
retained their lands, obtained clear titles to them and accepted a jurisdiction that could not be
very objectionable, while the Federal Government received in return a concession of jurisdiction
that it might have enforced anyway.
The Western Reserve having passed definitely to the jurisdiction of the Northwest Territory,
Governor St. Clair, on July 10, 1800, erected this area into a new county under the name of
Trumbull. Trumbull County, named after Governor Jonathan Trumbull, of Connecticut, was
identical in boundaries with the Reserve. The county seat was fixed at Warren, a decision that
caused much joy at Warren and much rage at Youngstown when it was made known. It is not
improbable that Cleveland, too, aspired to this honor, although it was then a community of less
58 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
importance than Youngstown or Warren. As officers of the new county, Governor St. Clair
named John Young, Turhand Kirtland, Camden Cleveland, James Kingsbury and Eliphalet
Austin, justices of the peace and quorum; John Leavitt, judge of probate and justice of the peace;
Solomon Griswold, Martin Smith, John Struthers, Caleb Baldwin, Calvin Austin, Edward
Brockway, John Kinsman. Benjamin Davidson,* Ephraim Quinby, Ebenezer Sheldon, David
Hudson, Aaron Wheeler, Amos Spafford, Moses Park and John Minor, justices of the peace;
David Abbott, sheriff; Calvin Pease, clerk; John Hart Adgate, coroner; John S. Edwards,
recorder.
The justices were the sole law dispensers of the county, those being designated as the "quorum"
taking a higher rank while the remainder were associate justices. They met four times a year,
hence were known as "the court of quarter sessions." By direction of the governor the sheriff
summoned the court to meet at Warren on August 25, i800. The court assembled as directed on
that day, the spot where the first session was held being described as "a bower of native trees
standing between two large corn cribs." As it was the custom of the early days to roof over the
space between two corn cribs and use this enclosure as a wagon-shed, it is not impossible that the
judges at least had some sort of shelter other than the trees and sky, although historians adhere
closely to the open-air court room version. Regardless of this, the fact remains that when the
court of quarter sessions opened that day at Warren civil government actually began on the
Western Reserve.
In a session that lasted five days the foundation was laid for law and order in the new County of
Trumbull. A synopsis of the record of the session, in the handwriting of Judge Pease—for all the
justices bore this title—follows:
"TRUMBULL COUNTY
August Term, 1800 SS.
"Court of general quarter session of the peace begun and holden at Warren, within and for said
County of Trumbull, on the fourth Monday of August, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred
and of the independence of the United States the twenty-fifth. Present, John Young, Turhand
Kirtland, Camden Cleveland, James Kingsbury. and Eliphalet Austin, esquires, justices of the
quorum, and others, their associates, justices of the peace, holding said court.
"The following persons were returned and appeared on the grand jury, and were empanneled and
sworn, namely : Simon Persons, foreman; Benjamin Stowe, Samuel Menough, Hawley Tanner,
Charles Daly, Ebenezer King, William Cecil, John Hart Adgate, Henry Lane, Jonathan Church,
Jeremia Wilcox, John Partridge Bissell, Isaac Palmer, George Phelps, Samuel Quinby, and
Moses Park.
"The court appointed George Tod, Esq., to prosecute the pleas of the United States, for the
present session, who took the oath of office.
"The court appointed Amos Spafford, Esq.. David Hudson, Esq., Simon Perkins, John Minor,
Esq., Aaron Wheeler, Esq., Edward Payne,
* Or Davison.
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 59
Esq., and Benjamin Davidson, Esq., a committee to divide the County of Trumbull into
townships, to describe the limits and boundaries of each township and to make report to the court
thereof."
The townships spoken of in the last provision were to be civil townships, in contradistinction to
the surveyors' townships already laid out. The committee divided the county into eight
townships, known as Youngstown, Warren, Hudson, Vernon, Richfield, Middlefield, Painesville
and Cleveland. All the territory in the present Mahoning arid Trumbull counties was included in
the townships of Youngstown, Warren, Vernon and Middlefield, except of course the lower or
most southerly tier of townships of the present Mahoning County. These, it must be understood,
were never part of the Western Reserve. Provision was made for a county jail—which permitted
a prisoner to wander about out of doors within certain areas while he behaved himself—while
constables were named to enforce law and order. Those picked for the lower townships of the
county were James Hillman, Youngstown ; Jonathan Church, Warren; Titus Brockway, Vernon;
Simon Rose and Rufus Grinell, Middlefield. Ephraim Quinby was recommended to the governor
as "a fit person to keep a publick house of entertainment in the town of Warren," and Jonathan
Fowler was recommended for a similar responsibility in Youngstown. At this court also came up
initial consideration of one of the famed cases in the history of Mahoning and Trumbull counties,
that of the "United States vs. Richard Storer," on a charge of murdering Spotted John, an Indian,
and the "United States vs. Joseph McMahon," on a charge of killing Captain George.
On the second Tuesday in October, 1800, the Western Reserve further emphasized its readiness
to become a part of the Northwest Territory by holding an election to name a Trumbull County
member of the territorial legislature. The election was held in Warren and was by viva voce vote.
In this vast district, now constituting thirteen Ohio counties and parts of counties, but forty-two
votes were cast and the election partook of the nature of a frolic rather than a serious political
contest. Edward Paine polled thirty-eight of the forty-two votes and took his seat in 1801,
remaining in the territorial legislature as the representative of Trumbull County until the Ohio
state government came into being in 1803. Since that day the history of ,the Western Reserve has
been linked indissolubly with the history of Ohio.
CHAPTER VI
THE PIONEERS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS
THE PEOPLE OF THE MAHONING VALLEY-THEIR ORIGIN, NATIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS, RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS AND MOTIVES IN COMING
HERE
The early settlers of the Western Reserve were principally of New England stock, although not
all of them came directly from New England. They were of many different nationalities and
almost as many different creeds, but those most numerous were Scotch-Irish and Presbyterians.
Later these pioneers were joined or succeeded by people of almost every nation and religious
belief, as we shall see in the course of a brief discussion of the subject, without which no history
of the Mahoning Valley would be complete, and in which an effort will be made to treat of the
various groups in the order of their arrival here in considerable numbers.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH
The Scotch-Irish are so called from the fact that they are descended from people who migrated to
Ireland in the Seventeenth century and later in order to occupy estates confiscated from native
owners in the northern part of that country during the religious persecutions under Queen
Elizabeth and James I of England, who was also King of Scotland, with the title of James VI.
Writers and orators of Gaelic blood are sometimes inclined to dispute the right of these people to
the name of Irish. As a matter of fact, there is still less reason to call them Scotch, for most of the
original emigrants to Ireland for the purpose mentioned came from the border lands between
Scotland. and England, and were really neither Scotch nor Irish, but a mixture of Scotch and
English. Later, 'under Cromwell, persecution of the Irish in Ulster was renewed, and most of the
estates confiscated at that time were leased to Englishmen, a considerable number of these
lessees being members of the Established Church, although some of them were dissenters of one
kind or another.
During the succeeding generations there was naturally a considerable admixture of Irish blood
among the immigrants, many of these marrying into Irish families whose lesser zeal for their
religion or greater diplomacy had prevented them from sharing the fate of their original
neighbors. Eventually much of the population of Ulster, which is the most northern province of
Ireland, came to be of this mixed blood, in which Irish characteristics seem to predominate,
although to this day in certain
- 60 -
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 61
of its counties there is a native population as determined as ever to maintain its original religious
and political entity. This blending of these peoples, or rather of the most enterprising and daring
elements among these peoples, has created a type in which is exemplified the intellectuality and
idealism of the Irish, the stubborn determination of the English, and the intense practicality of the
Scotch. This union of qualities so essential to a dominant civilization has had much to do with
government and progress in all parts of the English-speaking world, although its most marked
achievements have been in new lands, where, as in the early times of America, enormous
difficulties had to be surmounted and tasks accomplished that would not have been even
undertaken by people of any other type.
The first striking result of the inbreeding of these three great people.; was the improvement of
agriculture and the stimulation of manufactures in the north of Ireland. This aroused jealousy and
brought about interference from the English government during the reign of William III,
conditions which were responsible, in part at least, for the transplanting of Scotch-Irish blood to
the colonies of the New World. There were ether causes for this, however.
Separation of the English ecclesiastical system from the Roman communion was followed by the
rise of a number of religious sects or groups, and in time the people of England were divided into
four great parties more or less accurately defined in a religious and political way. Most of the
clergy and people had quietly accepted the change, which affected only a portion of their belief
and disturbed but slightly the ancient forms. Those who opposed the new order of things were
inspired by various motives. Some of them believed that the change did not go far enough ;
others that it went too far. All dissenters, came in for their share of persecution, which at that
time was repugnant to neither churches nor kings, especially if, as often happened, they were
associated in the business of regulating society ; and the vigor with which it was carried on was
measured largely by the vociferousness of the objectors. As might have been expected. the
dissenters were only made more determined by persecution, which has always been the seed of
religious fervor.
Calvinism had made great headway in the north of England and in Scotland. Among the
Highlanders it developed its most ultra form--a form in which its modern prototype,
Presbyterianism, would scarcely be recognized as related to it. The Scotch were violently
opposed to the Established religion, as well as more or less disaffected on political grounds, and
they suffered the heavy hand of the Church and State in corresponding degree. Many different
methods were adopted to break down their resistance, the most effective, according to
contemporaneous writers, being the confiscation of property and the imposition of fines. A few
Presbyterians, chiefly the more wealthy, yielded far enough to save their wealth, but the majority
defied all efforts to bring them under the influence of the state church. They scorned with
unutterable contempt those who subscribed to the test oath, harbored their outlawed preachers
and listened to them by the hour in Highland glen and on
62 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
wind swept moor, at the same time battling the "Established Kirk" with mighty argument and
also with what physical force they could contrive, until they finally wore out king and clergy and
compelled a compromise.
The most violent and picturesque of these dissenters were known as Covenanters, but they were
little more determined to have their own way than were the Lowlanders, although the latter,
having more to lose and being more easily reached, sought more diligently to avoid the loss of
their "warldly gear" by a pretended submission. These Lowlanders, from whom were descended
many of those who later came to be known as Scotch-Irish, were trained for generations in a
school which admirably fitted them for the adventures which they later encountered in Ireland
and which their descendants were to meet in the colonies. They had not only the persecution of
England to make them strong, as persecution always makes men strong ; but they had also the
ever-present menace of Highland bands to make them watchful and to instill into them the skill
to defend their own. Perhaps it might also be said that they had the example of these upland clans
to teach them the notions concerning the rights of property later displayed in their dealings with
the American Indians. Perhaps, too, they had inherited some of the qualities that compelled the
ancient Romans to build a stone wall across England as the only method of keeping their remote
forefathers, the Scots and Picts, within bounds. At any rate, these border Scotchmen had for
generations to stand guard over their possessions in fear of raids from the Highlands in which
cattle, grain and other movables were the the object of the raiders. While they were watching
their hard-earned substance, they spent much time in earnest disputation over the abstruse and
metaphysical doctrines of Calvinism, for any proper participation in which a goodly knowledge
of the Scriptures was deemed absolutely essential. Studying the Bible by candle-light and
enlarging upon its texts at their frugal meals and at their work, they acquired the love of learning
and the keenness of intellect which we have seen displayed by their descendants. And, in their
long and stubborn fight for the right to believe as they saw fit, we may be able to trace a cause of
the intense love of liberty and stern determination to have their own way that has always marked
them in this country, although they might well have inherited some of this from the Irish whose
blood was intermingled with their own after leaving their native land.
It was perfectly natural that when James sought for volunteers in the neither safe nor pleasant
task of occupying estates from which he had expelled their rightful owners in Ireland, he should
find them most readily among these border people, who neither loved him nor feared danger, and
who naturally sought to profit by an adventure that, in those days, seemed legitimate and to them
was even an opportunity to serve the Lord. It must be kept in mind that at this adolescent stage of
the human mind religion was a vital thing and could without hesitation advance ideas that would
not be either safe or easy of promulgation in these later days.;> Men did .not then, as they did in
the simpler times
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 63
of the Middle Ages, walk in the veritable presence of their own individual conception of the
Creator ; but religious belief was a much more potent thing than ordinarily it is at present, and it
could drape strange fancies and not entirely righteous policies in a garment of justice and
godliness almost as successfully as in the days when the Israelites, in obedience to heavenly
direction, slew the Moabites, appropriated their vineyards and enslaved their virgins. No sincere
religious conviction is hard to understand, for the wandering of the human intellect in search of
truth will ever form the most remarkable and most interesting chapter of human history ; but that
ancient faith could and did influence men to actions such as are often attributed to its promptings
seems strange in these later days, when the world has come to know that the purpose of all
religions is to make men better, as well as that human nature, rather than religious teaching, has
been responsible for the crimes and wrongs which have stained the fair name of all creeds in all
ages.
At the time the emigration of the Scotch-Irish to America began they were being made
uncomfortable in Ireland by a combination of circumstances, chief among which was the
accession to the English throne of Charles. This monarch regarded all dissenters alike, and
visited upon the Presbyterians the same sort of persecution which had formerly been reserved for
his Catholic subjects, but in slightly less brutal form. His successor, William III, authorized
restrictions on the industries at Belfast and repressed the flourishing industry of agriculture in
ways that were unendurable, at the same time reviving the political disabilities among the people
of Ulster, as well as among the Catholic population of the south and west.
Fleeing from Ireland to escape persecution was already no novelty, and the more sturdy and
independent of the Scotch-Irish began to seek in the New World the independence and freedom
denied them across the seas. It may have been that the first of them passed by the colony of
Massachusetts because they did not entirely trust the Puritans in their protestations of desires
similar to their own, and they may have been influenced by the fact that Connecticut was further
west and nearer the frontier. The most plausible explanation, however, is that the Scotch-Irish did
not care to locate where they could not dominate affairs. At any rate, they gathered chiefly at
New Haven, and soon were in absolute control there, in spite of some opposition they met from
the original settlers of that colony, who were non-conformists from the neighborhood of London.
Neither did they mix with the other settlers of New England to any great extent, although some of
them eventually did locate in Massachusetts. The greater portion of the overflow went westward,
settling in the Pennsylvania colony, and later spreading to Maryland and Virginia. There is
evidence that these hardy pioneers did not greatly care who was located in any portion of the
country on which they set their hearts, so long as they were given a free hand ; and they did not
hesitate to become residents of any colony, if there were no vigorous objections made to their
presence. In Pennsylvania they were sorely at variance' with the peaceful Quakers, who
welcomed them grudg-
64 YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
ingly because of their disposition to quarrel with the Indians, as well as because they were not at
all backward in expressing contempt for people who expected to get through life without an
occasional fight. Likewise in Maryland, where Catholics predominated, they took advantage of
the assurance of religious freedom and became so strong that one of their leaders, named Green,
was appointed to the governorship by the proprietor. This was probably arranged by Lord
Baltimore in hope to prevent trouble with the English government, but it shows the
aggressiveness of. the Scotch-Irish pioneers and their disposition to rule things where they chose
to live.
The Scotch-Irish who came first to Penn's colony did not remain among the Quakers and
Germans who had already established them selves at Philadelphia and in the eastern portion, but
continued westward, many of them locating first in the Cumberland and Susquehanna valleys.
They drove the Indians from this fertile region in short order by their determined and heroic
methods, and even made war upon the luckless savages in the territory around Bethlehem and
along the headwaters of the Susquehanna. It is a matter of record that a party of these settlers at
one time raided an Indian village called Conestoga, in Lancaster County, killing all of its
population except thirteen braves who happened to be away on a hunting expedition. These
absent Indians were gathered up by the sheriff of Lancaster County when they returned, and
placed in jail to protect them from the "Paxton Boys," as the Cumberland raiders were known.
The sheriff, who was a Quaker, hastily secured a company of English soldiers to guard the jail. In
spite of these precautions, the "Paxton Boys" slipped into Lancaster one night, captured the jail
and slew the Indian prisoners.
Demand by the Quaker government that the participants in this performance be punished resulted
in the Cumberland settlers organizing and marching on Philadelphia, where a large number of
Moravian Indians had been gathered to save their lives. This was rather too much for even the
peaceful Quakers, who stationed themselves in force at Germantown, prepared to make it hot for
the invaders. Although the Scotch-Irish wisely desisted at this show of spirit, they did not retire
until they had drawn up and presented to the governor a lengthy memorial demanding that the
men charged with the affair at Lancaster be tried by their own neighbors, as well as that the
Quakers be compelled to help them exterminate the Indians, whom they accused of plotting
against the settlers and carrying on treasonable relations with the French. Among these hardy and
pugnacious pioneers was one man whose descendants are well known among the people of this
valley and point with pride to the fact that their ancestors were among the first to settle here. This
man, Capt. James Gibson, drew the memorial referred to, and its language indicates that he was
both a scholar and a man of strong convictions.
An even more interesting incident illustrating how Caledonian prudence sometimes tempered
Celtic audacity is furnished by the episode known as the "Whiskey Rebellion." This occurred in
1794, at which time the population of Western Pennsylvania, outside of the villages
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 65
at least, was almost entirely Scotch-Irish, and because they have been censured not a little for
their part in it, perhaps a few words on this subject will not be out of place here.
Pennsylvania had early adopted an excise law, being among the first states to take this plan of
raising revenue. No general attempt had been made to enforce it west of the Mountains, however,
and the business of "moonshining," as it is now called, was regarded as legitimate, stills being
established on all of the more prosperous farms, just as cider mills are at present. The reason for
this lay, not alone in the fondness of the Scotch-Irish pioneer for distilled spirits, but also in the
fact that in making such spirits he found about the only method then possible of turning his grain
into money, since the roads over the mountains were so bad that it could not be hauled on them
and the population so scattered that there was no market in any other direction.
When Congress passed an excise law it looked to these pioneers like a deliberate stroke against
their prosperity by the national government. The wars associated with the French Revolution had
made the eastern farmers prosperous, and the whisky tax came just at a time when the hard
conditions surrounding the pioneers were emphasized by this condition. When it was found that
the objectionable law was to be enforced, the Western Pennsylvania pioneers terrorized the
collectors with tar and feathers, and even captured the house of General Nevelle, the excise
commissioner. For some reason not entirely plain, they blamed their troubles on the people of
Pittsburgh, then a collection of log houses containing a small fort and a few stores and having a
population of about 1,200 people. The Scotch-Irish farmers regarded this town as sort of Sodom,
and announced that it was to be burned. They actually, about the beginning of August, 1794, after
the trouble had been going on for four years, gathered at Braddock's Field, as the city of
Braddock was then known, preparatory to attacking Pittsburgh. Documents regarding this affair
place the number of malcontents in this gathering at 5,400, although it seems hardly possible that
so many men could have participated in it at that early date. The people of Pittsburgh felt that in
the face of such a force the small garrison kept there by the Government could do nothing, so
they set about to placate the unwelcome visitors and dissuade them from their purpose by
showing them that the city was not merely a nest of luxury and a den of vice. The entire force at
Braddock became guests of the little municipality for one day, drinking about all the whisky and
eating up about all the provender the frightened inhabitants could gather ; but the warlike farmers
finally went away without burning the town.
This demonstration aroused the National Government, which had been temporizing with the
situation, and an army of 15.000 men was raised, a special commission being at the same time
dispatched to Western Pennsylvania to effect a peaceful settlement, if possible. The commission
could make no headway, so the army was started westward from Philadelphia over the old Forbes
Road, by which the Scotch-Irish had first penetrated west of the mountains. They heard it was
coming, and, as they had done when the doughty Quakers shouldered their guns,
Vol. 1-5
66 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
they took off their hunting shirts, unbound the red handkerchiefs from around their heads and
went back to their farms. Except in a clash which occurred the day previous to the capture of
General Nevelle's house, in which one man was killed and five wounded, no blood was :lied in
the "Whiskey Rebellion." It was an incident in which the Scotch-Irish pioneers presented a
striking resemblance to the Indians whom they had driven from that locality, with the other
settlers occupying the position formerly held by themselves. Particularly did the method of
saving Pittsburgh resemble that sometimes used in dealing with the savages when the latter were
too strong to be handled in a less gentle manner.
Reference has been made in the chapter dealing with early land grants and titles to the long and
stubborn fight which the Connecticut pioneers made for the Wyoming Valley. Much more might
be written concerning the history made by them in Pennsylvania, from which colony many of
them came to the Mahoning Valley. It will be sufficient, however, to say that as civilization
advanced and the land in the East became occupied they moved westward over the mountains,
settling in considerable numbers in Westmoreland, Washington, Indiana and other western
counties in Pennsylvania, many of them remaining there only until opportunity for further
adventure presented itself in the settlements along the Ohio and in the Western Reserve. Not a
great many of these people went to the Ohio river settlements, however, the greater portion
striking northward after they reached the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio rivers. They should
not, therefore, be connected with the wrongs that were perpetrated against the Indians by some of
the group which came mainly from Virginia and was so relentless and merciless in its dealings
with the natives as to deserve from them the name of "The Long Knives." In the Western Reserve
the Indians may not have had much consideration at the hands of the early settlers, but they were
not forcibly dispossessed of their lands without compensation, or hunted with dogs and guns like
wild animals, as was the case in many other localities.
In their lives, their customs, their habits of thought and their actions, the early Scotch-Irish
pioneers constituted an incident in American history which should be better preserved. It is
difficult to reconcile parts of the story with what we know of the descendants of these people.
Energy, shrewdness, courage and patriotism seem to be their only characteristics surviving. The
original pioneers were great drinkers, consuming whisky of their own manufacture in amazing
quantities, a practice common among all the settlers. They were rough-spoken and often had little
'conception of the delicacy which now surrounds intercourse between the sexes. They were
equally fond of fights or frolics, admired physical courage and strength above all other qualities,
and scorned weakness and love of ease in either men or women. They danced, played cards and
were prone to rough practical jokes. Fierce partisans in politics and religion, they seem to have
gotten along well with neighbors who did not agree with them on either of these subjects, so long
as such neighbors were of their own hardy, industrious and courageous
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 67
type. They would walk or ride all day to a gathering in order to dance and drink all night, and at
daylight start back to their clearing and grubbing. But they would go just as far to meeting, at
which the principal attraction was a long sermon dealing with the exceeding slenderness of their
chances for salvation ; and there is every reason to believe that they returned just as cheerfully
from these services, frequently held in the open air and with their guns stacked close by, to take
up again without fear or complaint a life which would seem to us an in- tolerable round of
danger, privation and toil.
Their rough and ready qualities and, as we are now accustomed to look at such things,
unwholesome habits, did not keep the Scotch-Irish from being excellent citizens. They were the
very type needed for the arduous task of subduing the wilderness, and they did it as they did other
things, most thoroughly and as speedily as was possible. They never failed to provide schools for
their children, and they were real Americans. Then, as now, no call of their country went
unheeded, and the alacrity with which they were wont to respond to summons for military service
provokes the suspicion that, in addition to being patriotic, they were fond of a fight. This, as we
have seen, would be quite natural, even if their entire existence had not been made up, especially
during the forty years between Braddock's defeat and the victory of General Wayne at Fallen
Timbers, of a constant vigil against the savages.
Next to their unwavering patriotism and their sturdy independence, which, as we have seen,
occasionally conflicted so as to bring about strange situations, the most admirable characteristic
of the early settlers was their love of knowledge and the respect in which they held intellectual
development. It is to this, a disposition rather remarkable among people who had descended
directly from the times when education was scorned as a sign of weakness, and reading and
writing regarded as accomplishments fit only for clergymen and clerks, that succeeding
generations owe the splendid facilities for education existing here at this time. These pioneers
provided for their children better opportunities than they had themselves in the way of schools ;
but they did even more than this. They instilled into these children a desire for knowledge and
esteem for mental culture which seems to be lacking in these later days, and without which no
real education is possible.
The passing years have dimmed the picture of these doughty pioneers. Except as it has been
preserved in very limited writings, such as those of Rev. Joseph Doddridge, who spent much of
his life among them preaching the gospel, it has been almost forgotten. We are accustomed to
find in their descendants, their characteristics so much refined and modified that we are apt to
forget what manner of men were these, who came uninvited to the wilderness and stayed there
until it blossomed as the rose, in spite of loneliness, poverty, wild beasts and treacherous savages
leaving to us when they fared farther on to new frontiers, or laid them peacefully down to sleep in
the valley they had conquered, a heritage: of all that is good in both mental and material things.
68 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MEN
Less numerous but scarcely less important than the Scotch-Irish in the Mahoning Valley's early
history were the settlers of English or Scotch-English origin, almost all of them Episcopalians or,
as they were generally known in those days, "Church of England Men." Many of these
established themselves in Youngstown and Warren soon after these places were founded, the
latter town and its vicinity for some reason having attracted the larger number. These men and
their descendants may claim some of the most illustrious names in local history and have had a
large part in developing the wealth as well as in promoting the progress of the Mahoning Valley.
Considering the fact that on the other side of the sea these two groups represented the persecutor
and the persecuted, the English and Scotch-Irish seem to have mingled in the Western Reserve
with remarkable amity and good feeling. This was due, in part at least, to the fact that both he
Episcopalians and the Presbyterians were represented here by those whose manner of living and
whose close contact with nature and love of adventure widened 'their mental and spiritual
horizons and discouraged pettiness of mind, without which religious animosity cannot well exist.
Had it been otherwise the two groups could hardly have dwelt together in peace and striven with
unanimity for the things they accomplished.
Many of the English settlers came from New England, of course, and a few direct from England;
but the larger number were immigrants from the Pennsylvania and Virginia colonies. Those who
came from the first-named state were probably induced to move farther west because they did not
receive a very cordial welcome among the followers of Penn. The Quakers were the most
advanced and most liberal of all the sects while they were. in England, but when they reached
this country, like many others, they promptly forgot some of the principles for which they were
most vociferous while suffering persecution in their native land. Because of this, the
Episcopalians had reason to complain of their treatment at Philadelphia, and when the Quakers
imprisoned those who petitioned for the establishment of a chapel in that city in 1695, they
committed the only concrete offense against religious liberty recorded in their whole history.
Perhaps we should not judge the mild and thoroughly honest Quakers too severely in this matter.
The Episcopalian communion, or the government which was at its head, had treated them badly
in England; the times were such as to encourage suspicion, and the flower of freedom of
conscience had only begun to open its petals. Moreover, the energy, better education and greater
aggressiveness of the Episcopalians, unhampered by any of the restrictions which Quaker
customs threw around the members of that sect, soon gave the newcomers a decided advantage,
and they threatened to eclipse the original settlers of the colony in the direction of its affairs.
Unwilling to endure restrictions that were placed about their activities in Philadelphia, many of
the Church of England Men came farther west, and to this
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 69
fact the Mahoning Valley owes not a few of its most energetic and useful pioneers.
The Episcopalians who came here were mainly of the "Low Church" group, and this fact helped
them to secure a welcome among the Presbyterians, since they cherished none of the ancient
ritual and symbols that offended the Calvinistic mind. It is worth noting that this fact had a great
deal to do with the situation just described in Philadelphia, for it led many of the more
progressive of the rising generation among the Quakers to desert their old faith and join the
Episcopalian communion, in which they found fewer of the restrictions that have always been so
difficult of acceptance by youth. It is a matter of record that the Church of England men in
America are good mixers, and their' disposition to let others alone in the practice of religion has
always been to their advantage. Many of them among the early settlers here were but slightly
attached to any creed, and not a few of them were as much Unitarians as anything else.
In the Mahoning Valley, as elsewhere, the Church of England people seem to have been troubled
less by severity of conscience than those of most other creeds. Their spiritual convictions are
more gentle 'and their manner of living more liberal. They have always shown a devotion to
education, music, and the arts unequaled among other groups. And they have always tended, in
practice and in principle, toward the development of wealth and aristocracy. It is true that they
left largely to the harder and sterner Scotch-Irish the rough work of taming the Indians and
conquering the forests, but they were not a whit behind these in devotion to education and the
welfare of any community of which they were a part.
Even the most cursory investigation shows that these people and heir descendants have done at
least their share in the development of he Mahoning Valley, and more than their share in giving it
a place in history. They have usually become wealthy rather by making money than by saving it,
in which they differ from some other groups. Their names will be found associated with many of
the industrial enterprises that opened to the people of this locality opportunity for wealth, and
with practically all of those which have made for the kindlier things in life and a greater
development of the spiritual and artistic.
Nor have the Church of England men been outdistanced by any other group in the matter of
patriotism and public service, at least so far as the Mahoning Valley is concerned. They were
accused of Tory proclivities during the Revolution, but that accusation came from the attitude of
the more wealthy and aristocratic of those residing in Philadelphia, and it was perfectly natural
that they, having maintained all their ties with the mother country and having no memory of
religious grievances against her, should be less enthusiastic for the cause of liberty' than their
poorer and long suffering neighbors. Outside of Philadelphia, the allegation that Episcopalians
were likely to prove Tories if their skins were scratched was seldom made and was never just.
History establishes the fact that, during the Revolution and since that time, from this group of
people have come many of our greatest statesmen
70 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
and purest patriots, and it has contributed more than its share, considering its numerical strength,
to the development and upbuilding of our national greatness.
THE GERMANS
The next group to claim attention, because its arrival followed close upon that of the
Episcopalian English, is that containing the Germans. The majority of those settling in the
Mahoning Valley belonged to the two German state churches—Lutheran and
Reformed—although there came later quite a number affiliated with one or more of the almost
numberless sects into which the Germans divided after the Reformation. Perhaps the most
interesting, if not most important, group of all is formed of those who are best known as
"Pennsylvania Germans," or, as they usually call themselves, "Pennsylvania Deutsch."
The Pennsylvania Germans and their descendants form one of the most remarkable elements in
the population of the United States, as well as of the Mahoning Valley. One reason for this is
their wide distribution and their solid prosperity. Another is the stubborn resistance they at first
offered to the influence of new Surroundings and the tenacity with which they clung to their
language and the customs of their forefathers. Unless it be the Swedes, now a very important part
of the population in certain localities, but not very numerous in this section, the Germans showed
less inclination to education and more desire to live together in separate communities than any
other portion of :our pioneer population. Everywhere they were marked by the sternest of thrift,
lack of interest in education and contempt for things that, to the American mind, are necessary to
make life worth living. The contrast between their content with solitude, their devotion to labor,
their economy and the introspective tendency of their minds, and the characteristics shown by the
Celtic and Latin races is remarkable.
Very much of this is due, no doubt, to the fact that these people are descended from ancestors
who had through centuries been intimately acquainted with life in its most cheerless aspect.
Generations of them were bred in poverty, hardship and oppression. as well as in the sombre
climate of northern and central Europe. Such conditions seem to have created in the German
mind a mysticism and fatalism entirely foreign to the people of countries where cold and mists
and swamps are less conspicuous, and the problem of existence not so difficult to solve. The
mere preservation of life was for many of the German peasantry at that time a serious task, and
for many of their descendants in this country it still seemed, under happier conditions, a problem
demanding first and most earnest consideration, with the result that they were inclined to give but
little attention to the refinements and pleasures that are usually accepted among Americans as
necessary to comfort and enjoyment, as well as to progress. This moroseness in the German
mentality was doubtless accentuated in the early immigrants by the-political conditions from
which they fled, because the Lower Palatinate and adjacent regions had been for 100 years the
plaything of despots and fanatics, whose highest
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 71
conception of human life was its usefulness in armies or its susceptibility to suffering from
persecution.
The Germans began to come to America in or about 1682, and for the next twenty years their
immigration was comparatively small, being estimated by some historians at less than 200
families, all of whom settled in Eastern Pennsylvania, for the most part at Germantown, near the
City of Philadelphia. Among these early arrivals were both Dutch from Holland, and Germans
from the Upper Palatinate. They came on the invitation of William Penn, who was half Dutch,
his mother being a native of Holland. All of these were members of the group of sects known as
"Pietists." The later and more numerous arrivals were chiefly from the Lower Palatinate, and
with them were some Swiss with German leanings and characteristics, acquired from their
neighbors across the Rhine. They were primarily moved to seek the New World by the
persecution they endured because of —their belief and, particularly, because this belief frowned
upon the bearing of arms, a fact which made them seem of small use to the rulers of that day. The
immediate influence bringing Germans to America early in 170o was, however, a series of
pamphlets prepared in England and distributed in the Palatinate and along the Rhine under the
direction of Queen Anne, of England, whose counsellors desired to people their colonial
possessions with any sort of immigrants that could be obtained, so long as they were Protestants
and not in sympathy with the Spanish government. These pamphlets were known as the "Golden
Books," because the title was printed in gold. Some of them are in the possession of German
families in America to this day.
These early Germans, whose hardships and wrongs during their journey from the Rhine to the
Delaware were almost unbelievable, may be generally classified in two groups, the church people
and the sects. The former were members of the Lutheran or the Reformed churches, both
recognized in Germany at that time. The sects were composed of those who, refusing to accept
the doctrines of the regular churches, followed the teachings of many preachers, each of whom
seemed to have some one distinguishing idea concerning manner of life, dress or thought
sufficient to separate his followers from those of any other leader. They all showed more or less
evidence of being an extreme development of the monastic cult so generally in favor in the latter
part of the Middle Ages, and were, perhaps, a survival of that idea. These Pietist sects included
the Tunkers (or Dunkards), Schwenkf elders, Amish, United Brethren, Labadists, New Born,
New Mooners, Zion's Breuder, Ronsdorfer, Inspired, Quietist, Gichtelians, Depellians, Mountain
Men, River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, several divisions of Mennonites, and many others whose
names, to say nothing of their peculiar doctrines, are seldom heard now. Closely allied to them in
origin and other ways were the Moravians, whose pathetic story has been told in the chapter
dealing with the Indians. In general these were all mystics, entertaining some special form of
belief, the central pillar of which was an insistence on simplicity carried to a point at which
simplicity became complexity. To the introspective German mind, with its tenacious adherence
to any idea that finds lodg-
72 YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
ment in it, each sect offered something that made a special appeal to its believers, even otherdid
seem ridiculous to those of other creeds.
Aside from the two regular churches, the two sects now strongest are the Mennonites and
Dunkards, both of which have small but flourishing organizations in the Mahoning Valley. The
Amish have probably survived the trials of time with the third most numerous communion.
Several communities of these people may be found in Geauga County and in other parts of Ohio,
and in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, near the state line.
The Mennonites allege that they originated with descendants of the Waldenses, an ancient sect
for centuries persecuted as heretics because they did not believe in infant baptism and held other
doctrines unorthodox. This claim is disputed by some writers, who associate the Mennonites with
the Anabaptists. The Mennonites should be the best authority, however, and their origin is of less
importance than their peculiar beliefs and customs, which have persisted with little variation to
this day. Their first known leader was Simon Menno, an insurgent priest, who dated about 154..0.
Their chief belief is in what they call "the inward light," a form of grace extended through the
coming of Christ to, all the world. They are opposed to dogma and ritual, as are the Quakers, and
they were organized by Simon Menno much in the same way and for much the salaterasons that
George Fox, a century latei, organized the Quakers. They fraternized naturally with the latter, and
in the early days their volunteer preachers—they would have none of hired ministers—frequently
exchanged meeting places with the followers of Penn. Sometimes the Mennonites were called
German Quakers, because of a marked similarity of dress and customs. The Mennonites,
whatever else they may have neglected, have just claim to the honor of being the first
organization, civil or religious, to suggest the abolition of Negro slavery, and the quaintly worded
petition which members of their sect sent to the Quakers in Philadelphia in 1688 upon the subject
is unimpeachable evidence of this fact.
The Amish resembled the Mennonites in many ways, cherishing among them the custom of
washing one another's feet, and similar practices of the Mennonites. These sects differed only in
some minor beliefs and in their customs, some of which were astonishing, to say the least. One of
the quaint doctrine of the Amish held that it is wrong and vainglorious to wear buttons on
clothing, and some of them still depend entirely upon hooks and eyes to perform the function of
those useful and, to most of the world, perfectly harmless contrivances. Many of the Mennonites,
Amish, Brethren and others of this group will not attend elections, hold office, make oath or hear
arms, some of them, at least, basing their refusal to vote on the ground that the American
Constitution does not specifically recognize Christianity. A great deal of the trouble experienced
by the military authorities from conscientious objectors during the recent war with Germany
came from members of these sects. It proved a most perplexing problem, and was only partially
solved by the decision to compel service from them as from other citizens, but to limit this as far
as possible to such tasks as would not
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY 73
violate their religious scruples. Nevertheless, the members of the various sects were excellent
people in many very important respects, and it seems a pity that some of their qualities and
beliefs could not have been combined with those that more ordinarily distinguish American
citizenship.
Besides the Lutherans, the Reformed Church people, and the adherents of the various sects, who
seem to have been numbered in the German element of the population up to the middle of the last
century in about the order in which they have been named, there were many Catholics among the
early immigrants from the Rhine lands, and even more of them among the Germans who came to
America later. These Catholic German immigrants first settled chiefly in Pennsylvania, where
they were given the same welcome extended by the Quakers to the sects. They usually gathered
in groups and displayed much the same tendency as the others to retain their language, customs
and ideals. Like the Lutherans and the Reformed element, however, they did not evince the
contempt for education shown by the Pietist group, and there are in this country numerous
schools and colleges established by their religious orders a century ago which are still in
flourishing condition. If these schools, which were model institutions in many respects, had any
fault, it was the disposition to accent the study of German and to exalt German ideals.
Interesting as it might be, it is useless to speculate at length on reasons for the disposition so
generally shown by Germans in America to retain their language and customs. Nor is it possible
to present any convincing justification of the remarkable reverence in which they seem to have
held the institutions and ideals of their native land, especially when it is known that most of them
fled from it in search of liberty and opportunity which it had denied to them and to their
forefathers. The pitiless exposure of the German system by the World war, with its astounding
revelations concerning the attitude of the modern German mind upon questions fundamental to
Christianity and humanity, increase our wonder that these people should have desired to
perpetuate their recollections of Germany even in a strange country, where love of native land
always furnishes a certain compensation for lack of friends and familiar customs.
The logical explanation seems to be that the Germany loved and revered by the German
Americans before the war was not the Germany overwhelmed by the united might of an outraged
world in 1918; but another Germany—a Germany filled with memories of poverty and
oppression perhaps, but also with those of industry, music, love of home and kindred, faith in
God and humanity—a Germany untouched by the brutal hand of a Bismarck, undeceived by the
insane egotism of a Hohenzollern,—a Fatherland in which no pagan cult had yet replaced the
gentle doctrines of the Man of Galilee and no cold philosophy had dethroned human fellowship
or destroyed the hope of a better life to come.
It was from such a Germany as this that the immigrants arriving here before the middle of the last
century came, and it was natural that they should cherish a certain degree of reverence and
affection for the
74 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
Fatherland as they had known it, passing such sentiments along to their children. The German is
not one who forgets easily, but when he has made up his mind he seldom hesitates. There was
undoubtedly among the citizenship of this country bearing German names much sympathy with
the Fatherland in the recent great war until' the United States became involved; but from that
time on this element of our population sustained its full portion of the burden and exhibited its
full share of the loyalty and united effort required for the exhibition of military power with which
America astonished the world.
Penn's colony was the gateway for a very large part of the pioneer population of America, and
nearly all the element known as Pennsylvania Deutsch came through the Quaker colony. The
other German immigration was somewhat scattered, but most of it arrived by the same route.
Gradually the Germans spread westward, occupying the choicest lands as they went. The
Scotch-Irish and English were no match for these people as farmers, and they frequently took up
tracts that the former had abandoned as unprofitable and soon made them blossom like the rose.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one of the finest farming regions in the world, was at one time
occupied entirely by Pennsylvania Deutsch, and they are still exceedingly numerous there.
Easton, Allentown and Reading were also their strongholds. After the Revolution, the Hessians
captured at Trenton, who had been confined in a stockade near the present. City of Reading, were
released and nearly all of them settled there permanently. The Pennsylvania Deutsch came
westward after the pioneers. They had no taste for fighting the Indians, and left that to others.
Thousands of them are located within the limits of. Ohio, and hundreds of the most prosperous
and useful citizens of the Ma-- honing Valley are descended from this source. It was with them,
or immediately following them, that the Quakers came to this region, and the same sympathy
existing between the two groups farther east continued here.
Americans of German birth or ancestry are proverbial for large families, solid prosperity and
patient industry. They are frugal, plain and sensible in their habits and must be recognized as one
of the very best elements in our citizenship. They have contributed liberally to the roster of men
who have attained fame in the professions, and not a few statesmen and soldiers of prominence
bear German names. Most of those who have become noted in public life were not of the group
referred to- as sects, but belonged to the other divisions distinct from the Pietists. A goodly
number of those who have shed lustre on the professions, as well as of those who have
contributed in a large way to industrial and commercial development in the Mahoning Valley
will be found to have emigrated direct from Germany, most of them coming within the last
seventy-five years.
In the communities along the Mahoning River, as well as throughout the Western Reserve, are
now thousands of men and women who trace their origin to Germany, but who manifest few of
the traits exhibited by the earliest immigrants from the Rhine. They have abandoned the
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 75
besetting sin of the Pennsylvania German and no longer insist that their children shall shun
education or preserve the German language and customs. They are progressive, energetic and
persistent, and most of them are comparatively well-to-do. In many respects they are our very
best citizens.
THE IRISH
Next in chronological order, and one of the most numerous and interesting of the racial or
national groups of which our cosmopolitan population was originally made up is that best
referred to by the term Irish, by which is meant people originating in Ireland and being of Celtic,
or native Irish blood. The native Irish are sometimes referred to as Gaelic, but this term is
perhaps more correctly applied to the Highland Scotch, who, while doubtless of similar ancient
origin, lack many characteristics of the inhabitants of the South of Ireland, and differ from them
in many ways. The latter are probably more Celtic than Gaelic, and are certainly more Irish than
either. In few countries has the native blood been mixed with that of strangers so often and so
freely as in Ireland, and in few have the primitive characteristics of the people been so faithfully
preserved. The original inhabitants of Ireland were not likely of Celtic origin, although they have
preserved better than any other people the traits supposed to have been implanted by that
mysterious race, which, emerging from the forests of Western Asia and Southeastern Europe
before the Christian era, swept over what was then the Western World. The original Celtic
tongue is best preserved there, and scholars generally believe that the Gaelic of the Highland
Scotch, the Manx and the Welsh languages are corruptions of the Erse, or ancient Irish. Be that as
it may, the Irish have survived the incursions of the Normans, Saxons and Danes, with the
persecution of centuries by the English, and retained their ancient traits. To this day they cherish
the mysticism of the Druids, the chivalry and purity of morals inculcated by St. Patrick, the gaiety
of the French and with this a hospitality and generosity all their own. They have the same distaste
for authority that dethroned their petty kings and the same yearning for liberty that led them to
follow Brian Boru. In a country so long denied the privilege of schools it is surprising to find a
people so keen of intellect. In a land that has endured so much poverty, famine, persecution and
wrong, we are astonished to find so many light hearts. It is strange to see a people whose battles
have all been lost, so universally inclined to military service and so careless as to what banner
they serve, so long as it is not British.
Ireland's position at this time, much as it may interest many people in the Mahoning Valley,
cannot be touched upon here ; but it may be said that no other people has been able to preserve
for so long a period its racial characteristics and its national entity in the face of efforts to destroy
both which must rank as the most brutal and persistent the world has ever seen.
Celtic, or native, Irish predominate strongly in the three southern provinces of Ireland and form a
vigorous and pugnacious minority in
76 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
Ulster, predominating numerically in five of the nine counties in that province. The natives of the
South of Ireland are Catholics in belief, farmers by occupation, everlasting protestants in politics,
light-hearted, hospitable, sociable and idealistic by nature. Like the Scotch-Irish, they are
eloquent and courageous defenders of their personal and political rights, lovers of excitement and
adventure, and not averse to physical combat. Like these also, but in much greater numbers, they
have been led to seek the new world by oppression and tyranny, causes which had operated to
drive Irishmen out of Ireland for hundreds of years before the first colony was settled in America.
The most marked difference between these two groups lies in the fact that the Celtic Irish are not
generally pioneers. No one has ever accused them of lack of courage, but they are by nature too
gregarious, too fond of human companionship, too much enamored of mental excitement and to
little inclined toward the silence and loneliness of forest and prairie efficiently to conquer the
wilds. Most of them who came to America have remained in the cities or found occupation in
enterprises employing large bodies of men, such as the building of canals and railroads, or the
operation of mines and steel mills, although in the eastern states may be found numerous
agricultural settlements in which people of Irish extraction still predominate.
In discussing this trait of the Irish character, which has subjected it to much criticism by those not
particularly eager to do it justice, Irish writers point out that emigrants from Erin have been
induced to stay in towns and cities, not so much by a love for the occupations of policemen and
politicians, as by a desire to rear their families within reach of a church of their own communion.
The Irishman is usually a Catholic, and the Catholic is taught to regard his faith as a gift from
God, to be cherished at any cost. At the time when Irish emigration into this country was at its
height there were few Catholic priests or churches on the frontiers, and this argument may be
sound. The more plausible explanation, however, seems to be the natural hospitality and
sociability of the Irish, their love of company and their distaste for solitude. It mattered little to
them if labor was hard or pay small if they could mingle with others at their work and spend their
leisure in entertaining or being entertained by their neighbors and friends.
The first immigration from the south and west of Ireland began about the time the Presbyterians
of Ulster set out in the same direction. After Cromwell's bloody campaign, which followed the
execution of Charles in 1649, 40,000 Irish soldiers were deported and forced to serve in
European armies, no provision being made for their wives and children. These were later sent by
Cromwell's commissioners to America and the West Indies with funds raised by private
subscription, and they were the first Irish to cross the sea, although many others had been driven
into England, Wales, France and other European countries. The fate of these involuntary
emigrants, all of whom were women and children, is unknown, although in the Barbadoe Islands
a tribe of negroes speaking the Gaelic tongue may hint at its pathetic horror. The earliest
immigration records show that in 1729 the number of emigrants from
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 77
Ireland was 5,655, some of these, of course, being Scotch-Irish. The famine of 1762 caused many
more South of Ireland people to come to America, and from that time forward there was a
constant voluntary or involuntary migration from that afflicted country.
The Irish reaching America during this period came practically as slaves, and they had but little
opportunity until the Revolution, when their native courage and their detestation of England
made them conspicuous as soldiers and adherents of the Revolutionary cause. At least six signers
of the Declaration of Independence were Irish, and at least two of these were. from the South of.
Ireland. After the Revolution there was a distinct change in the attitude of the American people
toward these immigrants, and more of them came as the years passed, the number arriving by
1846 being estimated at 2,000,000. In 1847, the most terrible of all the famines in Ireland
occurred, and the uprising of 1848 followed. These caused immigration to America on an
immense scale, which continued for forty years, bringing a vast number of men, women and
children from the South of Ireland to our shores, where they always found a welcome and usually
in time were able to lift. themselves from the depths of poverty into comparative comfort.
While there were a number of natives of Ireland here at the earliest period of settlement in the
Mahoning Valley,-at least one of these being an emigrant from the South of Ireland, immigrants
native to that section first began to arrive in large numbers about 1839-40, at which time the
construction of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Canal and the opening of coal mines furnished
employment for what were then regarded as large bodies of men. Few of these new arrivals came
direct from Ireland. Most of them had spent some time in Pennsylvania, either at .what were then
called "public works" or at iron works or coal mines. 'They were very poor. Many of them could
nct read or write, owing to the fact that political conditions in Ireland prevented the maintaining
of schools other than those conducted beneath the hedges. Most of these men were without
families, but as quickly as they could accumulate sufficient funds, they sent for wives and
children and frequently for parents and other relatives. The first large group to reach the
Mahoning Valley located at Brier Hill, and found employment in the mining of coal and the
operation of blast furnaces. The building of a railroad some time later, and the extension of the
canal made work for many more.
When the manufacture of iron on a larger scale began in the Ma-honing Valley, a few years later,
labor for that industry was recruited largely from this same source. Many of the men employed in
this field also came from Pennsylvania, where they had spent some years at Pittsburgh or
Johnstown.
A peculiar circumstance brought to light by investigation of this subject is the fact that a great
many of the Irish who came to Youngstown after the Civil war emigrated, not from Ireland, but
from England and Wales, their parents or grandparents having been forced to leave Ireland and
seek refuge elsewhere—probably at the nearest point where they could find a welcome of any
sort. There was a marked difference between these later arrivals and those who came earlier. The
first comers
78 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
were practically all laborers, without skill or means of any kind, while those who came after
1861, at which time there was a decided revival in the iron industry, were mainly skilled laborers.
They also showed the advantage of the better conditions existing in England and Wales in the
fact that they all had the rudiments of an education, and among them were many men of wide
information and considerable native eloquence.
THE WELSH
So far as arrival in the Mahoning Valley in any considerable numbers is concerned, the Welsh are
entitled to fifth place in this discussion. In regard to their appearance in this country, however,
they have a position among the earliest immigrants. For the first twenty years after the founding
Of Philadelphia in 1682, they seem to have been the most numerous of all the immigrants whom
Penn was able to induce to try their own, and thus improve his, fortunes in the New World.
Although few names giving evidence of Welsh origin appear among the records of the first few
years of civilization in the Mahoning Valley, it is probable that, as in the case of the Irish, there
were some adventur- ous Welshmen among those who first came here. James and Daniel Heaton,
brother, probably of Welsh extraction, built the first blast furnace in the Mahoning Valley about
1803 or 1804.
The Welsh are among the purest surviving specimens of the ancient Briton stock. Their language
is certainly of Celtic origin, or at least largely influenced by Celtic additions, however, and it is
probable that, like the Irish, they are really a Celtic people, rather than a Briton race. This
language is closely related to both Irish and Gaelic, and is generally classed as Cymric Celtic, to
distinguish it from the Gaelic or Gadhelic (northern) branch of that tongue. The Welsh were
never conquered by invaders, although they were attacked by both the Normans and. Saxons and
driven into the mountainous country they now occupy, whither the continental marauders either
could not or did not care to follow them.
It is entirely natural that the Welsh in America have always shown a marked preference for
mountainous land. Their first settlement in Penn's colony was a hilly district containing 40,000
acres and lying west of the Schuylkill River, on which they established a government
independent of that set up by Penn and relinquished their idea of a Welsh barony there with
considerable reluctance after the state was organized:
Perhaps more than any other of the groups with which we have dealt except the Germans, the
Welsh are inclined to cling to their ancient language and customs. They have gathered in large
communities in many states, and in numerous of these Welsh is still spoken exclusively. One of
the largest and most prosperous of these communities was located in Cambria County,
Pennsylvania, a mountainous region in which they settled about the close of the eighteenth
century, naming the coun ty for their native land and establishing there a center from which many
famous Welshmen have gone forth.
As might have been expected, the Welsh people coming to this coun-
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 79
try previous to 1700 were nearly all Quakers. A considerable number of them were of that faith
in their native land, and these were used to being dealt with no more gently than was the custom
with dissenters. Penn sought to establish in his wilderness empire a home for all Quakers, no
matter what their race, and he brought the first-comers from Wales. Among these, however, were
some Baptists and a few members of the Episcopal Church. Later arrivals represented numerous
of the Protestant churches, the majority being Congregationalists. In politics they were divided,
most of them, however, being Republicans, especially since the Civil war, in which they proved
themselves remarkably good soldiers and did much to strengthen the Union cause.
Unlike the other groups mentioned up to this time, most of the Welsh in the Mahoning Valley,
where they form a numerous and important element in the population, did not come from eastern
and earlier settlements, but direct from Wales. They seem to have been attracted here in large
numbers about 1854 by the opening of coal mines and the erection of iron works, and the first
groups located at Niles and Mineral Ridge. Later their numbers were increased materially by iron
workers who found employment at Warren, Niles and Youngstown. In this locality few of the
Welsh people have engaged in farming, although they are very successful in that occupation.
Here they have attained much prominence in the iron and steel industries, in politics and in other
pursuits. They are remarkably fond of music and inclined, even up to this time, to cherish their
national melodies much as they do their language and customs, although they have never
permitted this trait to interfere with their advancement. The Welsh have a very honorable record
in the service of this country, both during the War of 1812 and since that time.
The chief characteristic of people of Welsh nativity or descent is a disposition to remain where
they have established homes. Many of them are still to be found in the locality where the earliest
group to reach America were first located, although they have long since lost control of that
section and become to a great extent absorbed in the other races which flowed in upon them on
this, the natural highway between the East and West. In other colonies or groups they have
undergone much the same experience, seldom migrating and usually amalgamating with their
neighbors. They are a decidedly thrifty race, marked by exceeding diplomacy and inclined to
industry and frugality, even after they have accumulated a competence. In religion they are
generally regarded dogmatic and less liberal than the Episcopalians, and in politics they are
energetic partisans. No other people indulge in a greater pride of race, and few others display a
greater interest in public affairs. They make excellent mechanics, good farmers and valuable
citizens, and have attained marked success in the industrial field and in the learned professions.
No other race in America has exhibited the same devotion to vocal music or attained the same
eminence in the development of that form of art. If the descendants of people who came from
Wales were to be suddenly removed from the life of the Mahoning Valley, one of its most
valuable and interesting elements would disappear with them.
80 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
THE SCOTCH
Next in order following the Welsh, reference should be made to the Scotch, although all that has
been said concerning the Scotch-Irish applies to them. These Caledonians differ from the
Scotch-Irish, however, in one important respect. They are not pioneers by nature, and
comparatively few of them came to America at the same time that their close relatives, the
Scotch-Irish, emigrated. Scattered along the Mahoning Valley there are many Scotch people, or
rather people of purely Scotch extraction, and names indicating this origin are quite common in
the long list of those who have had a part in the development of industries here, including the
agricultural industry. They are also found among the professions. Like the Welsh, the Scotch are
inclined to be clannish and to preserve their recollections of the land from which their forefathers
came, and like the Welsh, there are still in this part of Ohio enough of them to hold an annual
gathering in large numbers at which bagpipes, Highland dances and Scotch amusements are the
principal attractions. They have equaled the Welsh in keenness of intellect and accomplishment
in letters, and outdistanced them in the domain of industry so far as marked executive ability is
concerned. The Scotch are, as might be supposed, almost universally Presbyterians or United
Presbyterians.
THE HEBREWS
People of the Hebrew race form an important part in the population of the Mahoning Valley,
their number at this time being variously estimated at from 5,000 to 6,000. As everywhere else in
the world, the Hebrews in the Mahoning Valley are chiefly merchants, although a goodly number
of them have entered the professions of law and medicine. They have come here from every part
of the world, local Jews including about every kind and class of Hebrew in existence, each of
which is commonly recognized by the prefix of the nationality from which it or its ancestors in
the Old World came, such as German, Polish, Russian, Roumainian, etc. Many of the older and
more prosperous Jews adhere to the ancient beliefs and customs of the race with a fidelity that
commands admiration in these days of changing creeds.
The Jews are and have been the most generally maligned and least understood of all the peoples
in the world. No other race, not even the Irish, has suffered so long and so bitterly from
persecution, the greater part of which has been inspired by jealousy of Jewish talent for acquiring
wealth, although it has often had for its excuse the scarcely less defensible plea of religious
fervor. Long ages of this persecution have bred in the Hebrew qualities that enable him to
dominate in many lines of endeavor where he has for his competitors races which have less
persistently and less patiently cultivated the virtues of self-denial and self-control.
To the student of human nature and human affairs there is no other race so interesting as the
Semitic, which, from the very beginning of recorded things, was the chief custodian of human
progress and of the
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 81
spiritual advancement of men. To appreciate the Jewish people it is necessary to look back over
the ages, a survey for which there is neither room nor an excuse in this work, but if those who
read it would make such an excursion into the dim and distant past, they would acquire therefrom
a much better opinion of the Jew, who has still in large degree the same qualities that made his
prophets for thousands of years the divinely appointed or at least self-constituted intermediary
between the inscrutable Architect of the great scheme of things and the race of men climbing
slowly and with infinite patience upward toward the light. They would find also in his seemingly
arbitrary customs and religious teachings the seed of human -progress—progress that to a less
extent than usual carries in itself the germs of its own decay.
The Jews of the Mahoning Valley are, as has been said, liberal in their views; but they are, as
elsewhere, intensely loyal to the traditions of their race and no more inclined than those found
elsewhere to intermarry with Gentiles. Practically all of them came here poor and clothed in
humility. Many of them are now among our most prosperous citizens. Difficult as it may be for
some of us to lay aside the prejudice which ages have woven about these people, we must admit
that they make excellent citizens, especially when success raises them above conditions in which
necessity urges their national trait of acquisitiveness to its utmost. When poor the Jew is a most
uncomfortable competitor, penurious and grasping, his energy and indefatigable industry making
life a nightmare for those who must keep pace with him. He has the faculty of adapting himself
and his manner of life to his condition and environment in a remarkable degree. When he has
amassed wealth he is a prince in hospitality, a spendthrift in indulgence, and a most liberal giver
to every worthy cause. And through it all he is a lover of education, art, music and the
refinements of life, little as this might be suspected from the manner in which he has lived in
days of poverty. The 'Jewish intellect has no superior in point of keenness, and has produced
some of the greatest scholars and philosophers.
There are those who may find it hard to accept this description of the Hebrew character, but such
persons have known it only in the rivalry of business pursuits, or have been deprived of the
opportunity to estimate it fairly by the unchristian and uncharitable attitude maintained by most
of the world toward this indefatigable people which, having no land of its own for twenty
centuries, has left an indelible mark upon the civilization of every nation under the sun.
The local Hebrew element has been characterized by excellent citizenship. It is beginning to
widen out and abandon the exclusive pursuit of trade for participation in industry and the learned
professions. In point of liberality on behalf of public movements deserving support, of patriotic
effort in times of stress, and of the conscientious performance of civic duty, it is entitled to rank
with the best.
THE LATER IMMIGRANTS
Having dealt with the Scotch-Irish, the English, the Germans, the Irish, the Welsh and the Jews,
the elements of local population existing
Vol. I-6
82 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
here in considerable numbers until a period quite recent have been discussed, perhaps at a length
that has taxed the patience of the reader. It remains to shed some light upon what has become the
most numerous, if not the most important or interesting group in the population of the Mahoning
Valley—the people commonly referred to among us as "foreigners."
It may be said at the beginning that races and types included in this classification are so
numerous and their relation so complex that any attempt to deal with these at length would
inevitably become tiresome and just as surely exceed the limits of the space which can be
devoted to this chapter. Nevertheless, since these people of foreign birth are not only a most
important part of our population, as viewed from an industrial standpoint, but also constitute a
problem demanding the best thought of those who sincerely desire to serve their community and
their country, it may be well toof ollow the subject somewhat farther than indulgence of the
author's desire for brevity would make possible.
The present foreign-born population of the Mahoning Valley has been recruited largely from
Southern and Southeastern Europe, and is composed almost entirely of the Latin and Slavonic
races, although, as will be seen, it actually embraces almost every race on earth and contains
representatives of every nationality under the sun. This population first began to arrive in this
country in any considerable numbers shortly after the Civil war. The era of expansion following
that struggle, with the enormous advance in wages and the demand for labor to carry out the
extensive programs of railroad and industrial extension, led to an organized effort to secure labor
abroad. This was•also inspired to a certain extent by the peculiar effect which long service in the
armies and the considerable depletion of American manhood in the war had upon the normal
labor supply. It is said that in the years immediately following the Civil war there were a million
tramps in America. This is probably an exaggeration, but it is certain that many men who had
spent years in the excitement of that conflict never returned to their original occupations and at
its close the country was filled with wanderers unable or unwilling to resume the tasks they had
laid down at its beginning. To fill the needs of the country for labor railroads and other industries
began to import men from central and southern Europe, and the flood of immigration of this
character, once started, continued with little interruption for fifty years, or until the breaking out
of the World war, in 1914.
The first of these people to come were Italians, and they were rapidly followed by Hungarians. In
a few years large numbers of French, Germans, Sicilians, Russians, Poles, Swedes, Lithuanians,
Bohemians, Czechs, Slovaks, Greeks, Belgians, Serbians, Austrians, Bulgarians, and even a few
Turks, Arabians, Syrians and Armenians arrived in America. With these natives of Continental
Europe and Western Asia came also not a few Irish, English and Scotch, although by the term
"foreigner" we have come to mean those who do not speak English.
These people were induced to leave the Old World by a number of
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 83
influences, chief among which was their weariness of the eternal struggle for existence in
crowded countries, lack of opportunity, and a belief in America as a land of opportunity. In this
they were not unlike the early settlers who conquered the wilderness and gave to mankind a
haven of opportunity and a refuge from political oppression; but there the resemblance ceases, at
least to a great extent. These central and southern Europeans were of an entirely different type.
They were almost all peasants and farmers by occupation in their native lands, but when they
reached America few of them except among the Swedes sought opportunity on the land. The
greater number were dazzled by the wages offered for labor in coal mines, on railroads and in
steel and iron centers, and around these they gathered in great numbers. Used to the most meagre
fare and accustomed to living conditions far below American standards, they herded together in
droves, living on little or nothing and hoarding most of their earnings.
They were the unfortunate victims of the ancient system of despotism which had through
centuries erected barriers of class which those in the lower strata of existence had no hope of ever
being able to pass. Taken as a whole, these people formed a most striking evidence of the
frightful iniquity of long continued political injustice and emphasized the calamity which
overtakes a nation that permits the powers of government to pass from the hands of its people
into those of a ruling class. Physically, mentally and in every other way, these immigrants were
typical of the conditions under which they had been bred. Finding the problem of mere physical
existence all that they could solve, they had never mounted to spiritual heights or learned to yearn
for the better things that, with liberty and opportunity, men of any race may soon acquire for
themselves and for their children.
We have seen how the early emigrants to the New World were often without property or
education, but the lack of these qualities was counterbalanced by strength and a courageous
determination to achieve personal and political independence. The English, Irish, Scotch and
Welsh were scarcely landed until they made it evident that they meant to have a hand in the
government and, in turn, to make themselves a permanent part of the new nation coming into
birth. On the other hand, the immigrants from the south of Europe, if the same may not be said to
be in some degree true of those from the whole of the continent, took little interest in the politics
of their new land, many of them openly professing a purpose to remain in this country only until
such time as they could accumulate enough wealth to overcome the poverty from which they had
fled, and then return to the political serfdom of their native countries. content to live in more or
less ease and luxury without the aspirations for liberty which formed the undying motives of the
immigrants from other lands.
Perhaps this is only another illustration of the damning effect of despotism endured through long
centuries, but there is reason to believe that it is in part due to an inherent difference in the Latin
and Anglo-Saxon characters. At any rate, the immediate effect of the tremendous immigration
from Southern and Central Europe has been to introduce a
84 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
new and complex problem into our western civilization—a problem whit has not yet been
entirely solved, although it bids fair to reach a solution in due time. The worst feature of this
problem has been the tendency of these people to congregate in large numbers at industrial
centers, to which they are attracted by high wages and the growing lack of common labor, and at
which they are inclined to perpetuate the incongruous customs, languages and standards of living
brought with them from the Old World. Where they are gathered in large numbers they are likely
to be left almost entirely to themselves, and the fact that a considerable percentage of them are
men without families, or who have left their families behind them, tends to accentuate the rather
low standard of morals to be expected among them. The churches to which they owe allegiance
exercised a tremendous influence over them in Europe, but these lose their power for good to a
great extent here because they are compelled to seek financial support among adherents
accustomed to enjoy the ministrations of religion at the expense of the state and therefore to
regard churches as unnecessary burdens. Added to this is the fact that the severing of home ties
and the journey across the seas has a tendency to overturn former conceptions of duty, loosen the
bonds which held these immigrants to such standards of life as they may have had, and make
them more than ordinarily susceptible to unsound social and political propaganda, which reacts
strongly upon their experience with government in the Old World.
At this particular time the upheaval which has occurred in Europe furnishes a further tendency to
disturbance among the foreign-born people of this country, and adds not a little to the task they
find in accommodating themselves to American ideals and American principles. All, this applies
only to those born on foreign shores and gathered in large communities. It is very different with
the immigrants from the European Continent who come to America to settle on farms. They are
excellent agriculturists and, when engaged in that occupation, rapidly develop into good citizens.
All through the country, and especially in the eastern states, where they could not form
agricultural communities of their own, but have been compelled to locate on farms among
Americans, they have mixed with the population to such an extent that their foreign origin is
almost entirely forgotten.
In spite of the unfortunate facts mentioned above, much that is good can be said'of these people,
even where they are gathered together and form so important a part of the population as they do
in the Mahoning Valley. They are industrious and frugal, amenable to instruction and eager to
improve their condition. Those who establish homes are ambitious for their children, especially
in the important matter of education, and these children make excellent progress in the schools,
where an inherited capacity for effort and self-denial gives them a marked advantage. This is
particularly fortunate in view of the large families usually found among these immigrants, who
seem to have preserved better than Americans the original idea of the purpose of marriage, and
who still, like the pioneers, esteem children as an asset. It seems possible that within half a
century these people will form the most important part of the population
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 85
of this valley, not only from the standpoint of numbers, but from every other standpoint, and it is
therefore gratifying to observe the progress they are making toward American citizenship, as well
as the painstaking effort of industrial corporations to instill among them the principles and
practice of Americanism.
At the time this work is written no figures worthy of consideration can be obtained as to the
number of foreign-born residents in the Mahoning Valley. The census of 1910 is of little or no
value, owing to the great development and the number of arrivals while the census figures for
1920 are not yet available. It can be said, however, that more than half of the men employed in
the great iron and steel industries of this valley were born in Europe. The following figures,
furnished by the most important of these local industries from its employment records in May,
1920, throw light, not only upon the relative number of people of foreign birth employed in this
locality, but also upon the amazing number of nationalities represented by them. During the
World war this company had on its payrolls an even greater variety of race and nationality, and at
that time it is probable that there were in the Mahoning Valley representatives of every
recognized nation on earth.
Nationality
|
Number
|
Nationality
|
Number
|
American
Slovak
Italian
Roumanian
Horwat-Croatian
Greek
Polish
Hungarian
Colored
Russian
Austrian
Servian
Bulgarian
English
German
Irish
Lithuanian
Swedish
Spanish
Welsh
Scotch
Bohemian
|
3,573
1,105
775
843
794
419
630
634
436
215
155
197
131
120
36
95
76
70
21
51
31
19
|
Canadian
Hollander
Norwegian
French
Syrian
Danish
Saxon
Swiss
Albanian
Belgian
Arabian
Salvadorian
Argentine
Persian
Luxemberger
Abyssinian
Kriner
Ruthenian
West India
Ukranian
South American
East India
|
14
2
5
6
3
2
17
3
2
1
30
4
1
2
1
1
12
5
1
35
1
4
|
The above classifications are not strictly accurate, either in an ethnological or a national sense,
but as they are most familiar in this locality it has been thought best to give them here.
Although, as has been stated, a majority of the people who have come to the Mahoning Valley
from Eastern and Southern Europe dur-
86 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
ing recent years are industrious workmen and marked by the virtues of economy and thrift,
conditions following the European war emphasized the fact that their communities furnish a
fertile field for the revolutionary propaganda which gained such headway in Russia and other
parts of Continental Europe during that struggle. Investigations made by the Secret Service
Department of the United States Government during 1919 disclosed the existence at East
Youngstown of a regularly organized society with purposes similar to those of the revolutionary
elements in Russia, and more than zoo persons of foreign birth were arrested and examined here
during that period. The strike in the steel industry occurring on September 22, 1919, seemed to
bear out the suspicion that this element was expected to align itself with revolutionary plans,
also, since this difficulty was confined almost entirely to this portion of the industrial population.
With the elimination of dangerous leaders, however, the radical tendency instilled among these
people by organized propagandists seems likely to fail of its purpose, and indications at this time
point to the gradual decline of insidious doctrines imported from abroad and sown among them.
A more energetic effort to Americanize this large foreign population has been one of the benefits
of this manifestation.
An incident of the war period, resulting from shortage of labor due to mobilization as well as
later to radical tendencies developing among laborers of foreign birth, was the large number of
colored people who came to the Mahoning Valley. Previous to this time there had been
comparatively few negroes employed in the great industrial plants.
PEOPLE FROM OTHER AMERICAN COMMUNITIES
Finally, a most important portion of the population of the Mahoning Valley not referred to in the
foregoing is composed of people who came after 1870, at which time the industrial progress of
the locality became marked. These people could probably find their origin in all of the groups
discussed in this chapter, but nearly all of them were American-born and many of them able to
trace their ancestry on American soil back to the Revolution. They were of all political parties
and all religions. They came to the communities along the Mahoning River in search of
opportunity, found it, and remained to become excellent citizens, with a just pride in their new
home and full sense of their duty to their communities.
No estimate of the number of this group can be made, but it must have been large, for the
tremendous growth of population after 1870 is not accounted for by natural increase or by
immigration from foreign lands. These people cannot claim the honor of descent from Mahoning
Valley pioneers. Most of them would not prefer to do so, for they have pride in their own
ancestors. They are as much a part of the community, however, as those whose forefathers
preceded them, and have contributed to its later growth and prosperity in proportion equal to any.
They may be found in all occupations, and the new blood and new ideas
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 87
they brought have of ten appeared to great advantage. Forming a homogeneous, harmonious part
of the various communities, they have all done their part, and if they are mentioned last in this
discussion, it is not because they have been least among the elements contributing to prosperity
and progress in the Mahoning Valley.
CHAPTER VII
THE FOUNDING OF YOUNGSTOWN IN 1797
ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND ITS EARLY GROWTH-THE MCMAHON-CAPTAIN
GEORGE TRAGEDY-YOUNGSTOWN TO 1802
One hundred and twenty-three years ago, when John Young and his intrepid followers encamped
on the banks of the Mahoning River, their campfire signalized the beginning of the permanent
occupation of the spot that is now the City of Youngstown. To them goes this honor, for history
reckons as the founders of any community those who first come to make their homes therein, not
those who have come, tarried and then have journeyed on or retraced their steps.
Before the advent of these hardy founders of Youngstown, however, the Mahoning Valley was
known to men of the white race. La Salle is credited with being the first white man to penetrate
into what is now the State of Ohio. But before him there were those mysterious persons who
have left their record of habitation here in strange mounds and fortifications, and who may have
been of the white race. And the Western Reserve bears testimony to the presence of perhaps
another white people; a people skilled in the art of making almost modern implements and who
left traces of an occupancy that must have antedated even that of the most daring of the French
explorers. In 1838 a tree was cut down in Canfield Township that showed, seven inches from its
heart, distinct marks of the use of a sharp ax. Over these bruises was the tree growth of 16o years.
Toward the middle of the seventeenth century a skilled axman had hewn this tree nearly to its
center. Trees bearing similar marks are found in other parts of the Western Reserve. Who these
stout-muscled woodsmen were has never been fathomed.
While La Salle and his followers navigated the Ohio River as early as 1676, and ten years later
unfurled the first sail on Lake Erie, it is not likely that their explorations brought them to the
Mahoning Valley. Nor did Celeron, Colonel Bouquet, Lord Dunmore's men or the venturesome
Virginians of the early days come so far northward. Yet as early as 1755 the salt springs in what
is now Weathersfield Township were recorded on Lewis Evans' map, and before the Revolution
Pennsylvanians from Washington and Westmoreland counties drove their canoes or flat boats up
the Mahoning to the salt springs to extract this necessary product from the saline water by the
process of evaporation. Ground was cleared and cabins erected there by the salt makers, but this
industry appears to have been abandoned during the Revolution. In 1778 General Edward Hand,
in command at Pittsburgh, followed the
- 88 -
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 89
Mahoning Valley, at the head of a body of soldiers, en route to capture British stores believed to
be cached along the Cuyahoga River. Moravians encamped temporarily along the Cuyahoga as
early as 1786, and in 1756 there .was a French trading cabin on that stream. Duncan & Wilson, of
Pittsburgh, traders, employed men who made trips over the route that led from Pittsburgh to the
mouth of the Cuyahoga by way of the Mahoning Valley ten years or more before Youngstown
was founded. In 1786 one of their employes, a storekeeper in charge of the company's cabin at
the salt springs, was murdered by the Indians. In 1786, too, Col. James Hillman built a cabin at
the mouth of the Cuyahoga for Duncan & Wilson and the Mahoning Valley was a familiar spot
to him a decade before 'he located here. To other Pennsylvania traders, trappers and hunters the
Mahoning Valley region was also well known.
General Samuel H. Parsons, who, in 1788, purchased the Salt Spring tract from Connecticut, was
not unfamiliar with this territory. It was in 1789, after he had been west of the Cuyahoga River
negotiating a treaty with the Wyandot Indians, that this jurist-soldier-pioneer lost his life at the
falls of the Big Beaver River after he had passed along the Mahoning in his canoe in an attempt
to prove that this stream was navigable. Then, too, there were restless, and frequently shiftless,
"squatters" who had pre-empted lands in the Mahoning Valley in the closing decades of the
eighteenth century and were living here in comfortable isolation when the Connecticut Land
Company's surveyors and the earliest of the pioneers who had purchased their titles from the
State of Connecticut reached here in 1796-97.
Chance or good judgment just which, no one can say dictated that Youngstown should be the
first actual settlement on the Western Reserve. It is an honor Youngstown fairly holds, as the
village laid out at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in 1796 by Gen. Moses Cleaveland was not
settled at that time by men who came as permanent residents.
In providing for the distribution of the lands of the Connecticut Land Company the members of
that company prudently decided that six townships of the Western Reserve should be sold
outright, in whole or in part, to actual settlers. With considerable foresight they knew that the
survey and apportionment of the Reserve would entail considerable expense before any revenues
would be returned. The immediate sale of the six townships was proposed to insure earlier
returns, and, in keeping with instructions given them, the directors of the Connecticut Land
Company made the six-township selection some time in 1796. Five of the townships chosen
border on Lake Erie and it is reasonable to conclude that this influenced their selection.
Just why township two of range two—now known as the City of Youngstown—should have
been selected as the sixth, is unexplained. Surveyors in the employ of the Connecticut Land
Company who ran- the lines in southeastern part of the Reserve in the summer of 1796, speak of
encamping on the banks of the Mahoning, and from two white men, traders or salt makers, whom
they met there, they learned that "about twelve miles below the Pennsylvania line on Big Beaver
River there was
90 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
an excellent set of mills, and farther on, or about twenty-five miles below the Pennsylvania line,
there was a town being built where provisions of all kinds could be procured, and carried thence
up the river into the heart of the Connecticut Reserve." This favorable location is sometimes
accepted as influencing the Connecticut Land Company to select township two, range two, as one
of the desirable townships that might be offered for immediate sale. This deduction is wholly
incorrect, inasmuch as the surveyors' report referred to territory within township one, range one,
of the Reserve, now known as Poland Township. If proximity to the Town of Beaver had
influenced the directors Poland Township, and not Youngstown Township, would have been
offered for sale. It could not have been the coal afterwards found in Youngstown ToWnship that
made this sub-division appear especially desirable as little heed appears to have been given this
valued product. It could not have been bodies of lean iron ore, as there is no record that their
presence was known when the sale was made. It could not have been the falls of Mill
Creek—valuable as they would be in an age when the gristmill and sawmill were the most
necessary of all industries—for the presence of these falls was apparently unknown to the
Connecticut Land Company prior to the settlement of the township.
It is merely a matter of record that the directors of the land company—or someone else—selected
this especial spot out of the entire Reserve east of the Cuyahoga River—and chose so well that
after a lapse of a century and a quarter the subdivision they offered for immediate sale is the site
of the richest city in the entire Western Reserve outside the spot at the mouth of the Cuyahoga
River that was unerringly chosen while it was yet in a wilderness state as the location for the
metropolis of New Connecticut.
In fixing the date for the actual settlement of Youngstown history and tradition conflict, as they
have done on many another occasion. Tradition, and, to some extent, even written history,
records that it was in the early summer of 1796 that John Young and his party of settlers reached
their western acres to remain permanently, but the entire preponderance of evidence indicates
that it was actually a year later when permanent settlement was made.
The exact date at which John Young purchased from the Connecticut Land Company the tract of
land that now bears his name, and the circumstances surrounding that purchase, are unanswered
questions. Young was not a member of the 'Connecticut Land Company, nor even a resident of
the State of Connecticut. Born at Petersborough, New Hampshire, on March 8, 1763, John
Young emigrated to Whitestown, or Whitesboro, New York, about 1780. There, in June, 1792,
he was married to Mary Stone White, the youngest daughter of Judge Hugh White, the founder of
Whitestown. Judge White was a New Englander, of English descent, who had removed from
Middletown, Connecticut, to the wilderness of New York State, having purchased a tract of land
there large enough to provide a good farm for each of his eight children. Four years after his
marriage, or in 1796, Young caught the prevailing fever for westward migration and. while not a
Connecticut
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 91
man, it was natural that his footsteps should have been directed toward the Western Reserve.
There were several considerations that probably influenced Young in his decision. These
settlements of Eastern and Central New York State were made up largely of New England people
and there was a close association between them and their neighbors across the line in Connecticut
and adjoining states. The purchase made by the Connecticut Land Company was probably known
to New York State settlers soon after it was negotiated and further interest and enthusiasm must
have been awakened by the westward journey of the land company's surveying party in the spring
of 1796, for this party passed Whitestown in making its way slowly up the Mohawk, poling the
clumsy batteaux or flat boats against the river's current. Furthermore a direct connection is
established between Young and the Connecticut Land Company when it is understood that
Young did not act alone in making the purchase of township two, range two, of the Western
Reserve, but was joined in this purchase by his brother-in-law, Philo White, and by Lemuel
Storrs, of Middletown, Connecticut, who was one of the original members of the Connecticut
Land Company and a signer of the articles of association and agreement of the company on
September 5, 1795.
The original contract between Young, White and Storrs on one hand and the Connecticut Land
Company on the other cannot be found and undoubtedly was destroyed. In a letter to John M.
Edwards, read at a meeting of pioneers of the Mahoning Valley on September 10, 1875. Charles
C. Young, of Brooklyn, New York, son of John Young, says that, "after my father's death in
1825, and my mother's sale of her home farm a few years later, the old tin case containing the
Ohio title, deeds, surveys, maps, etc., was mislaid and finally lost. * * * A small package has,
however, come to me from which I will select a few and send you."
Only one of these documents throws any light on the purchase made from the Connecticut Land
Company, and this one document is not the original contract for the land purchase. It is merely a
map of the town-'ship divided into lots. On one of these lots, which includes about one-third of
the entire township, on the east side, is an entry reading:
"Five thousand, five hundred acres disposed of to Hill, Sheehy and others, by contract with John
Young, on which they are to settle with seventeen families."
On the margin of the map is the following entry :
"This may certify that we, being equally interested in township two in the second range in the
Connecticut Reserve, do agree to the above sale of the five thousand, five hundred acres to the
actual settlers as above, and do likewise agree to the division of the remainder in the manner to
which our names are annexed in the above sketch.
"MIDDLETOWN, January 30, 1797."
The names of those signing the agreement are cut off but they were undoubtedly John Young,
Philo White and Lemuel Storrs.
Annexed to this map is a conveyance from Philo White to John
92 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
Young of White's interest in the land. This conveyance is dated February 9, 1797, the
consideration paid by Young to White being $1,050. There is no record of the conveyance of
Storrs' interest to Young but it is apparent that this was executed about the same time, and with
their release White and Storrs pass out of existence insofar as Youngstown and the Mahoning
Valley are concerned. Their interest appears to have been merely that of investors anyway. It is
not likely that either one of them ever visited the Western Reserve, and that they did not expect
to locate here is apparent from the fact that they were at all times silent partners in the
transaction. In the letter above quoted Charles C. Young touches on this by saying that
" * * * It appears that my mother's brother, Philo White, of Whitestown, New York, together
with Lemuel Storrs, of Middletown, Connecticut, a lawyer by profession, * * * were at first
equally interested with my father in the purchase ; that a private company-article was entered into
between them in regard to it, but the contract was made by my father alone with the Connecticut
Land Company, to whom only they executed their deed for the township * * * that the date of the
contract must have been in 1796, if not in ins, to give time for the survey, inspection, and
location of the land, which my father, as a practical surveyor, would hardly have thought of
buying without; and then for the sale to Sheehy and division of the balance on paper, for which
preliminary surveys must have been made, all before January, 1797, and February 9, 1797, the
date of White's conveyance back to my father of all his interest therein."
Thus, on February 9, 1797, John Young became sole owner of the yet unnamed township in the
Connecticut Western Reserve, his claim of course being subject to the purchases made by Daniel
Sheehy, Phineas Hill, "and others." These sales, including as they did, about one-third of the
township, did not figure in the negotiations between Young and the Connecticut Land Company,
so that title was to be delivered to him alone. At this time Young was a purchaser only by land
contract. The actual conveyance of the deed for township two, range two of the Western Reserve
from the Connecticut Land Company to Young was not made until April 9, i800. This
conveyance shows that John Young purchased the 15,56o acres of land in the township—now
practically identical with the City of Youngstown—for a consideration of $16,o85.16. Young at
that time executed a mortgage on the township to the Connecticut Land Company for the
purchase price, or part of that price. The negotiations between Young and the Connecticut Land
Company were conducted during the year 1798 to i800 by Turhand Kirtland, agent for the land
company.
While the actual settlement of Youngstown Township was not made in 1796, John Young and
his party, including Alfred Wolcott and Daniel Sheehy, made a preliminary trip here that year.
Pioneer tradition tells of such a visit, and this tradition is supported by the statement of Young's
son, given above, that "he (Young) would hardly have thought of buying without a survey,
inspection and location of the land."
Further corroboration is found in the legend that surrounds Council
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 93
Rock, an immense granite boulder that attracts the attention of passersby in Lincoln Park, in the
East End of the city. The legend of Council Rock was set down in print almost twenty-five years
ago by William G. Conner, a pioneer resident of the Dry Run Valley, of which Lincoln Park is a
part.
In his story Mr. Conner relates that while on a hunting trip in a sparsely settled section of Illinois
in 1865 he met a veteran trapper,
JOHN YOUNG, FOUNDER OF YOUNGSTOWN
(Courtesy of Hitchcock Bros.)
Cyrus Dunlap by name, who showed a familiarity with the Dry Run Valley. In explanation of this
Dunlap, then a white-haired man of eighty-five years, told his auditor that he was a boy of sixteen
years residing in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, when a surveying party headed by Alfred
Wolcott passed through Fayette County in the summer of 1796, en route to survey and inspect
township two, range two, of the Connecticut Reserve for John Young. Dunlap was eager to
accompany the surveyors, and when permission to do so was refused by his parents he and a boy
companion stole away from home two days after the surveyors had gone on, and overtook
Wolcott's party. The lads
94 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
journeyed on to the Reserve with the surveyors and spent the summer of 1796 helping the men
who were laying out John Young's township. On completing the work about December t, Dunlap
said, the surveyors went back East, his boy companion returned home, but Dunlap himself had
become enamored of the free life of the wilds and remained behind; only to move ever westward
as civilization overtook him.
The old trapper's assurance that this survey took place in 1796 and that the surveying party
returned to the East before winter set in confirms the belief that an initial visit was made here a
year before settlement was begun. His insistence that the Connecticut Land Company's surveyors
were running the meridian lines of the Reserve in this locality at the same time confirms his
story, since it is known that township two, range two, was run by Amos Spafford and his
assistants in late July or early August, 1796. It is possible, however, that John Young himself did
not actually accompany the surveyors on the first trip as the story of the old trapper, handed down
through Mr. Conner, speaks of Alfred Wolcott being in charge of the surveying party.
The Council Rock legend is a fascinating one in its entirety. Continuing his tale, the white-haired
old trapper told Mr. Conner that during the progress of the survey in 1796 Wolcott and members
of his party found two French-Canadian trappers encamped in the Valley of Dry Run, having
built for themselves a rude cabin within what is now Lincoln Park. These French-Canadians
assured Dunlap that the eastern part of Youngstown was once a favorite place of residence, or
meeting place, for the Indians and that a large area of ground in what is now Haselton was
devoted to growing corn. Three times a year the Indians came from East and. West to hold
seasonal celebrations and feasts, their gathering place being about a large rock that stood on the
hill above Dry Run. This great boulder was known as Nea-To-Ka, or Council Rock.
In the year 1755 there was especial cause for rejoicing. On July 9, 1755, the French and Indians
had overwhelmed the British forces under General Braddock near the spot where Pittsburgh now
stands and administered a defeat that the Indians believed would forever prevent the white men
crossing the Alleghany Mountains into the hunting grounds: of the Indians. The day of the
autumnal feast, about September 20, 1755, found 3,500 Indians of the Seneca, Shawnee, Mingo
and Delaware tribes assembled at Nea-To-Ka to celebrate this victory. The corn crop was heavy
and game was plentiful. The white dog had been roasted and the savages were engaged in the
feast when a violent wind storm suddenly descended on the assemblage. Its path was but 200
yards wide, but in this area the trees were laid low as with an ax, and in falling they crashed
down on the tepees killing squaws and children. In the midst of the storm one single flash of
lightning struck in the middle of the party of feasting braves, splitting the great rock about which
they were gathered and killing four of the chiefs. Fearful that the Great Spirit was displeased with
them the savages buried their dead —300 in number and hurried away. This was the last Indian
council ever held at Council Rock.
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 95
The fantastic story of the old trapper is curiously corroborated by several circumstances. When
the white men first came here the Mahoning Valley was a No-Man's-Land, inhabited only by a
spiritless band known as the Blacksnake Indians. The whites found a tract of ground in the
eastern part of the township overgrown, with underbrush but that had apparently been tilled many
years before. When excavations were made for the foundation of the original Haselton blast
furnace fifty years ago skeletons were dug up that indicated that this spot had at some time been
an Indian graveyard, although mystery surrounded the time and the circumstances of the burials.
And finally Council Rock yet stands in Lincoln Park bearing a ragged scar where one end of the
great boulder was cleaved off generations ago by some mighty act of nature.
This digression into the story of Council Rock will perhaps be f or-given by the reader. To return
to John Young and the founding of Youngstown, it is virtually certain, therefore, that Young, or
his representatives, visited here in the summer of 1796, and it is highly probable that township
two, range two, was selected as one of the six townships of the Reserve to be sold outright to
bona fide settlers after John Young himself had made the selection, the directors of the
Connecticut Land Company agreeing with the choice made rather than dictating it.
There are many reasons why a man with Young's keen judgment would have made this selection.
The Mahoning River was a good sized stream and this would have a natural attraction to a
prospective settler and land dealer. Township two of range two was the nearest available land to
the settlement at Beavertown except for the township now known as Poland, and it had the
advantage over the latter of a wide river valley, Poland Township having only a limited area in
the river valley between the hills. That the commodious valley would have appealed to John
Young after he had inspected it himself or it had been viewed for him by competent
representatives is apparent from the fact that he later pursued a course opposite to that followed
by other settlement founders on the Reserve when he laid out his village in the river valley. The
tendency at that time was to build on the hills, a not unnatural movement since the swamp lands
of the lower levels were looked upon askance by the early settlers while the good drainage of the
high ground had a decided appeal. In defying precedent as he did Young showed the same canny
judgment that distinguished all his actions.
When John Young, or his representatives, visited the site of his future town in 1796 their stay
could not have been for more than three or four months. That Young was in Connecticut during
the winter of 1796-97 is certified to by his dealings there with Philo White and Lemuel Storrs in
February of that year and his sales, made in conjunction with White and Storrs, to Sheehy and
Hill, on January 30, 1797, at Middletown, Connecticut. But with the survey of the township
completed by the Connecticut Land Company—and probably by Young's own sur-. veyors—and
with Young given sole ownership early in 1797 of the western lands that he had contracted for,
the stage was set for the settlement and occupation of the wilderness territory.
It was in the spring of 1797 that John Young and party started out
96 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
from New York State, or perhaps from Connecticut, to the Western Reserve. Just how many
were in this party is not known, nor is there any record of the trip of 500 miles or more through
the-almost pathless wilds. It is merely known that he was accompanied by Alfred Wolcott, his
surveyor, and by Daniel Sheehy and Phineas Hill, the two sub-purchasers mentioned before. That
there were others is probable. Unlike the Connecticut Land Company surveying parties that
traveled over the northern route along Lakes Ontario and Erie, John Young• and his party chose
the southern route through Pennsylvania, crossing the Alleghany Mountains and following the
slight paths through the river valleys to Pittsburgh. That they had the full equipment of supplies
is probable but it is unlikely that they were encumbered with any pioneer wagons or even horses.
In June the party had reached Beavertown, then a thriving village, but the outpost of the
wilderness. Here they stopped with Abram Powers, and on resuming their journey up the Beaver
and Mahoning Rivers were accompanied by his son, Isaac Powers.
The party was now nearing its destination. Its members had undergone hardships and privations
but these the sturdy pioneersmen accepted as necessities; so much so that they never went to the
trouble of leaving any printed records of their long trip. Tradition records, however, that it was
on June 25, 1797, that John Young and his party reached their goal and encamped on the banks
of the Mahoning River preparatory to laying out a town in the wilderness country.
The sojourners from the east had reached a pleasing land here in the wilds. Except for the two or
three cabins at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River that scarcely deserved to be dignified with the
title of a settlement, the Western Reserve was unclaimed land, untenanted by white men and
almost untenanted by Indians. To the north and west there was only the far-away village of
Detroit ; to the south there was forested silence to the outposts of the Marietta colony. Wearied of
their long journey and reaching their destination amid balmy days it is probable the pioneers were
ready for a rest, but there was work for them to do. They had come to found a new state.
Scarcely had they encamped in their new surroundings, however, before an event occurred that
influenced greatly the work of the embryo settlers. But a day or two after their arrival Col. James
Hillman journeyed down the Mahoning River in his canoe after a trading expedition among the
Indians, intent on reaching his home at Beavertown for Independence Day. Passing what is now
the site of Youngstown he noticed smoke issuing from a camp on the river bank. The trained eye
of the woodsman told him that this was not the smoke of an Indian encampment, and curious to
know who were the white men who had ventured into this country Colonel Hillman drew ashore
and there greeted John Young and his companions. The meeting was a mutually pleasing one,
and, if we are to accept traditional version of the pioneers concerning it, even one that partook of
the nature of a celebration. Says this version :
"The cargo of Mr. Hillman (meaning the wares he had carried
YOUNGSTOWN AND. THE MAHONING VALLEY - 97
northward to trade to the Indians for furs) was not entirely disposed of, there remaining among
other things some whisky, the price of which was to the Indians one dollar a quart in the currency
of the country—a deerskin being the legal tender for one dollar and a doeskin half a dollar. Mr.
Young proposed purchasing a quart, and having a frolic during the evening on its contents, and
insisted upon paying Hillman his customary price for it. Hillman urged that inasmuch as they
were strangers in the country, and just arrived upon his territory, civility required him to furnish
the means of entertainment. He, however, yielded to Mr. Young, who immediately took the
deerskin he had spread for his bed (the only one he had) and paid for his quart of whisky. His
descendants in the State of New York, in relating the hardships of their ancestors, have not
forgotten that Judge Young traded his bed for a quart of whisky."
Which legend may, and may not, be true, but inasmuch as John Young's descendants are credited
with telling it jokingly, and in view of the fact that it was published in Ohio historical memoirs
before the death of Colonel Hillman,, its truth appears to be fairly well established.
Other versions of this meeting credit Hillman with being encamped on the Mahoning when
Young's party arrived, and with hiring out at Beavertown to guide Young and his companions to
their newly acquired lands, but the version above given is unquestionably the correct one.
The meeting was a fortunate one. In reaching a decision relative to the establishment of their
town the advice of Colonel Hillman was invaluable to the settlers, and, appreciating this, he
remained with them for two or three days. By this time a fast friendship had resulted and Colonel
Hillman persuaded the party to accompany him to Beavertown fo;. the July Fourth celebration.
The day was observed with fitting ceremony, and in return Young persuaded Hillman to return
with him to the Reserve and assist in the founding of the settlement that. Young had planned. A
woodsman by nature, who had kept consistently on the frontier, Hillman willingly consented.
Reaching the site of Youngs- town once again early in July; 1797, Hillman assisted the settlers in
building a log house, the first habitation of a white man that marked- the spot that is now a great
city. According to the testimony of early settlers this house stood on the east bank of the
Mahoning River, near what is now Spring Common and about where the stone retaining wall of
the Pennsylvania Railroad is today located. At this time, or shortly there: after,' illman's wile
accompanied him to Young's settlement.
It is hardly necessary to say that these pioneers of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley were of
that rugged, restless type never of raid to wrest a new home from the wilderness. When John
Young came to the Western Reserve in 1797 he left behind at Whitestown, New York, a wife
and two children, John and George. It was 1799 before he had prepared a home that he believed
suitable for them. In that year Young brought his wife and family, to the new settlement, and here
two more children were born to them, William C., in November, 1799, and Mary, in February;
1892. In 1893 the mother found the trials of fron
Vol. I-7
98 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY
tier life too great for her, and John Young, in deference to her wishes, returned with his family to
Whitestown
Young visited the settlement on several occasions thereafter, the last time in 1814, but never
again became a resident here. In its early days his family thus passed out of the active history of
the city ; therefore no descendant of John Young today resides in the great community that bears
his name. Young died at Whitestown, in April, 1825, aged sixty-two years. His widow survived
him fourteen years, passing away in September, 1839, at sixty-seven years of age. His character
was such that he was a man who always commanded respect and in the first years of the
settlement was one whose advice was much sought.
For the growth of the struggling settlement, however, John Young, who left at such an early date,
is perhaps entitled to less credit than is due to those who came with him and remained to fight the
battles of the pioneers, to the hardy men and women settlers who came in the first dozen years of
the existence of Youngstown, and above all to Col. James Hillman, guide, counsellor, protector,
earliest of pioneers, friend to white man and Indian alike, and custodian of law and order in the
early and struggling days of the settlement.
James Hillman was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 1762. While
a boy he enlisted as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. According to Roswell M. Grant, who,
when a youth, lived for some time with Colonel Hillman and his wife, Hillman was captured at
the battle of Yorktown but escaped after he had whipped a British officer. Following the war he
resided for a short while with his father, whose name was also James Hillman, who had located
on the Ohio River three miles below Pittsburgh. Again in 1784 he was a soldier under General
Harmar in the Indian wars and was discharged at Fort McIntosh, at Beavertown, in August, 1785,
when the treaty with the Indians was made there.
Hillman was married in 1786, his courtship and marriage being conducted in the same dashing
way that he had fought the British and the Indians. According to Mr. Grant, Hillman met his
wife-to-be at a corn husking, and after dancing with her several times proposed marriage. The
proposal being acceptable and there being a justice of the peace present, they were married on the
spot, a wedding in haste that apparently disproved the old adage, as their marriage tie was
severed only after sixty-two years, when the pioneer died at Youngstown on November 12, 1848.
He was survived seven years by his wife, her death taking place on August 7, 1855, at the age of
eighty-three years. That she was a worthy mate of the old pioneer and capable of bearing the
hardships of early day life is vouched for by the chronicler above quoted who avers that he was
often assured by both Colonel Hillman and his wife that the latter never owned a pair of shoes or
stockings until after her marriage. Hillman and his wife were childless.
Hillman is described by a contemporary as a man about five feet eight inches in, height, broad
shouldered and possessed of great physica strength due to a naturally rugged constitution and a
life in the out-
YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 99
doors. Hillman and his wife were Methodists in religion and Mrs. Hillman was accounted a great
beauty in her day.
Having taken on the responsibility of married life, Hillman settled to a steady occupation. In the
spring of 1786 the firm of Duncan Wilson of Pittsburgh entered into a contract with Caldwell &
Elliott, Detroit, to deliver a quantity of flour and bacon at the mouth of the 4,
COLONEL JAMES HILLMAN
(Courtesy of Hitchcock Bros.)
Cuyahoga River to a man named James Hawder, who had put up a tent there for receiving the
supplies. In May, 1786, Hillman hired out to Dutton & Wilson as a packhorseman to deliver
these supplies. At the mouth of the Cuyahoga the purchasers had a small sailboat in which to
carry the supplies to Detroit. There Hillman and his party built a rude cabin of logs, on the east
side of the Cuyahoga.
During the year 1786 Hillman is said to have made six trips to the Cuyahoga, his outfit consisting
of ten men and ninety horses. The route lay along the Mahoning River past what is now the City
of Youngstown, thence past the salt spring and northwestward to the Cuyahoga. In 1788 Hillman
settled at Beavertown as agent for Duncan and. Wilson,
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