(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE) 100 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO A fact which few know is that Christian Fast served in 1778-79 as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, several years before he was captured by the Indians. He served in Captain Meek's company of Col. Zachariah Morgan's regiment of Virginia troops. Descendants of this Ashland County pioneer have an association and hold a reunion each year. The one of 1930 was held at Brookside Park, Ashland. Another Ashland County Revolutionary War soldier who settled in Orange Township in 1815, the same year that Christian Fast located there, was Patrick Murray, who with his son James, served in the War of 1812. In the autumn of 1812 they volunteered in General Beall's brigade in defense of the settlers on the Ohio frontier. Born in Ireland on St. Patrick's day, 1755, Murray came to America and resided for some time in Harrisburg, Pa., later Greensburg. He served in the Revolutionary War and about 1809 located in Stark County, Ohio, where he was living when he enlisted for the War of 1812 and which was his home until he removed to Ashland County. On Independence Day, 1854, when he was ninety-nine years old, he rode to Ashland, walked a mile or more during the day and returned to his home three miles northeast of Ashland, in the evening. On July 23 of that year he passed away and is buried in the Nankin Cemetery. His mind was clear to the last. He often told of the hardships suffered by Beall's troops on the march to Fort Meigs and their further distress when they were quartered at the fort and their rations were reduced to a few ounces of food per meal, and not very nourishing food at that. One incident that he particularly delighted to tell was of an experience he had at Fort Meigs with General Harrison. "Ah, there's a mon for you," he used to say, especially during the campaign of 1840. "Gineral Harrison's a pathriot, a brave officer and a gintlemon." It was when the half starved soldiers were complaining of the lack of food. General Harrison had ordered supplies but red tape and difficulties of transportation through swampy regions caused many delays. The situation was becoming more serious right along. Finally Patrick decided that he would take the matter up with General Harrison personally. Entering the general's tent, Murray was halted by an aide-de-camp who rebuked him for daring to invade the general's quarters. Brushing the aide-de-camp aside, Patrick approached General Harrison whom he saluted. After explain- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 101 ing how the troops were suffering for lack of food, Murray asked : "Gineral, whin will our rations be increased ?" "We have sent for supplies, in fact we have been expecting them for days, but they haven't arrived yet," replied General Harrison courteously. "It distresses me to know that the soldiers are suffering for food. We are doing the best we can and hope the food supplies will reach here in a few days." "But, gineral, we may all perish before the rations arrive ; we can't stand it much longer, gineral," insisted Patrick. The general urged that the men be patient a little while longer, that the provisions would certainly reach Fort Meigs before many days. "Gineral," said Murray, "I want to ask you a question as atween mon an' mon. If you was starving and saw food you could get at, would you starve rather than steal ?" "That's rather a hard question to answer," replied General Harrison. "I surely wouldn't like to starve if there was any possible way to get food ; yes, my friend, I rather think I would steal rather than starve to death." "Thank ye, gineral ; ye hev'th' right idea." Murray approached the larder. "Ye seem to hey a few spare loaves of bread here ; so I think I'll help meself to one of 'em." Taking a big loaf of bread from the general's supply, he broke off a piece and commenced to eat it. "Put that back ; put it back, I say," the general's aide ordered. But Patrick kept on eating. "I'll take the rist of this loaf to me comrades," said he. "The gineral here has relaxed the moral law that he might not starve and I refuse to depart from that same principle, sor." General Harrison roared with laughter. "Take it along with you," said he. "You can tell the men they're not going to starve. The supplies will be along soon ; they may be here today." "Thank ye, gineral," said Murray, and he started back to his quarters. Soon thereafter, the supplies did arrive. A number of descendants of this veteran of two wars of the nation are living in Ashland County. Among the oldest residents of Ashland are three of his grandaughters, Mrs. Alice Urie Beer, of Pleasant Street, born in the Crouse district northeast of Ashland, January 24, 1836; Mrs. Adeline Pancoast, of Center Street, born 102 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Feb. 14, 1837 on the George Murray farm northeast of Ashland ; and Mrs. Sarah Urie Beer, of Sandusky Street, born Feb. 18, 1842. All three have been life long residents of what is now Ashland County but was Richland County when they were born on farms northeast of Ashland, then a one-street village of a few hundred inhabitants. The father of Mrs. Alice Beer and Mrs. Sarah Beer was Colonel George W. Urie who came to Orange Township in 1815, when he was nine years of age. He was the first treasurer of Ashland County, served later as county recorder for two terms and was an officer of the state militia. He was ninety-three years old when he died in 1899. Their mother was Elizabeth Murray Urie, daughter of Patrick Murray. Mrs. Pancoast's father was a son of Patrick Murray and her husband was Ohio Pancoast who was a druggist in Ashland for a great many years and who served during the Civil War in President James A. Garfield's regiment, the famous forty-second O. V. V. I. CHAPTER XIII. GROWTH OF VILLAGES STRATEGY BY WHICH MT. VERNON WON COUNTY SEAT OVER CLINTONELY'S SAW MILL AND GRIST MILL AT ELYRIA PUT INTO OPERATION-FOUNDING OF MILAN, FORMERLY IN HURON COUNTY-MORE VILLAGES LAID OUT-GREAT HINCKLEY HUNT-EXECUTION OF TWO INDIANS AT NORWALK. Delving into the annals of early day communities in North Central Ohio, we are impressed with the number of once-flourishing communities which are now mere hamlets or which have vanished altogether, some of which we have already spoken of and others will be mentioned in chapters of the various counties. Driving north from the City of Mt. Vernon on the road which leads past the modest little home which stands on the site of the house in which the famous minstrel, Dan Emmett, author of "Dixie," was living at the time of his death, June 28, 1904, we look in vain for the town of Clinton, which was founded as we have previously stated, before Mt. Vernon was laid out and but for a trick would probably have been the county seat of Knox County, for according to all accounts it was larger than its neighbor a mile and a half to the south, when in the spring of 1808 the commissioners, appointed by the legislature to select the seat of justice for the new county, visited these villages. On a by-road a short distance to the southwest of a little white school house, stands an imposing, well-preserved brick mansion the only visible reminder of the vanished glories of the town of Clinton. It was erected in 1808 as a tavern by the founder of Clinton, Samuel H. Smith, the same year that the county seat was decided upon. This old house in which Mr. and Mrs. Horace S. Paige, now reside, is full of historic associations. Its builder was Worshipful Master of Mt. Zion Lodge, No. 9, F. & A. M., which in 1810 met in the attic of this - 103 - 104 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO old tavern, which though erected nearly a century and a quarter ago, is as well preserved as many buildings not one-third as old. Other officers of this lodge in 1810 included Alfred Manning, senior warden; Ichabod Nye, junior warden; Samuel Nye, treasurer ; Oliver Strong, secretary; William F. Robert, senior deacon; James Miller, junior deacon ; Richard Fishback, tyler ; William Bartlett, senior steward ; Peter Wolf, junior steward. This was two years after Clinton failed to become the county seat. The strategy by which Mt. Vernonites obtained the decision of the commissioners who had been chosen to locate the seat of justice, has often been told but will bear repetition. When the commissioners arrived in the Mt. Vernon settlement, they were entertained by Landlord Ben Butler and his wife, Leah, in their log cabin. The stage had been set for the demonstration and when the news spread that the officials had come, every male inhabitant removed his coat and went to work. Some dragged the streets with ox teams, the shopkeepers busied themselves in their little stores ; the wheels of industry flew. But this industry ceased after the commissioners departed for Clinton. Some Mt. Vernonites, who knew how to make things lively—and they could be real lively—hurried ahead of the county seat locators to Clinton where, very effectively, they jostled the visiting commissioners posing as Clintonites, they yelled and quarreled and presented such a scene of turmoil that the locators were so disgusted that they cut short their visit to Clinton and returning to Mt. Vernon, having decided that it should be the county seat. All through the night, so the narrative says, the Mt. Vernonites celebrated with bonfires, fired salutes from cannons made from tree trunks and stimulated their hilarity by frequent libations from a big kettle of whisky-laden stew on the public square. Historian Norton tells of the first session of court in Mt. Vernon, May 2, 1808. Ben and Leah Butler had their tavern near Gambier and Main streets in apple pie order ; Jim Craig at his house, Mulberry and Gambier streets, laid in a fresh supply of whisky, etc. Gilman Bryant got a brand new horn ; Coyle and Sons swept out their wagon shop and Sheriff Brown had supplied logs for the jurymen to sit on. The women had new homespun garments and the young folks had buckskin leggins. Main Street was little more than a crooked path winding among the stumps and logs. Judge Wilson, president judge ; Farquhar, Mills and Gass, associates, composed the court. Charles HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 105 Loffland was made clerk and Samuel H. Smith, surveyor. The county was divided into four townships, Wayne, Clinton, Morgan and Union. At this session of court a man accused of stealing was convicted and the annals describe the scene when on the public square, the sentence of court was carried into effect. His hands stretched above his head, the offender was tied to a hickory tree on the east side of the square and on his naked back, the lash was applied vigorously. The first blows were applied in such a way that protest was made and those that followed were higher up. The citizens of Clinton did not relax their efforts to secure the county seat. On Jan. 12, 1809, remonstrances against Mt. Vernon being the county seat, were presented to the general assembly and again in 1810 the matter came up but the Clintonites were unsuccessful in this and in their attempts in behalf of the Clinton library and Academy, urged at several sessions of the legislature. Mt. Vernon now had a court house and jail, new settlers were coming in, including some from Clinton, which continued for a few years to wage a valiant, but losing, fight for existence. It was at Clinton in July, 1813, that John P. McArdle and Samuel H. Smith, founder of Clinton, issued the first newspaper not only of Knox County but of all the seven counties of North Central Ohio. For over two years it was published in this now vanished village of Clinton, as the Ohio Register. It was moved to Mt. Vernon, where its first issue in its new quarters was April 24, 1816, bearing on its masthead the motto: "Aware that what is base, no polish can make sterling." Editor Samuel H. Smith stated that the paper would not be a receptable for party politics or personal abuse. The further history of the newspapers of Knox County and the other counties of North Central Ohio will be given in another chapter. In the ten year old settlement of Mt. Vernon, Oct. 29, 1815, a few months before the first newspaper in North Central Ohio was moved to that village, Dan Emmett was born in a little house at the northwest corner of Mulberry and Front (now Ohio) streets. His father, Abram Emmett, pioneer blacksmith of Mt. Vernon, was a soldier of the War of 1812, serving in a company raised by Colonel Lewis Cass, who was afterward governor of Michigan and United States minister to France. During his service at Fort Meigs, Blacksmith Emmett was captured by the British. A bronze tablet is to 106 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO be placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution, at the birthplace of the author of "Dixie." The year 1816 saw a substantial increase in the number of settlers in various parts of North Central Ohio. A number of new villages were laid out. Benjamin Montgomery, who had settled in Weller Township, Richland County, in 1814 and whose brother William, had laid out Uniontown, now Ashland, in 1815, founded the village of Olivesburg, which he named for a daughter, Olive. In 1816, Heman Ely came from his home in West Springfield, Mass., to his lands in Lorain County. As far as Buffalo he traveled in a sulky ; the rest of the way on horseback. The lands which he received from his father, Justin Ely, together with another tract which he purchased, made Heman possessor of 12,500 acres in a single body. On his way to the site of Elyria, he stopped at Ridgeville, east of the Black River, with Capt. Moses Eldred. In the autumn of 1816, after having hired Jedediah Hubbell and Mr. Shepard of Newburg to erect for him a sawmill and grist mill on the east branch of Black River near the foot of the present Broad Street, Ely returned to Massachusetts. He had arranged for the building of a large log house as a boarding house for the carpenters who erected the mill and for the mill hands. In March, 1817, he returned with a party of settlers among them being Ebenezer Lane, afterward chief justice of the Ohio Supreme court: Luther Lane, who drove team; Miss Anne Snow, housekeeper for the party ; Artemas Beebe, who figures prominently in the history of Elyria ; and a colored servant. Part of the way they traveled in a sleigh. In the intervening months, clearing had been made in the forest and considerable progress for the new town. At the foot of Broad Street, Ely and Beebe erected homes and other cabins were soon constructed. The sawmill and grist mill had been put into operation. On May 29, 1817, Captain Cooley, after having walked all the way from Massachusetts, reached the site of Elyria and took charge of the mills on the river. At this time there were at Elyria at least eleven people. In the eleven year-old village of Mt. Vernon, April 10, 1816, a meeting was held for the organization of the Owl Creek Bank, which was destined to cause many years of litigation. We shall have occasion to refer to this in another chapter. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 107 It was in this eventful year, 1816, when new settlers in increasing numbers were locating throughout North Central Ohio, when more townships were being organized and new villages founded, that Edenezer Merry laid out the village of Milan on a bluff above the Huron River, four miles north of Norwalk which was platted the same year. Milan, which at first was called Merry's Mills, occupies the site of the Indian village of Petquotting. Here a mission had been established in 1804 by Rev. Dencke, the chapel and mission house being where the Milan Presbyterian Church was afterward erected. For five years this mission flourished and then the Christian Indians with their missionary moved to Canada. The founder of Milan built a flouring mill and sawmill and the new settlement had a healthy growth. This village, which at the time of its founding, was in Huron County, became one of the most important towns in that section of Ohio. Through the perspicacity, initiative and persistence of its citizens in the construction of a ship canal, this village sixteen miles from the mouth of the Huron River, became in its day one of the largest export markets for grain in the world, its only rival at that time being Odessa, Russia. Milan was seven years old when the citizens of the village and township started the project for a ship canal, work on which began in due time, but difficulties were encountered occasioning delays so that it was not until July 4, 1839, that the ship canal was formally opened and Milan began its phenomenal growth along commercial lines, its prosperity continuing for ten years or more. The canal which was built was from Milan to what is known as Fries' Landing, about four miles from Milan, the Huron River being navigable to that point. Milan saw erected eleven warehouses with a storage capacity of 300,000 bushels and in the seasons for the marketing of grain there would arrive at Milan, in a single day between 600 and 700 loaded wagons, some of the teamsters coming from a distance of more than 100 miles with four and six horse teams. In a single day as high as twenty sailing vessels were loaded, 35,000 bushels being placed on board. In eleven years 5,000,000 bushels of grain were shipped from this port. In 1844 the value of exports was $825,000 mostly in wheat and flour, and the imports, most of which the teamsters took back down state, amounted to $630,000. Ship building was 108 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO carried on extensively. In 1850 Milan had grown to a population of 1,300, close to sixty houses having been erected in the previous year. But the people of Milan, confident that the village could maintain its commercial supremacy, did not forsee the changes that railroads would bring, so when what is now the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was built, Norwalk secured it. When the Nickel Plate was built it passed a few miles north of the village. Its glory passed. Eventually the Norwalk-Huron branch of the Wheeling & Lake Erie R. R. was built through Milan, but too late. One of Milan's claims to fame is that it was the birthplace of a famous inventor, Thomas A. Edison. The little house in which he was born, Feb. 11, 1847, is still standing. The village of Petersburg, now Mifflin, Ashland County, on what is now the Harding Highway, was founded June 28, 1816, a few miles north of the scene of the Blackfork valley massacres. It was laid out by Peter Deardorff, Samuel Lewis and William B. James. Traveling on horse back from his home in New England, Sylvanus Parmely, grandfather of Mrs. Myron T. Herrick, arrived in the Western Reserve in 1816, and helped Squire Baldwin of Newburg, with a survey of Sullivan township, Ashland County. The surveying party camped in the forest and by means of pack-horses procured food from Harrisville (Lodi). That autumn, having selected lands for himself and six other families, he returned to his home. In the following year, Parmely and his family, with six other families, with ox teams and one span of horses came to their new homes in the forest. From Harrisville, Medina County, to the site of Sullivan, a distance of ten miles, these pioneers cut a road through the forest. They arrived at the site of their lands Aug. 28, 1817. One family occupied a log but erected by the surveyors, while the rest of the families for about three weeks had sleeping-quarters in their wagons until log houses could be erected. Later in the year several additional families came to the site of Sullivan. By paths through the forest the new settlers journeyed to the Stibbs mill, hear Wooster, for their grists. After Mr. Parmely and others had erected a horse-mill at the center, people from far and near came to have their grinding done. Sylvanus Parmely was postmaster from 1820 to 1822. On his removal to Elyria, he was succeeded by John Gould. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 109 He reoccupied his old farm on returning to Sullivan in 1833. With Alexander Porter, Parmely built a large steam grist mill and sawmill, establishing also a dry goods store at Sullivan Center. The village grew and later aspired to become a county seat. Mr. Parmely, in 1843, was elected Lorain County Representative in the General Assembly. During the year 1817, Platt Benedict built a log cabin in Norwalk on the site of the Home Savings & Loan Company, building on the south side of East Main Street ; Augustin Canfield and family took up their abode in the wilderness on the site of Wakeman, Huron County; Settlement was made at Fitchville ; Judge Levi Cox established at Wooster the Ohio Spectator, Wayne County's first newspaper; Linus Hayes opened a tavern on the site of Hayesville, Ashland County ; the Old School Presbyterian Church, a one-story brick building, 40 feet square, was erected at Mt. Vernon, the Rev. James Scott becoming pastor ; building was going on at Elyria and Heman Ely was platting his lands at the mouth of the Black River, the site of Lorain, returning in the autumn to Massachusetts for the winter ; Joseph Welch built a mill at Springmill, Richland County, John Raver, one a short distance northeast of the site of Rowsburg, Constance Lake, one near Jeromesville ; the Hopewell congregation was organized at Uniontown (Ashland) ; and on Sept. 29, Monroeville, Huron County, was laid out. Sept. 29, 1817, is noteworthy also for a treaty concluded that day at the foot of the Maumee Rapids by Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur, commissioners on the part of the United States, with the Delaware tribe, which had formerly had villages at Jerometown and Greentown. By this agreement the Delawares were given a reservation a few miles square, south of the Wyandots' reservation of twelve square miles in Wyandot County. By this treaty, Indian title to all the lands claimed by them in Ohio, save for the reservation, was extinguished. In the spring of 1829 the Delawares settled on a reservation in Kansas but it was not until 1843 that the Wyandots, numbering between 600 and 700, were transferred to the Kansas reservation. When Medina County was organized early in 1818, the total population according to one account, was 2,469. From the time of its 110 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO erection in 1812 it had been attached to Portage County for judicial purposes. At the first election Abraham Freese was made county Auditor ; Lathrop Seymour, Sheriff ; John Freese, Recorder. Medina, originally Mecca, was laid out in 1818 by Elijah Boardman, original owner of the township, who donated 237 acres. Four lots facing the public square on the west were reserved for public buildings, special commissioners designating the village for the seat of justice. The president judge at the first session of court for Medina County, held in Squire Ferris' barn on the present North Court Street, was George Tod of Warren ; associate judges, Joseph Harris, Harrisville; Isaac Welton, Richfield; and Frederick Brown, Wadsworth. A pioneer, James Moore, describing the scene, said : "The rights of the straw-eating ox, for a while were lost in the exaltation of his humble stall where reason and justice were to meet. The sheriff announced that court was opened and for litigants to draw near but nothing was to be litigated and adjournment was taken until next day. "The day wore away in friendly greetings and social chat. After a good supper the pioneers unlocked their store of adventure, deer or wolf hunts, and hairbreadth escapes from falling trees and there was an occasional sally from Guy Boughton who assured the company that the last freshet in Black River had destroyed the nesting places of the bank swallows and left the holes sticking out several feet. "When the hour for repose came, twenty or thirty of us repaired to the barn (court house) when Squire Ferris arrived with lights, decanters, and reinforcements of several others. The squire regretted that he could furnish no better lodging but he had a substitute for feathers and invited all to come forward and take a little comfort from the decanters. "In a short time the decanters were empty and before the squire returned with replenished decanters, conversation had taken a stride, listeners had become speakers and by the time the decanters had been filled the third time, three or four persons had mounted the judge's table, each speaking on a different subject and vociferating at full strength of his lungs. Those on the floor essayed extempore HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 111 verse. In this crisis, Dr. B. B. Clark, was called in professionally. The doctor recommended tonic in large doses. A dry cow-skin was procured and several patients were elevated three or four feet and suffered to descend by their own weight. At breakfast, next morning, several of the worst cases were convalescent." In this year, 1818, when Norwalk became the county seat of Huron County and three men, with their axes, walked 600 miles to help clear land at Elyria, of which the founder on May 23 of that year became postmaster, Richard Hargrave erected in Jeromeville the Hargrave tavern which is still standing. The village of Mansfield consisted of about twenty log cabins, and a tavern on the site of the present Hotel Southern, when the first school house in the village, a frame structure costing $200, paid for by subscription, was erected on East Fourth Street near the big spring. Lorain's ship building industry had its beginning in this year, 1818, when Augustus Jones and William Murdock were given land near the mouth of the Black River to recompense them for the burning of their ship yards on the Connecticut River by the British. Within a couple of years their shipyard was in active operation. Other ship carpenters established yards along the river and on the lake front to the east and west of the harbor mouth, wooden sailing vessels being built. Among the early shipbuilders at the settlement were F. Church, Capt. A. Jones and Sons, B. B. & William ; F. N. Jones, A. Gillmore and Edward Gillmore, Jr. The first merchant ship to sail Lake Superior was built here. Looming large in the early day annals of Medina County is the great Hinckley Hunt, Dec. 24 and 25, 1818, in Hinckley Township, six hundred hunters participating. Christmas was ushered in with a bear-barbecue with plenty of trimmings and during the morning distribution was made of the trophies of the hunt, consisting of three hunderd deer, twenty-one bears and seventeen wolves ; also foxes, coons and a few wild turkeys of which no account was kept. On Christmas day, 1818, the Rev. John Haney founded the village of Savannah six miles northwest of Ashland on a hill overlooking the Vermillion Lakes, source of the Vermillion River. In this vicinity were a number of stations of the Underground R. R., hundreds of fugitive slaves being concealed and helped on their way to freedom. 112 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Savannah, which was at first called Vermillion and Haneytown, was for many years the seat of Savannah Academy founded by the Rev. Dr. Alexander Scott. Two Ottawa Indians were tried and executed at Norwalk in 1819 for killing a muskrat trapper, George Bishop of Danbury, on the Marblehead peninsula. At that time Norwalk had a population of a little over a hundred and Cleveland was about the same size. Ii this year a stage route was established from Mt. Vernon to Wooster and Cleveland, Loudonville being relay station. Trips were made twice a week in summer and occasionally in winter. Stephen Butler, at Loudonville, enlarged his cabin, along the Blackfork, and kept tavern. In four-year-old Uniontown (Ashland) on April 1, of that year (1819) was born, in a log cabin, the noted educator, Dr. Lorin Andrews, president of Kenyon College, and first in Ohio to volunteer for service in the great Civil War. CHAPTER XIV. AGRICULTURAL CONTRASTS IN NORTH CENTRAL OHIO TOILSOME METHODS OF EARLY DAY FARMERS-REMINISCENCES OF U. S. JUDGE MARTIN WELKER AND CLEM STUDEBAKER-SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE-MASTER FARMERS 1926-30-FARM ORGANIZATIONS. Contrasting the toilsome methods of agriculture of a century or more ago in North Central Ohio with the efficiency of scientific agriculture and latest improved machinery today by which a couple of men can produce crops that in the early days required the labor of a considerable number of men working from sunrise until after sunset, we realize the progress that has been made in agricultural operations. North Central Ohio has an important place today in demonstrating the results that can be accomplished by specialization, by applying to the production of crops, the raising of livestock, growing of vegetables and fruits, the most successful methods. The Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station at Wooster is directing experimental work in seventy-one of the eighty-eight counties of the state. Director C. D. Williams states that this includes work in entomology, horticulture, pathology, forestry supervision in state parks, etc. An example of the service rendered to the farming industry is seen in the experimental work with wheat. Thousands of rows of wheat are planted, seed being taken from individual heads, their growths are checked until an improved type of wheat is found. The farmers of the state thereby have an opportunity to grow a type of wheat that produces best results. The extent to which the work of the agriculture experiment station advances scientific agriculture along so many different lines is not realized, perhaps, by the public in general. The work of the forestry division under the direction of State Forester Secrest in - 113 - 114 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO reforestation, enlargement of forest preserves, state parks, and promoting the establishment of new ones is a highly beneficial work not only for the present generation but for posterity. The late United States Judge Martin Welker, who died in 1902 at Wooster, was a pioneer farm boy in Knox County. Many years ago he published a little book on farm life in Ohio in 1832. It presents a vivid and accurate picture of the arduous methods then prevailing, of farming operations, some of which prevailed decades later. When Judge Welker was a boy, plowing was generally done with a bar-shear plow with wooden mould-board, with a boy alongside with a paddle to keep the dirt from clogging on the mould-board. Occasionally a more advanced farmer would use a plow with a metal mouldboard. What vast energy the pioneers expended in clearing the heavy timber from the land. These early day farmers of North Central Ohio had no cross cut saws—or at least he knew of none—and logs which today would command a substantial price were burned in great heaps to get them out of the way. Wheat, oats, rye,—all seeds in fact—were sown broadcast by hand and covered by triangular wooden or iron-toothed harrow. Corn was planted by hand, covered with a hoe and cultivated with hoe or shovel plow. Plenty of work for the farm boys and girls. Hoeing corn was the special work of the boys, and sometimes of the girls and when the corn was high a boy or girl would ride the horse hitched to the plow. Wheat and rye were cut by sickle and with straw bands bound into sheaths. Until the advent of the hand cradle, which was making its appearance about this time, Judge Welker says, oats and buckwheat were cut by scythe. All grains were threshed with a wooden flail, and cleaned with a sheet, two men so swinging the sheet as to blow the chaff from the grain as it was poured out of the half-bushel by another man. Then the hand-riddle was used to clean the wheat for use. Judge Welker says it was practically a winter's job for a lone farmer to thresh out and clean the crop of a ten-acre field. After fanning mills came into use, soon after the hand cradle, wheat would sometimes be tramped out with horses on the barn floor. The accumulated fertility of the soil made splendid crops possible and little attention was paid to fertilizing the land. "Farming in those days was a sort of skimming process," says Judge Welker, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 115 who tells of how with a number of people working together the arduous work of harvest time was regarded as more or less of a frolic by the jolly reapers ; there was a lot of good natured rivalry among the harvesters. Grass, cut with a hand-scythe and cured by fork and hand rake, was usually stacked in the meadow when cut and there fed to the cattle during the winter. There was not so much of hauling into bank barns as in our day. In this connection Judge Welker mentions how it used to be his duty at noon time, when the mowers were resting, to turn the grindstone when scythes were sharpened. "I've hated grindstones ever since," says he. Until the building of the Ohio Canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth, construction of which began on Independence Day 1825, there was very little market for the farmers of the interior of Ohio for grain or other farm produce. There was plenty of food on the farms but very little ready money. Eggs were about 4 cents a dozen, butter 8 cents a pound, oats 15 cents a bushel, corn 25 cents, wheat 40 cents, bacon 6 1/4 cents a pound and whiskey 25 cents a gallon. Sugar was 10 cents a pound but the farmers generally had plenty of sugar they produced themselves, delicious maple sugar which they produced themselves from their sugar groves, some of them consisting of hundreds of maple trees. Pioneer annals say that it was not unusual for a farmer in a season to make from 1800 to 2500 pounds of sugar. In the region around Ashland a farmer considered that his supply of maple sugar was very small if he had only three or four hundred pounds. Francis Graham, first postmaster of Ashland who came to what was then Uniontown in 1821, mentions in his reminiscences that in one year he shipped forty-two barrels of maple sugar, each containing from 220 to 250 pounds. This sugar, which brought the farmers from five to six cents a pound, could be exchanged by the merchants for salt, white fish and other commodities at Vermilion or one of the other Lake Erie ports ; or for iron, nails, castings, at a furnace in Licking County. There was a market in Michigan Territory for whiskey, which at one time was almost regarded as legal tender. The farmers sold their corn to distillers or to the merchant for goods and sometimes they, themselves, took it to market. Mr. Graham says that about 1824 he found a good market in Michigan for pork. As a merchant he had to buy cattle, hogs and sometimes horses from the farmers who had diffi- 116 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO culty in raising enough money for their taxes, even though they were very low. About twice out of three times when horses were taken to Baltimore and Philadelphia, he sold them at a loss. Hogs were sometimes driven to Pittsburg but he says that about 1826 after the opening of the New York and Erie Canal, he shipped pork to the New York market. For several years, in the autumn, he bought from eighty to 140 head of cattle, had them slaughtered at Sandusky and packed for the New York market. He says that until after the opening of the New York and Erie Canal, money continued scarce. The canal gave impetus to all branches of business, produce gradually advanced and the currency of the country was materially improved. The effect of the opening of the Ohio Canal was even more marked in the development of North Central Ohio, especially of Medina, Wayne and Richland Counties. The first packet on the Ohio Canal reached Massillon Aug. 28, 1828, causing wheat to advance to 50 cents a bushel and later went up to 75 cents. Before this time, as has been mentioned before, the farmers of interior Ohio had very little ready market for their grain. It is mentioned that about 1825 when John Stewart built a flouring mill on the Rocky-Fork, several miles from Mansfield, and put a notice in Attorney James Purdy's newspaper, the Mansfield Gazette, offering to pay 311/4 cents, cash for wheat, farmers from many miles around took advantage of the offer, being elated at obtaining so good a price and in cash. Pioneer reminiscences tell of the difficulties the settlers had so often in obtaining salt for domestic use. If they had a cup full of it, they were very careful to make it go as far as possible. Mush, which was such an important article in the daily fare, was almost intolerable without it. Many of the settlers used stewed pumpkin as we do potatoes nowadays. In some of the cabins they had it three times a day except on Sunday mornings when they had a sort of short cake that the children liked quite well. The resourcefulness of the pioneer settlers of North Central Ohio is a fascinating study ; it should be an inspiration to the young people of today to put more determination into the solution of their problems. These early day Ohioans knew how to do many things and to do them well; thew knew how to meet emergencies and many HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 117 of them were able to achieve success in the face of obstacles which we of today would think insuperable. The women and girls of that day, in addition to performing household tasks with no conveniences, were manufacturers. Flax was grown on the farms and, with much labor, it was made into cloth, garments that the family wore, and other articles. Wool from the sheep raised on the farms, was spun into yarn which on cabin looms was woven into cloth and made into garments. Highly treasured today are the coverlets of home manufacture in early day Ohio 75 or 100 years ago. The compensation of farm laborers has usually been less than that of workers in other lines but it was particularly true in the early days. It is said that in 1825 when the Ohio Canal was being built, farmers from a number of counties were glad to get $8 for twenty-six days of work from sunrise to sunset with time off for meals, which are said to have been good, including whisky rations. This gave the farmers some ready money for their taxes. The late Clem Studebaker, one of the South Bend, Ind., Studebaker multi-millionaires, whose boyhood was spent at Pleasant Ridge, five miles east of Ashland, where their father established a blacksmith shop in 1835, used to tell how in 1847, as a youth of sixteen—but able to do a man's work—he was a farm-hand for Senator Allison's father-in-law, Daniel Carter, two miles east of Ashland, for $4 a month including board. In addition to doing other farm work, he helped the women folks milk the cows, churn the butter and do the family washings. He said that he was able to husk as high as seventy-five bushels of corn in one day. Clem's brother, John, who was also destined to become a millionaire, must have been a husky lad for in 1846 at the age of thirteen, he was employed at $3 a month to clear up some timber land on the Meng farm, a couple of miles from the Studebaker homestead. But homesickness overcame him in spite of the fact that he had a job at $3 a month. Finally he slashed his big toe but the wound was deeper than he intended it to be and, screaming, he ran all the way home where his dear mother comforted him. He bore the scar on his toe the rest of his life. For a great many years the wage of an able-bodied man for a long summer day in the harvest field was 50 cents and as late as the '80s a good harvest hand received about a dollar a day. 118 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The late Geo. W. Brubaker, prominent Ashland County farmer, who represented the county in the General Assembly, used to tell of the work he used to do in the harvest field before the days of the reaper. An expert cradler, he was able to cut from eight to ten acres of wheat in a day. And he could split a thousand rails in a day. For more than a century North Central Ohio has had a prominent part in the movement for the advancement of the farming industry. On July 4, 1829, nine years before Almer Hegler of Fayette County introduced in the Ohio General Assembly a bill to organize a State Board of Agriculture, a meeting was held at Mansfield for the purpose of forming an agricultural and mechanical society in Richland County. In October of that year, Mordecai Bartley, pioneer mill owner, lawyer, congressman, and governor of Ohio, was chosen president of the society. The results of this movement were seen later. This was the same year that the first Cuyahoga County fair was held on the Cleveland public square and in the court house. In 1839, six years after the first log cabin was erected on the site of the classic town of Oberlin, faculty and students of the Collegiate Institute, and residents of the settlement formed an organization to advance the interests of agriculture. This was the first organization of its kind in Lorain County. Town fairs were held, cattle and other stock were exhibited, premiums awarded, and a plowing match conducted. It co-operated with the Lorain County Agricultural Society, formed in 1846, in making passable the road from Oberlin to Elyria. Faculty, students and villagers, in addition to contributing money to the fund, turned out and worked on the road, the young women students providing a bounteous dinner. The State Board of Agriculture was finally organized in 1844, the legislation at that time stimulating the formation of county agricultural societies and the holding of county fairs. Fairs in the various counties of North Central Ohio will be taken up in chapters of the counties. Dr. N. S. Townshend, living on his farm at Avon, led in the movement which resulted in the formation of the Lorain County Agricultural Society. In 1858 he was elected a member of the State Board of Agriculture of which he was later president. He secured the enactment, in 1870, of a law for the establishment of an agricultural and mechanical college for Ohio which became the great Ohio State University. The application of machinery to more and more of the operations HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 119 of farming; the united efforts of the farmers through the granges and more recently through the farm bureaus; the construction of systems of paved roads enabling the farmers to deliver their products at all seasons of the year ; the study of scientific agriculture in universities, colleges and high schools ; farmers' institutes every winter in various sections of the counties; enthusiasm and friendly rivalry of the thousands of young people in the 4-H Clubs of Ohio ; all these have been among the factors in the development of agriculture in recent decades. Two thousand acres of land in Medina County, near Lodi, once swamps now produce wonderful crops of celery as do also the muck lands in the southwestern part of Huron County and in other parts of this section. In Huron County also some 5,000 acres are devoted to the growing of sweet corn for canning factories. More attention is given to dairying, poultry raising, and market gardening. Fruit growing is also conducted quite extensively. Increased attention has been given in recent years to potato growing in parts of Richland County where the soil is especially adapted to their production. A number of farmers produced more than 400 bushels to the acre while Walter Campbell, manager of the Carpenter farms near Mansfield, produced 650 bushels to the acre, the largest yield per acre in the State of Ohio. In 1926, twenty farmers of Ohio received gold medals as Master Farmers, the awards being based not only on efficiency of production but citizenship, community service. More than a hundred successful farmers were nominated and of the twenty chosen that year five were from North Central Ohio, M. C. Ebright, D. W. Galehouse, and A. C. Ramseyer, all of Wayne County ; Paul Thornburg of Ashland County, orchardist; and William Erf of Huron County. In 1927, one of the fifteen Master Farmers chosen out of over 120 farmers nominated was N. W. Lee of near New London, Huron County. In 1928, ten were chosen and in 1929, ten more, one of whom was W. J. Ramseyer of Wayne County. Three of the eleven Master Farmers in 1930 are from North Central Ohio, Clarence E. Dutton, manager of Melrose Orchards, near Wooster ; A. L. Lockhart, manager of Willeben Farm, near Lexington, Richland County ; and J. W. Fravel of Knox County. Of the sixty-six farmers of the Buckeye State who have been singled out for honor as Master Farmers above all the hundreds of successful farmers over the state, ten of them are from five counties of North Central Ohio. CHAPTER XV. EARLY DAY SCHOOLS SCHOOL IN COLUMBIA SETTLEMENT LORAIN COUNTY HELD IN 1808-CHILDREN TAUGHT IN BLOCKHOUSES AT WOOSTER AND MANSFIELD-REMINISCENCES OF LATE CHARLES H. KING-EARLY DAY ACADEMIES-BEGINNINGS OF KENYON AND OBERLIN COLLEGES. The schools of North Central Ohio rank high in the educational world. Centralization and consolidation of the rural schools have made commendable progress, especially in the last fifteen years. Splendid schools are the rule in every one of the counties of North Central Ohio; one-room schools have been replaced by centralized schools in which instruction is specialized, the work done comparing favorably with that of the city schools which are among the best in the entire state. And the influence of the colleges of North Central Ohio has gone out into all the world as we shall see when their history and achievements are taken up in detail. It is inspiring to delve into the history of education in this section of the state for the early day settlers in this part of Ohio had a zeal for education unsurpassed in any other part of the state. These early settlers in emphasizing the importance of education exemplified the spirit that has increased in power through the generations. "Wherever half a dozen families settled near each other—and from one to five miles was called near in early days—these people first established a school and place of worship," says one writer in speaking of these early day schools. "So deeply rooted and firmly established in their hearts was the fundamental idea that the common school is the hope of the republic that every opportunity was improved. Early schools were taught years before the settlers were able to build school houses and before any public money could be obtained for this purpose ; these were subscription schools." - 120 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 121 Clearing had scarcely been made in the forest and the log cabins erected until the children were called together for instruction in the fundamentals; reading, writing and arithmetic and along with them the principles of Christian living. In the settlement at Columbia, Lorain County, Mrs. Bela Bronson taught a school in 1808, not a great while after the settlers had arrived there. Julia Johnson taught the first school in Eaton Township and another of the early schools was at Ridgeville. Even in the stirring days of 1812 with war in progress, the settlers on the Ohio frontier were not unmindful of the importance of school. In the settlement at Wooster were about a dozen children. Their parents were willing to pay for their instruction and when finally a young lawyer, Carlos Mather, settled in the village and found there was not much legal business to occupy his time, he was induced to open a school in the blockhouse which was on North Market Street opposite the site of the Public Library. He was a Yale man and in addition to being well educated, he was cultured and refined, and kind hearted. We are told that he left a lasting impression, not only upon his pupils but upon all in the settlement and there was much regret when, after he had taught for a couple of years he returned to his home in the East. Among the other early day teachers in Wooster were Cyrus Spink, Samuel Whitehead and the Rev. Thomas Hand, the latter about 1817 taking charge of the Wooster Female Seminary on South Market Street. Among the young women who attended this seminary were Nancy and Harriet Beall, daughters of General Beall ; Joseph Eichar's daughters, Eleanor and Nancy; Colonel John Sloane's daughters, Hannah and Mary ; and Jane Thomson, sister of Dr. Edward Thomson who became the first president of Ohio Wesleyan University and later a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Eliza Wolf, who during the War of 1812 was custodian of military stores at Mansfield, conducted a school in one of the blockhouses on the square. It is believed that this was the first school in Mansfield. Among the other early day teachers in Mansfield were John Mull, John Lowery, James Russell, Alexander Kearn and Judge James Stewart, the latter's daughter, Cecelia; years later became the wife of the statesman, John Sherman. One of the pupils of the future Judge Stewart in his school-teaching days in the village of Mansfield was a very pretty girl, Miss Loughridge, who came into Mansfield from her home in the woods a mile or more from Mansfield. 122 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO The friendship of the teacher and his very charming pupil ripened into love and they were married. As early as the summer of 1814, Miss Elizabeth Rice taught a school in a log cabin near the site of Perrysville, Ashland County. Among the other of the early school teachers in Ashland County were Asa Brown, in 1816, a mile north of Perrysville ; Mrs. Patrick Elliott, in her cabin home in Clearcreek Township, summer of 1817 ; Robert Nelson that winter in Clearcreek ; Rev. John Hazard, 1818, Crouse District, Montgomery Township ; John G. Mosier, 1818, in Perry Township ; L. Parker, Lake Township about the same time ; Sage Kellogg, winter of 1819-20, Montgomery Township. The first school in Ashland is said to have been taught by a Mr. Williamson in 1821-22. Mention is made of a school in Wadsworth Township, Medina County, in 1816, Harriet Warner conducting it in her father's log house. The following year Sarah Tillitson taught sixteen scholars who came from Brunswick and Liverpool townships. The first school in Granger Township, Medina County, was in the winter of 1819-20, William Paul conducting a school of seventeen scholars. Diadema Churchill taught the first school in Lodi in 1817. It is recorded that in 1818 there were in Medina County thirty-seven school houses with 620 pupils attending. About this time Larkin A. Williams conducted the first school in Avon Township, Lorain County, and Mrs. Canfield conducted the first school in Wakeman, Huron County. She had six pupils and received a dollar a week in produce and boarded herself. The first school house was erected a couple of years later on the Canfield farm. About this time Elyria had its first school house, a log structure across from the east branch of the Black River. Near Peru, Huron County, in 1820, Henry Adams had a school of sixteen pupils and this same year the Rev. Schuh conducted a school in Mt. Zion Church near Lucas, Richland County. Rev. Schuh was a fine German scholar and his school was in the nature of an academy, instruction being given in the higher branches as well as in elementary studies. Resourcefulness of early day teachers in this section of Ohio is illustrated by an incident of Joseph Dana, one of the pioneer teachers in New Haven Township, Huron County. No paper was available nor anything else on which the pupils could write, so he had them trace letters in sand on smooth boards and the instruction went forward in a gratifying manner. Years ago an aged Mansfield man, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 123 the late Charles H. King, told me of school teaching experiences in the late '30s. A teacher certificate issued to him in 1837 set forth that he was found to be qualified to teach reading, writing and arithmetic as far as the double rule of three and that his moral character was good. He began to teach at the age of sixteen years. The inside measurement of the log school house was 24 feet 6 inches by 19 feet 6 inches and 8 feet in height. He had an enrollment of seventy-nine during the term commencing on the first Monday in November and his salary for twenty-four days a month, also every alternate Saturday, was $16. He boarded around at the homes of the scholars. He wrote all the copies, made and mended all the goose-quill pens and did the janitor work, but he had the boys carry in the wood and sometimes at noon the girls swept the school room. The smaller scholars were able to attend only when the weather was pleasant, the larger scholars came after the weather got bad as they had to do the fall work first. "That winter I had thirteen different arithmetics in the school," Mr. King told me. "Some of them had been published in the preceding century and probably had been used by my pupils' grandfathers. The most recent one was The Western Calculator, published in 1818. I don't think that it had been revised. From 25 to 80 per cent of the financial problems were in English money ; there were some excellent rules for reducing United States money to English. At that time each scholar in arithmetic was in a class by himself and worked ahead as fast as he could. In my third year as a teacher, I got rid of all the old arithmetics and had that winter but one kind, a new one. "In 1840, I was determined to have a blackboard for my school. I had never seen one but had read of them. Those to whom I mentioned my plan ridiculed the idea but I was still determined to have a blackboard. I got hold of a rough board and carried it nearly a mile to be planed and painted and then placed it in the school room. It was a wonderful help to me and the usefulness of a blackboard in school was soon recognized. In two years every school house in that part of the country had a blackboard." Pupils of seventy-five or a hundred years ago were drilled in spelling more thoroughly, perhaps, than scholars are today when there is such a multiplicity of subjects in which instruction is given. Pioneer reminiscences tell of the rivalry in the daily spelling; it was a great honor to stand at the head of the class and a still greater 124 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO honor to win an inter-school spelling contest, with the best spellers in each school competing. Frequently the parents and other grownups had a part in these "spell downs." That there are still some schools in North Central Ohio in which spelling receives special attention, is shown by the fact that the winner in the national spelling competition at Washington, D. C., in June, 1927, with the best spellers from every section of the United States represented, was thirteen-year-old Dean Lewis of the Congress, Wayne County, school, the award being $1,000. Another signal honor came to this same village school in May of the following year when Pauline Gray, representing the Congress school, received second honors in the national spelling-bee at Washington. Their teacher in the Congress High School was Wayne Essick, a graduate of Ashland College. There are signs that greater attention is to be given to spelling in the schools of Ohio, not only in the grades, but in the high school. In December, 1930, at the request of the State Department of Education, in co-operation with the National Psychological Corporation, 261,000 pupils in the schools of the state from the fourth grade through the high school were given an English test to discover grammatical weaknesses and spelling errors most common. In our consideration of the early day schools of North Central Ohio, we must speak of the influence of the early day academies, which flourished until the adoption in Ohio of the public school system. It is said that at least 200 of them were established in this state of which quite a number were in North Central Ohio. Some of these will be mentioned in other chapters for, as one writer has said : "without them and the influence of the graduates they sent out, the establishment of a state system of education would have been long delayed ; they did excellent work and furnished superior advantages for those days." It was out of his experience as principal of Worthington Academy to which he came in 1817, the year before he was made the first bishop of Ohio of the Protestant Episcopal Church, that Philander Chase, impressed with the opportunities for religious work in his new field, determined to establish in the rapidly growing State of Ohio a training school for Episcopal clergymen. His purpose was to educate "sons of the soil" who could not afford to attend schools in the East. Though he received from his associates in the church HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 125 little or no encouragement, he devoted himself unceasingly to the accomplishment of his great undertaking, journeying to England where he secured $30,000, and on his return to Ohio purchasing 8,000 acres of land in the forests of Knox County east of Mt. Vernon, where he founded Kenyon College. The act incorporating the theological seminary was passed December 29, 1824, the corner-stone of Old Kenyon was laid June 9, 1827, and the following year the school was moved from Worthington. It is inspiring to read not only of Bishop Chase's abundant labors in securing the money for the founding of Kenyon but also his indefatigable efforts to establish the institution on a substantial foundation. We read that the sawmill and grist mill contributed materially to the success of Kenyon in the early days; that in 1830 there were 125 acres in corn, 120 in wheat, besides fields of rye and oats; 700 acres were fenced with more than 76,000 rails which the college caused to be split ; extensive pastures of timothy and clover ; there were fifty oxen and many cows. There were carpenter shops, printers, shoemakers, blacksmith shops, a college store, an inn for visitors ; all these enterprises along with feeding, housing and instruction of the students, and over them all the bishop had active supervision, continuing until 1831 when he resigned. Norwalk Academy was another early established institution which contributed materially to the educational progress of our state. Among its students were Rutherford B. Hayes, who became president of the United States ; General James B. McPherson, Civil War commander, who was killed in the fighting before Atlanta ; and Charles Foster, who became governor of Ohio and secretary of the treasury in President Benjamin Harrison's cabinet. A catalogue of the academy March 17, 1829, gives the names of eighty-three young men and sixty young women, total 143, who had been under instruction there. The principal at that time was John Kennan and the assistants, Nathan G. Sherman and Levina Lindsley. Platt Benedict, founder of Norwalk, was president of the academy and the trustees, besides Benedict, were Timothy Baker, Henry Buckingham, Everett Bradley, Thaddeus B. Sturges, William Gallop and Obadiah Jenny. Announcement was made that the next quarter would begin Thursday, April 30, next. The statesman, John Sherman, in his Recollections tells of his school days in Mt. Vernon from 1831 to 1835. He was eight years 126 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO old when, in the spring of 1831, he journeyed fifty miles by stage coach from Lancaster to the home of his father's cousin, John Sherman, at Mt. Vernon. He says the schools were admirably conducted by teachers of marked ability, among them, some who became distinguished in business and professional life. He tells of a fight he had one time with a school mate, A. Banning Norton, future editor, judge and historian. Young Norton wore his fingernails very long and when John pommeled him he retaliated by scratching the future statesman's face. When the folks at home asked him how his face became so badly scratched John replied that he had fallen on a splintery log. Sherman confesses that in his school days at Mt. Vernon he was sometimes punished with ferule and switch. One of his teachers, a small man, was called "Bunty" Lord. While playing on the commons one evening, young Sherman and three other boys found a dead sheep which they carried into the school room and placed on Lord's seat. "I wrote a Latin couplet purporting that this was a very worthy sacrifice to a very poor Lord and placed it on the head of the sheep," says Sherman. "My handwriting disclosed my part in the case and the result was discharge of the culprits from school ; but poor Lord lost his place, because of his inability to govern his unruly pupils." Sherman mentions another of his teachers, Matthew H. Mitchell, very severe, but impartial, and though the boys did not like him they respected his power. Sherman gives other incidents of his school days at Mt. Vernon. During a freshet in Owl Creek, he fell into the flood when a temporary foot bridge onto which he had ventured, despite warnings, gave way. "How I escaped I hardly know," says Sherman, "but it was by the assistance of others. Uncle John said I was punished by the Almighty for violating the Sabbath. Ever after that I was careful about Sunday sport." Sherman regarded as well spent the four years he was in school at Mt. Vernon. He could translate Latin fairly well, went through the primary studies and had some comprehension of algebra, geometry and kindred studies. Returning to Lancaster, he entered the academy of Mark and Matthew Howe. The Huron Institute, which had a career of fifty-seven years, was started in 1832 and the following year marked the beginning of an institution whose influence has been world wide, Oberlin College, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 127 the first American college to open its doors to all students regardless of creed, race or sex, and first to give women the degree of A. B. It was in 1832 while the Rev. John J. Shipherd was pastor of the Elyria Presbyterian Church, that he and a former missionary, Philo P. Stewart, discussed ways and means for establishing a collegiate school in a community which they should establish in an unbroken forest in Lorain County. Love to man was the vital principle of the colony and along with text-book was to be inculcated economy, industry, self-denial. Manual labor was to have an important part in the life of the colony, the Christian families being pledged "to plainest living and highest thinking." After months of prayerful consideration, the way opening up before them, the two founders in November, 1832, met under the historic elm, still standing at the southeast corner of the campus, and consecrated the land for a Christian town and collegiate institute. Impressed with the life and works of John Frederic Oberlin, Alsatian pastor-philanthropist, Shipherd and Steward decided to name the community and school after him. The extent to which the founders of Oberlin carried into effect the principle of self-denial seems almost incredible today. Rev. Shipherd would never accept more than $400 a year although he had a wife and half a dozen growing boys. In obedience to a vision of still further service after Oberlin had been firmly established, he went up into Michigan and laid the foundation of Olivet College. The following spring he died at the age of forty-four. Oberlin annals tell also of the largeness of heart of the other founder, P. P. Stewart. The students, one morning had finished their meal of graham bread, thin gravy and salt, when Brother Stewart said : "Can we not substitute parched corn for our graham diet and thus save something with which to feed God's lambs?" Much to his disappointment, the students did not favor the plan. The enrollment at the opening of the school in December, 1833, was forty-four, students being in attendance from seven states. Oberlin College is making great preparations for its centennial celebration in 1933. Its wonderful growth will be told elsewhere in this history, also the progress of Kenyon College, further mention of academies and public schools in connection with the various localities, and the founding and growth of Wooster College, Ashland College and other educational institutions of North Central Ohio. CHAPTER XVI. MINISTERS AND CHURCHES INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON LIFE OF PIONEERS IN NORTH CENTRAL OHIO -REV. JOSEPH BADGER, FIRST MISSIONARY TO WESTERN RESERVE-CIRCUIT RIDERS HOLD MEETINGS IN SETTLERS CABINS-LOG CHURCHES IN FORESTS- COMMUNITIES OF FRIENDS-REV. RUSSEL BIGELOW AND DR. THOMPSON. People of strong convictions were the early settlers of North Central Ohio, God fearing people, men and women of abundant courage and fortitude, prepared to endure every hardship entailed in planting, in the forests, new homes and the beneficial institutions of the communities from which they had emigrated. We have seen how quickly the groups of pioneer children were assembled in log cabin schools; how very soon schoolhouses were built and then academies and institutions of higher learning. Prominent in this early day educational work were missionaries, circuit riders, local preachers and other leaders in religious work. Moravian missionaries with their Indian converts were defeated in their attempt to establish a mission at the mouth of the Black River but they did establish one in the Firelands near the site of Milan and accomplished a noble work. The tree planter, John Chapman, of whose helpfulness to the settlers, we have previously spoken, was a regularly constituted minister of the Swedenborgian Church, according to a Mansfield man who examined his credentials, and this is substantiated in the reminiscences of others who knew him well. Surely the "news fresh from heaven" that he brought to the settlers' cabins, and the life of service and sacrifice that he exemplified had an influence for good, vastly greater than we today realize. Annals of Knox County tell of the coming of a colony of Presbyterians to the site of Mt. Vernon five years before the town was - 128 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 129 founded and of religious services conducted by the leader, eighty-four year old William Leonard, at the home of Ziba Leonard. In this Christian worship a spirit of unity was manifest, Methodists and Baptists uniting with the Presbyterians in the services. After Father Leonard's death in 1805, his son Amos became the religious leader. It is said that the sermon which the Rev. James Scott preached at Ziba Leonard's, in 1806 when he visited Mt. Vernon, was the first sermon by a Presbyterian minister in Knox County. Emigration from Pennsylvania to the new settlements of Clinton and Mt. Vernon had set in and soon a church was formed and meeting house erected at Mt. Vernon under the leadership of Rev. John Wright. In 1809 the three Presbyterian churches in Knox County—the Mt. Vernon church, called Ebenezer, and the other two at Clinton and Fredericktown—had a membership of twenty-eight. On the public square in Burton, Geauga County, is a monument commemorating the first missionary to the Western Reserve, the Rev. Joseph Badger, who in 1800 found only 150 families in all the Western Reserve, practically all of these being in the eastern part of the Reserve. It is said that the church of sixteen members which he organized October 24, 1801, at Austinburg, Ashtabula County, was the first church in the Western Reserve and second in the Northwest Territory in Ohio, Marietta being the first. This soldier of the Revolutionary War who braved many hardships in his missionary journeys throughout Northern Ohio and in the Sandusky River valley, exercised such an influence over the Wyandots at Lower Sandusky that they refrained from joining some of their kinsfolk as allies of the British in the War of 1812. The first temperance talk given in the state of Ohio is said to have been the one which Father Badger gave to an assemblage of Indians at Fort Industry on the site of Toledo in 1804. His earnest plea is declared to have made such an impression that a considerable number of his hearers refrained thereafter from excesses in the use of "fire water." One of his friends was Tarhe, grand sachem of the Wyandot tribes, who was a total abstainer and more than this, it is said he didn't use tobacco, strange as that may seem. General Harrison, in speaking of this great Indian leader, who for a quarter of a century held the grand calumet as head of all the Indians living north of the Ohio River, called him "the noblest Roman of them all." 130 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO During the War of 1812, Father Badger was chaplain in General Harrison's army. A manuscript copy of the diary of Quintus F. Atkins, who was associated with Father Badger in missionary work, is in the archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society. It narrates many incidents of their missionary journeyings. Father Badger lived to the ripe old age of ninety years, dying in 1846. The second missionary, sent by the Connecticut Society to the Western Reserve, was the Rev. Dr. Thomas Robbins who arrived in December, 1803. His work was mostly in the east part of the Reserve. In 1805 the Rev. James Kilbourn, who founded Worthington, north of Franklinton, and he became a surveyor of public lands, explored the south shore of Lake Erie. He selected the site of Sandusky as trading point to be the great depot of trade for the Scioto valley. The Ottawa chief, Ogontz, after whom the Indian village on Sandusky Bay was named, had been a Catholic missionary, as mentioned in a previous chapter, though he had given up the priesthood, he still exercised a helpful influence over the Ottawas in spiritual, as well as temporal affairs. Among the pioneer settlers of Berlin, Wayne and Middlebury townships, Knox County, were a considerable number of families of Quakers from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1806, Society of Friends families located some five miles north of Mt. Vernon. In 1809 a Friends' Settlement was formed on the Mt. Vernon-Mansfield road, two miles north of where, in November, 1807, John Kerr had laid out Fredericktown. These industrious, even-balanced, warm-hearted folk were a very wholesome influence in their neighborhoods. They formed the Owl Creek Society of Friends. At first they met at private homes, then built a log meeting house in which they worshiped until 1822 when a brick building, 25 by 40 feet was erected. Description of the meeting house mentions that at each end of the building was a brick fireplace. Here the friends gathered for worship together. Finally the members of the society became divided into the Orthodox and Hicksites after which a sliding partition was constructed and the two sets of Quakers worshiped separately. It is recorded that in later decades the Owl Creek Friends settlement was an important station of the Underground R. R. by means of which during the years before the Civil War, many thousands of fugitive slaves were given assistance in their flight for freedom. Among the operators at the Owl Creek settlement, Prof. Wilbur H. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 131 Siebert, of Ohio State University says, were Asa and William Townsend, Ellis Willetts and J. E. Lewis. A number of these Quaker settlements were stations of the Underground R. R., one of these being the Alum Creek settlement at Marengo, Morrow County. When the Alum Creek Friends suspected that slave hunters were in waiting north of Marengo, they would change their route and take their passengers twenty miles northeast to the Owl Creek settlement from which the fugitives would be taken to a way station near Lexington. North of Greenwich was another Quaker settlement, where fugitive slaves were aided on their journey north. The Rev. James Copus, from the time he settled in the present Miff lin Township, Ashland County, until shortly before he was murdered by the Indians in 1812, conducted services from time to time at the Indian villages of Greentown and Jerometown. It is recorded that in November, 1811, the Rev. William Gurley organized at Bloomingville, now in Erie County, but at that time in Huron County, the first Methodist Church in the Firelands. In 1816 he was instrumental in organizing the Milan Methodist Church. The circuits over which these early day itinerant Methodist ministers traveled on horseback from settlement to settlement through the forests of Ohio sometimes covered a couple hundred miles. In their saddlebags they carried Bible, hymn books and a few articles of wearing apparel. Wherever they could find a settlement of a few people, they arranged for the holding of religious services from time to time. As early at least as 1812, the Methodist settlers west of Wooster had preaching services at the Warner blockhouse, east of Jefferson and later in Wooster. It is recorded that at an early day in the itineracy in the region of Wayne County, there were some thirty places where the traveling preachers conducted services occasionally. In a list of early day appointments we see in addition to Wooster, Applecreek, Shreve, Marshallville, Orrville, Moreland, Mt. Eaton, Fredericksburg, Maysville, East Union, Dalton, West Lebanon, Smithville, Burton City, Doylestown, site of the present Rittman, Creston, Sterling, Canaan, Congress, Burbank, West Salem, Pleasant Home, Reedsburg, New Pittsburg, Jefferson, Maple Grove, Millbrook and Newkirk's. Presently one of the little groups would build a meeting house, sometimes of hewed logs, but more often of round ones. There would be puncheon floors, or the bare earth ; the wooden-hinged doors 132 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO would be made from boards split from logs ; the windows were usually covered with greased paper, for glass was not so easily obtained ; and tallow candles were used for lighting. Clapboards split from logs, formed the roof. Bethany Baptist Society was early organized in Wooster and mention is made of a meeting at the blockhouse (Fort Stidger) Aug. 2, 1812, when a body of men, armed with guns, stood guard about the building to give warning and protect the worshipers in case of attack from the Indians. The Baptists erected a frame church in 1814. The Rev. Bowman, a pioneer missionary, is said to have conducted the first religious services in the vicinity of Mansfield. Henry Newman stated that this first service in Madison Township, Richland County, was at his father's cabin, three miles down the Rocky Fork from Mansfield, the Rev. Bowman preaching to eight or ten people. One of the early settlers in Mansfield between 1810 and 1814 was a Methodist missionary, Rev. William James, but Historian Graham said there was some question whether Rev. James preached there before the Rev. George Van Eman, first Prsbyterian minister in the community, began his ministry there, in 1815, preaching in the upper room of the blockhouse, which at that time was being used as a courthouse. Other preachers in Mansfield, prior to 1816, were Charles Waddle and Rev. Somerville. About this time, the Methodists erected a meeting house in the vicinity of the big spring. It is mentioned that in those early years other church societies often used it for their services. A circuit rider, Harry 0. Sheldon, who preached in Mansfield as early as 1818 and was stationed there in 1828, is quoted as saying he formed the first Sabbath School ever held in Mansfield. With meetings held in November, 1818, at private homes at Mansfield by a Baptist missionary, Elder French, the history of the first Baptist Church of Mansfield begins. One of these meetings was held two miles northwest of Mansfield at the home of Mordecai Bartley, who was afterwards governor of Ohio, succeeding in that office his son, Judge Thomas Bartley. Out of these meetings came an organization of fifty-three people in Madison and adjoining townships. Subsequently, there were withdrawals of members to form other Baptist Societies but it was not until 1838 that the organization was formed which resulted in a permanent society in Mansfield. The first religious services in Cass Township, Richland County, were held during the winter of 1816-17 by Bennajah Boardman at the HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 133 home of John Long on the site of Planktown. This was shortly after the Milan Methodist Church was organized. About this time, in scattered neighborhoods, little groups participated in religious services as the opportunity offered. As early as 1812, the Methodists at Mt. Vernon had services, Enoch Mills, preaching in cabins and at the courthouse. Presbyterians, in the vicinity of Ashland, had services as early as 1814, a year before Uniontown (now Ashland) was founded. Rev. Josiah Beer was the first visiting pastor and in 1819 the old Hopewell church was built on the Olivesburg road, a mile west of Ashland with Rev. Willian Matthews as pastor. In 1817 the first Sunday School in Ashland is said to have been conducted by Squire Josiah Gallup, pioneer school teacher, who taught five or six winters in Ashland and vicinity, being engaged in the summers in surveying for the pioneers in Richland County. It was on April 10 of this year (1817) that the settlers of Medina and vicinity, erected a log meeting house in which the same day the Rev. Roy Searl, an Episcopal minister, preached to a congregation that included nearly every settler in the township. This church building event is generally regarded as the occasion of the first sermon preached in Medina Township, but the pioneer missionary, Rev. James B. Finley, declares that John C. Brook preached there in 1816. During the following summer, Eliza Northrup conducted a school in this log church. On Feb. 21, the First Congregational Church of Medina was organized with Rev. William Hanford as minister. In examining the narratives of pioneer endeavor in the counties of North Central Ohio, we are constantly impressed with the spirit of heroic sacrifice so frequently displayed by these early day preachers in this section of Ohio. The daily life of the pioneer settlers was full of hardships but the average settler did not face such frequent perils as did the pioneer traveling preachers whose devotion to duty led them on despite obstacles innumerable. At this period Ohio was regarded as more remote from the Atlantic coast communities than the Pacific coast is now ; travel of a few hundred miles was a bigger undertaking than a voyage across the Atlantic is now. In the Library Hall at Kenyon College, Gambier, I saw a letter which Bishop Philander Chase, who began his work in Ohio in 1817, wrote to his son, Philander, Jr., the night before the Bishop set forth for what he called "the western world." Said he : "I have nothing to think of 134 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO but the heart-rending scene which awaits me tomorrow—tomorrow when with the leave of God I shall embark in the stage for the western world. May God assist me when the moment comes that I must press your dear mother and helpless little brother to my bosom in pronouncing (I pray it may be a short) adieu. Oh, my dear, dear Philander, this scene I fear is too much for me, yet I hope to be strengthened." That he was strengthened is seen in the mighty work he accomplished in Ohio. When about 1818, Rev. Alfred Brunson was appointed to the Huron circuit of the Methodist Church, the circuit included twenty-four appointments requiring two hundred miles of travel. The first sermon ever preached in many places in this territory, it is said, was preached by Rev. Brunson. One of the appointments at that time was Sandusky, which consisted of about half a dozen houses. The membership in these twenty-four appointments totaled 145. One of the appointments was at Hanson Reed's, two miles south of Norwalk. The most southerly appointment was New Haven. It is mentioned that in 1823, when True Patter and James McIntyre were appointed circuit preachers their salary was $50 a year, of which Norwalk Society paid $10. Those were the days when cash was something the settlers, as a rule, saw very little of. At a meeting held Aug. 20, 1826, a collection for Rev. Shadrach Ruark amounted to seventy-two cents, M. Kellogg, circuit steward, reported. Three years later the Norwalk Methodists bought a lot near the east end of Seminary Street and a church was erected. In 1821 steps were taken to organize St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Norwalk. The Norwalk Presbyterian Church was organized Feb. 11, 1830 ; First Baptist, 1835 ; St. Peter's Catholic, 1840 ; Lutheran, 1851; St. Mary's Catholic, 1859 ; Advent Christian, 1864 ; Congregational, 1867 ; St. Paul's Catholic, 1868 ; Universalist, 1869 and Warren Chapel for colored folks the same year. The second Catholic Society organized in Ohio is said to have been that of St. Luke's Catholic Church in Union Township, Knox County, at the Sapp settlement near the site of Danville, which was laid out about 1815 or 1816 by Jonathan Sapp and Robert Waddle. Land for the church and cemetery was donated by George Sapp, Sr., and a log church built in 1822, four years after St. Joseph's log church, HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 135 a mile and a half south of Somerset, Perry County, was dedicated, the first Catholic Church in Ohio. Another early Catholic Society was that of Sts. Peter and Paul at Doylestown, Wayne County, in 1827, the same year that the village of Doylestown was incorporated. In the log cabin of George Whitman the first mass among the Catholic settlers in that vicinity, was read by the Rev. Father Francis Marshall, who had come to visit his brother, Peter, one of the early settlers of Chippewa Township. Two Dominican Fathers, Revs. J. J. Mullon and N. C. Young, said mass at the Whitman cabin Aug. 29 and 30, 1827. Later priests at the mission were Very Reverend John Austin Hill, Father Thomas H. Martin, Rev. John Martin Henni, Rev. Vincent de Raymacher, Fathers Saenderl and O'Bairne, and Rev. Dr. Max Hoffman. It is recorded that in the intervals when no priest came to Doylestown, the people of the parish often walked to the nearest church, St. John's at Canton, to attend mass. The first church of Sts. Peter and Paul, a log structure forty by twenty-eight feet and sixteen feet high, was begun in 1836 but was not completed until 1841, though the first mass in this church was read about the first of June, 1837, before the building was finished. Inseparably connected with early day Methodism in North Central Ohio, was the Rev. Russel Bigelow, who is declared to have been in his day the greatest pulpit orator of the West. It was a sermon which Dr. Edward Thomson, then a young physician at Norwalk, heard him deliver at a camp meeting, near Norwalk, in 1829 that caused the future bishop to embrace Christianity. Years after the untimely death of Russel Bigelow, Dr. Thomson wrote a wonderful sketch of the life and character of this great pioneer preacher, who was the first chaplain of the Ohio Penitentiary. Born in New Hampshire in 1793, converted at the age of nine, Bigelow early determined to become a preacher and the success which he quickly attained is shown by an incident at a church conference in Steubenville in 1815. Bezaleel Wells, founder of the town, had been asked to entertain one of the representative preachers of the conference but he was somewhat chagrined when, in front of his mansion, a homespun-clad young man, his clothes spattered with mud, alighted from his horse. "Why did you send that fellow to me?" Wells demanded of the minister who had asked him to entertain Bigelow. "I thought I was to entertain the best preacher of 136 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO the conference." "Just wait till you hear him preach next Sunday," was the minister's reply. When Wells heard his young guest preach that Sunday, he was so impressed with Bigelow's great intellect and magnificent oratorical powers that he expressed wonder that such a man should be buried in the pioneer work of the Northwest. Next day he took this most powerful of the heroic Ohio pioneer itinerants to a tailor and had him make for the young preacher the finest suit of clothes he could produce. One church writer declared that the sending of Rev. Bigelow to the Wyandot Indian Mission at Upper Sandusky in the autumn of 1827, was due to jealousy on the part of some influential ministers of the conference who prevailed on the bishop to send him there. But his talents were not buried and he did a splendid work there. The following year he became mission superintendent and presiding elder of Portland District. At that time Sandusky was called Portland. That summer day in 1829, when in his carriage, young Dr. Thomson drove out to the camp meeting at which Rev. Bigelow was to preach, he was not any more favorably impressed, at first, than Wells had been. Preacher Bigelow was clad in coarse, ill-made garments, his hair hung loosely over his forehead, his attitudes and motions ungraceful, every feature unprepossessing. But he noticed that the preacher had a keen eye, broad prominent forehead. Bigelow took for his text, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." His words were pure, well chosen, accents never misplaced, his sentences grammatical, artistically constructed ; he piled his arguments high, an avalanche of thought, and among those who that day determined to be Christians, was Dr. Thomson, who in 1817 as a child, came with his parents to Wooster. He received a classical training, graduated in medicine and at one time practiced in Jeromesville, Ashland County. After six years in the itinerant ministry, he was for six years more principal of Norwalk Seminary ; two years editor of the Ladies' Repository ; fourteen years president of Ohio Wesleyan University ; four years editor of the Christian Advocate ; and six years a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He died in 1870. The Rev. Russel Bigelow, from 1832 to 1834, was presiding elder of the district which included Wooster. Like so many of these early day, ill-paid preachers, regarding some of whom we find only casual mention in township and village annals, he gave to his preaching HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 137 and personal work his every energy; he worked beyond his strength. With his family he was living on a little farm near Mansfield when, profoundly melancholy, in poor health and very little money, he wrote under date of Oct. 17, 1834, to his friend, Rev. John James : "I am in the land of the dying, trying to journey to the land of the living." The following year, while he was chaplain at the Ohio Pententiary, there was a cholera epidemic in Columbus. Heroically, unreservedly, he labored among the sick and the dying until he, himself, was prostrated. His devoted wife arrived barely in time to see him before he passed away July 1, 1835. He is buried in Greenlawn cemetery, Columbus. In another chapter we have spoken of the devotion and self-sacrifice of the Rev. John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart, founders of Oberlin College. They and the other early day religious workers of whose abundant labors in this section of Ohio we have just spoken, are the type of consecrated leaders who in every one of these counties left the beneficial influence of their lives on the communities in which they labored for the Master. In other chapters we shall trace the work of various church organizations in the history of the counties. CHAPTER XVII. MILITARY HISTORY NORTH CENTRAL OHIO IN WARS OF NATION—MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIERS BURIED IN SEVEN COUNTIES—SOLDIERS OF WAR OF 1812—EARLY COMPANIES OF MILITIA—GENERAL TRAINING DAYS— SOME OUTSTANDING LEADERS IN MEXICAN WAR—GENERAL GEORGE W. MORGAN, WM. McLAUGHLIN, COLONEL THOMAS H. FORD. The military history of North Central Ohio abounds in most inspiring narratives of patriotic devotion. The heritage of courage and patriotic fidelity is a glorious one. A book compiled under the direction of an Ohio Daughters of the American Revolution, reveals that of the more than 3,000 soldiers of the American Revolution buried in Ohio are 200 in the seven counties in this section of the state. Graves of that number have been listed and since the publication of the book additions have been made to the list and it is believed that further research will result in the discovery of the burial places of still more of the sturdy Continentals. When land grants were given to soldiers at the time of the settlement of Ohio, hardy New Englanders came to the Western Reserve, the Lake Erie region and sturdy Pennsylvanians crossed over into North Central Ohio and, as some one has said, they were the fathers of a race who inherited the invincible courage and sterling qualities of these Revolutionary ancestors and took up the burden of founding a greater nation by pressing forward. We are giving the names of as many of these Revolutionary soldiers, buried in North Central Ohio, as we have been able to find and appreciate assistance given in this work by regents of various D. A. R. chapters. In other chapters we have told of the War of 1812 as it related to this section of the state. Many who participated in this war afterwards settled in Medina County. The influence of the glorious patriotic traditions is seen all through our history; it is worthy of study. It is said that in the - 138 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 139 War of 1812, over half of the males of the state subject to military duty were in service ; in the Mexican War, Ohio furnished more than any other northern state and thousands more offered their services but were not needed. In the Civil War, as one writer has said, our state in addition to furnishing nearly half the prominent Union commanders, contributed 340,000 of the 2,668,000 soldiers in the northern armies. In the Spanish-American War, 15,200 of the 200,000 volunteers furnished by all the states, were from Ohio, and the glorious record of Ohio's sons in the great World War is fresh in memory. We shall refer to these more in detail later. General training days were colorful events of early day Ohio. Dr. Hill, Ashland County historian, tells of the regimental musters, which for many years were held near the banks of the Blackfork, south of the village of Petersburg, now Mifflin. Men subject to military duties could either participate in these musters or work two days on the public highway. About 1824 a regiment of ten full companies of militia "first regiment, first brigade of the Eleventh Division of Ohio militia" was formed in Richland County, which at that time included part of what is now Ashland County. The colonel was John Oldshue. In 1834 the regiment was reorganized with Colonel Alexander Miller in command. About 1826 there was rifle regiment in what are now Ashland, Morrow and Richland counties. In 1836, Charles Colerick organized in Knox County, a company of riflemen, outfitted them in green uniforms and took them to Texas to aid in the fight of the Texans for freedom from Mexico. A distinguished citizen of Mt. Vernon, who as a lad of sixteen left college for the Texas war of independence, was General George W. Morgan, who served in two later wars, practiced law in Mt. Vernon and was United States minister to Portugal. Entering the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1841, he left two years later, practiced law in Mt. Vernon and at the beginning of the Mexican War, was made colonel of the Second Regiment, Ohio Volunteers and later of the Fifteenth United States Infantry. The General Assembly of Ohio gave him a vote of thanks for gallantry at Centeras and Churubusco. Appointed United States council at Versailes in 1856, became United States minister to Portugal and returning home when the Civil War broke out, he was made a brigadier-general. He commanded the Seventh Division of Ohio, was with General Sherman 140 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO at Vicksburg and later led the expedition that captured Ft. Hindman in Arkansas. Defeated as Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1865, he served from 1869 to 1873 in Congress. This distinguished Mt. Vernonite, who for many years lived on East Gambier Street, passed away in 1893 at the age of seventy-three years. In a company which General Morgan organized at Mt. Vernon for the Mexican War, was a seventeen-year-old youth who enlisted as a private and was afterwards United States Senator from Minnesota, Daniel S. Norton. Another was Robert B. Mitchell, who also enlisted as a private. After serving in the Mexican War he removed to Kansas, rose to the rank of brigadier-general by distinguished service in the Civil War and later became Governor of New Mexico. James E. Harle was captain of the second company, organized at Mt. Vernon for the Mexican War. Simon B. Kenton, who became captain of Company B, Second Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was first lieutenant of the company when Morgan organized it. The captain of Company A, Third Ohio Infantry, William McLaughlin, and Capt. Thomas H. Ford of Company C, both of whom years later served in the Civil War, were from Mansfield ; Capt. David Moore of Company E was from Wooster and Capt. Chauncey Woodruff of Company G was from Norwalk. Scenes in Mansfield shortly after the outbreak of the Mexican War are narrated by A. A. Graham in history of Richland County. Near the east end of Park Avenue, East, then East Market Street, a stand had been erected in a large grove of maples. To this meeting came Shelby and Plymouth people in a train of small box cars over the old Mansfield & New Haven Railroad, just reaching completion. "The old war horse," Major McLaughlin, and Thomas H. Ford, then a young attorney in Mansfield, gave rousing patriotic addresses, and others spoke. "As the excitement increased," says Historian Graham, "Major McLaughlin sprang from the stand, mounted his horse and rode about urging the men to come forward. Finally, springing from his saddle, he let his horse go its own way and called upon all who desired to enlist to form themselves into a group and join him in the march to Mexico." A company under McLaughlin and one under Ford were easily raised. It being thought the war would be brief, enlistment was for one year. HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 141 "Our company left Mansfield June 9, 1846," said the late Dr. William Smith of Van Wert, who more than half a century ago wrote in detail of the Mexican War service of McLaughlin's company in which he served. "As there were no railroads at that time we marched via Bellville and Mt. Vernon to Columbus, then took canal boat to Portsmouth, thence by steamboat to Cincinnati and Camp Washington, where we were organized into regiments. We were put into the Third Regiment under Col. Samuel R. Curtis, who was General Curtis of the War of the Rebellion." The narrative tells of the seven days' passage to New Orleans, the trip across the Gulf of Mexico and the fighting in Mexico. Before the first two companies returned George Weaver started enlistments for another company but found it slow work, especially when some of the soldiers returning from Mexico gave discouraging reports. The company was not filled when the men started for the war late in May, 1847. At Cincinnati men recruited there were added to the company which became Company D of the Fourth Regiment, which was in Mexico when peace was declared. A little over half of the men who went to the war returned. Captain Weaver served, also, in the Civil War, being the first man to raise a company in Hardin County. Historian Hill says the regiment of militia in Richland County continued until about 1844 when the militia system of Ohio practically expired. One of the prize possessions of Elmer Smalley of Rowsburg, Ashland County, is the muster roll of the First Company, First Regiment, Eleventh Division of Ohio Militia. The commission of Richard Smalley as captain of this company bears date of Dec. 20, 1838. Wilson Shannon was Governor and Carter B. Harlan, Secretary of State. William Sheets was lieutenant of the company and Joseph L. Brown, ensign. Enrolled in this company were eighty-one young pioneers of this section of Ohio, some of whom rose to more than local prominence. Here are the names as they appear on the roster, several of the first names being illegible : Ezekiel Robison, Jacob Spoon, George Yisley, James S. Brown, Daniel Withington, Thomas S. Sutherland, Moses King, Henry Vantilburg, John Vantilburg, Nathan Vantilburg, Jacob Crall, John Cline, Sam Jacobs, David McComahay, Zachariah Figley, Hugh White, William Feagley, Ben Shearer, Jacob Mykrantz, John Springer, George Figley, Willis Elder- 142 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO age, William Brown, Jacob Richards, Christian Miller, S. W. McCluer, William Millington, Edward More, John More, John L. Burwell, John Haden, Sam Smith, Charles Wigans, Philip Yisley, A. C. McClellan, James Sotherland, Reuben Hart, Andrew Proudfit, Isaac Crouse, Leander Carter, Dan Carter, Jr., Dan Kaufman, Jacob Ritter, Isaac Bolton, Isaac Zimmerman, John Hannah, Burr Kellogg, S. L. Johnson, Edward L. Warner, Robert McMurray, Phineas Powers, Rufus Brown, William McClellan, George Wate, Sam Shearer, William Kitter, Joel Markley, James Long, Robert McConahey, Anderson Dean, Christian Reaser, Charles Bell, Dan Vantilburg, Rufus Brown, Jacob Richars, Lorin Andrews, Chamberland, Thomas Stringer, Martin Gorham, Peter Risser, Mike Ritter, James Jackson, Daniel Lavda, Johnson Carson, Silas Robbins, Jr., William Wyatt, Willard and S. W. Benton. NORTH CENTRAL OHIO REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS. Ashland County : The graves of a number of Revolutionary soldiers buried in Ashland County have been marked by Sarah Copus Chapter, D. A. R., among them being those of William Anderson, Ashland cemetery ; Patrick Murray and John Tilton, Nankin cemetery ; Jeremiah Conine, Perrysville cemetery ; James Loudon Priest, Loudonville. The following is a list of other Revolutionary soldiers : Christian Fast, Fast cemetery, Orange Township ; Jacob Heiffner, farm a mile north of Nankin ; Joseph Jones, Green Township ; Martin Mason, Sr., Nankin ; Burwell and Snyder, McFall cemetery ; James Gray and Cornell, Pioneer cemetery ; Andrew Weyman, Loudonville ; Abijah Marsh, Sullivan Township ; Jonathan Crapo, Close Street cemetery, Sullivan Township ; Zoura Palmer, Sullivan Township ; George Snyder, Solomon Hill and Abraham Hassinger, Old cemetery near Perrysville ; Noah Castor, Allen Oliver, Perrysville ; John Carr, John Shriner, John Scott, Perry Township ; Peter VanOstrand, Sr., Clearcreek Township ; Vachel Metcalf, Sullivan Township ; Melzor Tannehill, Green Township ; Adam Luck, Frederick Sulzer, Henry Church, Milton Township ; Henry Sheller, Mifflin Township ; Edward Whitington, Redhaw. Information has been received of four or five others said to have been Revolutionary soldiers buried in cemeteries of the county but the graves have not been identified. Huron County : Soldiers of the Revolutionary War who are HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 143 buried in Huron County follow : William Johnston, New Haven; Abner Baker, Woodlawn cemetery, Norwalk ; Rev. David Higgins, Woodlawn cemetery, Norwalk ; Michael Parks, Episcopal cemetery, Norwalk ; David Underhill, Episcopal cemetery, Norwalk ; William Furnace, Olena ; Benjamin Drake, North Monroeville; Alva Palmer, Fitchville; Ebenezer Cook, Fitchville ; Aseph Cook, Ephraim Fish, Joseph Cook, all at North Monroeville ; Daniel Bishop, Asa Wheeler, Sr., Michael Mead, Methodist Episcopal cemetery, Clarksfield Township ; Noah Norton, Butterfield cemetery, New London Township ; Moses Sutton, Thaddeus Raymond, Shadren Husted, all at Sutton's graveyard, Hunt Corners, near Monroeville ; Luther Cooley, Sr., Bissell farm, Clarksfield Township ; John Sowers, Riverside cemetery, Monroeville; David Jaffrey, old Methodist Episcopal graveyard, Ripley Township, near Greenwich ; Ira S. Barre, Greenwich ; Julius Terry, Townsend ; Prince Haskell, Peru Township ; Martin Kellogg, Bronson cemetery ; Aaron Fay, Bronson cemetery ; James (or John) Brooks, field near Wakeman ; Timothy Taylor, St. Paul's cemetery, Norwalk ; Daniel Carpenter, Houfstatter cemetery, Ripley Township or in New Haven ; Henry Cherry, probably Bronson Township ; John (or Jonathan) Church, probably Bronson cemetery ; Isaac Curtis (or Custis), probably Fitchville ; Moses Kimball, Agur Hoyt, Episcopal cemetery, Norwalk ; Abraham Hand, Fitchville ; Luke Rowland, Day cemetery, Clarksfield Township; Solomon Cortwright, Samuel Hildreth, Joel Bishop, Timothy Foote, Amaziah Barber, John Carney, Isaac Sampson, Lemuel Raymond, Joseph Waldron, Wilcox, _____ Pond, not definite but probably in this county. Knox County: Revolutionary War soldiers who are buried in Knox County are as follows : John Cowden, farm owned by Leroy Squires on crossroad, one and one-half miles north of Mt. Liberty ; Nathaniel Critchfield, old cemetery, Jelloway ; Zarah Curtis, Mound View cemetery, Mt. Vernon ; John Ewalt, Jr., Mound View cemetery, Mt. Vernon ; Levi Harrod, Union Grove cemetery, Harrison Township ; Robert Huston, Martinsburg; Daniel Jackson, near Fredericktown ; Cary McClelland, Bell Church cemetery ; Abraham Blair, Jehiel Bouton, Jr., Lemuel Chapman, Stephen Cook, Joseph Critchfield, Stephen Griffin, John Ackerman, William Johnstone, Edward Landon, Minard Lefever, William McWilliams, John Molt, Jacon Phifer, John Pierson, William Spry, William Thrift, Sr., Zephaniah Wade, Rufus Ward, Isaac Young and Isaac Young, Jr. 144 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Lorain County : The following list of graves have been marked by Western Reserve Chapter, D. A. R., Lorain County : John Barnum, Ridgeville Center cemetery; David Beebe, North Ridgeville; James Brooks, LaPorte ; Samuel Eldred, Ridgeville; Albis Foster, Butternut Ridge cemetery ; Daniel Gibson, Jr., John Lawrence, Pioneer cemetery, Wellington ; Abner Loveland, Greenwood cemetery ; Joseph Moore, Avon-on-the-Lake; Seth Morse, George Bacon, Brownhelm cemetery; Samuel Pelton, Pioneer cemetery, Wellington; Ezra Sexton, Pioneer cemetery, Wellington ; Martin Shelhouse, North Ridgeville; Oliver Terrell, Butternut cemetery, Field's Corners ; Elihu Terrell, Columbia Station; Abraham Wellman, South Amherst. The following are names of soldiers who formerly lived in this county and are buried here and others who are probably buried in this county : Moses Allis, Carlisle; Nathan Bassett, Evergreen cemetery, South Amherst; Aaron Burt, Grafton cemetery ; John Prentiss Calkins, Avon-on-the-Lake ; John Ferris, Pittsfield; John Kelly, Huntington Center ; Marshall Merriman, Lagrange ; Charles Rounds, Pittsfield Township ; marked by Elyria Chapter, D. A. R.; John Howard, Columbia Township ; Peter Laboni, John Smith, William Young, all at Huntington cemetery; Adna Clark, Betsey Squires, Jonathan Crapo, Jonah Hanchett, Submit Langden, Jesse Morgan, Eli Pember, Zachariah Beers, Elisha Brown, Eleazer Crawford, Calvin Dyke, Gershom Rickerson, John Taylor, Johnny Campbell, Jonathan Buck, Josiah Ward, Justice Battle, Joseph Kingsbury, Thomas Williams, Ben Rising, Noah Bouton, Phinney Kellogg, L. Langden, John McManners, Sam Sanford, Ephraim Slauter, Ezra Squire. The following are names of Revolutionary soldiers listed as being buried in Medina County : Joseph Deacon, Middlebury ; Benjamin Bentley, Sharon cemetery; S. E. Michael Brouse, Woodlawn cemetery, Wadsworth; Ben Cotton, Seville ; Timothy Eggleston, Benntle's Corners, Brunswick Township ; John Flint, Beach cemetery ; Rufus Freeman, Seville ; James Gifford, Woodlawn cemetery, Wadsworth ; Major Seth Goodwin, Reed Hill cemetery ; Christopher Hain, Spencer cemetery ; Eden Hamilton, Hamilton Corners; Capt. Elisha Himsdale, Woodlawn cemetery, Wadsworth ; William Hosmer, Seville; John Hulet, Brunswick Center ; Philemon Kirkum, Woodlawn cemetery, Wadsworth; Thomas Leland, Seville ; Elijah Porter, River Styx ; Ebenezer Shaw, Chatham ; Capt. John Stearns, Brunswick ; Freegift Taylor, Spencer ; John Thompson, Seville; Peter Truman, Hinckley ; HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 145 John Weard, Weymouth ; Michael Walt, Sharon ; John Ward, Brunswick ; Deliverance Eastman, Friendsville ; Foster Sharon, Ansel Brainerd, Henry Disbrow, Abda Dolph, Nathaniel Gray, Frederick Jones, David Nichols, Ben Parker. Richland County: Names of Revolutionary War soldiers listed as buried in Richland County: William Bodley, Adams cemetery ; George Coffinberry, Springmill cemetery; Noah Cook, Lexington cemetery ; Peter Erving, Old cemetery, Plymouth ; James Gamble, Old cemetery, Shelby ; John Gates, Sr., Windsor; William Gillispie, Bellville ; John Henry, Adams cemetery ; Benjamin Jackson, Bellville ; John Jacobs, Catholic cemetery, Mansfield ; James McDermott, Koogle cemetery ; Amassa Fleeharty, John Hiller, William McKelvey, John Mann, Henry Nail, Sr., William Oldfield, Samuel Poppleton, David Post, Christian Riblet, John Stoner, Thomas Taylor, Amariah Watson, Thomas Willis and Adam Wolfe; Joseph Mann, Moses Baeman, Samuel Physs, Worthington ; Charles Young, Mathias Young ; Monroe ; Jesse Edington, Springfield Township, seven miles west of Mansfield. Wayne County: Fred B. Barnhart, Wooster ; Augustus Case, Sr., Maple Grove cemetery; Michael Cobler, Shreve cemetery; Ezekiel Conkey, Knupp's cemetery, one mile west of Rittman ; John Davidson, Old cemetery, Smithville; John Dulin, Old Congress cemetery ; Peter Edmonds, Warner cemetery, two miles west of Wooster ; Henry Fike, Zion Church cemetery; Henry Franks, Chippewa ; Martin Fritz, East End cemetery, near Rittman ; Masson Metcalf, Old cemetery near Millbrook, Plain Township; Conrad Mitsco, Old cemetery in Marshallville ; James Morgan, Old burying ground on the Jacob Beecher farm south of Moreland, Franklin Township ; Robert Patterson, Old Congress cemetery ; Conrad Peterson, Old Congress cemetery; Frederick Rice, Wooster cemetery; Alex Shankland, Canaan cemetery, Canaan Township ; George Sharp, Old cemetery east of Apple Creek ; Ezra Tryon, Fairview cemetery ; John Yocum, private graveyard, one mile west of Congress ; Benjamin Miller Canaan Bend cemetery, Canaan Township ; George Pungher, Old cemetery at Madisonburg. The following are also listed as being buried in this county : William McCaughey, William Marshall, Christian Meyer, Isaac Munson, William Naylor, Nathaniel Walker, Michael Waltz, Peter Waltz, Barnet Hagerman, Michael Brouse, Rufus Freeman, Christian Franks, Isaac Underwood, Benjamin Foster, Benjamin Cotton, Conrad Metsker, Jesse Richardson, Simon Goodspeed, Robert Cain. CHAPTER XVIII. CIVIL WAR VETERANS FADING LINE OF BLUE RECALLS SERVICE OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIOANS IN WAR OF THE REBELLION-DISTINGUISHED LEADERS FROM THIS SECTION-FAMOUS TWENTY-THIRD AND FORTY-SECOND REGIMENTS WITH THREE PRESIDENTS OF NATION-AGED VETERANS OF FEW REMAINING G. A. R. POSTS. In other chapters we have spoken briefly of North Central Ohio's participation in all of the wars of the nation, the frontier settlers in the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War soldiers buried in these seven counties, the number of troops furnished for the Mexican War and the distinguished leaders from this section of the state. In this chapter we give not only facts gleaned from previous histories regarding the regiments in which North Central Ohio men served during the Civil War, but also reminiscences of many men who wore the blue, most of whom long since passed away. Here are also facts regarding the few remaining members of the G. A. R. Posts in this section of Ohio, all of whom are octogenarians or nonagenarians. The writer feels that in making a permanent record of these aged comrades, some of whom will have passed way, no doubt, before this history comes from the presses, a service will have been rendered which he hopes will inspire among the pupils of the schools increased zeal for original research regarding these aged defenders of the nation and of all the other thousands from this section of the state who have left such a heritage of patriotic devotion. Much has been written that is not in permanent form, much more can be collected from those to whom the veterans narrated their war experiences. It is the experience of this writer and it is that of others with whom he has talked, that much interesting history has been lost to posterity because it was not written down at the time. - 146 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 147 When the General Assembly of Ohio convened in January, 1931, S. Finn Bell, eighty-four year old Civil War veteran from Mansfield and a member of the executive committee, Department of Ohio, Grand Army of the Republic, was in his place in the Senate chamber as postmaster of the Senate and second assistant sergeant-at-arms. For a dozen years he has been postmaster of the Senate. On the wall to the right of the entrance of the Senate chamber is a piece of sculpture depicting Pemberton's surrender to Grant under the famous oak tree at Vicksburg, Miss., July 3, 1863, and Comrade Bell says that the group is true to life for he was within seventy-five yards of the actual scenes. One of his prize possessions is a little wooden book carved from a piece of the famous oak tree under which were arranged terms of surrender of the Confederate forces. He is the only survivor of Company E, 32d Regiment, 0. V. V. I., in which he served first as a private in 1861, and later as corporal and sergeant. He was on the firing line before Vicksburg and saw the victorious Union troops march into Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. In a sharp battle forty miles east of Vicksburg in February of the following year, Mr. Bell was wounded. Facing capture by Confederate soldiers, he hid his bayonet under a rail fence near which he was lying. After having been a prisoner for eight days, he was released and taken to Vicksburg and after a month in a hospital he spent three months on furlough at Mansfield. He re-joined his regiment at Kenesaw Mountain, Ga., and served until the close of the war. Forty years later he visited the scene of his capture. Talking to an old negro mammy in front of a nearby cabin, he mentioned that when he was there before he had hidden a bayonet under the rail fence. Entering the cabin, the aged negress returned with a bayonet which she said her husband had found when he tore down the fence. Bell recognized it as the one he had hidden, he gladly bought it and it is now among his prized possessions. Mr. Bell's great-grandfather, Robert Bell, came to Richland County in 1819 and built a log cabin on the Lexington road, southwest of Mansfield. On this site is still standing the old Bell tavern, erected in 1836. In it four generations of Bells lived. From it to the Civil War went S. F. Bell, sixteen; Robert P. Bell, seventeen, and Frank J. Bell, fourteen, who became a drummer boy. From it to the 148 - HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO Spanish-American War went T. M. Bell, now of the Mansfield police department. McLaughlin Post, Grand Army of the Republic, in Mansfield was named for a distinguished Mansfield soldier of the Mexican and Civil wars, General William McLaughlin. Once it had a membership of several hundred ; now only a handful. When, in September, 1930, there was held at Mansfield the annual reunion of the survivors of the First Ohio Independent Battery, it was found that only three remained out of the three hundred in this organization in 1861. The three surviving veterans of the battery were Abraham Myers and James H. Herring of Mansfield and Adam D. Brandt of Smithville. Another of the aged Mansfield veterans is Thomas J. Shocker, who for a great many years was in railroad service. Mr. Shocker is vice president of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry Association, which originally consisted of 1,200 Union soldiers. At the reunion in October, 1930, only fifteen were present. Mr. Shocker is the only surviving member in Mansfield. Andrus J. Gilbert, eighty-eight, a resident of Mansfield since he was eleven years old and who for many years operated the City Mills at North Main and Fifth streets, is the only Mansfield veteran who witnessed the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Grant at Appomattox, Va., in April, 1865. Serving with Company B, 123d Regiment, from the fall of 1862 until the close of the war, he saw much service. The regiment in which he served was a part of the twenty-fourth army corps of the Army of the Potomac. He recalls that steadily for one week before the surrender of Lee was accomplished, he and his comrades were on the march covering a hundred miles. Another aged Mansfielder, Watkins L. Old, a native of Powhatan County, Va., treasures the memory of being greeted by General Lee two days before the surrender. Mr. Old, then a little over fourteen years old, was with the Home Guard of Amelia City, Virginia, when General Lee and his troops marched through the village. "Who is this little soldier ?" asked General Lee, and on being told, reached from his horse and took the boy by the hand. That warm clasp is recalled vividly after all these years. Mr. Old is the oldest member of Mansfield Lodge, F. & A. M. The sixty-fifth annual reunion of the survivors of the famous Sherman Brigade, which consisted of the Sixty-fourth and Sixty- HISTORY OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO - 149 fifth 0. V. V. I.; Sixth 0. V. V. Battery and McLaughlin's Squadron, 0. V. V. Cavalry, is to be held at the Memorial Building, Mansfield, in August, 1931. The brigade took its name not from William T. Sherman, but from his equally famous brother, United States Senator John Sherman, who left his official duties at Washington to recruit the military organization, in which work he was aided by a young Mansfield lawyer, Roeliff Brinkerhoff, later a general. Senator Sherman was made colonel but did not continue, as he was needed at Washington. Colonel of the Sixty-fourth was James W. Forsyth ; C. H. Harker, colonel of the Sixty-fifth ; General McLaughlin commanded the squadron and Culler Bradley was captain of the artillery. The brigade camped at Camp Buckingham in the north part of Mansfield and after instruction, the troops were sent south. The late Wilbur F. Hinman, Cleveland editor, who at the outbreak of the Civil War, enlisted in the Sixty-fifth 0. V. I., of which he became lieutenant colonel, besides being war correspondent of the Cleveland Herald, wrote, years ago, a very complete history of the Sherman Brigade, also back in the '80s, a novel "Si Klegg and His Pard" based on experiences as a soldier. For many years the veterans and their families, with an attendance of four hundred or more, went into camp for several days during the last week of each August. These were held at Ashland, Mansfield, Shelby, Odell's Lake and other places. Senator Sherman usually was present and mingled with the veterans. One of the most notable of these reunions was in August, 1885, when Senator and Mrs. Sherman, accompanied by members of the Sherman family who were holding a reunion at Mansfield, attended the brigade assembly at Odell's Lake. At the brigade reunion in Shelby the previous year, Senator Sherman had made a speech, a copy of which had been sent to each of the brigade survivors, so on this occasion he spoke briefly, referring to the recent death of General Grant and remarking that another of the Civil War commanders was with the comrades today. "When the war was over my brother became general-in-chief of the army," said the Senator. "He served until the time fixed by law for his retirement and is now a private citizen, as plain and simple in his bearing and manners as any other of the citizens who now surround him. These are the heroes a Republic makes."