Names of County Officers, Offices,
and Dates of Commission, of
Paulding County, Ohio.
1841, Nov. 1—William R. Daggett, Sheriff, 2 years
1841, Nov. 1—Ezra I. Smith, Surveyor, 3 years.
1842, Nov. 14-Donald H. Harrington, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1843, Nov. 14—Wm. R. Daggett, Sheriff, 2 years.
1843, Nov. 14-Israel Major, Coroner, 2 years.
1843, Oct 11—Alex. S. Latty, Auditor, 2 years.
1844, Nov. 25—Ezra I. Smith, Surveyor, 3 years.
1844, Nov. 25—John J. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 2years.
1844, Nov. 25—John Mason, Coroner, 2 years.
1845, Apr.. 7—Samuel Faigley, Coroner, 2 years.
1845, Nov. 14—Ephriam Burwell, Sheriff, 2 years.
1845, Nov. 25—Henry Macellus, Coroner, 2 years.
1847, Nov. 14—William R. Daggett, Sheriff, 2 years.
xxiii
HISTORY OF
1847, Nov. 25-Henry Marcellus, Coroner, 2 years.
1847, Nov. 25-Ezar S. Smith, Surveyor, 3 years.
1848, Oct. 31-John W. Ayres, Prosecuti.ng Attorney, 2 years.
1849, Nov. 14-Thomas C. Banks, Sheriff, 2 years.
1849, Nov. 25-Henry Marcellus, Coroner, 2 years.
1850, Nov. 25-Ezar L Smith, Surveyor, 3 years.
1850, Oct. 31-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1851, Nov. 8-Thomas C. Banks, Sheriff, 2 years.
1851, Nov. 11-Henry Marcellus, Coroner, 2 years.
1852, Jan. 17-Ezar I. Smith, Probate. Judge, 3 years.
1852, Jan. 17-James M. Russell, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1852, Feb. 17-Alex.. S. Latty, Auditor, 2 years.
1852, Feb. 17-Diehard S. Banks, Treasurer, 2 years.
1852, Dec. 27-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1853, Oct. 28-John Crossen, Sheriff, 2 years.
1853, Nov. 14-R. S. Banks, Treasurer, 2 years.
1853, Nov. 14-John Curtis, Commissioner, 3 years.
1853, Nov. 14-JohnMason, Commisioner, 1 years.
1853, Nov. 14-A. Sankey batty, Auditor, 2 years.
1853, Dec. 15-Noah Ely, Surveyor, 3 years.
1854, Nov. 18-Ezar I. Smith, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1854, Nov. 18-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1854, Nov. 18-Robert Russell, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1854, Nov. 18-Bernard B. Woodcock, Coroner, 2 years.
1854, Nov. 18-John Stair; Commissioner, 3 years.
1854, Nov. 18-John Mason, Commissioner, 2 years.
1855 , Nov. 5-Henry Oswalt, Commissioner, 2 years.
1855, Nov. 5-John Crosson, Sheriff, 2 years.
1855,. Nov. 5-James M. Russell, Treasurer, 2 years.
1855, Nov. 5-A. Sankey Latty, Auditor, 2 years.
1856, Dec, 9-Bernard B. Woodcock, Coroner, 2 years.
1856, Dec. 9--John S. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1856, Dec. 9-William G. French, Recorder, 3 years
1856, Dec.. 9-Henry A. ,Brown, Surveyor, 3 years
1856, Dec. 9-Levi M. Barnes, Commissioner, 3 years.
1857, Oct. 23 Robert Russell, Clerk of Court, 4 year.
1857, Oct. 23-Isaiah Richards: Sheriff, 2 years.;
1857, Oct. 23 - John Stair, Commissioner, 3 years
1857, Oct 23--Ezra J. Probate Judge, 3 years.
1857, Oct. 23 - Benjamin L. Wentworth, Auditor, 2 years
1857, Oct 23 - James M. Russell, Treasurer, 2 years.
1858, Oct. 23- Andrew P. Meng, Coroner, 2 years.
1858, Oct. 23- Henry Oswalt, Commissioner, 3 years.
1858, Oct 25, - John S. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1859, Nov. 28 - Samuel Forder, Commissioner, 3 years.
1859, Nov. 28 - Lewis S. Gordon, Recorder, 3 years
xxiv
HISTORY OF
1859, Nov. 28-Henry A. Brown, Surveyor, 3 years.
1859, Nov.28-Isaiah Richards, Sheriff, 2 years.
1859, Nov. 29-Ezra J. Smith; Treasurer, 2 years.
1859, Dec. 12-Benjamin L. Wentworth, Auditor, 2 years.
1860, Oct. 13-Elias Shafer, Coroner, 2 years.
1860, Oct. 13-Hubert Neveau, Commissioner, 3 years.
1860, Oct. 13-John S. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1860, Oct. 13-Fielding S. Cable, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1860, Oct. 13-William T. French, Clerk of Courts, 3 years.
1861, Dec. 23-Henry Oswalt, Commissioner, 3 years.
1861, Dec. 23-Freeborn T. Mellinger, Sheriff, 2 years.
1861, Dec. 23-Benjamin L. Wentworth, Auditor, 2 years.
1861, Dec. 23-Isaiah Richards, Treasurer, 2 years.
1862, Oct. 25-John Hardesty, Coroner, 2 years.
1862, Oct. 25-Lewis S. Gordon, Recorder, 3 years.
1862, Oct. 25-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1862, Oct. 25-Samuel Forder, Commissioner, 3 years.
1862, Oct. 25-James R. Cushman, Surveyor, 3 years.
1863, Nov. 23-Samuel Means, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1863, Novv. 23--Fielding S. Cable, Sheriff, 2 years.
1863, Nov. 23-Freeborn T. Mellinger, Sheriff, 2 years.
1863, Nov. 23-Isaiah Richards, Treasurer, 2 years.
1863, Nov. 23-Richard S. Banks, Auditor, 2 years.
1863, Nov. 23-John Hardesty, Commissioner, 3 years.
1863, Nov. 23-William N. Snook, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1863, Nov. 23-Eber Barnhouse, Infirmary Director, 2 years.
1863, Nov. 23-James Barnes, Infirmary Director, 1 year
1864, April 29-Noah Ely, Surveyor, until October, 1864.
1864, Nov. 26-Alonso H. Selden, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1864, Nov, 26-Noah Ely, Surveyor, 2 years.
1864, Nov. 26-Henry Oswalt, Commissioner, .3 years,
1864, Nov. 26-James Barnes, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1864, Nov. 26-John Brakefield, Coroner, 2 years.
1865, Dec. 12-Richard S. Banks, Auditor, 2 years.
1865, Dec. 12--Lewis S. Gordon, Treasurer, 2 years.
1865, Dec. 12-Andrew P. Meng, Sheriff, 2 years.
1865, Dec. 12-Charles Hakes, Recorder, 3 years.
1865, Dec. 12-Theodore G. Merchant, Commissioner, 3 years.
1865, Dec. 12-Bennett Savags, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1866, Dec. 4-Samuel Means, Clerk of Couk s years.
1866, Dec. 4-Fielding S. Cable, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1866, Dec. 4-Alonzo H. Selden, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
'r866, Dec. 4-John Hardesty, Commissioner, 3 years.
1866, Dec. 4-William N. Snook, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1866, Dec. 4-Jacob Switzer, Coroner, 2 years.
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO.
HISTORY
1867, Nov. 21-Lewis S. Gordon, Treasurer, 2 years signed).
1867, Nov. 21-Coe Cordon, Commissioner, 3 years.
1867, Nov. 21-Andrew J. Meng, Sheriff, 2 years.
1867, Nov. 21-Isaiah Richards, Auditor, 2 years.
1867, Nov. 21-Frederick W. Sashore, Surveyor, 3 years.
1867, Nov. 21-Lyle Tate, Infirmary Director, 3 years (resigned March 17, 1870).
1868, Oct. 30-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1868, Oct. 30-Charles Hakes, Recorder, 3 yers.
1868, Oct. 30-Theodore G. Merchant, Commissioner, 3 years.
1868, Oct. 30-Bennett Savage, InfirmaryDirector, 3 years.
1868, Oct. 30-Jacob Switzer, Coroner, 2 years.
1869, Oct. 4-Levi M. Barnes, Treasurer (appointed ,vice Gordon, resigned).
1869, Oct. 22-Fielding S. Cable, Probate Judge, 3 years (died).
1869, Oct. 22-Orland A. Russell, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1869, Oct. 22-Jasper A. Ferguson, Sheriff, 2 years.
1869, Oct. 22-Valentine V. Pursel, Auditor, 2 years.
1869, Oct. 22-Peter Hilty, Treasurer, 2 years.
1869, Oct. 22-John D. Carlton, Commissioner, 3 years.
1869, Oct. 22-Rufus Russell, Infirmary Director, 3 years,
PAULDING COUNTY,
1870, Mar. 17-William B. Crawford, Infirmary Director (to fill vacancy).
1870, Nov. 14-David C. Carey, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1870, Nov. 14-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, '''2 years.
1870, Nov. 14-Coe Cordon, Commissioner, 3 years.
1870, Nov. 14-Noah Ely, Surveyor, 3 years.
1870, Nov. 14-William N. Snook, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1870, Nov. 14-Henry Oswalt, Coroner, 2 years (failed to give bond).
1871, Jan. 30-Elias Shafer, Coroner (to fill vacancy).
1871, Oct. 14-Jasper A. Ferguson, Sheriff, 2 years.
1871, Oct. 14-Peter Hilty, Treasurer, .2 years.
1871, Oct. 14-Jacob Switzer, Coroner, 2 years.
1871, Oct. 14-W. R. Crawford, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1871, Oct. 14-Alonzo H. Selden, Commissioner, 3 years.
1871, Oct. 14-Charles Hakes, Recorder, 3 years.
1872, Oct. 14-David C. Carey, Probate Judge, 3 years,
1872, Oct. 14-Alexander Brown, Commissioner, 3 years.
1872, Oct. 14-Valentine V. Pursel, Auditor, 2 years,
1872, Oct. 14-Lewis Hamilton, Infirmary Dirctor, 3 years.
1872, Oct. 14 Orlando H. Russell, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1872, Oct. 14-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2
1873, Oct. 21-Hiram M. Ayres, Sheriff, 2 years.
HISTORY OF PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO.
1873, Oct. 21-Frederick Young, Treasurer, 2 years.
1873, Oct. 21-William N. Snook, Commissioner, 3 years.
1873, Oct. 21-Frederick W. Bashore, Surveyor, 3 years.
1873, Oct. 21-Samuel Craven, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1874, Oct. 21-Jacob Switzer, Coroner, 2 years.
1874, Oct. 19-Andrew Y. French, Recorder, 3 years.
1874, Oct. 19-William C. Means, Auditor, 2 years.
1874, Oct. 19-Thomas B. Howland, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1874, Oct. 19-Joseph Bowyer, Commissioner, 3 years.
1874, Oct. 19-William R. Crawford, Infirmary Dirtctor, 3 years..
1875, Oct. 30-0. D. Fuller, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1875, Oct. 30-Calvin L. Noble, Probate Judge, 3 years
1875, Oct. 30-Hiram M. Ayres, Sheriff, 2 years.
1875, Oct. 30-Frederick Young, Treasurer, 2 years.
1875, Oct. 30-Isaiah Richards, Recorder, 3 years.
1875, Oct. 30-D. R. Boore, Commissioner,.3 years.
1875, Oct. 30-Daniel Kauffman, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1875, Oct. 30-C. H. Cunningham, Coroner, 2 years.
1876, Oct. 14-John W. Ayres, Prosecuting Attorney, 2
1876, Oct. 14-Charles Hakes, Auditor, 2 years.
1876, Oct. 14-Thomas Chester, Commissioner, 3 years.
1876, Oct. 14-John C. Harris, Surveyor, 3 years.
1876, Oct. 14-Samuel Craven, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1877, Nov. 7-Jasper A. Ferguson, Sheriff, 2 years.
1877, Nov. 7-Samuel G. Robertson. Treasurer. 2 years.
1877, Nov. 7-Joseph Bowyer, Commissioner, 3 years.
1877, Nov. 7-John Fieds, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1877, Nov. 7-C. H. Cunningham, Coroner, 2 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Charles Hakes, Auditor, 2 years.
1878, Nov. 5-James Powers Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Samuel G. Robertson, Treasurer, 2 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Benjamin L. Wentworth, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Henry C. Boyland, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Francis M. Wade, Commissioner, 3 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Isaiah Richards, Recorder, 3 years.
1878, Nov. 5--Medary D. Mann, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1878, Nov. 5-Joseph B. Cromley, Clerk of Court, 3 yeasr.
1879, Oct. 27-Samuel J. Tate, Sheriff, 2 years.
1879, Oct. 27-G. W. McCaskey, Coroner, 2 years.
1879, Oct. 27-Henry Kretzinger, Surveyor, 3 years
1879, Oct. 27-Thomas Chester, Commissioner, 3 years.
1880, Mch. 15-George W. Sowers, Commissioner, (vice Jos. Bowyer, to succeed Bowyer, deceased) .
1880, Nov. 1-Samuel G. Robertson, Treasurer 2 years.
1880, Nov. 1-George W. Sowers, Commissioner, 3 years.
188o, Nov. 1-John Field, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1880, Nov. 1-Medary D. Mann, Prosecuting Attorney, 2 years.
1880, Nov. 1-P Alvin Dix, Commissioner, (appointed ; see certificate).
1881, Oct. 21-Joseph B. Cromley, Clerk of Court, .3 years.
1881, Oct. 21-George Gussler, Commissioner, 3 years (resigned).
1881, Oct. 21-Samuel J. Tate, Sheriff, 2 years.
1881, Oct. 21-B. L. Wentworth, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1881, Oct. 21-B. S. Murphy, Auditor, 3 years.
1881, Oct. 21-Isaiah Richards, Recorder, 3 years.
1881, Oct. 21-James Powers, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1881, Oct. 21-C. V. Ganell Coroner, 2 years.
1882, Jan. 24-P. Alvin Dix, Coroner, (vice Ganell, failed to qualify).
1882, Nov. 10-A. J. Stenger, Treasurer, 2 years.
1882, Nov. 10-Martin N. Utley, Commissioner, 3 years.
1882, Nov. 10-Lewis H. Plattor, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1882, Nov. 10-Daniel Kauffman, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1882, Nov. 10-Thos. H. B. Bashore, Surveyor, 3 years.
1883, Jan. 30-Darius Leeth, Infirmary Director, (appointed vice John Field, deceased).
1883, Nov. 12-P. Alvin Dix, Coroner, 2 years.
1883, Nov. 12-Frank M. Wade, Commissioner, 3 years.
1883, Nov. 12-David W. Parr, Sheriff, 2 years.
1883, Nov. 12-Darius Leeth, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1883, Nov. 30-George W. Sowers, Commissioner, (appointed, vice G. Gusler, resigned).
1884, Oct. 20-Frank M. Bashore, Recorder, 3 years,
1884, Oct. 20-Samuel Dotterer, Infirmary Director 3 years.
1884, Oct. 20-Thomas J. Champion, Clerk of Court, 3 years.
1884, Oct. 20-R. D. Webster, Auditor, 3 years
1884, Oct. 20-John V. Sharp, Commissioner, 3 years.
1884, Oct. 20-A. J. Stenger, Treasurer, 2 years.
1884, Oct. 20-W. G. Lee, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1885, Oct. 23-David W. Parr, Sheriff, 2 years.
1885, Oct. 23-J. L. Slager, Coroner, 2 years.
1885, Oct. 23-Oliver Morrow, Surveyor, 3 years.
1885, Oct. 23-Samuel. G. Bowyer, Infirmary Director. 3 years.
1885; Ict. 23-Thomas Chester, Commissioner, 3 years.
1885, Oct. 23-W. H. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1886, Nov. 18-Michael Finan, Treasurer, 2 years.
1886, Nov. 18-Daniel Davidson Commissioner, 3 years.
1886, Nov. 18-Henry Downhour, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1886, Dec. 3-Henry Downhour, Infirmary Director (appointed).
1886, Dec. 3-Francis M. Wade, Commissioner (apoointed).
1887, Feb. 10-John W. Zuber, Infirmary Director (appointed).
1887, Nov. 16-Thomas J. Banks, Infirmary Director, I year.
1887, Nov. 16-Samuel Dotterer, Infirmary Director, 3 years (resigned).
1887, Nov. 16-R. D. Webster, Auditor, 3 years.
1887, Nov. 16-Warren G. Lee, Probate Judge, 3 years (deceased).
1887, Nov. 16-Frank M. Bashore, Recorder, 3 years
1887, Nov. 16-Thomas J. Champion, Clerk of Courts, 3 years..
1887, Nov. 16-Daniel W. Hixson, Coroner, 2 years.
1887, Nov. 16-Edward C. Swain, Sheriff, 2 years (resigned).
1887, Nov. 16- Michael Maloy, Commissioner, 3 years.
1887, Nov. 16-R. D. Webster, Auditor (apointed).
1888, Sep. 7-Henry E. Spring, Probate Judge, (appointed vice W. G. Lee, deceased).
1888, Sep. 15-Vance Broduix, Probate Judge, (unexpired term of Warren G. Lee).
1888, Sep. 15-Henry Hyman, Treasurer, 2 years.
1888, Sep. 15-Oliver Morrow, Surveyor, 3 years.
1888, Sep. 15-Daniel H. Dunlap, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1888, Sep. 15-Thomas Chester, Commissioner (appointed).
1888, Sep. 15-Wilson H. Snook, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1888, Sep. 28-Thomas Chester, Commissioner (appointed).
1888, Sep. 28-Thomas J. Banks, Infirmary Director (appointed).
1889, Aug. 8-John J. Clark, Sheriff (appointed, vice E. C. Swain).
1889, Nov. 13-Daniel Davidson, Commissioner, 3 years.
1889, Nov. 13-John Hosford, Coroner, 2 years.
1889, Nov. 13-Peter Kemler, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1889, Nov. 13-A. H. Saylor, Sheriff, 2 years.
1890, Apr. 2-Andrew Sprow, Infirmary Director (appointed, vice S. Dotterer, deceased).
1890, Nov. 17-Ephriam V. Ridenour, Auditor, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17-Wiliam B. Jackson, Clerk of Courts, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17-Michael Maloy, Commissioner, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17-Joel Sloppy, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17 -Lafayette Lewis, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17-John Yeager, Recorder, 3 years.
1890, Nov. 17-Michael Finan, Treasurer, 2 years.
1891, June 6-Ephriam V. Ridenour, Auditor, (appointed, vice R. D. Webster, resigned).
1891, Dec. 7-John Powers, Commissioner, 3 years.
1891, Dec. 7-C. V. Gorrell, Coroner, 2 years (refused to qualify).
1891, Dec. 7-David H. Dunlap, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1891, Dec. 7-Willis F. Corbett, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1891, Dec. 7-Edward Staley, Sheriff, 4 years.
1891, Dec. 7-W. J. Johnson, Surveyor, 3 years.
1892, Feb. 11-G. M. Brattan, Coroner, (appointed in place of C. V. Gorrell, who refused to qualify).
1892, Nov. 25-J. H. Hosford, Coroner, 2 years (resigned).
1892, Nov. 25-Peter Keinler, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1892, Nov. 25-John B. Zuber, Commissioner, 3 years.
1892, Nov. 25-Michael Finan, Treasurer, 2 years.
1893, Nov. 15-William H. Cullen, Auditor, 3 years.
1893, Nov. 28-Edward Staley, Sheriff, 2 years.
1893. Nov. 28-John Coupland, Clerk of Courts, 3 years.
1893, Nov. 29-James H. Dickenson, Commissioner, 3 years.
1893, Dec. 1-Darius Leeth, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1893, Dec. 1-Charles H. Yeagley, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1893. Dce. 1-Permenas F. Harris, Recorder, 3 years.
1894, Feb. 22-J. L. Slager, Coroner, (appointed in place of J. H. Hosford, resigned).
1894, Nov. 23-W. F. Corbett, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1894, Nov. 23--John Powers, Commissioner, 3 years (duplicate Dec. 9, 1895).
1894, Nov. 23-William H. Mustard, Surveyor, 3 years.
1894, Dec. 7-George Speice, Treasurer, z years.
1895, Jan. 10-John Powers, Commissioner, first Monday in January to third Monday in September, 1895.
1895, Jan. 11-Russell Randolph, Infirmary Director, 3
1895, Jan. 14-W. M. Hunter, Coroner, 2 years.
1895, Nov. 9--Charles E. Hakes, Sheriff, 2 years.
1895, Nov. 9-Marcus E. Wright, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1895, Nov. 9-Andrew W. Batson, Commissioner, 3 years,
1895, Nov. 9-Lewis W. Hebenthall, Coroner, 2 years (deceased).
1895, Jan. 7-Andrew W. Batson, Commissioner, first Monday in January to third Monday in September, 1896.
1896, June 3-J. L. Slager, Coroner, 2 years (appointed to vacancy caused by death of L. W. Hebenthall).
1896, Nov. 14-James H. Dickenson, Commioioner, 3 Yelp's,
1896, Nov. 14-Frank L. Harris, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1896, Nov. 14-Parmenas F. Harris, Record 3 years,
1896, Nov. 14-N. G. Sanerwein, Treasurer; ; years.
1896, Nov. 14-John C. Coupland, Clerk of Courts, 3 years
1896, Nov. 14—Charles W. Gordon, Coroner, 2 years.
1896, Nov. 14-Floyd, Atwill, Auditor, 3 years.
1896, Dec. 8—John Shock, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1896, Jan. 6 - James H. Dickinsin, Commissioner, first Monday in January 10 third Monday in
September, 1897.
1897, Jan. 18—P. F. Harris, Recorder, first Monday in January to first Monday in September, 1897. 1897, Nov. 17—Henry B. Wilson, Sheriff, 2 years.
1897, Nov. 17-0. E. Winernan, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1897, Nov. 17 W. J. Johnson, Surveyor, 3 years.
1897, Nov. 17—M. P. Jacobs, Commissioner, 3 years.
1897, Nov. 17—John W. Zuber, Prosecuting Attorney, 3
1898, Nov. 18 John K. Price, Commissioner, 3 years.
1898, Nov. 18—Nicholas G. Sauerwein, -Treasurer, 2 years.
1898, Nov. 18—A. H. Mouser, Coroner, 2 years.
1898, Nov. 18—R. L. Zimmerman, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1899, Jan. 14—Marcus E. Wright, Infirmary Director, first Monday in January to first Monday in Monday in September, 1899.
1899, Jan, 14-C. W. Gordon, Coroner, first Monday in January to first Monday in September, 1899. 1899, Nov. 21.-=.T. W. Poorman, Sheriff, 2 years (failed to give bond ; office declared vacant).
1899, Nov. 21—Darius Leeth, Probate Judge, 3 years.
1899, Nov. 21—John W. Wortman, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1899, Nov. 21—Joseph B. Weible, Commissioner, 3 years.
1899, Nov. 21—John A. Jenkins, Clerk of Courts, 3 years.
1899, Nov. 21—David Filley, Recorder, 3 years.
1899, Nov. 21—Allen Bybee, Auditor, 3 years.
1900, Jan. 19—Henry B. Wilson, Sheriff, (appointed, vice T. W. Poorman).
1900, Nov. 15—T. W. Poorman, Sheriff, 2 years.
1900, Nov. 15—Oliver Morrow, Surveyor, 3 years.
1900, Nov. 15-George Croll, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1900, Nov. 15—P. P. Dorring, Commissioner, 3 years.
1900, Nov. 15—C. W. Gordon, Coroner, 2 years.
1900, Nov. 15—F. W. Dunham, Treasurer, 3 years.
1900, Nov. 15—John W. Zuber, Prosecuting Attorney, 3 years.
1901, Nov. 14—William Runyan, Infirmary Director, 3 years.
1901, Nov. 14—J. S. McKanna, Commissioner, 3 years.
History of Paulding County, Ohio.
CHAPTER I.
PRE-HISTORIC AND INDIAN,
The county is not as rich in specimens of pre-historic nature as are some of the other counties of the state, yet there is every evidence that portions of that strange people, the Mound Builders, once trod the primeval solitudes of our dark forests. There are no mounds worthy of note in the county, but just over its eastern border, in Perry township, Putnam county, is one whose contour is yet sharply defined. It is situated on the east bank of the Auglaize river, and is about ten feet high, and fifty feet in circumference. A few years ago this mound was examined by a shaft being sunk in its center. At the depth of four feet a human skeleton was found which was evidently the remains of some one buried there since the erection of the mound. At the depth of eight feet were found quantities of broken pottery and other articles of that extinct race, whose mysterious works left us are the only traces of their existence. Who were they, from whence did they come, and what became of them ? are the questions more easily asked than answered. Regarding them the learned may have his theory, and the mediocre and unlettered their beliefs, but the mysteriousness of the Mound Builders still remains. That there was a time in pre-historic days when huge animals, of the now extinct species, roamed the
1
2 - HISTORY OF
wilds of Paulding county, is abundantly verified by portions of their remains which are now and then unearthed. A very rare specimen was discovered in May, 1891, of which the Paulding Democrat says as follows "Last Wednesday, while the son of John Cozat, a farmer residing about six miles southwest of Paulding, was engaged at some work along Flat Rock creek, he noticed something peculiar projecting from the bank into the water, and upon examination found it to be an enormous tooth, weighing 4V2 pounds, which is one of the largest specimens of that kind ever found. It is thought by many, who have examined it, to be the tooth of a mastodon, an animal of the Tertiary period, and allied with the mammoth.”
Indian History.—When tile curtain of history rose from the dark shadows which veiled the pre-historic race, the civilized world saw the Ohio country occupied by the Wyandots (or Hurons), and the Shawnees. The latter tribe had been driven from Florida, about the year of 175o, by the Seminoles and Creeks. They had fled down the Cumberland river, and so on into Ohio, where they sought and received the protection of the Miamis. The Wyandots, the Delawares and the Shawnees were of the Algonquin family. By the treaty at Fort McIntosh, in 1875, the Ottawas, the Wyandots and Delawares were assigned to the northern section of what is now the state of Ohio, west of the Cuyahoga river. The Wyandots fought the invading armies of the Iroquois with desperate valor, until in a long contested battle their warriors were well nigh exterminated and the shattered remnants of the tribe took refuge in distant Michigan. They were a race of heroes, and when General Wayne ordered his intrepid scout, Capt. Wells, to go to Sandusky, and cap-- ture a prisoner there, to get information from ,him, the veteran Indian fighter said : "I can easily take a prisoner, but
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 3
not from Sandusky." "And why not from Sandusky ?" said Wayne. To which Wells rejoined : "Because there are only Wyandots there." "Well, why will not Wyandots do ?" And Wells replied, "For the best of reasons—because Wyandots will not be taken alive."
With this race of warriors out of the way, the Iroquois advanced upon the second line of Ohio defenses, and endeavored to subjugate the Miamis. But at this date a new element entered into the great game of war, with the resistless western marches of the Virginian riflemen and the British infantry. On the one hand, England enriched the Ohio tribes with armaments and gifts in vast profusion ; and on the other, the United States proposed (in the Pittsburgh treaty of 1778) to the Delawares and their allied tribes to organize a friendly state, contracting to admit this aboriginal empire, when so organized, as one of the states of the Union. The tangible gifts of the British officials outweighed the rather misty promise of an Indian legislature, and the Delewares, Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots and other tribes remained hostile to the Americans for nearly twenty years, and shattered more than one gallant army, until at last Wayne's famous- American legion broke their power, forever in the great general battle of Fallen Timbers.
As this legion, on its march to glorious victory, passed through the confines of Paulding county, its history, in connection with the county history, will have a direct bearing, and will be meet and proper. When the white settlements began at Marietta and along he Ohio, the war-thirsty tribes of the northwest, under the control and instigated by the British agents, began their merciless depredations. General Harmar had been defeated, and Governor St. Clair, at the head of an army, of upwards of three thousand strong, had been surprised upon the banks of the Wabash in the south-
4 - HISTORY OF
west part of Mercer county, and his force entirely destroyed or dispersed, a detail of which disaster may be found in the fragment of an old army song :
" 'Twas November the fourth, in the year of ninety-one,
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson ;
St. Clair was our commnder, which may remembered be,
For there we left nine hundred men in the West Ter'tory."
This aroused Congress to a different policy. The commanding officers of the hitherto fatal expeditions might have been good generals, and undoubtedly were. in a combat with civilized armies, but they were entirely Unaccustomed to an Indian warfare. How Genera? Washington, who was reared to this class of fighting from his youth, could have committed the fatal blunder of selecting generals devoid of training in the peculiar duties demanded of them, is quite inexplicable. The lessons received, however, were not in vain. A new commander was selected, and this time a man who had fought both the whites and Indians, who possessed not only unquestioned courage, but likewise a keen conception and quick resolve in his actions, the intrepid hero of Stony Point, General Anthony Wayne. This selection was made despite the opposition of, or, as Governor Lee of Virginia, puts it, "to the extreme disgust of all orders in the Old Dominion." But the President had selected Wayne not hastily, nor through partiality or influence, and no idle words affected him.
In June, 1792, Wayne went to Pittsburgh and proceeded to organize the army which. was to be the ultimate arbitrator between the Americans and the Indian confederation. Through the summer of 1792, the preparation of the soldiers was steadily attended to. "Train and discipline them for the service they are meant for," said Washington, "and do not spare powder and lead, so the men be made marksmen."
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 5
In December, 1792, the forces, now recruited and trained were gathered at a point twenty-two miles below Pittsburgh on the Ohio, in a camp which was called Legionville, the army itself having been denominated the Legion of the United States.
While Wayne's army was gathering and practicing target-shooting, the peace measures of the United States were pressed with equal perseverance. An expedition was sent to examine the field of St. Clair's defeat. This body reached its destination in February, 1792, and a letter from Capt. Buntin to St. Clair regarding the expedition says : "In my opinion the unfortunate men who were taken alive by the enemy were used with the greatest torture : and the women have been treated with extreme cruelty." Next there were peace commissioners sent to the various tribes. Colonel Trueman repaired to the Miami villages with friendly messages and offered the most reasonable terms. Other peace commissioners were sent to the Indians on the Wabash, accompanied by the Moravian missionary, John Heckewelder and every effort was made to effect a friendly adjudication of the difficulties with the tribes.
On the part of the Indians these peace offerings were received with a diversity of opinion. Some of the chiefs, among whom was the Wyandot war chief, Little Turtle, urged the acceptance of the terms offered while others, QS yet intoxicated with the easy victories obtained over largely superior armies, were unwiling to listen to any argument offered. In vain did Little Turtle say to them : "Brothers we heretofore had chiefs opposed to us who were sleeping, but I say to you, the 'Great Wind' (the name given to General Wayne by the Indians) is a chief who never sleeps." They urged on by the British, who secretly promised them succor, would hear to no terms whatsoever.
6 - HISTORY OF
General Wayne's legion passed the winter of 1792-3 at Legionville until the last of April, 1793, when it was then taken down the river to Cincinnati. There it encamped in the vicinity of Fort Washing. on, on a high plateau, selected for that purpose by Wayne's quartermaster-general Colonel Hobson, from whom the camp received the name of "Hob- son's Choice." It was urged by some that the camping ground was too far distant from Fort Washington and the town, it being located on what is now the western part of Cincinnati. Wayne, upon inquiry as to who had chosen the place, said: "Then it is Hobson's choice, and we must take it."
After encountering many obstacles, General Wayne, during the summer of 1793, was perfecting the discipline of his army at Hobson's Choice. Profiting by the errors of his predecessors, he at the same time tried to acquaint himself with every thing pertaining to the disposition of the Indians, their location, number, chiefs, and all other matters of interest to a commander of an invading army in a hostile country. He knew that he had a bold, vigilant and dexterous enemy with whom to contend. It was, therefore, indispensable to him to use every precaution in his movements to prevent a surprise. To secure his army against the impossibility of being ambuscaded, he organized a body of spies or rangers, selecting for it the best woodsmen the camp afforded. He placed this corps under the command of Captain Ephriam Kibby, who had distinguished himself as a bold and intrepid soldier. The corps was divided into two companies, one commanded by Kibby in person, and the other by Captain William Wells, who had been taken prisoner by the Indians when a boy, and had grown up to manhood with them, consequently being well acquainted with their wiles and strategems.
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO. - 7
On the 7th of October, 1793, Wayne's army left their camping ground at Hobson's Choice, and removed to Fort 'Greenville, which, under Wayne's direction, was strongly fortified. Here they went into winter quarters, having been sufficiently provisioned to that end. Nothing in particular occurred here, excepting a skirmish with a party of Indians, who made an attack upon some soldiers who were guarding a train of supplies. The Indians were easily repulsed, with some loss on both sides.
During the spring of 1794, negotiations were again opened with the Indians, and terms of peace offered them, but they were rejected. General Wayne then pushed his advance further into the Indian country, to the place of the St. Clair disaster, where he erected a work of defense, which was named Fort Recovery, signifying the the hitherto lost ground had been recovered. This fort was in the southwest part of Mercer county, and was at once strongly fortified, and made the basis of future operations. During the advance of the army Captain Wells and his scouts were constantly making .raids into the enemy's country, for the purpose of taking prisoners, from whom to obtain information. In one of these expeditions they crossed the river St. Mary and passed on to the Auglaize. On the high about one mile north of where now stands, the stirring little village of Oakwood, they came upon a party of three Indians in camp. Two of the Indians were instantly shot and killed, and the remaining one taken prisoner. When the paint was
washed from him, he proved to be a white man, named Christopher Miller. He afterwards joined the scouts and did valuable service during the remainder of the campaign. A few days afterwards a Pottawatomie chief was captured near Charloe. Truly, he who meanders along the dark
8 - HISTORY OF
Auglaize in Paulding county is treading upon historic grounds.
The army remained at Fort Recovery until about the 1st of August, when, Wayne having learned from prisoners taken that the enemy had gathered in great numbers at Grand Glaize (now Defiance), he hurriedly moved upon that point. To deceive the Indians a feint was made to the westward, as if to attack the villages on .the Wabash, but the army really crossed over to the Auglaize, and passed down the west bank of that stream to its confluence with the Maumee, and on the 18th arrived at a point just above Waterville, where he erected a temporary fortification for the protection of their stores and baggage, and named it Fort Deposit. On the morning of August 20th, 1794, the army moved on down the river to attack the Indians encamped in the immedate vicinity of Presque Isle Hill. There the battle of "Fallen Timber" was fought, and regarding it we quote from Gen. Wayne's official report : "The legion was on the right, its flank covered by the Maumee ; one brigade of mounted volunteers on the left, under Brigadier-General Todd, and the other in the rear, under Brigadier-General Barbee. A select battalion of mounted volunteers moved in front of the legion, commanded by Major Price, who was directed to keep sufficiently advanced, so as to give timely notice for the troops to form in case of action. After advancing about five miles, Major Price's corps received so severe a fire as to compel them to retreat. The legion was immediately formed in two lines, principally in a close, thick wood which extended for miles on our left, and to a considerable distance in front, the ground being covered with old fallen timber, which rendered it impracticable for the cavalry to act with effect, and afforded the enemy the most favorable covert for their mode of warfare. The savages were formed in
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 9
three lines, within supporting distance of each other, and extending for nearly two miles at right angles with the river. I soon discovered from the weight of their fire, and the extent of their lines, that the enemy were in full force in front, in possession of their favorite grounds and endeavoring to turn our left flank. I therefore gave orders for the second line to advance and support the first ; and directed Major Scott to gain and turn the right flank of the savages, with the whole force of mounted volunteers, by a circuitous route. At the same time I ordered the front line to advance with trailed arms, and arouse the Indians from their coverts at the point of the bayonet, and when up to deliver a close and well directed fire on their backs, followed by a brisk charge so as to not give them time to load again. I also ordered Captain Campbell, who commanded the legionary
cavalry, to, turn the left flank of the enemy next to the river, which afforded a favorable field for that corps to act in. All these orders were obeyed with spirit and promptitude ; but such was the impetuosity of the first line that the Indians and Canadian militia and volunteers were driven from all their coverts in so short a time that, although every possible exertion was used by the offrcers of the second line of the legion, and by Scott, Todd and Barbee of the mounted volunteers, to gain their proper positions, but part of each could get up in season to participate in the action, the enemy being driven, in the course of an hour, more than two miles through the thick woods already mentioned. From every account the enemy amounted to two thousand combatants. The troops actually engaged against them were short of nine hundred. This horde of savages, with their allies, abandoned themselves to flight, and dispersed in terror and dismay, leaving our victorious army in full and quiet possession of the field of battle, which terminated under the influence of the guns
10 - HISTORY OF
of the British garrison. The loss of the enemy was more than that of the portion of the legion engaged. The woods were strewn for many miles with the dead bodies of the Indians and their white auxilaries, the latter being armed with British muskets and bayonets."
Wayne remained a few days in the vicinity of the battle field, laying waste to Indian villages and fields of growing corn, then returned to Fort Defiance, and thence on up the Maumee to Fort Wayne ; one detachment passing up Flat Rock creek and encamping a few days about one mile southwest of Paulding, on what is now the farm of Mr. B. A. Holcombe.
Roll on, sweet river, to Lake Erie roll ;
Thy name is inscribed on history's scroll ;
No prouder did Sherman march down to the sea,
Than "Mad Anthony" marched along the Maumee.
The legion remained at Fort Wayne until November, 1794, then returned to Fort Greenville and went into winter quarters. Its hardships had been innumerable, but its mission had been eminently successful ; and now, covered with the laurels of victory, it rested from its labors.
The Indians never recovered from their signal and decisive defeat, and soon after, at a general treaty at Greenville, sued for peace. Thus ended the Indian wars in Northwestern Ohio. Their homes on the Maumee had been destroyed. Here for years they had dwelt in calm security. Its beautiful banks were studded with their villages, and the rich bottoms covered with cornfields. Here their wise men had met around the council fires, and the returning braves had exhibited the trophies of their victorious expeditions. In war the river was their base line of attack, their source of supplies and their secure refuge. But Wayne's legion spread the black
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mantle of desolation over the valley, and the mighty prowess of its red men was crushed forever. By treaty and purchase in 1805, 1818, 1829 and 1842, tbe Indians disposed of their lands, and on the last date a remnant of the Ottawas sold their last acre within the limits of Ohio and removed the following year to the far west, settling near the mouth of the Kansas river.
The largest Indian village ever located in the county was Charloe, beautifully situated upon the left bank of the Auglaize, in Brown township. It was near the center of an Indian reserve, four mites square, and known as Oquanoxa's reserve. Here dwelt that chieftain with about Goo Indians, a portion of the Ottawa tribe, until the year of 1820, when the reservation was sold, and Oquanoxa and his followers took up their line of march toward the setting sun.
At the time of the first settlements of the county there were several straggling bands of Indians along the Auglaize and Maumee rivers. Some of the names of Indians remembered by the old settlers were Ant. Wayne, Totigose, Saucy Jack, Big Yankee Jim, Draf Jim, P. Ashway, a squaw named Songs, and two brothers, named Pokeshaw and Wapacanaugh. They were generally peaceable and kind to the settlers excepting when under the influence of "fire water." No Indian tragedies of any note ever occurred within the limits of the county.
CHAPTER - II.
ORGANIZATION OF COUNTY.
In 1784, the state of Virginia ceded to the United States the great Northwest Territory, which she claimed by her charter, and by the conquest of Gen, George Rogers Clarke. This great territory embraced the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and that portion of Minnesota lying between the upper waters of the Mississippi and Lake Superior. In 1875, congress defined the methods by which the national government would dispose of lands in its northwestern domain ; and two years later came the ordinance of 1787, authorizing the board of treasury to contract with would-be purchasers of such territory. In the same year the Ohio company was formed by a syndicate of New Englanders, and in 1788, Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum, was the first town founded within the limits of Ohio. Washington was the first county formed in the northwest territory. It included all the eastern part of the state as far west as the Scioto river, with Marietta as its seat of justice. Hamilton county was the next to be organized, with Cincinnati as its county seat. It included that region between the two Miamis, up as far from the Ohio as an east and west line drawn through the Standing Stone fork of the Big Miami. Wayne county was the fifth to be formed in the northwest territorial region. Its boundaries are given as follows : "Beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, upon Lake Erie, and with the said river to the portage be-
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 13
tween it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, then down the said branch to the forks at the carrying place above Fort Laurens, thence by a line west to the eastern boundary of Hamilton county ; thence by a line west and northerly to the southern part of the portage between the Miamis of Lake Erie, where Fort Wayne now stands : thence by a line west and northerly to the southern part of Lake Michigan ; thence along the western shores of the same to the northwest part thereof ; thence by a due north line to the territorial boundary in Lake Superior. and, with the said boundary through Lakes Huron, St. Clair and Erie, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, the place of beginning." This county was organized in 1796, under the first form of our territorial government, and included within its limits about twenty-six of the present counties of Northwestern Ohio, of which Paulding county one. The ofd town of Detroit was the seat of justice. The few whites in this region were, like those of Detroit, Canadian French, Indian traders, or renegade tories. For more than a hundred years Detroit had been the center and headquarters of all military and commercial affairs about the head of Lake Erie and the foot of Lake Huron. The Maumee river country was merely an out post or province of Detroit. Communication with the civilized world was by way of Detroit and Canada. A majority of the whites in the lake region were French, of Canadian origin, and still hold,. ing Canadian prejudices, and retaining their Canadian connections in all matters of religon, politics, friendship and commerce. Between the Detroit settlements and the settlements on the Ohio river, there existed no bond of sympathy ; in fact, until 1796, they had always been the bitterest enemies,. and both retained much of the old prejudices engendered by the French and revolutionary wars. Between the Maumee and the Ohio lay an almost trackless wilderness,
14 - HISTORY OF
over the whole vast extent of which were stretched a mighty and unbroken forest yet ignorant of the woodman's ax.
Ohio was the first state to be carved out of the great northwest territory. It was admitted into the union in 18o2. The northwestern part was the last to be organized and settled. The Indians having ceded their lands to the whites, the legislature of the state, by an act of February 12, 1820, proceeded to divde the newly acquired territory into counties. First of these counties Paulding is one, and it dates its creation to the year above mentioned. It was named in honor of John Paulding, a native of Peekskill, N. Y., and one of the captors of that brave and accomplished, but unfortunate officer, Major Andre.
The base line from which the public land surveys were made was established in May, 1819, by Sylvanus Bourne. This line is the southern line of the county and extends from the Indiana and Ohio state line eastward through the counties of Putnam and Hancock, and forms the south line of Seneca county to Huron county, where it connects with lands known as the Western Reserve.
The township lines were established in 182o, by Alexander Holmes, Samuel Holmes and others ; and in 1821-22 the townships were divided into sections by James W. Riley and his assistants. The county of Williams was organized February 2, 1824, and Paulding county was attached to it for judicial purposes, until is own organization in 1839. In the 4th of March, 1845, by an act of the legislature, the county of Defiance was organized. Its territory was composed of eight townships taken from Williams county, three from Henry, and a half township from Paulding. The formation of this new county reduced Paulding county to its present limts, which, were it not for the half township taken from its northeastern corner, would be a rectangle, extending east
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 15
and west, twenty-four miles in length, and eighteen miles in width. It embraces within.its territory ten full townships six miles square, and Emerald township, containing thirty-two sections, and Auglaize county, on the south by Van Wert county, and on the west by Allen county, Indiana Its south line is the forty-first parallel of north latitude, and the meridian of eighty-four degrees and thirty minutes, west longitude, crosses the county near its eastern boundary. The numbering of townships begins on the south and runs north ; the ranges on the west and runs east. Benton township is number 1, range 1 ; Harrison, town 2, range 1 ; Carryall, town 3, range 1 ; Blue Creek, town range 2 ; Paulding, town 2, range 2 ; Crane, town 3, range 2 ; Laity, town 1, range 2 ; Jackson, town 2, range 3 ; Emerald, town 3, range 3 ; Washington, town 1, range 4 ; Brown, town 2, range 4; and Auglaize, town 3, range 4.
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 17
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY SETTLERS.
As is the case with the first settlers of almost every country, the earliest settlers of Paulding county planted their primitive homes along the banks of its streams. On the rich alluvial bottoms of the Auglaize are yet to be seen the sites where were built the cabins of the Careys, the Hudsons, the Shirleys, the Romines and the Shroufes. Along the Maumee came the Musselmans, and the Banks and the Reynolds families ; also the Cordons, the Runyans, the Murphys, the Applegates, and Gen. H. N. Curtis. On the Little Auglaize came the Harrells, the Mellingers and the Curtises ; on the Blue Creek, the Moss brothers, the Reeds, the Barnhills, and the family of Robert Hakes ; while on Flat Rock, or Crooked creek, the Woodcocks, the Malotts and the Wentworths. were the first to tread the forest paths and to swing the "settler's echoing ax."
The first white settlement made in Paulding county was on section 19, Auglaize township, by Shadrach Hudson, in 1819. Isaac Carey came in the autumn of the same year. He came from Miami county, Ohio, by the route which had been opened by Gen. Wayne, to Defiance, thence up the Auglaize to his place of location. The farm upon which he settled is about one-half mile east of the present village of function, and is owned by Reason Johnson. Upon this farm, January 21, 1826, was born Daniel Clark Carey, who has
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 17
the notoriety of being the first white child 1:n own to have been born within the limits of the county. A few years ago he removed to Hutchinson, .has., but only remained about two years, when he returned to the scenes of his youth, preferring the majestic forests of Paulding county to the broad prairies of the "far west. Shadrach Hudson was the father- in-law of Isaac Carey. Upon his farm stood the oldest house in the county. It was built of hewed logs 20x30 feet in length, about fifty years ago. It was photographed in the summer of 1800, the picture enlarged and distributed throughout the county as a pioneer relic. Nathan Shirley came in 1823, and Thomas Romine in 1825, both settling on farms on the Auglaize. The settlements on the Maumee were begun in 1825. Denison Hughes, William Banks, David Applegate, William Gordon, Reason V. Spurrier and Gen. H. N. Curtis, came to the county about that year, and May be regarded as the first settlers of its northern part. Of these, the Banks and Gordon families came from Cincinnati ; their route lay along the military roads which ran up the Miami river to its headwaters; then crossing over to the headwaters of the St. Mary's river, they loaded their household goods and wagons into pirogues and came down that river to Fort Wayne, thence down the Maumee to their respective places of landing. Their horses were unharnessed and driven across the country along the winding Indian trails that were not sufficiently wide to permit the passage -of vehicles.
Joseph Mellinger commenced the little Auglaize settlement in the year of 1828, and was shortly after followed by William Harrell, Benjamin Kniss and Dimitt Mackerel. These settlers reached the county from the southern Ohio counties by crossing the water shed which extends east and west through the state, and striking the headwaters of the
18 - HISTORY OF
Blanchard river, passed down that stream to its confluence with the Big Auglaize, thence overland to their places of settlement.
In 1834, the Moss brothers natives of England, commenced improving farms on the banks of Blue Creek, while further tip that stream, about the same year, Robert Barnhill and Joseph Reed built log cabins and began battling with the frowning forests. In 1837, Thomas Wentworth began the Flat Rock settlement. His nativity was the state of Maine. In 1835, he, with his family, left the pine-covered hills of that state to find a home in Paulding county. He embarked upon \a, coasting vessel and sailed down the Atlantic to New York, and reached Buffalo by way of the Hudson river and New York and Erie canal, thence on Lake Erie to Toledo, then up the Maumee to New Rochester, near the present site of Cecil. Here he rested with his family for a year or two, then cut a wagon-track road through the dark forest ten miles to the south and commenced the improvement of a farm near where now stands the enterprising village of Payne.
Thus have we shown our readers the routes by which the first settlers reached the county ; also their names, date of entry and places of location. We should now pay to them that tribute which is their due ; and would that our unskillful pen was equal to such a task. They were men of integrity, hardy and brave, and whether they were clearing away the forests, engaged at the hand-mill in cracking corn for food, or chasing the bounding deer for the same purpose,. they showed a fortitude and determination of spirit which is worthy of imitation. But they have passed away, and they who gaze upon their last resting places may say : here rest the great and good—here they repose after their generous toil. A sacred band they were, and now they take their last sleep together, while every new-born spring that is ushered
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 19
in comes with its earliest flowers to deck their graves. Theirs is no, vulgar sepulchre—although in many instances the green sod may be their only monument ; yet it tells a nobler history than pillared piles or the eternal pyramids. Touch not, then, the ancient elms that bend their branches over the lowly, graves of the first settlers of Paulding county. for their shadows fall upon the resting places of those who need no columns pointing upward to tell us that beyond the purple hills they have found a happy home.
The habits of our first settlers were, in the most part, exemplary, their hardships many and their wants few. Their houses were built of logs, with puncheon floors, clapboard roofs, and greased paper for windows
The garb of the first settlers was of the simplest homespun. The flax patch furnished the material for the bed ticking and the tow linen for shirts and trowsers. The wool was carded, spun, woven and fashioned into garments by the nimble fingers of the pioneer's wife and daughters. They were the manufacturers of the linsey-woolsey. How often was the tired backwoodsman lulled to sleep by the sweet hum of the spinning wheel as the faithful and toilng wife plied her vocation late in the mght. A few of these old dust- covered articles yet remain in the county.
The township lnes were established in 1820, but the townships were not organized until a much later date. Three of the townships, Crane, Carryall and Brown, were organized .before the county. Crane was organized in 1825 ; Carryall in 1829 ; and Brown in 1830. Prior to the organization of the county, the citzens of the above mentioned townships paid their taxes, attended court, etc., at Defiance, which was then the county seat of Willams county.
This fort stood eight or ten rods south of the old fort built by Wayne in 1894. It had four block-houses, connected
20 - HISTORY OF
by a continuous wall of pickets about twelve feet high, composed of logs hewn so as to stand closely together. The block houses were considerably higher than the pickets, with an upper story extending over the lower about three feet. Port holes and loop holes were arranged at regular distances, both in the block houses and stockade. The block houses were roofed over with logs and covered with earth to prevent the- bullets from passing through. There was an underground passage-way, extending from the inside of the fort to the Auglaize river, built for the purpose of escape and for obtaining water without being exposed to the shots of the Indians. The fort faced eastward toward the Auglaize river, and as late as 1822 two of the block houses and two
houses, built inside the fort, were yet standing in very good repair and occupied by families. In one of these resided, about one year, Judge Robert Shirley and family, before his removal to Brown township, near the present site of Charloe. With these few sketches of interesting general history, we will now proceed to the township histories direct, giving the same in alphabetical order :
Auglaize Township.—This township was attached to, Brown until the year of 1840, at which time its own organization was effected. -An election was called, and John Mason, Sr., and Nathan Shirley were elected the first justices of the peace ; Adam Hall was elected the first constable, and A. C. Adams the first clerk. The first actual settler in the township was Shadrach Hudson. He came from Miami county, Ohio, in the year of 1819, and built a log house on section 19, on the right bank of the Auglaize river, about one-half a mile east of the present village of Junction. This house is known as "the oldest house in the county." The following description of it was given in June, 1890, by a correspondent of the Oakwood Sentinel
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* * * * "It was built by Shadrach Hudson in 1822 or '23. It is of square logs, is two stories in height,. and has a huge fire place in each end. There are two rooms on the first story. The house stands on and commands a fine- view, both up and down the Auglaize river. It is a pity the old house was not engraved for the county history. It wilt soon be a thing of the past and forgotten. I wish that some- artist would take a sketch of the building and its surroundings, which are very picturesque." (Photographs were made of the building shortly after the above was written and sold throughout the county.)
"The house is situated on what is known as the Potter farm, one mile northeast of Junction. Near by is the cemetery where sleep the Hudsons, the Careys, the Shirleys, the Romaines, the Potters, and many other deceased pioneers. Its builder, Mr. Hudson, was a soldier with St. Clair, was at the battle where that general was defeated by the Indians ; also in the war of 1812, during which he visited the Maumee valley, where, being impressed with its fertility and natural beauties, he afterward settled. At one time he was a teamster 'employed in hauling supplies for the army. One night he arose in his sleep, harnessed his four-horse team, hitched them to the wagon, and was about to start on his tedious journey, when he awoke. Mr. Hudson and his wife lived a life of piety, and daily gathered their large family around the family altar. They were very hospitable and entertained many a stranger who chanced to pass that way. What huge roasts of bear meat, venison and wild turkey they used to make before those old fire-places l Their fumes seemed to fill the very air with their appetizing flavors. I wonder if departed ones ever come back to visit their abodes while in the flesh ! If they do, what a host of them come back to that old house. In former days I often visited friends there
22 - HISTORY OF
and used to think what stories its old walls could tell if they could speak. But all are gone !
" Moved out of the old house up into the new,
Even unto a heavenly mansion.
Thou dear, old house ! Thou canst not feel nor see;
Inanimate I know, but still a dear, old house to me.' "
The township originally consisted of thirty-six sections but upon the construction of Defiance county, in 1845, its northern half was struck off and added to Defiance township, of that county, the sections preserving the number of the original survey. This territory was taken from Paulding county in order to make Defiance, which was to the county seat of the newly formed county, nearer its geographical center. To increase the size of Auglaize township, after its half had been cut off, sections 13, 24, 25 and 36 were taken from Emerald township and added to it on the west. The township, is therefore, seven miles in length from east to west, and three miles wide from north to south, excepting on the west tier of sections, where it is four miles in width. Owing to this addition, this township has two sections numbered 24, two 25, and two 36; these are distinguished from each other by the ranges, those taken from Emerald township being in range 3, and those in Auglaize proper, being in range 4. Through the carelessness of some county officials, serious mistakes are sometimes made in consequence of this arrangement of sections. For instance : A few years ago the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 36, town 3 north, range 4 east, was advertised to be sold at sheriff's sale, much to the surprise of the owner, as he knew nothing of the debt for which the sale of the land had been ordered. Upon inquiry into the matter, it was found that the land which should have begen advertised was of the
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 23
same description as the above, excepting the range, which should have been 3 instead of 4. This mistake in the substitution of one figure for another, slight as it was, made a difference of just six miles in the location of the two pieces of land.
The largest stream in the township is the Big Auglaize river. It flows through the western Dart from south to north. Flat Rock enters the township from the south, and Little Flat Rock and Six Mile from the west all three flow eastward and empty into the Big Auglaize. Bull Run enters from the south and empties into Big Flat Rock. Eagle Creek has its sourse in the western part of the township, flows westward and discharges its waters into the Auglaize. There are several stone quarries in the township. On the farm of Samuel M. Doyle, one-half mile east of Junction, is a quarry of blue lime, and furnished stone for the construction of many aqueducts and culverts along the line of the Miami canal, when that thoroughfare of commerce was being built ; also stone for the large iron bridge across the Auglaize river, near the location of the quarry. It has been idle for some years, but is being worked at present. Another quarry, on the farm of Jacob Davis, consists of blue, gray and white lime, and furnishes many parts of the county with stone for building and other purposes.
Frederick Ruffner built the first and only flouring mill in the township in 1865. It is located in the Village of Junction, is a frame, with two run of buhrs, turbine water wheel and is furnished power from the Miami canal. Owing to the complicated conditon of its ownership, the mill has not been in operation for several years. The first saw mill erected in the township was built by William K. Daggett, in the year of 1841. It was situated about one mile north of Junction,
24 - HISTORY OF
and was furnished power by water from the canal. This mill was in operation for nearly forty years.
The first school taught in the township was by A. C. Adams, in 1840. It was in a log cabin which stood on section 26, range 3, a small buildng with clapboard roof, puncheon floor, and stick chmney. Ten or twelve pupils were in attendance at this school. The first school house built in the township was in the village of Junction in 1854. It was a one-story frame, 28x3o feet in dimensions ; a part of it is yet standing and is used as a dwelling. Upon the organization of the other subdistricts, which occurred between the years of 1854 and 186o, they were at first furnished buildings of hewn logs, but are now all supplied with good, substantial frames, excepting the one in Junction, which is a two-story brick, built in the summer of 1876, at a cost of $2,500. In subdistrict number 4 (known as the Bethel school), is a large one-story frame with two rooms on ground floor, built in 1878, by John Q. Gray, contractor, at a cost of about $1,000. The Bethel and Junction schools each employ a principal and assistant teacher ; the remaining four subdistricts employ but one teacher each. About boo pupils receive instruction at these schools.
The first postoffice established in the township was in the village of Junction, in 1842. It was called the same as the village, and John Mason, Sr., was the first postmaster. The office still exists. One other office was established in 1882, named Arthur, in honor of Chester A. Arthur, who was then president of the United States. John Moore was the first postmaster at this office. It is located in the eastern part of the township. Junction postoffice is situated on a mail route, 'extending from Delphos to Defiance, and has a tri-weekly mail—Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Arthur is on a star route leading only
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from that point to Defiance, and receives a bi-weekly mail--Tuesdays and Saturdays.
The first sermon preached in the township was in the cabin home of John Mason, Sr., by a Methodist minister named Solomon Biggs. The first church organization effected in the township was at Junction, in 1849. by a Methodist Episcopal minister named Adams, and the first Sabbath-
school was opened the same year by that reverend gentleman. There are now five religous organizations in the township--the Christian, the Methodist, the United Brethren, the German Reform and Catholic—ali of which have church edifices, the last four named being in the Junction and the first named at Arthur, five miles east of the Junction.
The only village in the township is Junction. It was laid out in 1842 by John Mason, Sr, and Nathan Shirley, It is situated in the western part of the township at the Junction of the Wabash and Erie and Miami canals. In its early days it was a flourishing and enterprising place, so• much so, that Capt. Dana Columbia sold his property on Columbia street in the now busy city of Fort Wayne, and located at the Junction, believng that he would better his chances for gaining wealth by so doing. In those days canals were the great thoroughfares for commerce, and the opening of the Wabash and Erie and Miami extension canals gave to Junction its flattering prospects. Daily lines of packets. ran on both canals, and many passengers were transferred at this place. This gave a prosperous business for hotels, of which there two or three. There were three or four large,. well-filled dry goods stores and groceries ; three large warehouses for the storage of grain ; canal collector's office and residence and half a dozen saloons. The wharves were lined with canal boats, loading and unloading grain and other freight, giving to the village the semblance of an embryo city,.
26 - HISTORY OF
which many of its citizens believed it to be. But commerce found other channels than the canals through which to discharge its wealth ; and for many years the dust of decay has been settling upon the once thrivng village. The warehouses have all burned, and many of the other buildings have rotted down. The streets have a forlorn and wo-begone appearance, so much so, that if Goldsmith had traversed them he might have been inspired to improve upon his celebrated poem, "The Deserted Village," if improvement was possible. In common parlance, the place has been going "down hill" for several years, and farmers in that vicinity remark that "its site will make a good corn field when its rubbish is moved away."
Brown Township.—This township was the third to be organized in the county, which event occurred in 1839. It' received its name from Fort Brown, a small stockade that was built at the confluence of the Big Auglaize and Little Auglaize rivers in the year of 1812, and occupied for a short time by a detachment of Gen. Harrison's army, commanded by Col. Brown. The stockade was soon abandoned and all traces of its fortifications are now obliterated. The township, when first organized, included Auglaize, Washington, batty, Jackson and Blue Creek townships. Christian Shroufe was the first white man and actual settler in the township. His rude cabin and pioneer home was erected about one mile south of where now stands the thriving little village of Oakwood, on the Litchenberg farm. Mr. Shroufe settled in the township in the year of 1826. He was shortly after followed by Dr. John Kingery, Robert Shirley, John Hudson, Pierce Taylor, John Kimmell and "Grandpap" Jeffrey. In 1837 came John W. Ayres and the Hawkins family ; in 1845 Dr. Royal B. Cooper ; and later, about the years of 1849-50, the flow of immigration became quite extensive and
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 27
the township received a number of settlers. Among them the writer remembers the following : James M. Russell, Harrison Hanville, Jacob Keck, Andrew Linnaberry, Webster Jones, Chester Sackett, Jacob Switzer, James Mather, John and William Stair, A. L. Darling, E. W. Gleason, Dwight G. Blakeslee, Rodney Young, the Bidlock family, Daniel and Jacob May, the Robinson and Lighthill families, C. J. Freede, Sr., Eli Budd, Samuel, Andrew, Jesse and Robert Caskey, Joseph Williams, John Kretzinger and Josiah Hoover. A few years later came the Fuller and Burt families. These may all be justly classed with the pioneers. of Brown township. Some of them, happy in old age, are yet living to enjoy the fruits of their early struggles ; a few have found homes in other lands ; but many are dead—gone fo that bourne whence none return—and their descendants, now themselves whitening with the snow of age, live to honor and perpetuate the memory of their fathers by telling the story of their struggles and hardships as pioneers. The first election held in the township was at Fort Brown in 1830, at which there were about forty-five votes cast, the voters coming from what are now Auglaize, Washington and Brown townships. The first justice of the peace elected was Dr. John Kingery. The other first officers are unknown. There are thirty-six sections in the township, none of which are fractional. The principal stream is the Big Auglaize. It enters the township near the southeast corner, flows westerly arid northerly and leaves it near the northwest corner. The Little Auglaize and Blue Creek are small western affluents of the Big Auglaize.
An. extensive stone quarry was worked, between the years of 1855-6o, by Hon. C: L. Noble, one mile south of Charloe, also a stone mill for sawing stone, at Canal Port, near by. Neither is operated at present. The first grist mill
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in the township was built by Pierce Evans in 1834. It was located on the Little Auglaize, near its mouth, and was soon washed away by high water. A saw mill was run in connection with this mill, and was the first in the township. A few rods above the former site of this mill, on the same stream, stands a flouring mill, owned by Alexander Brown. It was erected in 1849-50, by Jacob Switzer, and was for many years the only flouring mill in the township. The first steam saw mill in the township. also in the county, was erected in 1852, at Charloe, by Dwight G. Blakeslee. the old form of upright saw was used. The first school taught in the township was by John D. Carlton, in the year of 1834. It was taught in an unoccupied cabin on the farm lately owned by D. C. Carey, near Charloe, and fifteen or twenty pupils were in attendance. The first school house in the township was erected at Charloe in 1835. It was a log cabin, 20x24 feet in size. There are now ten school buildings in the township, all good substantial frames, excepting the two-story brick at Oakwood, erected in 1884, at a cost of about $2,600. The buildings at Oakwood, Charloe and Melrose, have two rooms and employ two teachers; the other districts, but one. The first postoffice in the township was at Ft. Brown. It was on the route from Piqua to Defiance, and the mail was carried on horseback once a week. On the opening of the Miami canal the route was changed and the office became extinct. The present offices are at Charloe, Oakwood and Melrose. The first sermon preached n the township was by a Methodist Episcopal divine named 1. J. Hill, in 1830. He established a church about that date war Charloe. Among its first members were Rhoda Hudson and Robert Shirley and wife. There are now seven church difices in the township ; two at Melrose, Methodist Episopal and Disciple; two at Oakwood, the old and new Meth-
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 29
odist Episcopal (the old one will be abandoned upon the -completion of the new) ; Prairie Run chapel, U. B., one mile east from Oakwood; Centenary chapel, U. B., in the north part of the township, and the Lutheran, -near Charloe. The first Sabbath school in the township was organized at Charloe, by C. B. West, in 1841 Regarding this pioneer Sunday school, the Paulding Republican, of July 23, 1891, has the following : "What is at present known as the Charloe Union Sunday school, was the first, and consequently is the oldest Sunday school in . Paulding county. It was organized in 1841, by C. B. West, who held the superintendency until he moved away in 1850. David C. Carey was then chosen superintendent, and held the office until 1870, when he was elected probate judge, which necessitated his moving to Paulding. Dwight G. Blakeslee was next chosen, and remained superintendent for one year, when, upon his moving to Oakwood, Mr. Blakeslee was reinstated. The school is in a flourishing condition, the highest average in the school's existence—'41-91 ! Fifty years ! Fifty annual elections of officers and yet only three different superintendents, excepting Eli Day and Martin Myres, who each held the office three or four months. Is there a Sunday school in this state than can excel this record?"
Canal Port St. Andrews and Newbergh are now extinct villages of the township—all three having been absorbed by Melrose. St. Andrew's was laid out May 31, 1850, by James M. and Alexander Mather, two gentlemen of Scottish descent, from New Brunswick, and was named after the patron saint of Scotland. Newbergh (Royal Oak postoffice) was laid out aMy 7, 1851, by David Shriver and Leonard Kimmel. A. L. Darling opened the first place of business in this place of 1850. It was a small grocery store kept in the
30 - HISTORY OF
front room of a small cabin in which he resided. On a small white oak tree in front of this house he nailed a piece of a store box, upon which was traced, in rude charcoal characters, the words, "Royal Oak Grocery." From this fact came the name which the place always bore. Canal Port, on the canal, one mile north of Charloe, was known as Exchange bridge. (The towing path changed sides of canal at this place.) It was never but little more than a "paper town," although Mr. J. A. Boyd, an enterprising timber dealer of the county, for many years did an extensive mercantile business at this point, and yet resides here, in what is known as the `seven gabled-house." At Canal Port was also formerly located a stone mill, for sawing stone obtained from the Noble quarry, with which it was connected by a tramway about one-half a mile in length. At this mill for several 'ears, between 1858 and 1868, large blocks of magnesian imestone were sawn into handsome building blocks and argely exported. The stone was a beautrful buff color, conaining nodules of chert, and was found in the quarry in ayers about four feet in thickness. The mill and tramway lave gone to decay, and the quarry is no longer worked, al- hough it is thought that large quantities of excellent stone ould yet be obtained from it. It lies just above the mouth of Slue creek, on the west side of the Auglaize river, one mile outh of Charloe. Charloe is the oldest village in the town- hip, and will be described under the head of "County Seats," urther on in the work. Oakwood was laid out as a village September 17, 1872, by William C. Hedges, and the sureying done by L. E. Holtz, of Ottawa. As early. however, s 1851, goods were sold by John Crosson, who owned the arm upon which much of the village stands. In 1854, when' le Tiffin & Fort Wayne railroad (now Nickel Plate) was being built, a general store was opened by a contractor named
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Hazen, and run until the road collapsed. Shortly after the war, S: S. Shisler and N. C. Whiting opened small country stores in the place, and Mr. Whiting established a ferry for the transportation of teams and passengers across the Augiaize. A postoffice was establishee some years before the town was laid out, on a mail route leading from Ottawa to Charloe. This route was maintained until the opening of the Nickel Plate, in 1881. The place received a boom in 1871-72, while the "Continental railway" was in process of construction, but it was not until some ten years later, on the completion of the New York, Chicago, St. Louis & Pacific railway, that it began to show signs of permanent thrift, upon which has been built a prosperous and enterprising village. It now contains the large and well conducted grocery houses of A. N. Wiseley and Levi C. Kech; the dry goods and clothing house of Electius Wiseley ; an excellent drug store, by I. L. Ackley ; large hardware store by S. S. Shisler ; several restaurants ; the Nickel Plate hotel, John Rumele proprietor ; Garland house by F. Andrews ; good depot building, two-story brick school house, steam flouring mill ; saw mill and planing mill, Josiah Hoover proprietor ; two physicians. The village is incorporated and has a population of about 400.
Melrose, a rival of Oakwood in commercial importance, is located at the crossing of the Nickel Plate railroad and Miami canal, two miles west of the above described village. It was laid out, about the year 1854, by Messrs. Gibson & Pennington, but had only one house and used only as a banking ground for ship timber until about the year of 1872, when Amos Rathburn erected a building and began business. The town remained only a small packet landing until 1881, • when, upon the opening of the Nickel Plate, several large business buildings were immediately erected, among the first
32 - HISTORY OF
being that of Alex Brown, a general store and hotel. He was followed by George W. Bentley, dry goods and groceries ; the general store of J. G. Patterscn & Co.; Grant & Edwards, hardware merchants: J. H. Myres, hotel ; J. H. Shirley, grocery house and several other places of business.
Blue Creek Township.—In the year of 1837, Robert Barnhill cut a winding road up the forest-covered banks of Blue Creek, built a log cabin on the southwest quarter of section 14, and became the first actual settler of the township. He was followed in 1839 by Robert Hakes, James Cunningham and Daniel Traul, who with their families may be said to be the first settlers of the township. The settlement made by them was on sections 14 and 15, then in the heart of a dense forest, ten Miles from any other settlement. These hardy pioneers, like most others, were hunters and depended largely upon the fruits of the chase for subsistence until their farms could be cleared and the cereals grown. Upon the site of this first settlement are now some of the finest farms in the county. The first white child born in the township was George Hakes, son of Robert and Caroline Hakes. He grew up to manhood, entered the Union army in the early days of the civil war, and became one of its victims dying of disease at Nashville, Tenn. Robert Hakes remained a few years in Blue Creek township, then became a citizen of Brown township, settling near Oakwood, where he lived until happy old age, and then found rest beneath the silent clay. The descriptve location of the township is town 1, range 2 north. It was organized in 1846, but was not attached to Brown until April 6,, 1857, when an election was held at the Reed school house, in sub-district number 1. At this election, the first in the township, eleven voters cast their ballots, named as follows : I. N Glover, Joseph Reed,.
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Hiram Davis, Alanson McCombs, John Eller, James Barnhill, Lewis Place, Samuel R. Glover, Joseph Bowyer and R. W. Haskins. The first officers elected were Joseph Bowyer, Hiram Davis and Roswell Haskins, trustees ; Joseph Reed, treasurer ; I. N. Glover, clerk ; Alanson McCombs, assessor, and Hiram Davis, constable. There are thirty-six sections in the township, of which sections, I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 18, 19, 30 and 31 are fractional. Robert McDaniel and Maria Barnhill were the first couple to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony in the township This marriage contract was solemnized October 19, 1839. Blue Creek, after which the township was named, is the only stream in the township, and flows through it from southeast to northwest. The soil is a rich, black loam, from one to two feet in depth. The surface is low and level, and covered with a heavy growth of ash, elm, oak, hickory, cottonwood and sycamore timber ; yellow poplar, hard maple and beech are found along the creek. There are no flouring mills in the township. The first sawmill was erected in the eastern part of the township in the winter of 1870-71. The first school taught in the township was by Marie Smith in the year of 1850. It was in a log house on the Reed farm. Seven pupils were in attendance. There are now nine districts in the township, all sup. plied with good houses. Dague and Scott have special districts and graded schools. The first sermon preached in the township was at the residence of Joseph Reed, in 1848, by Rev. Luther, a Free Will Baptist minister. At the same place, in 185o, Rev. Abram Shingledecker, of the U. B. denomination, organized the first church, of which the following were the first members : Joseph, Mary and Lucinda Reed and John, Nancy, William, Hannah and Edmund Barker. The second church organized was in the win,ter of 1871-72, at the Reed school house, by Rev. Graham, a United
34 - HISTORY OF
Brethren minister. There are now four church societies in the township : s United Brethren, Methodist, Baptist and Christian. All have church edifices The first Sabbath school organized in the township was at the Reed school house, in 1851, by Samuel Stone. The first postoffice was established in the township in 1872. It was located on the Paulding and Van Wert pike, and named Point Pleasant. Upon the opening of the Mackinaw railroad the office was moved to Dague.
Benton Township.—This township, town 1, range 1, is the southwest corner township of the county. It received, for its first settlers, Jonathan, David and George Ball, John Northup, Daniel Malott, Henry Shugars. Jacob Henry, John Ricks, Deliverance Brown, James M. Anderson and David Malott. The first settlement was made about the year of 1839, on section 17. The first cabin was built by Jonathan Ball, who, with his family, ventured in the forest wilds and commenced the building up of a beautiful home Phebe E. Ball was the first white child born in the township her parents were George and Bethena Ball. The first marriage solemnized in the township was that of David Malott and Nancy Ball, in the year of 1840. Death waved its dark wand and Nancy, wife of Jonathan Ball, was its first victim in the township. This sad event occurred in August, 1843. Death is ever surrounded with its terrors, but among our pioneers its stern relentlessness fell with apparently a heavier stroke than in a more populous country. The solemnity of a burial among the early settlers, where a wife, mother and friend, was laid away to her lonely rest beneath the somber shade of the oak, or the elm, left its sad impression for many months. The organization of the township took place in 1843, and the first election was held on the first Monday of April of that year, by order of A. H. Palmer, clerk of the
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 35
board of commissioners, at the residence of John Northup, a building which stood about twenty feet north of where old Mr. Jordan now lives in the village of Payne. Thomas Wentworth, Jonathan Ball and David Malott, were judges, and Theodore G. Merchant and Daniel Malott, were clerks. The township at that time embraced within its limits what are now Harrison and Paulding townships. Six of the voters, Daniel and David Malott, William, David and Jonathan Ball and John Northup, were residents of Bentcn proper; B. B. Woodcock, Niram Strout and. Thomas Wentworth, lived in what is now Harrison, and John Fisher and Theodore G. Merchant, in what is now Paulding township. The officers elected at this election were : Daniel Malott, clerk ; Theodore G. Merchant, treasurer Thomas Wentworth, John Shepard and David Malott, trustees ; Niram Strout, assessor ; David Malott, constable, and William Ball, B. B. Woodcock and David Malott, fence viewers. An incident is related of one of the first elections of this township which is worthy of note in this work, if not worthy of imitation. It is illustrative of the honesty of purpose of the first voters of the county and is as follows : An election was held at the- house of John Northup, the ballot box being Mr. Northup's old opossum skin cap. Dana Columbia, of Junction, was a candidate for the office of county commissioner; but after the balloting had proceeded for some 'length of time; a horseman arrived post-haste, and by speaking so derogatorily of the character of Mr. Columbia, and by so emphatically declaring that he was not a suitable person for the office, he so influenced several of the voters as to cause them to want to change their votes. After some parleying with the judgeS and clerks, it was decided to begin the election over again. Accordingly the old "'possum" skin cap was turned upside
down, the tickets already cast emptied out and thrown away,
36 - HISTORY OF
and a new ballot taken. This was certainly a wide departure from the Australian system of balloting, but it resulted in the defeat of Mr. Columbia, and the illegality of the proceeding was never tested. There are thirty-six sections in the township, none fractional. Flat Rock creek is the largest stream in the township, flowing from southeast to northwest. Blue creek and Paulding run are also streams in the township. The first public school was taught by W. H. Kilpatrick in 1854, in a log cabin on section 16. The first frame school house in the township was erected in the autumn of 1863. It was located on section 20, and was 20x20 feet in size. Its cost of building was $375.
Crane Township.—This township, the first to be organized in the county, received its name from Oliver, Crane, one of its early settlers. Its organization took place in 1825 and at its first election Gen. Horatio N. Curtis was elected justice of the peace. A record of the other first officers has not been preserved and their names are unknown. The first settlements were made about the year 1822. The first settlers were : Oliver Crane, Ephraim Seeley, Samuel Hughes, Ephraim Burwell, Samuel Jordan and Dennison Hughes. There were many Indians camped along the river then, but they were generably peaceable and kind to the settlers, excepting when under the influence of whisky, at which time they were sullen and quarrekome. Mrs. Lattimore relates an incident of an Indian named Ant. Wayne, who was cruel to his wife. One day he came home in a state of beastly intoxication, when his squaw, concluding that she would get even with her copper-colored lord, gave him a severe chastisement, which entirely cured him of his cruelty to her. At the time of the first settlement the forests of the township abounded with game, and fish was plentiful and easily obtained. It is related that the fish were so thick on the fords of the Mau-
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 37
mee as to frighten and impede the progress of horses. The first postoffice established in the township was Cranesville, located near the site of New Rochester. There are now two offrcers within the township limits—Cecil and Knoxdale. The first marriage in the township was that of Mr. Young and Miss Sherry, in 1825, and was solemnized by Oliver Crane. The first school in the township was taught in 1827, in a small log house which stood on the north bank of the Maumee, about two miles northeast of Cecil. The first school house was built in the village of New Rochester, in the year of 1836. It was a log cabin 20x24 feet in size, and until a few years ago its moldering remains yet stood and were pointed out to the writer as the last house standing in the once enterprising and bustling village. All the rest had been battered down by the storms of time, and now this one, too, is gone. There are eight school districts in the township at present, all supplied with good houses. The only grist mill ever built in the township was erected on the Marie-DeLarme, in 1850. It was a small frame and was built by Zachariah Ashton. It was in operation for only a few years and has long since rotted down. The early settler's got their grain converted into flour and meal at a mill in Brunersburg, Defiance county, erected by a Mr. Perkins, in 1828-29, and was one of the first flouring mills built in the Maumee valley. Up to the erection of this mill, the nearest one to the settlers of Crane township was at Waterville, about fifty miles down the Maumee. In those early days transportation was generally done by means of pirogues on the river; but sometimes by ox teams, and the journey to and from often occupied several days and was full of hardships and danger. During these milling excursions, the wife and little ones of the pioneer remained at home alone, often with scanty fare, and with anxious hearts awaited his return. A story is told of
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an instance where the team of a pioneer perished in one of these trips, and he, himself, only escaped with feet and hands so badly frozen as to maim and cripple him for life. Such were the trials and hardships of the early settlers. Well may we pay to their memory that reverence which is their due. The first village of the township was New Rochester. It was located on section 11, avid a more extensive history of the place will be given elsewhere in this work. Cecil and Knoxdale are the preent villages of the township. Cecil, located at the crossing of the Wabash and Mackinaw railroads, was laid out April 1, 1871, by Martin N. Utley, and is now a thriving place of about four hundred inhabitants. It has a fine two-story brick school house, built in 1879; a two-story town hall, also of brick ; three churches, Methodist, United Brethren and Catholic ; all frame structures ; fine hotel, two depot buildings, saw mill and tile factory, large stave factory, owned and operated by Beugnot Bros. ; and several business houses, the principal of which may be mentioned is the large general store of M. N. Utley. Knoxdale is only a small station on the Wabash railroad, five miles west of Cecil. The population of the township in 1880 was 1,202 ; in 1890, it was 1,417. The number of voters May 18, 1891 was 355.
Carryall Township.—This township occupies a position in the northwest corner of the county. It was the second to be organized, and for many years was the most flourishing and populous. It derived its name from a large rock in the Maumee river, just above Antwerp, which was shaped like a boat used by the French voyagers in navigating the river, and called by them a "carryall." James Hinton settled in the township as a "squatter" in the spring of 1827. In the autumn of the same year David Applegate built the first log cabin and became the first actual settler. He was followed
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 39
in 1828 by Brasier Campbell, William Banks, Reason V. Spurrier, Thomas Runyan, Robert Murphy, Sr., Zachariah Graves, Dennison Hughes and Samuel Holton. Among other early settlers are A. J. Smith, who came from New York state in 1830 ; Wilson H. Snook, Sr., and William N. Snook, who came from Warren county, Ohio, in 1834; Jesse Pocock and Joseph Cole, in 1844 ; Henry Oswalt, in 1847, and John L. Chaney, in 185o. The township was organized in 1829, and the first election was held in a log cabin which stood about one-half a mile north of the present limits of Antwerp. Twelve votes were cast at this election—the names of some of the voters being as follows : David Applegate, Richard Banks, William Banks, Thomas C. Banks, Sr., Robert Murphy, Sr., Thomas Runyan, Hugh E. Runyan, William Rodgers and A. J. Smith. The first township officers elected were : Reason V. Spurrier, treasurer ; Robert Murphy, clerk ; Richard Banks, William Rodgers and A. J. Smith, trustees. Many of the representative men of the township at present are descendants of the above named families. Wilson H. Snook was county commissioner nine years, and a member of the Ohio state legislature one term. He erected the first frame barn in the township, and in the orchard he planted are yet to be found trees grown from seed. furnished by that famous follower of Swedenborg, generally known as "Johnny Appleseed." This eccentric individual was born in Massachusetts in 1775. His real name was Jonathan Chapman, but from the fact that he always carried a load of apple seeds with him he derived the cognomen of "Johnny Appleseed." He was a harmless old man, whose .hobby was to travel from place to place along streams in the wilderness, and plant apple seeds. He traveled throughout Ohio, and even as far west as Illinois. The first orchard he planted in Ohio was on the present farm of Isaac Stodden, in Licking county. He
40 - HISTORY OF
died in Allen county, Indiana, near Fort Wayne. Several of the first settlers of the county remember of having seen him. Judge Carey has an article regarding him n the Oakwood Sentinel, of August 6, 1891, of which the following is an extract :
"He lived for others solely, so far as I remember him, denying himself all the comforts of life, unless it was the comfort of knowing that he was doing great and lasting good. He seemed proof against peril and empowered with ubiquity. The Indians considered him crazy, fed and warmed him, but never molested him as he traveled through their wilds and up and down their streams ; I may not he able to relate much that is new or old in regard to Johnny. When I was quite young, four or five years old, I remember he stayed at my father's house (Isaac Carey), clothed in rags, and shoes bound on his feet ty strings to hold them on his feet and the pieces of shoes from parting company. He seemed as happy as a lark, and I might as well say here that he was full of exhortation and good words, a good supply of religious tracts that he distributed. With a liberal hand in every cabin where they could read. Johnny was a follower and believer in Emanuel Swedenborg, and a member of the New Jerusalem church. Johnny, I remember, was not a believer in fire and brimstone combined and burning forever ; for he said that he thought that the worst part of hades would not be worse than smoky houses and scolding women. But Johnny was a bachelor, and that may account for a part of that fling at the scolding women. My father, on one occasion, asked Johnny why he never married ; he turned the subject by saying that in the world to come he should have a wife. He would not wear good clothes. My father at one time made him a present of a pair of shoes about as good as new, expecting he would put them on ; bit no ; he packed
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 41
them away in his bundle of valuables and packed them on, saying they were too good to wear, but they would make a fine present for some needy person. Johnny not only peddled apple seeds, but catnip, pennyroyal and hoarhound, and in that way these streams in an early day had these useful herbs. Johnny, if crazy, and I do not think he was, knew where to place his nurseries at the head of streams, and then, with a canoe loaded with apple trees, float down stream with a light pot or tin pail on his head, stopping at the cabins and giving out seeds and selling, or pretending to sell, trees, as I think he but seldom, if ever, got much value for the same."
The first white child born in the toweship was William R. Banks, December 28, 1828. He is yet living, is justly proud of the notoriety which his birth has given him, and often furnishes pioneer reminiscences to the county papers. His parents' names were William and Hester Banks. The- first marital vows that were plighted in the township were those of David P. Murphy and Nancy P. Runyan. They were married in 1829, by H. N. Curtis, Esq. Mr. Murphy died in 1834, and his wife, after living a widow thirty-seven years, took her second husband, Dr. B. B. Woodcock. She was born in Butler county, Ohio, December 30, 1808, her parents being Thomas and Hannah Runyan, who came to the Maumee country in 1824 There are thirty-six sections in the township, none of which are fractional. The Maumee is the principal stream of the township. It enters near the southwest corner and flows northeasterly through it. Along this stream are many large tracts of bottom lands, and many fine farms. The Marie-de-Larme is a small creek which flows easterly through the northern part of the township. It has a north and south fork. Six Mile creek crosses the southern portion of the township. A reservoir, which serves as a feeder to the Wabash and Erie canal, laid partly in this
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township and partly in Crane. It was formed by throwing tip an embankment and cutting off the waters of Six Mile creek. The reservoir was abandoned by an act of legislature in 1888, and the channel of the creek again opened as originally. A stone quarry of blue lime was formerly opened in the bed of the Maumee river a short distance below Antwerp, but is not worked at present. A man named William Roberts taught the first school in the township, in 1833. It was a select school, taught in a log cabin, and numbered about fifteen pupils. The building stood on the north bank of the Maumee, about two miles northeast of Antwerp, near the present residence of Conrad Slough. About one-half of the ground upon which the house stood has been washed away by the river. John Billieu, John Snook and R. S. Banks taught in this building in early days. There are now ten school houses in the township, all good frame structures, excepting the Union school building at Antwerp, which is a fine two-story brick, containing six rooms. The first and only flouring mill ever in the township was erected by Peter Snook and James W. Johnson, in the year of 1872. It is located in the village of. Antwerp, is run by steam power, and is now owned and operated by Thomas Carr. The first saw mill was erected in 1854, by Alexander Comparet. It was run by steam power. There are now several steam saw mills in the township.
The first postoffice in the township was located about two miles east of Antwerp. It was named Paulding-Williams office. The first postmaster was Reason V. Spurrier. The first mail-carrier was John Owens. He traveled on horseback on the route lying between Fort Wayne and Defiance. The first sermon preached in this township was at the residence of William Banks, about two miles east of Antwerp, by a Methodist minister named Pryor.
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It is stated, however, that there was one sermon preached before this one, by a man namd Wood, but as he stole a receipt for a wolf's scalp and ran away, his sermon did not have a very Christianizing effect, and was ignored by the citizens. Shakespeare's sentence, "He stole the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in," is certainly applicable to this erring divine. Was he a sheep in a wolf's clothing, or vice versa? Let us hope for him that he repented of his larcenic act and was forgiven. The first members of the Methodist Episcopal church in Carryall were William and Hester Banks, Reason and Mary Spurrier, Dennison and Hannah Hughes, Joel and Marie Munson, John and Mary Banks, Hugh E. and Sophia Runyan, W. H. Snook and wife.
A United Brethren church was organized, in 1846, by David Landis, in a log school-house, near what was then called Clark's Corners. Some of its first members were, Rachel, Chase and Rebecca Wentworth, John and Harriet Collins, and Sophia Brown. A third church organization took place September 20, 1847, near McCormick's Corners. Richard Banks and wife, Mr. and Mrs. John Banks, Joseph Clark and wife, Jesse Brown and wife, and Susan Brown, were some of the first members. There are seven church buildings in the township-one Catholic, one Presbyterian, one Christian, two Methodist, and two United Brethren. The first Sunday school in the township was organized in 185o, by John Lincoln and Henry A. Brown.
Emerald Township.—This township, although settled as early as 1826, was not organized until 1852. Prior to that time it was attached to Crane township. The first actual settler was William Gordon, who, in the spring of 1826, built a small cabin on the bank of the Maumee, in the northwest corner of the township, and moved his family therein. In the following year the settlement begun by Mr. Gordon
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received an addition by the settling of George Plattor, Guy Hamilton and John Musselman, who also built cabins along the Maumee, and commenced battling with the frowning forest. Of these first settlers, John Musselman yet lives on the farm which he cleared up; and at the advanced age of ninety years is one of the best preserved specimens of pioneer life in the county. He is in the enjoyment of good health, is an extensive reader, especially of the county papers, and is thoroughly posted on all the leading topics of the day. Among other early settlers who became residents of the town' ship may be mentioned John Fahy, who came in 1838, and Lyal Tate and Richard Carle, in 1840. These last named pioneers settled along the line of the Wabash and Erie canal, which was then in process of construction. Mr. Carle was a stone-cutter, and assisted in stone work along the canal. He died in 1880, aged about sixty-five years. Mr. Tate was a contractor on the canal, and became one of the first and most successful merchants of the township. In 1887, fifty years after his emigration to America, and Queen Victoria's jubilee year, he visited the home of his birth, in the north of Ireland, accompanied by his only son, Samuel J., and returned after an absence of six weeks. He died in Paulding in 1890, aged sixty-nine years. Mr. Fahy became a farmer near Tate's Landing, and died in the spring of 1891, aged eighty-nine years. The first election in the township was held in 1852, at the residence of Lina Parish, on Six Mile creek. The first officers elected were : John Musselman, justice of the peace ; Abraham Latty, clerk ; Anthony Whip- part, treasurer, and Lina Parish, Thomas Whalen, Sr., and Richard L. Carle, trustees. The township received its name from the fact that a number of the noble "sons of Erin" had settled within its limits. The first school in the township was taught by Isaac McCowan, in a cabin belonging to David
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Hughes, and situated on section 5. It had a clap-board roof, stick chimney, mud fire place, and a seating capacity of about twenty, which number of pupils attended. The first school house was located on section 6. It was built by John Mussel- man for a residence, bue was sold by him to the township for a school house. There are now eight schools in the township (one especially for colored pupils.) Three of the sub- districts have good brick buildings, and the township board of education has arranged to erect brick buildings in each of the remaining districts whenever new houses are needed. The township has two postoffices--Reid's and Emmett. Reid's was the first to be established and was so called in honor of Captain Robert M. Reid, who was largely instrumental in securing its establishment. It is located on the defunct Wabash and Erie canal, in the western part of the. township. Daily mails are carried between this office and Emmett, on the Wabash railroad, two and one-half miles north of Reids.
The first religious society organized in the township was at the residence of Thomas E. Jones, in the year of 1866. Its denominations was United Brethren, and the first preacher was Michael Johnson. There are now four church organizations in the township and two church buildings. The colored U. B. church hold their meetings at the school house in subdistrict No. 1. The Evangelical Lutherans held their meetings at the residences of members until the year of 1870, when the society erected a hewed log building, two miles east of Tate's landing. It is called Mt. Zion church. The present membership is about fifty. The old school house in the Scott district was purchased by the Christian society and fitted up for a church. The first saw mill in the township was built at Tate's landing, in the year of 1859, by Francis Reiniche
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and his father-in-law, Theibault Didier.. It has steam power, and is now owned by Francis Reiniche, who, in 1880, put in machinery for cutting staves and is now doing a flourishing business. There are no flouring mills in the township. The Maumee river is the principal stream of the township, and crosses its northwestern part. Six Mile, Gordon creek, and, big and little Flat Rock creeks are its other streams. Tate's landing and Emerald ire small villages in the township. Neither is incorporated. Emerald, at one time, was quite a flourishing place. For many years it was the nearest railroad station to the town of Paulding, and much of the freight and passenger traffic for that village was transferred here. It contained a telegraph and express office, hotel, two general stores, and was connected with Paulding by a daily hack line. On the opening of the Paulding & Cecil railroad, in 1880, the fate of Emerald was decided. Since that date it has been on the decline. The telegraph and express office has been removed to Cecil and the hack line to Paulding has ben discontinued. Only one small grocery store is now kept in place, and the two principal merchants of Emerald in its palmy days—Pat Haley and Peter Schehr—have become tillers of the soil. The nucleus around which gathers the mercantile business of Tate's landing is the stave factory of Francis Reiniche. He has a general store, and his son, Joseph, Reiniche, and Conrad Kinkle, are the proprietors of groceries and restaurants. James Powers owns and operates a tile mill and brick kiln in the southern part of the township. Peter Bakel, John W. Wortman, D. C. Thqmpson, John Kinzer, E. Chemin, John Powers, William Hanenkratt, P. L. Anderson and Alex. Scott, are among the prominent farmers of the township. Judge A. S. Latty, a resident of Defiance, has a fine farm and country residence one mile south of Emerald ; also Judge S. T. Sutphen, of Defiance, has a fine
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farm and residence in the township. The township contains only thirty-two sections ; sections 13, 24, 25 and 36 having been added to Auglaize township.
Harrison Township .—To Thomas Wentworth is accredited the honor of being the first actual settler of this township. He erected a log cabin in the year of 1837, with his wife and little ones, soon after occupied the same. This little forest-surrounded home was located on section 36, about two miles east of where now stands the stirring village of Payne, and was, at the time of building, ten miles from any other human habitation. Mr. Wentworth, having opened up a pathway into this wild and primitive region, was shortly after followed by Phineas S. Russell, Theodore G. Merchant, Fielding A. Hughes, Niram Strout, John Sheppard and Adam and Jonathan
Snellenberger, who built cabins near that of Mr. Wentworth, thus forming what was known for many years as the "Flat Rock Settlement." A few years afterwards came other pioneers, who settled in various parts of the township ; among these may be mentioned, David Malott, Edward Rice, Thos. Lamb, Francis Quince, John Ryel and job Pugh. The first white child born in the township was John Russell in 1843. His parents' names were Phineas S. and Louise Russell. The first couple married in the township was John Lincoln and Harriet E. Wentworth. The father of the bride, Thomas Wentworth, performed the ceremony. This couple settled in Carryall township and reared a highly respectable family of one son and two daughters. The son removed to Utah and became an eminent Methodist Episcopal minister, and the girls became successful teachers in graded schools. Mrs. Lincoln lived many years after the death of her husband, and died in 1887, respected by all who knew her. The township was organized in 1844, and the first election was held at the residence of Dr. B. B.
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Woodcock, on the first Monday of April, same year. Paulding township was then included in the voting precinct. The number of ballots cast was twelve. The names of voters residing in Harrison, proper, were B. B. Woodcock, Thomas Wentworth, James Wentworth, Theodore G. Merchant, Niram Strout, John Sheppard, James Lattimore and Charles C. Anderson. Those residing in Paulding township were A. F. Hughes, Daniel Sevengood, John Fisher and Joel Culver. B. B. Woodcock was the frrst township clerk. There are thirty—six sections in the township. All bordering on the north and west lines are fractional ; the remaining ones are full sections. There are four streams in the township. The principal one is Flat Rock, which flows through the southeast corner of the township. Six Mile creek flows through the northwest corner of the township. Much of the land along this creek was injured by the back water from the reservoir, and, it is said that this township sent several volunteers to :he famous "Reservoir War," which led to the abandonment of the great nuisance and reclaimed the land from the watery element. A small branch of Six Mile rises in section 18 and eaves township in section 1. Wild Cat creek is a small tribuary of Fiat Rock. There are no grist mills in the township. The first saw mill in the township was erected by Adam Snellenberger in 1858. It was located on the northeast quarter of section 36, and was run by water power. There are now several steam saw mills in the township.
The first step taken toward the education of the youth was in a select school taught by Mrs. Caroline Merchant, in [844, at the residence of her husband, Theodore G. Merchant. The building was located on section 36, and about fifteen pupils were in attendance. The school was taught more for be purpose of disseminating knowledge than for the paltry emuneration received, and proved in after years to have
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been seed sown upon good ground. This estimable Christian lady, then a young wife, but now for many years a widow,. resides at the little city of Westerville, Ohio, and often, no doubt, as she sits at eventide by the window of her residence, and looks out upon the towering walls of Otterbein University, her thoughts wander away through the dim vistas of the past to the pioneer days of her youth when she taught a little class of backwoods pupils in the wilds of Paulding county. All honor to this first teacher of Harrison township. Let the petagogues of to-day pay to the memory of this primitive teacher that tribute which she so richly deserves. The first school house in the township was built in the year of 1850. It was a log cabin, 16x20 feet in size, and situated on the northwest quarter of section thirty-six. There are at present eight school houses in the township ; all good frame structures and supplied with modern -furniture. Payne has a graded school and employs four teachers. The first post-office was located at the house of Adam Snellenberger in the year of 1858. Mr. Snellenberger was the first postmaster. The office was on a route leading from Paulding to Monroeville, Ind. It was called Payne. It was moved to Malottville in 1872, but still retained its former name; and in 1881, the name of the village of Malottville was changed to Payne, the same as the office. There is one other office in the township. It is called Smiley, and is located on the Nickel Plate railway, three miles west of Payne. The first sermon preached in the township was at the residence of Theodore G. Mer-chant, in the year of 1843, by Rev. Joseph Miller, a United Brethren minister. The lrst church society was organized at the same place, the same year, by Rev. Joseph Miller, assisted by Rev. Charles B. Gardner. It was of the U. B. denomination, and its first members were as follows : Theodore G. Merchant and wife, Niram Strout and wife, John
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Northup and wife, William and Sarah Sheppard, Mrs. H. J. Woodcock. The second church was organized, in 1864, by Rev. John Brakefield, and was of the Methodist Episcopal denomination. Louis Stillwell was first clasleader. The first members of this society were Louis Stillwell and wife, P. W. Hardesty and wife, A. F. Hardesty and wife, Anna Hardesty, Jonathan Snellenberger and Caroline Christopher. The Flat Rocks society of the Disciple church was organized March 18, 1877, with fifteen members, Elder E. Leavitt minister in charge. The first officers appointed were Samuel Wiltzie, Jonas Fry, A. D. Underwood, Evans Wood, Silas Brattain, H. K. Vaut, Mary Wiltzie, Emma Underwood, Rachel Underwood, Alice K. Wood, Mary Bainbridge and Rachel Brattain. The first Sunday school organized in the township was in 1854, at the Merchant school house, by Adam Hardesty. About twenty pupils were in attendance. There are now several in the township, attended by four or five hundred pupils. Such are the changes wrought out by the hand of time. The church buildings of the township are located in the village of Payne, and will be described in the Payne "write-up." Part of Payne and Smiley are the only villages of the township. The former will be given a special history, and the latter is a small station on the Nickel Plate, in the extreme southwest corner of the township.
Jackson Township.—John and William Moss, two brothers, natives of England, purchased lands from the government, built a small cabin on the banks of Blue creek, in section 26, and in 1836 became the first actual settlers of Jackson township. Jesse Fox and Edmund Barker also date their coming into the township at about the same year. Among other early settlers, who came afterward, the names of Edward McQuestion, Deliverance Brown, John Anderson, Abram Bennett, Jacob Myers, Jotham Rollins, John
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Loar, William Hays and Henry Barchus may be mentioned. The township was organized in 1851. Prior to that date it was attached to Brown. The first election was held at the residence of Edward McQuestion, on what was afterward known as the Dague farm, in the spring of 1851. Ten ballots were cast at this election. The names of the voters were : Deliverance Brown, John Anderson, William Moss, William Stillwell, David Barnhill, William Hoover, Edmund Barker, Robert Barnhill, Joseph Reed, Sr., and John Barker. Deliverance Brown, John Anderson and William Barker were elected the first trustees ; William Moss, clerk ; Joseph Reed, treasurer ; William Moss and John Anderson, justices of the peace, and John Barker, constable. The farm settled by the Moss brothers is now owned by John Bowholtz. The first white child born in the township was George Moss, son of John Moss. He grew to manhood in the county, married Miss Anna Stair, settled in Charloe as a merchant, and afterward moved to Pawnee City, Pawnee county, Nebraska, where he yet resides, a wealthy and influeneial citizen. His ,eldest son traveled in Europe, became an eminent artist and now has a studio in New York city. The first marriage contract legalized in the township was that of Edward McQuestion and Jane Barker. There are thirty-six sections in the township, none of which are fractional. The principal stream of the township is Flat Rock, flowing through the northern part. Blue creek flows through the southern part. The soil of the township is generally a black loam and very fertile; along the streams clay formations are to be found. There are no stone quarries in the township. The principal timber is oak, ash, sycamore, cottonwood, elm, maple and beech. Some poplar and black walnut was found in early days. No flouring mills were ever built in the township ; and no saw mills until within the past few years, when several were
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built along the line of the Nickel Plate railroad. The first school taught in the township was by John D. Carlton, in 1852, in what is known as the Keck district. The btilding was a log cabin and seven pupils were in attendance. It was the first school house erected in the township, and stood on the north bank of Blue creek, in section 26. There are now seven sub-districts in the township, and the special district of Hedges and Broughton. All the districts have good frame houses excepting the building in the Hedges and Broughton district, which is a large two-story brick. The villages are situated about three-fourths of a mile apart, and this building is located about equi-distant between the two. It has four departments, but only three teachers have as yet been employed. The first sermon preached in the township was by a U. B. divine named Abraham Miller, in the year of 1840. He held meetings at the cabins of the settlers. The first church society was organized by him about the year of 185o. The names of the first members are Deliverance and Julia Ann Brown, John and Rebecca Anderson, Joseph and Mary Jane Crosby, Ward Dart, Mrs. Ann Dart, Mrs. Henry Barchus, William Barker and wife, John Barker and wife, Edmund Barker and wife, Elizabeth Fry, William Stillwell and John Owens. For many years the society was the largest in the township. Meetings were held in the Anderson school house, and often in summer, actuated by the sentiment that "The groves were God's first temples," its members gathered beneath the umbrageous shade of the forest trees, and poured forth their souls in pious prayer, or sang their songs of praise and thanksgiving to the Most High. In 1875 the society erected the first frame church in the township, on the bank of Blue creek, in section 26. It is yet standing and is the largest church building in the township.
The first church erected in the township was of hewed
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logs and was on the south bank of Flat Rock, in the northern part of the township. It yet stands and is known as "Elm Chapel." A neat frame church was erected at Hedges in the- year of 1888. These constitute the churches of the township. The first Sunday school was organized by Rev. Abraham Miller, assisted by John Anderson, in the year 1854.
Latty Township.—This township, the last to be organized in the county, occupies a place in the southern tier of townships, south of Jackson, west of Washington, east of Blue Creek, and extends on the south to Hoaglin township, Van Wert county. The township was named Latty in honor of Judge Alexander Sankey Latty, who was a resident of the county and in an official position at the time of its organiza tion. Its first settlement began in the year of 1853. In the autumn of that year Edward Leonard Kimmell built the first cabin, on section 36, and became the first actual settler. The township was organized in 1855 and prior to this date- Edward McQuestion, Lydia Kohn, Mark Pease, Lee Kohn, William Eaton and a few others had planted homes within its limits. The first election held in the township was at the cabin Of Lemuel Tucker, in 1856. Nine votes were cast at this election, the names of voters being as follows : Lemuel Tucker, William Eaton, Edward McQuestion, J. Bennett, William Grove, Lee Kohn, Mark Pease, William Priest,. Wilson Kohn and Adam Weimer ; trustees, William Eaton, Lemuel Tucker and Fred Bennett ; clerk, Edward McQuestion. The soil of the township is exceedingly fertile and is destined to become one of the best agricultural townships in the county. Within the past few years great improvements- have been made in the way of ditching, building roads and clearing up farms. The ditching of Prairie creek, alone, which extends entirely across the township, cost the county about $13,000. The first school taught in the township was.
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in a small log house which stood on the corner of William Eaton's farm. The name of the first teacher has been forgotten. Fifteen or twenty pupils were enrolled. The first school house in the township was built in 1857. It was located on the northwest corner of section 36. There are now eight school buildings, all good, commodious frames. The first saw mill erected in the township was in the year of 1872, by Philander Gilbert. The first postoffice was named Gilbert's Mills and was established in 1873. Philander Gilbert was the first postmaster. The office has been transferred to Grover Hill, a small village one and a half miles north of its former location. It is the only office in the township and bears the name of the village in which it is located. The first sermon preached in the township was at the school house in section 36, by a Methodist minister named Emanuel Kauffman. He also organized the first church society the following year. Rev. Kauffman enlisted in the war, became a captain of Company I, One Hundredth 0. V. I., and served gallantly on the tented field. His widow yet resides in the village of Antwerp. The names of some of the members of the first religious society were Hannah Kohn, A. T. and Margaret McClure, James McClure and Lucinda McClure. The second church organization was effected in 1877, by the Christian denomination. The Methodist Episcopal chapel is a neat frame structure, 32x50 feet in dimensions. The first Sunday school was organized in 1860 by a Methodist minister named Miller.
Paulding Township.—This township occupies a central position in the county and is the most populous. It is bounded on the north by Crane ; on the east by Jackson ; on the south by Blue creek, and on the west by Harrison townships. The first settlement was made in the year of 1842 on Flat Rock, about four miles southeast of Paulding,
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by a squatter named Michael Kimmell. The first cabin was built in the spring of 1843, by John Fisher, who was really the first actual settler of the township. The first white child born in the township was Almira Fisher. Her parents names were John and Rachel Fisher. Other early settlers of the township were William Haney, Elias Shafer, Eber Barn- house, Fielding Hughes, Theodore G. Merchant, Byron Norton, Bennett Savage, A. S. Latty, Joseph Cable, T. W. French, Nepthalian Gregory, Jacob Long, Philip W. Hardesty, Isaiah Richards, Amos F. Hardesty, Daniel Kauffman and Levi M. Barnes. The township was organized in 1851 and the first election held the same year in the town of Paulding. Seventeen ballots were cast at this election, the names of some of the voters being as follows : John Fisher, Ethan Burwell, A. S. Latty, Elias Shafer, James Chaney, Theodore Merchant and William Haney. There are thirty- six sections in the township—none fractional. The largest stream is Flat Rock. The Indians called this stream Crooked creek; and it is so named on some maps. It enters the township in section 30, and flows in a northeasterly direction entirely. throughout. Big south run is a southern affluent of Flat Rock, and Big run and Opossum run are northern tributaries of the same stream. Little Flat Rock has its source in section 4, of this township, flows an easterly course, and discharges its waters into the Big Auglaize river at Junction. The first grist mill in the township was built by Elias. Shafer in 1855. It was located on Flat Rock at the foot of what is now South Main street in Paulding. It was a small frame, with one run of buhrs ; was operated only for a few years and then went to decay. Portions of the old dam and frame of the building are yet to be seen, and are pointed out to the visitor as pioneer relics of a now thriving and bustling village. A steam flouring mill was erected in
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Paulding in 1876, by Eugene Linn. It was never regarded as a successful enterprise and is no longer in operation. A third, and now the only flouring mill in the township, was completed in 189o, by the large manufacturing firm of Paul Weidmann & Co. It has a capacity of one hundred barrels :a day, and is the best mill in the county. A further mention of it will be given in the special history of Paulding, the village in which it is located. The first saw mill put in operation in the township was a. small frame, located on the left bank of Flat Rock, and furnished power by that stream. It was erected by the firm of Campbell & Forney in the year of 1852. There are now numerous steam saw mills located in different parts of the township. The manufacturing industries of the township consist mostly of staves, lumber and heading. The factories are located.at the villages of Paulding, Latty, Briceton, Worstville and Holcombe, and on section 8, four miles west of Paulding. The first school taught in the township was by James M. Russell, in 1853, in a small frame school house which stood on the southwest corner of what is now the court house yard. The township is now well supplied with schools and school buildings. The first postoffice established in the township was Paulding, in the year of 1850. The name of the first postmaster was Mr. Hickerson. There are now five offices in the township, located at Paulding, Latty, Briceton, Worstville and Holcombe. All bear the name of their respective villages, excepting the one at Holcombe, it being called Morrison, and so named in honor of the late Chief Justice of the United States, Morrison R. Waite. The first sermon preached in the township was by a United Brethren minister named John Shingledecker, about the year of 1848. A society of that denomination was organized, in 1853, by Rev. Dowing. Its first members were Sampson and Emily
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Merchant, and Ezra J. and Emily Smith. A Methodist Episcopal church class was organized in Paulding in 1855, with but a few members. It has now a large and flourishing congregation, with Rev. A. C. Gascoigne as pastor in charge. The third religious society organized in the township was by Rev. Allcock, a Presbyterian minister. Mrs. Jane Cazleand Dr. and Mrs. S. Kerr were its first members. The Lutheran denomination have a large class and a fine church building four miles southwest of Paulding. Latty has a Catholic congregation ; also one of the United Brethren denomination. There are seven church edifices in the township, four in Paulding, two in Latty and the Lutheran church in the western .part. They are all frame structures. There are- six villages in the township, viz. : Paulding, Latty, Briceton, Worstville, Holcombe and Section Eight. Paulding will be described under a special heading. Latty, located at the crossing of the Mackinaw and Nickel Plate railroads, was. laid out in 1882, by Judge A. S. Latty and Wrexham Lewis, each of whom owned lands upon which the plot was made.. That portion of the town upon Mr. Lewis' land was called Wrexham, and for a time the place was called by that name. The lots laid out upon Mr. Latty's land was called Latty, and under that name the village was incorporated.
Washington Township.—This township, the last in alphabetical order, occupies a position in the southeast corner of the county. Its descriptive location is town 1, range 4. It is bounded on the north by Brown township ; on the east by Perry and Jackson townships, Putnam county ; on the- south by Monterey township, Putnam county, and Jackson township, Van Wert county ; and on the west by Latty township. Its first settlement was begun in 1826, by a hardy pioneer named Joseph Mellinger, who built a cabin on section 22, and became the first actual settler. In 1827 came-
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William Harrell, Dimmitt Mackerel, John Curtis, Benjamin Kniss and Daniel Ridenour, who built cabins on section Jo, and commenced clearing away the forest. The first white child born in the township was Martha Harrell. Her aprents names were William and Martha Harrell. Mary Curtis, daughter of John. Curtis, was also born the same year. The The first marriage solemnized in the township was that of John Andrews and Ella Crossley, in the year of 1830. The township was organized in 1840, and the first election held in the spring of that year, at the house of William Harrell. At this election eleven voters exercised the right of suffrage, named as follows : Abel Crossley, Henry Myers, Joseph Mellinger, John Curtis, Jesse Harrell, Daniel Ridenour, Dimmitt Mackerel, Harrison Mellinger, David Mellinger, David Harrell and Benjamin Kniss. John Curtis was elected the first justice of the peace ; and Joseph Mellinger, William Harrell and Abel Crossley the first trustees. The first grist mill erected in the township was by William Harrell, in the year of 1842, on the Little Auglaize river, near the present site of Murat. It was a small frame, with one run of buhrs and was furnished power by the water of the stream upon which it was located. A saw mill was connected with it. For many years John J. Hipp owned and operated a flouring mill and saw mill at Hipp's lock, power furnished by water from the Miami canal. There are now several steam saw mills in the township. The first school house erected in the township was in 1843. It was a small log cabin and in it Lydia Harrell taught the first school, with an enrollment of twelve pupils. The house was located on section 15. There are now eleven schools in the township, two of which are for the education of colored youth, and taught by colored teachers. The school buildings are all neat, commodious frames.
The first postoffice established in the township was at
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Doylestown, located on the canal, a short distance south of Timberville. It was named by Samuel Doyle, Sr., who ran a packet line on the canal and carried the United States mail from Cincinnati to Toledo. The office has long since been discontinued, as has the office at Murat. The present offices of the township are Timberville, Hamer and Plumb's X Roads. The first sermon preachedin the township was at the residence of Joseph Mellinger, in the year of 1831, by a Methodist Episcopal minister named J. J. Hill. He rode a circuit, commencing at St. Marys, and taking in Willshire, Shane's Crossing, Mellinger's, Antwerp, Defiance and Florida ; thence returning to St. Mary's. The distance traveled was about three hundred miles, and the compensation received was $105 per year. The second religious society organized was near the residence of Joseph Mellinger. Its first members were Sarah Blossom, John and Susan Smith, and Elwood and Margaret Pease. Their first minister was Rev. Dr. Shingledecker. Afterward came Revs. Abraham Miller, C. B. Whitley, J. B. Holden, Michael Johnson and William Kendall. The Mellinger chapel is a neat frame church, located near the center of the township.. The villages of the township are Murat, Timberville, Hamar and Plumb's X Roads. Murat was laid out in 1853 by Jesse Harrell on both sides of the canal, and on the east half of the northwest quarter of section Jo. In its palmy days it only contained a small store or two, and is now extinct. Timberville is a small canal town, in the southeast corner of the township. Plumb's X Roads is located in the southern part of the township, two miles west of Hamer. The route of the Midland railroad extends east and west through this township and is graded through it. The largest stream of the township is the Big Auglaize. It flows through the northwest corner. The Little Auglaize river enters the township near its southeast
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corner and flows northward through its central part. Dog creek, Middle creek and Prairie creek are western tributaries of the Little Auglaize. West branch is a southern tributary of Prairie creek. The township contains a colony of colored people who, for the most part, are in a thrifty and prosperous condition. Some of them are well educated and have held township offices. There are also some colored people located Emerald, Jackson, Paulding and Blue creek townships ; but the greatest number are to be found in Washington township. Many of these were formerly slaves in Kentucky and were liberated before the war ; others were born free in the southern part of the state. The population of the township, as returned by the census of 188o, was 1,346; by the census of 1890, it was 1,901. The number of voters returned May 18, 1891, was 446.
CHAPTER V.
COUNTY SEATS, COUNTY BUILDINGS, ETC.
Following the organization of the county, the first ounty seat was located at New Rochester in the fall of 1839. This was at that time the largest and most flourishing village in the county. It was situated on the south bank of the Maumee river, about one mile north of the present village of Cecil. It was laid out in 1835, by Dr. John Evans, Robert Clemmer and Revs. N. L. Thomas and Joseph Miller. Rev. Thomas built the first house in the village and Isaac Savage the second. At the time of the location of the county seat there, the village contained thirty or forty families, three hotels, three general stores, two blacksmith shops, two tailor shops and was on a daily stage line, leading from Toledo to Fort Wayne. Its buildings were mostly built of logs, but have now all rotted away. An old school house was the last to remain to mark the spot of Paulding county's first county seat, but that, too, has now rotted away. No vestige of New Rochester now remains, and wheat and corn are grown upon its once busy streets. From New Rochester the county seat was removed to Charloe, and the county business transferred to that place -in 1841. The village was laid out for the purpose of being a county seat, by Benjamin F. Hollister, and was pleasantly located on a commanding bluff of the Big Auglaize river. It was on the Site of an old Indian town and received its name from an Indian chief known as Charloe
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Peter. Here, at one time, dwelt the chief, Oquanoxa, and about six hundred Indians, a remnant of the once powerful tribe of the Ottawas, of which the noted Pontiac was chief. The village was near the center of an Indian reserve, a tract of land four miles square, set off by the general government for the Indians, and known as Oquanoxa's reserve. As the lines of this reserve came in conflict with the section lines, it yet has an effect upon the surveys in that vicinity, inasmuch that many tracts of land within the former reserve and near its borders are fractional. The Indians raised corn upon the large bottoms opposite their village, which are now owned by Hon. John W. Ayres. Just north of the village was their cemetery, many mounds, beneath whose sod sleep the dust of their braves, are yet plainly visible. Silvet brooches, tomahawks, pipes and other Indian trinkets, have from time to time been exhumed from these Indian graves. Charloe, in its prosperous days, contained a neat brick court house, the residences of county officers and other families, a large frame hotel, several store rooms, and a population of four or five hundred. Some of its first settlers were John W. Ayers, G. H. Phillips, John H. and A. J. Taylor, A. H. Palmer, A. S. batty and the Hankins and Kingery families. Its location was a beautiful one, its natural scenery, grand and picturesque, but, like New Rochester, when deprived of its county seat honors, its star of prosperity sank beneath the horizon, never to rise again ; the marks of decay soon settled upon ehe doorposts of its dwellings.
The location of Charloe is yet as beautiful as ever, surrounded by green swards and shady groves, but the location is about all that is left. Nearly all of its former buildings have crumbled to dust, and only a few families remain to tell the tale of its pioneer prosperity.
Paulding, the third and present county seat, was laid
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out by George Marsh, August Jo, 185o, the lines being established by Ezra J. Smith, the county surveyor at that time. It is located on the banks of Flat Rock creek, one and a half miles north of the geographical center of the county. By a special act of the legislature the county seat was located there in 1851, and the county business was removed from Charloe in the spring of that year. The site was selected in conse quence of its central position and it may be that the county business was removed from Charloe was somewhat hurried up by the influence of speculative land owners in the vicinity of Paulding. However that may be, all now agree that the county seat is where it should be. Attempts were made to remove it back to Charloe ; also to Junction, but they were unsuccessful. At first Paulding was in the very midst of heavy forest, without roads, save a few winding wagon tracks, and almost without communication with the civilized world. The wild deer and bear roamed its uncleared streets ; squirrels chattered from its woody housetops, and wolves howled in its thicket-covered alleys. Many of the county officers lived in log cabins and the first jail was of hewed logs. For nearly thirty years the town made but little advancement, for in 1880 its population was but 483 ; but since that date it has made rapid strides, stimulated by the building of the Mackinaw railroad and the location of factories within and near its limits. It now has a population of nearly 2,000, has several fine brick blocks, good public buildings and is fast taking rank as one of the leading county seats of Northwestern Ohio.
County Buildings.—Owing to the short period of time that the county seat remained at New Rochester (a little more than a year), there were no county buildings erected at that place. The only term of court held there was in a room over Gen.- H. N. Curtis' store, and the county offices
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were located in private buildings. Upon the removal of the seat of justice to Charloe, Mr. B. F. Hollister proceeded to erect a court house, at his own expense, as he had agreed to do in case the county seat should be located there. The building was a very neat, and, for those days, rather a commodious one, being about 30x40 feet in dimensions, and two stories in height. It was erected of brick on a good, solid stone foundation, at a cost of $10,000. On the lower story there were six rooms„ three on each side of a hall extending east and west through the building, used for the county offices. The court room was on the second floor, and was richly finished in black walnut and furnished with the same material. The house was presented to the commissioners on the condition that it should be the property of the county as long as the county seat remained at Charloe, after which it should revert to the original owner, or to his heirs. When the county affairs were removed to Paulding, Mr. Hollister being dead, the building fell to his heirs, but they were already wealthy, and perhaps looking upon the vacated court house as a useless piece of property, never paid any attention to it. The building became everybody's building and nobody's building, the court room for a number of years was used for schools, church, elections, balls and for public gatherings of all kinds. The offices were used for residences by anyone who might choose to occupy them. A few years ago the county commissioners claimed the right (and perhaps legally), to dispose of it, and offered to sell it to Brown township, to be fitted up as a public school building. A committee was appointed to inspect it, who did so, and reported that its decayed condition would not warrant a purchase. A new school house was built and the old court house was left to be only the habitation of owls and bats. Year by year it is more rapidly hastening to decay. Its roof has fallen in,
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its stairway has tumbled down, and ere another decade shall have passed away a mouldering pile of brick dust will be all that remains to mark the site of Paulding county's first court house.
"Ah, sad indeed, old house, hast been thy lot,
In thine old age uncared fin and forgot;
To silent dust thou'rt crumbling unbemoaned,
And saddest yet, by old-time friends disowned.
For many years thou wast fair Charloe's pride,
And little dreamed of ills that now betide;
Within thy walls hast stood full many a pioneer.
Is there none now to drop for thee a tear?
Yes, one there is, who cloth thy fate deplore,
An sighs to think how soon thou'lt be no more;
'Tis he who sits beneath thy shade to-day,
And with dewey eyes doth trace this simple lay."
Paulding county's second court house was erected in Paulding in 1852, and was a two-story frame with county offices below and court room above. It was an ungainly, ill proportioned affair, and from the day of its completion had a sort of rickety, tumble-down appearance. Its dimensions were about 3ox4o feet, and the court room was reached by an outside stairway erected on the rear. The building was consumed by fire on the evening of January 2, 1868, and but few tears, if any, were shed over its ashes. Some valuable documents, however, were destroyed. It was located on Main street near the northeast corner of Courtyard square. Upon its site was soon after erected the county's third court house. This was a one-story frame 30x40 feet in size, and contained only court room and two small jury rooms. The contractor of this building was Francis Reiniche, who did the job complete for $2,000. The house was a decided improvement over its ,"illustrious predecessor," and did good service until
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superseded by a new one in 1888. It was then sold to M. D. Mann, Esq., for $500, who removed it to a location on Jackson street, and fitted it up as an opera house. As this building was for court purposes only, a long one-story brick building was erected south of the court house and fronting on Main street, in which were located the county offices. Much of the brick for these offices were furnished by Dr. D. W. Hixson, and were conveyed to Tate's landing by canal, from thence to Paulding by wagons, and as the roads were at that time almost impassble, the cost of getting the material on the ground was exceedingly high, and, it is said, the contractor lost much money on the job. These offices were termed the "brick row," and for a time filled the purpose for which they were erected, but in a few years became so dilapidated that they illy served as a store house for the public documents, and as places in which to transact the county business. In some parts the brick had so crumbled away that there were holes entirely through the wall, and other portions had to be propped with timbers to keep the walls from tumbling down. So insecure became the building that it was condemned by the public generally, and it became necessary for the county commissioners to do the same. Certain it was that some place for keeping the county records and transacting the county business must be prepared, and it was thought better and cheaper in the end to build a new court house out and out, than to attempt to patch up the old county buildings and that the conclusion was a wise one is now conceded by all. Accordingly, in January, 1886, the first steps for the erection of the new court house were taken, by the circulation throughout the county of the following petition :
"To the General Assembly of the State of Ohios
We, the Undersigned resident taxpayers and voters of Paulding county, State of Ohio, respectfully represent that
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public necessity requires the building of a court house, in and for said county, with suitable county offices. We ask, therefore, that your honorable body may enact such legislation as may be necessary, authorizing and requiring the commissioners of said county to issue bonds in the sum of $40,000, and build for said county, forthwith, a court house, to cost $40,000."
In accordance with the above petition, Hon. John L. Geyer, then representative from the Paulding-Defiance district, prepared and presented the bill, which, after the usual routine, passed both houses and became a law some time in April, 1886.
Shortly after the passage of this act the bonds were duly advertised according to law. They were drawn up in sums of $1,000 each, to draw interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum, from August 1, 1886, interest payable semi-annually, bonds to become due four at a time each successive year, beginning August 1, 1895. The bonds were sold to W. H. Pennell, of Van Wert, at a premium of $1,000, thus bringing a court house fund of $41,000. A building committee was appointed, who visited several county seats in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, and inspected the court houses therein for the purpose of securing a model, and it was at length determined that the one at Adrian, Lenawee county, Michigan, furnished the best pattern. Having concluded on the style of building, bids were solicited from architects for plans and specifications, which were let to E. 0. Fans, of Toledo, he having presented the lowest bid. The contract of furnishing material and erecting the building in accordance with plans and specifications was awarded August 12, 1886, to Rudolph Ehrhart, of Defiance, he agreeing, by a sealed bid, to do the work for $33,380, that being the lowest bid, by several thousand dollars, of the many that were sub-
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mitted to the commissioners. Work was commenced on excavating the grounds of the basement shortly after the contract was let, and the corner stone was laid with imposing ceremony by Paulding Lodge, No. 502, F. & A. M., on December 21, 1886. The event is thus described by an eyewitness : "At 1 o'clock P. M., the Paulding F. & A. M. lodge met the visiting committee from the south at the depot, formed in procession; and, headed by the Paulding Harmony band, marched to Literary hall, where the Grand Lodge of Ohio was opened. The procession then, headed by S. S. Williams, M. W. G. Master, of Newark, Ohio, moved to the court house square, where the ceremonies were performed in a very imposing manner in the presence of a large number of ladies and gentlemen from the town and country. The stone is a parallelopiped of gray granite, three feet in length, and two feet in width and thickness. It occupies a position on the northeast corner of the building, and is inscribed as follows : On the east end, at the top, is engraved the triangular symbol of the square and compass, and the words : 'S. S. Williams, M. W. G. Master ;' below these words follow, `Dedicated by the Paulding Lodge, No. 502, F. & A. M., December 21, A. D. 1886, A. M. 5886.' The north side bears the inscription, 'E. 0. Fallis & Co., Architects, Toledo, 0. R. Ehrhart, Con., Defiance, Ohio. F. M. Wade, J. V. Sharp, Thos. Chester, Commissioners. Within the stone was deposited a copper box containing a copy of the Holy Laws, list of the county and village officers, members of the bar, several pieces of coin, list of Paulding school board, silver Masonic square, found by A. C. Hale, on the Franklin pike, Tenn., in 1864; copies of the Paulding Democrat, Paulding. Gazette and Antwerp Argus, etc., etc., After the stone was laid, the procession returned to Literary hall, and the Grand Lodge was closed. Owing to the somewhat poor health of
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the Grand Master, he did not give a public address, as was intended." The building was accepted by the commissioners May 24, 1888, although at that time a few finishing touches remained to be done, and, to insure the completion of the same, $500 were kept back. The work was soon after finished and the whole amount paid over. The size of the building is 105 feet north and south from the extremes of the brick pillars at the entrances, by 98 feet, similar measurement, east and west, and is erected on what is known as the "four front" plan. Its height from the ground to the highest point of the dome is 163 feet. The basement story is used to store away fuel, and is also the location of the hot air furnaces from which the building is heated throughout by means of pipes ; an engine is also located in the basement, which is used to pump water into a 100-barrel cistern', near the roof, from which the building is furnished water. Water is also conveyed from this cistern to the county jail, by means of an underground pipe.
On the first floor are two halls extending entirely across the building one east and west, the other north and south, and crossing in the center. At the outer extremities of these halls are the four entrances to the building, all of which are similar. In the northwest corner of the first floor is the recorder's office, and the addition of a private stairway leading to the judge's stand in the court room. In the southeast corner are the commissioners' office, and the auditor's public office. The commissioners have only one room. The auditor's public office is supplied with a fire proof vault and two closets. In the southwest corner is the treasurer's office and vault ; also a private office to be used conjointly by the auditor and treasurer.
On the second floor is one hall extending north and south. On the east side of this hall is the court room,
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about 40x70 feet in length and breadth. Back of the court room in the northeast corner of the building is the judge's private room. South of the court room is the surveyor's office. On the west side of the hall in the southwest corner of the building is the sheriff's office. Immediately north of the sheriff's office is the probate judge's office, and farther down the hall are two rooms for the grand and petit jurors. At the north and south ends of the hall are rooms for wit nesses. The garret is used as a store room for unused public documents and records of no special value, yet necessary to be preserved. The committee who had charge of the construction of the building were as follows : The board of county commissioners, consisting of F. M. Wade, J. V.
Sharp and Thomas Chester, Probate Judge W. G. Lee, Clerk T. J. Champion, Sheriff D. W. Parr and J. B. Zuber, Esq. The grounds about the house are nicely graded up and suitable walks have been laid. In the spring of 1891 shade trees were set throughout the yard. From the peak of the dome extends a flag-staff, thirty feet in length, from which, on notable days, or when the occasion demands, float the American colors. The entire cost of the building may be summed up as follows :
Original contract $33, 380.00
Furniture 3,649.70
Miscellaneous items, such as sewer,
architect, extra work on basement,
furnaces, etc 5,494.59
Total . $42,524.29
The building, for convenience, beauty, and probable durability, is one to which our citizens may point with pride, and its cost of construction is regarded by all strangers who visit Paulding as a marvel .of cheapness. The first and only calamity which has yet befallen this new temple of justice
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occurred on the night of June 20, 1890, when the dome was struck by lightning, took fire, and was injured to the extent of about $500.
The first jail in the county was a small brick one erected in Charloe in 1842. It was not a very substantial building, and its walls have long since fallen down and crumbled away. To the credit of the early settlers of the county be it said that this jail was seldom occupied by evil doers. The
second jail was erected on the southeast corner of the court yard in Paulding, shortly after the removal of the county seat to that place. It was built of hewn logs closely fitted together, and the walls were made double on the sides as well as above and below. The doors were of huge plank heavily spiked and riveted together, and some of the cells were lined with heavy plates of sheet iron. But, notwithstanding this apparent security, escapes from the jail were frequent—so frequent, indeed, that a new and more substantial one became necessary. Accordingly, on May 7, 1874, the following notice appeared in Vol. 1, No. 6, of the Paulding Democrat, and was published for six 'consecutive weeks :
A NEW JAIL.
Notice of the Intention of the Commissioners of Paulding County,
Ohio, to Build a New Jail.
Notice is hereby given to all persons whom it may concern, that at the March session of the county commissioners of Paulding county, Ohio, said. commissioners decided in accordance to law under and by virtue of the provisions of a certain act of the general My of the state of Ohio, passed April 27, 1859, entitled, An eaten, commissioners to purchase land for the use jails and county infirmaries, and to erect the acts amendatory thereto, to purchase grounds the town of Paulding, Paulding County, won as legal notices are given according to law, they intend to take the necessary
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steps to advertise for sealed proposals for the erection of the said building therefor, and that on Friday, the 12th day of June, 1874, at to o'clock, A. M., of said day, they will meet at the auditor's office in said county of Paulding to hear petitions and remonstrances against such proposed improvement.
By order of the county commissioners of Paulding County, Ohio.
V. V. PURSEL, County Auditor.
In due time, after the publishing of the above notice, the contract for building a new jail and sheriff's residence combined was let. As there was no railroad passing through the town at that time, the cost of getting stone and other material on the ground was much greater than at the time of building the court house, and the work progressed rather slowly. The building was not completed until 1876, and at a cost of about $25,000.
The basement is of cut limestone, above which are two stories of brick with stone trimmings. .It was constructed on the most modern and improved plans, and is regarded as one of the securest jails and most convenient sheriff's residences in northwestern Ohio. It is located on Williams street, in Paulding, about one-half a square from the southwest corner of the court house yard.
Three miles northeast of Paulding, in Jackson township, is located the county infirmary farm.
The first county buildings erected here were of logs and a small frame, but these were superseded, about the year of 1884, by a large and neatly constructed frame, in which reside the county poor ; also convenient apartments for the residence of the superintendent and family. The farm consists of 160 acres, about ninety of which are under cultivation. Two frame barns and other necessary outbuildings are on the farm. It is thus shown that, in the way of public buildings, Paulding county is now as well supplied as any of her sister counties, and that her buildings are all comparatively new and sub-
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 73
stantial ; also they have been built in an economized and careful manner, for which the public servants, who had charge of their construction, deserve the thanks of her citizens. Besides the public buildings the county has many elegant structures in the way of bridges, several of which are of iron. Of these, three are across the Maumee ; one about one mile north of Antwerp, in Carryall township, and one at Jackson's ford, and one a mile north of Cecil, in Crane township. All across the Maumee are iron structures. There are three across the Big Auglaize, the one at Junction is of iron, and is the longest and most imposing bridge structure in the county, being about 500 feet in length. At Charloe and Oakwood are wooden bridges spanning the Auglaize. Across the little Auglaize are two iron bridges—one at old Fort Brown and one at Melrose. Several good bridges span Flat Rock, and, in fact, all of the streams are bridged at the principal crossings. The firse bridge across the Auglaize was at Junction. It was a wooden structure, poorly constructed, and soon went to decay. This fact prompted the county commissioners to erect better bridges ever after, even if built at a greater expense.
CHAPTER VI.
MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY.
Until within the past few years, and it may be said that even yet, the extensive forest products of Paulding county have furnished its chief source of wealth. The first manufacturing industry that may be mentioned was the making of staves, railroad ties, and the chopping of cord wood by the pioneers. This industry began on the opening of the canals through the county. The staves were made of white oak, burr oak and red oak timber. The timber was sawed with a crosscut saw, the power being furnished by the muscle of the workmen, split into bolts with a maul and wedge, and riven into staves by means of a fro and mallet. Different grades of staves were made, such as flour barrel, tight barrel and hogshead staves, and were of different sizes and grades of timber, bringing prices according to the grade. On the canal bank flour barrels were worth from $3.00 to $4.03 per thousand ; tight barrels from $5.00 to $6.00, and hogsheads from $10.00 to $12.00. One thousand flour or tight barrels, or about 500 hogsheads, were regarded as a day's work for two men. In an early day much of this business was carried on in close proximity to the canals, so that the staves could be easily hauled to the banks ready for shipment. The boats. stopped and loaded them wherever a pile, even of only a few hundred, had been culled and counted. The pioneers were not particular as to whose land it was upon which the staves were made, and frequently the most extensive manufacturers were persons who did not own a foot of land. They did not regard it as stealing, but took the choicest oaks by the "right
PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO - 75
of discovery" from government and speculators' lands, and piously said grace over the luscious viands purchased with the proceeds of their sale. Whether this was right or wrong is a question too fine in moral ethics for the writer to decide. He only knows that it was a pioneer custom, and that the timber of many a "back forty" was partly cleared away by the stave making process. Many thousands of hoop-poles were also taken in the same manner and annually shipped away, yielding a profitable employment both to the cutter and shipper. The shelves of many a pioneer merchant's store room have been replenished from the proceeds of a boat load of hoop-poles shipped to Dayton or Cincinnati, said poles having been gleaned from the forest at large by some enterprising back-woodsman who received the price for them with no compunctious throb, and conscientiously believed that he was engaged in a legitimate business.
From the hoop-pole and hand-made stave era, the county emerged into the ship timber period. This business was introduced into several of the timber growing counties of northwestern Ohio, about the year of 1856, and has been conducted with a greater or less magnitude from that time
until the present, and none of the counties have furnished more or better timber than that furnished by Paulding county. The ship timber business has mostly been carried on by Canadian capital and workmen from the provinces who were skilled in the business. The woods were scoured for burr oak and. White oak timber, which was at first bought in the standing tree for about 2 cents per foot, but gradually increased in price as it became scarce, until in 1889, when from 14 to 18 cents per foot wee paid. The trees were cut down, hewed squares, hauled to the nearest water and floated to Toledo. Millions of feet have been taken from the county down the canals and Maumee and Auglaize rivers to Defi-
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ance, and thence onward to the eastern markets. The cost of rafting from Defiance to Toledo was about $5 per thousand. At Toledo it was loaded into the hulls of lake vessels and taken to Quebec at a cost of about $115 per thousand, each vessel carrying about 20,000 feet. At Quebec it was solidly packed into ocean vessels and shipped to London and Liverpool at a cost of 20 cents a foot. One of the first men to operate in this business in the county was A. Cheesbrough, of Toledo, who secured much of the timber nearest the canals. Afterward Fred. W. LeSueur and Charles J. Chen- evert came from Canada to Defiance, about the year of 1869, and made the latter place the base of their operations in the timber business, and under the management of their subcontractors stripped Paulding county of much of its forest wealth. Other big timber men were, C. Neelon, of St. Catharines; Kelsey, of Detroit ; Stokes, of Windsor, and McArthur Bros., of Toronto. It is estimated that F. W. LeSueur paid out annually for over twenty years $175,000 for timber, or about $3,150,000 in all ; Neelon, $160,000 annually since 1870, $3,040,000 in all ; Chenevert $50,000 annually since 1867, about $1,000,000 in all. Other timber men have paid about as much more, so that in the aggregate over $15,000,000 have been paid for ship timber in northwestern Ohio, about $1,500,000 of which has been expended in Paulding county. In England this timber was formerly largely used in the biulding of ships, hence the eame—ship timber ; but as vessels are now almost entirely built of iron and steel, it is now used for other purposes, such as the manufacturing of street cars, furniture, coffins and other aticles requiring first-class timber. The business is now about extinct in the county, as only a few straggling trees, suitable for such timber, yet remain, and they will probably be used for other purposes. The largest stick of ship timber ever gotten out in
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the county was in the winter of 1865-66, by Johnson & Snook, and was cut in Jackson township, two miles west of Melrose, at which place it was "banked." Its dimensions were three feet square and seventy-five feet in length, containing 675 cubic feet. It was hauled to the canal bank by means of a block and tackle.
The heavy growth of timber in the county which afforded the means of obtaining an abundant supply of charcoal invited the establishment of blast furnaces for smelting the iron ores of Lake Superior. There were at one time two of these in the county. One was known as the Antwerp furnace, and was located on the Maumee river, half a mile east of the village of Antwerp ; the other, known as the Paulding furnace, was located one and a half miles south of Cecil, on section 23, Crane township. The ore for both furnaces was transported from Toledo by canal. The Antwerp furnace was. operated by the Antwerp Furnace Co., A. Cobb, president, and William Sayles, superintendent. Evans, Rodgers & Co. were the proprietors of the Paulding furnace. These furnaces were built in 1864-65, and for many years furnished employment to hundreds of men, and converted thousands of cords of wood into charcoal. The average length of run per year was about eight months ; and the average amount of iron annually produced by each furnace was 1,600 tons. Both- of these furnaces are now extinct, the Antwerp furnace ceasing operations in 188o, and the Paulding furnace about six years later. During the last few years of the Paulding furnace it was named Bertha furnace, owned and operated by Bennett, Graff & Co., with S. Frank Eagle as superintendent.
The county is now basking in the bright sunlight of the• elm hoop and stave era. It began about the year of 1880, although much timber had been rafted away to supply the factories of Delphos and Defiance prior to that date. The-
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enterprising gentleman and energetic business man, Maj. A. B. Holcombe, began the elm hoop manufacture in the county, a business in which he had been engaged for some years at Mentor, Ohio, but which was entirely new in the northwestern part of the state. In the autumn of 188o, Mr. Holcombe, in company with his partner, John F. R. Evans, erected a large mill at Paulding, put in the necessary machinery, and commenced cutting and coiling the stately elms. Mr. Evans dying soon after the mill was built, Mr. Holcombe assumed the entire control, and conducted the business alone until 1884, when he formed a partnership with Mr. Paul Weidmann, of Brooklyn, N. Y. The business was a success from the beginning. The, capaciey of the mill was about 30,000 hoops per day, and the hands employed from eighty to 100. The hoops were shipped to New York, and from thence to different parts of Europe, mostly to Germany. The car-loads were labeled "Ocean Freight" at the factory. In 1886 Mr. Holcombe sold his interest in the business to his partner for $13,000, and forming a partnership with Mr. Trowbridge, of Toledo, under the firm name of Holcombe & Co., purchased about 1,600 acres of timber land lying a short distance northeast of Paulding, erected a large and well arranged factory, put in the best improved machinery, and commenced cutting styes and lumber. This factory formed the nucleus around which has sprung up the enterprising village of Holcombe, now a station on the Mackinaw railroad. About 16,000,000 staves per year are cut at the Holcombe factory, and it is one of the most extensive manufacturing industries in the county. The hoop mill erected by Mr. Holcombe in Paulding was destroyed by fire Sunday morning, July 24, 1887, at a loss of $25,000 to the proprietors, Messrs. Weidmann & Eichling, only $6,800 of which was covered by insurance. The ashes of the burned building
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were scarcely cold until the rubbish was cleared away and a new building—a heading factory—was erected upon the grounds. Shortly after this Mr. Weidmann purchased 1,600 or 1,800 acres of land four miles west of Paulding, and in 1889 erected a large stave mill on the same, and is now cutting away the timber into staves and lumber, and converting the lands into farms as soon as cleared. A factory village has sprung up around this factory also, and is known as Section Eight. The Weidmanns (Paul, Sr. and Jr., father and son), reside in Brooklyn, N. Y., and are wealthy manufacturers and dealers in all kinds of cooperage stuff ; also proprietors of the Chicago stave factory at Paulding, and the Paulding flouring mills. Their business in Paulding county is looked after by W. H. Vermylie, superintendent.
Antwerp Hub and Spoke Company.—This company was incorporated, under the laws of Ohio, on February 11, 1873. Under its chartei, it embarked immediately in the manufacture of hubs, spokes and wagon material. Its first board of directors were Willoughby H. Doering, Lewis S. Gordon, Phaon P. Doering, Harry H. Gordon, John S. Hill and Henry Harris, and its first officers were : President and superintendent, Phaon P. Doering; secretary and treasurer, Lewis S. Gordon. On January to, 1874, the following officers were chosen : President, Henry Harris ; superintendent, Phaon P. Doering ; secretary and treasurer, Lewis S. Gordon, and said parties have held said offices' continuously to- the present date. The authorized capital stock of the company was $25,000, of which amount $18,000 only, were ever issued, and said stock is now owned and held exclusively by the original stockholders. The company confined its efforts to the manufacture of hubs, spokes and lumber until the spring of 1878, when it added to its production the manufacture of slack barrel and keg staves, rough and dressed lumber, moldings, etc., adding a complete equipment of plan-
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ing and molding machinery. Early in its career the company purchased over i,000 acres of heavily timbered lands, in convenient proximity to its factory, and in 1882 constructed a tramway railroad to its lands, which has enabled it to move timber cheaply to its factory, and this supply supplemented with local delivery from other sources, has enabled the company to run continuously for about ten months in each year since its organization. As the timber has disappeared the lands have been cleared and improved for cultivation. The business has been prosperous and well managed, and, while the timber supply is fast decreasing, a vast amount of timber and lumber is still .handled here. As an index to current business it may be proper to state that during the year 1890 over 8,000,000 keg staves and 1,000,000 feet of lumber were shipped, and the demand for finished lumber, moldings, brackets, etc., for nighborhood supply, was very large. Over 120 carloads of lumber and staves were shipped during the year. The company employ an average of fifty men and boys, and its pay roll for labor and salaries alone amounts to $15,000 per year. The amount disbursed in the immediate community of Antwerp amounts to about $30,000 per year. With the disappearance of timber in Paulding county is being developed the finest agricultural area in Ohio, and the wealth of oleaginous fluid underlying Antwerp and vicinity, awaiting only the derrick and the drill, will in the near future give the vicinity due prominence.
In addition to the above named factories there are extensive stave works at Latty, Cecil, Hedges, Broughton, Payne, Briceton, Melrose and other places in the county, all of which are duly mentioned in the village or township history of this work. The largest hoop mill in the county at present is that of Jacob Saylor & Sons, at Antwerp. John Leeson, at Scott, and Edwin Bell & Sons, at Hedges, formerly manu-
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-factored hoops. It is estimated that there are now over 100,000,000 staves and headings annually manufactured in the county and shipped to all parts of the world. What a contrast is this With the few boat loads that were formerly riven out by the hand of the pioneer, and the "flours" shipped to Dayton or Cincinnati, and the tight barrels to Burkehead & Co., at Toledo. Truly, Paulding county has been mounted upon the car of progression, her natural resources are being developed and the sweet hum of prosperity is heard throughout her. borders. That such is so is largely due to her enterprising manufacturers. Side by side, and keeping pace with the manufacturers, are the farmers, the worthy followers of Cincinnatus. Land that last year was growing timber for the factory is the next year growing corn or wheat or some other cereal. Annually is the business of husbandry making more rapid strides, and when the forest wealth has been swept away, and the busy wheels of the factory have ceaed to turn, then will Paulding be an agricultural county, and, owing to her great fertility of oil, one of the richest in the state. The area of the county aS returned by the state board of equalization is 259,235 acres. Of this area in 1870 only 21,443 acres were under cultivation ; in 188o there were 47,199 acres, and in 1890 about 90,000 acres were arable or plow land, and about 10,000 acres pasture land ; leaving a remainder of 154,235 acres of wood land for the factories yet to draw from. In the point of commercial importance Paulding county has ever and does yet take a front rank with any of her sister counties. Her first cargo of exports, it is said, was twenty-five racc00n skins, eight deer pelts, ten pounds of dried ginseng, and a pair of venison hams, loaded into a canoe by a squatter at some point in the northern part of Emerald township, and shipped down the Maumee to Defiance. The commercial value of this pioneer argosy was
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perhaps $25 or $30, which may seem exceedingly small to the present lumber princes of the county, but to that squatter it no doubt seemed large, as the returns represented a year's income, and from it must be furnished a year's necessaries. for himself and family.
The first commercial channels of the county were the Maumee and Auglaize rivers. Down these streams were marketed, in pirogues and "slap-togethers," the surplus grain and other salable commodities of the pioneer farmer. Next came the canals—the Wabash and Erie and the Miami ; and, lastly, the Wabash, Nickel Plate and Mackinaw railroads. The first exports of the county were furs, peltry, dried venison, bear's oil, etc., followed by hand-made staves, hoop- poles, cat-tails, ship timber and the finer grades of lumber— such as black walnut and poplar—and some stone from the Doyle and Noble quarries. For many years the rearing of stock—hogs and cattle-upon the acorns and pasturage of the forest wilds was an important industry. The stock was generally purchased in the autumn by drovers and driven away to the older counties of the state to be corn-fed and fitted for the eastern markets. Exports of the county are agricultural products, live stock, hoops, pail staves, hubs and spokes, railroad ties, lumber and timber. By the above industrial review it will be seen that the leading industries of the country are agricultural and manufacturing, and that both are receiving marked attention by an industrious and prosperous people. In speaking of the rapid growth and development of the county, the Toledo. Daily Bee of May 29, 1891, says : "The census figures, which state that during the last decade Paulding county has increased more rapidly in population than any other county in the state, must be as gratifying to its citizens as they are surprising to some other people. But not only in population
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has Paulding made rapid strides. The most marvelous improvements have been made in lands and roads, and the unpromising swamps of a few years ago nave been transformed by industry into a garden."
CHAPTER VII.
CANALS AND RAILROADS.
The building of the Wabash & Erie and Miami extension canals through the county was looked upon as being one of the most important events of the pioneer days. For many 'years they were the great commercial thoroughfares of the county, and did much toward its early development. Regarding their construction the following is taken from Hardestv's history of the county, published in 1881 :
"As early as 1816 the necessity of connecting the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Ohio river, by means of a navigable canal., was assented to, and a correspondence upon that subject was had between Hon. Ethan Allen Brown, of Cincinnati, and DeWitt Clinton, then canal commissioner of the state of New York. An act of the Ohio legislature was passed in February, 1820, authorizing the appointment of three commissioners 'to locate such a canal. The act also proposed to ask of the general government a grant of one or two million acres of land, the proceeds of which were to be applied to the construction of the canal. For some reason the commissioners were not appointed and no survey was made. In 1821-22, the subject of canals was again revived in the Ohio legislature, and on the 31st of January, 1822, a bill was passed authorizing an examination into the practicability of constructing a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. Seven commissioners were chosen for that purpose, and competent engineers were appointed to make surveys,
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examination and estimates. Four routes were taken into, consideration. The first from the Ohio river at Cincinnati to the Maumee river, and from thence to the lake ; the second from Sandusky Bay to some point on the Ohio ; the third to' Traverse, up the Cuyahoga river, and then cross to the navigable waters of the Muskingum, thence down that stream to the Ohio ; the fourth route was by way of the Grand and Mahoning rivers. The Cuyahoga and Muskingum river route won the prize, and the Ohio and Erie canal was constructed thereon. In 1824, however, a survey was made of the Miami and Maumee river route, and an estimate of the probable cost of constructing a canal upon it was reported' to the Ohio legislature at its session of 1824-5.
"M. T. Williams, a member of the state board of canal commissioners, directed this survey. Samuel Forrer was the- chief engineer, assisted by J. L. Williams, Francis Cleveland
and Richard Howe. A great portion of the survey was through an unbroken wilderness. From where the town of St. Mary's now stands to Auglaize river, a distance of about forty miles, no signs of civilization were visible. On the banks of the Auglaize a squatter, named Thomas McClish, had made a small improvement. Here the party had an encampment, and also at Oquanoxa's town, an Indian village, which stood upon the present site of Charloe. The surveying of the Wabash and Erie canal was commenced in 1826, but not finally completed until the autumn of 1828.
"In 1827, congress made a land grant to the state of Indiana, of one-half of the public lands on each side for a distance of five miles, of a proposed canal that would connect Lake Erie with the waters of the Wabash river. The Indiana terminus of the canal, and also of the grant, canal was constructed to Evansville, Indiana, a distance of about 500 miles from the lake.
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"In May, 1828, congress made a similar grant to Ohio, to aid in the construction of the Miami canal from Dayton to the lake ; and also in the same act authorized the state of Indiana to convey to Ohio the right to all public lands lying within the limits of that state, upon such terms as might be agreed upon by those states. Accordingly commissioners were chosen from both states—one from each—who met at Zanesville, Ohio, in October, 1829, where Indiana, through her commissioner, agreed to surrender all the lands within the limits of Ohio to the latter named state, on condition that she•would construct the canal from the state line to Toledo, and give to the citizens of Indiana all the rights and privileges that were granted to the citizens of Ohio. Although the Miami canal was the first to be surveyed, vet the Indiana people were the first to begin their portion of the work.
`The first ground on the Wabash and Erie was broken at Ft. Wayne in the spring of 1832. The work progressed slowly, and by the middle of 1835 only thirty-two miles had been completed. In 1840 the canal was opened between La Fayette and the east line of Indiana. Ohio was slower than Indiana to appreciate this needed channel of navigation, and Indiana, disappointed at this tardiness, in 1840 sent their chief engineer to Columbus to urge upon the legislature of Ohio the speedy fulfillment of their portion of the canal contract. The Ohio people commenced Work immediately, and, in 1843, the final completion of the Wabash and Erie canal took place. The event was celebrated at Fort Wayne on the 4th of July of that year, and was participated in by citizens from both states, who listened to an able oration, delivered upon the occasion, by Gen. Lewis Cass.
"The Miami canal was not completed until 1845. These two canals, of which a brief history has been given, pass through Paulding county ; the Wabash and Erie meters the
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county on the west side and passes through the northern tier of townships ; the Miami enters on the south and has a course through the eastern tier of townships. They unite at the village of Junction."
The Indiana portion of the Wabash and Erie canal was entirely abandoned about the year of 1870. This, rendering worthless that portion of it between the state line and Junction, was also abandoned by an act of the Ohio state legislature in 1888, further mention of which will be made later on under the head of "Reservoir War." The Miami is yet navigable through the county and is in a tolerable state of repairs. That these canals have been of great benefit to the county cannot be gainsaid or questioned. When in full operation they were the great navigable lines between Toledo and Evansville, a distance of over 500 miles ; and between Toledo- and Cincinnati, a distance of 242 miles. Upon them was conveyed—as freight—grain, lumber and every other commercial commodity. A daily line of packets was established for the conveyance of passengers and the United States mail. These packets were drawn by three horses, driven on a brisk trot, and changed at relays ten miles apart. The schedule time to be made was six miles an hour. Doyle & Dickey Were the proprietors of the best line of packets ever established upon these canals. Junction was then the place of transfer for the southern and western branches of the.line. Once at that place, while the Wabash packet was waiting for the one from the south, its horses were all stolen, while the driver was regaling himself in a neigbboring restaurant After some inconvenience and a short delay a new team was promptly purchased and the swift gliding craft proceeded on its way. The proerietors threatened to prosecute that horse thief for obstructing the United States mail, but he was never caught. The through lines of packets were abandoned about
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the year of 1852, as the age of steam had at that time gained a firm footing, and railroads afforded a much more rapid trnsit.
The first railroad built through the county was the Toledo, Wabash & Western, now called the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific. Gen. W. H. Gibson and Gen. James B. Steedman had charge of its construction between Defiance and Ft. Wayne. It passes through the northern part for a distance of eighteen miles, and was completed in 1855. The construction of the road, at this comparatively early date, is mainly due to the untiring energy of some of the enterprising citizens of Defiance, as is told by the late lamented Hon. W. C. Holgate, of that city, in a historical address before a meeting of the Maumee Valley Pioneer association, and published in the Defiance Democrat, February 28, 1878. He says : "Prior to 1842, the chief mode of travel was on foot or on horseback, and the chief means for transporting goods and produce was by pirogues or flatboats on the rivers. Our merchants and those of Ft. Wayne obtained their goods in this way from the mouth of the Maumee, where they were brought in lake boats from Buffalo. About this time the Wabash and Miami canals were constructed. Emanating in a common trunk from Toledo, one passed southwesterly through Ft. Wayne, La Fayette, and other towns in Indiana, toward Illinois ; and the other struck 'south to Cincinnati. Upon these canals were sumptuous packets, and numerous line boats ; and they began to introduce to us the conveniences and comforts of a civilized life, and we became very hopeful that we would soon assume city dimensions. But disappointment came over the spirit of our dreams. Railroads began to stir the people of the country about these days. From the operations of those already completed, it became evident that they were destined ere long to revolu-
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tionize matters pertaining to the business of the towns ; materially changing the prestige or destroying some, and building up others.
"On completion of the Mad River road, passengers that would otherwise have taken the packets at Cincinnati and passed through our village to Toledo, took the cars on that road and went to Sandusky. And at the west they would leave the canal, travel twenty and fifty miles out of a direct line north to the Michigan Southern to get to Toledo, rather than ride over the canal through our place. But a blow came nearer home ; the Pittsburg & Ft. Wayne road was put in operation, and the people of Ft. Wayne, who had been our nearest and most intimate neighbors, became lost to us, and we have seen no more of them to this day. But this was not all ; it passed only thirty miles to the south of us, draining and carrying away a country that had been tributary to, us. But a severer blow than this became impending. First the 'Junction road' loomed up, its place soon to be taken by the 'Air Line,' with a power behind equal to the occasion, and this was to cut our hitherto tributary territory within the limits of fifteen miles at the north. Already the cars were running .on this to Wauseon, and then to Stryker, and our liverymen began running a line of carriages to and fro, to enable our citizens to get to Toledo in that way. Already our leading business men began to cast about and talk of removing to Wauseon, Stryker or Bryan. Had we not secured a railroad, and that speedily at this juncture, our doom as a town would have been sealed. We might have- retained a rickety school house, a blacksmith shop, and a `meetin' 'house' for all denominations, but this would have been the extent of our town capacity. 'Tis true, the securing of the Wabash road did not bring back to us our tributary- -territory, and so assure to us city proportions ; but it put us-
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in a position to become a respectable village, and with the advantages of our canal, made us, as we had hitherto been, the most desirable locality in these northwestern counties away from the lakes for trade and commerce.
"Few appreciate the really hard efforts and work that was done about the years of 1851-2 by some of the citizens of Defiance to galvanize, as it were, into being a railroad that would save the town from impending death. As her committee appointed for railroad purposes cast their eves around, they could see no spark in the horizon, or any place, `so big as a man's hand,' giving any prospects or hopes. Mr. T. D. Phillips, one of the proprietors of the town, a practical man of business, who had much experience in such matters about Dayton, where he lived, on coming forth from one of the 'committee meetings,' with downcast looks, says, `Gentlemen, I don't see any chance for you.' But the desperate condition the town was now in aroused seine on the committee, as, perhaps, they had been only once before, and late at night, and early in the morning, they worked, and worked, and worked on. Every railroad man and interest east as far as Buffalo, south as far as Cincinnati, and west as far as Lafayette, was corresponded with and that correspondence would now fill a volume. Every railroad meeting within those limits was attended, and in •vivid colors in our news- -papers was depicted the advantages of routes through Defiance. * * * * Suffice it here to say the labors of that `old committee' resulted in the construction of a railroad from Toledo running southwesterly through Defiance to the .state of Illinois. The securing of this Wabash road saved Defiance, and that was all."
While the road saved Defiance as Mr. Holgate has said, it also had its beneficial results upon Paulding county, opening for its first railroad communication with the great
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commercial centers of the country east and west. It passes through the townships of Emerald, Crane„ Carryall and Harrison an has an assessed value in the county of $266,563 annually paying into the treasury a tax of over $6,000.. The second railroad completed in the county was the Paulding & Cecil road, extending between those two points, a distance of seven miles. Its struggles were manifold and its "ups and downs" numerous. The nucleus upon which the- road was built was a strap iron track extending two miles south from the Paulding furnace, and used by the company in hauling wood for the kilns. About the year 1877, George W. Potter, of Paulding, purchased of S. M. Doyle the material of a small narrow gauge railroad, which had been in operation between Columbus and North Columbus, and removed it to Paulding county. With this material he proceeded to construct a railroad from Cecil to a point about one-half a mile's distance from Paulding. It was a rickety affair, and it is thought that the proprietor never realized much profit upon the amount he invested in building it. In 1879 John F. R. Evans with the aid of citizens of Paulding and Cecil, began the construction of a standard gauge road between these points which, being completed, the first train ran over it into Paulding September T, 1880. In 1881 it passed into the hands of the Paulding & Cecil Railway Company, with S. Frank Eagle as president, and was operated by that company until 1884, when it was sold to the. Cincinnati, Van Wert & Michigan Railway Company, and became a part of what is now the Cincinnati, Jackson &- Mackinaw road.
A history of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis railroad, or "Nickel Plate," as it is familiarly known, may be-
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thus briefly told : In May 1854 the ctitizens of Paulding county were startled by the sudden appearance of a corps of engineers engaged in running a railroad line from Tiffin to Fort Wayne. Shortly after the line was located contractors began work and the road was cut out and partly graded -through the country. In the autumn of the. above mentioned year, work was suspended for the winter, with the assurance that it would be resumed the following spring. Spring came, but with it came no orders to begin work on the Tiffin & Fort Wayne railroad, and they never came. The financial embarrassment of the leaders of the enterprise had caused a permanent suspension, and many contractors and .employes under them suffered a loss of being unpaid for their labor. In 1872 a new company was formed, a resurvey of the line was made and work vigorously begun. This time it -was called the "Continental Railway," and was to be the great double tracked through thoroughfare between New York city and Omaha. So confident were all that the road would this. time be built that villages were located at every available point along the line, store rooms and warehouses were erected, and corner lots arose to fabulous prices. But a second time were the people intrested doomed to disappointment, for, as upon the-Tiffin & Fort Wayne, work ceased upon this road never to be resumed, and the magnificent double-tracked Continental railway passed into innocuous desuetude. For nearly ten years it slept as in the sleep of death, but in 1881 it was resurrected by a modest young railroad man of Lima, now the Hon. Calvin T. Brice, United States Senator from Ohio. Its resurrection was brought about as follows :
Mr. Brice, having become largely interested in the Lake Erie & Louisville, and other north and south roads in Ohio, was desirous of obtaining an ()inlet for his freight to the east-
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ern seaboard and accordingly held an interview with William H. Vanderbilt, to see if said outlet could not be secured over his lines at better rates than those existing. The great railroad king of New York smiled rather derisvely upon the young Ohio man and would offer him no inducements. Mr. Brice turned upon his heel and said : "I will build a competing line," and forthwith work was begun upon the New York, Chicago & St. Louis railroad. It was completed through the county in September, 1881. While work was progressing the old settler looked blandly on and said : "This 'ere road will never be built. Twice had he been deceived by its fickle promises and false charms, and did not propose to be a third time duped. But the third attempt brought the real charm, and the most obstinate doubter was happily disappointed. When he saw the wheels of the iron horse go whirling by he had to believe. The line through the county is a straight one, and has a one minute deflection from a di. rect east and west course. It traverses the townships of Brown, Jackson, Paulding and Harrison a distance of twenty- four miles, and has within that distance nine stations. The assessed value of its main track side tracks, rolling stock, etc. in the county is placed upon the auditor's duplicate at about $200,000, so that it pays into the treasurer's office a good, round sum as taxes. When Mr. Vanderbilt saw the effect of this "competing line" upon the Lake Shore road, he sought control of it, and it passed into the Vanderbilt system in 1886; Mr. Brice, it is said, clearing a cool $5,000,000 by the deal. So much for the pluck and energy of an Ohio man, who, if he did not belong directly to Paulding county, was born in the adjoining county of Putnam.
As early as 1838 there was talk of building a railroad from Florida to the Straits of Mackinaw, but there was nothing done upon the project more than to point out the
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benefits which would arise from such a route. Along in the latter part of the "fifties" a survey was made northward from Cincinnati via Greenville, and a road called the Mackinaw was partly graded as far north as Van Wert. Work suddenly ceased upon this road, and for more than twenty years nothing was heard of the Mackinaw. In 1880 the citizens of Van Wert, realizing the importance of a north and south road to their town, organized the Cincinnati, Van Wert & Michigan Railway Company, with John M. C. Marble as president, and began work on a road extending both north and south from that place. The first portion of the road completed was from ,Van Wert to Shane's Crossing, eight miles south. From this point it slowly but stedily advanced from town to town until it reached Franklin, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad, whence it runs it's trains over that road to Cincinnati. This was accomplished in 1887, seven years after the road was began. The slowness of its construction was from the following cause. The company depended upon local aid to erect the first portions of the road, and then upon the earnings of the portions completed to build the remainder. The road was completed to paulding in 1884, and by purchasing the Paulding & Cecil road secured an outlet to the Wabash at Cecil. From this point trains were run south until about 1887, when the road was pushed on northward into the state of Michigan. The company was reorganized about this time and the name of the road changed to the Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw: The road is very convenient for the citizens of Paulding county, as they can leave Paulding on the early morning trains, arrive at Cincinnati about io a. m., have five or six hours in that city, and reach home the same day. It passes through the townships of Blue Creek, Paulding an Crane, a distance of eighteen miles in the county, and is assessed at
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about $3,000 per mile. Its stations in the county are Scott, Folmer, Dague, Latty, Paulding, Holcombe, Furnace and Cecil. It crosses the Nickel Plate at Latty and the Wabash at Cecil.
In the winter of 1882 the Ohio Legislature passed an act authorizing certain townships along the line of the road to vote a bonded indebtedness for aid in its construction. Among the townships which voted in favor of issuing bonds were Pleasant and Union, in Van Wert county ; Dublin, in Mercer county ; and Blue Creek in Paulding county. The bonds were sold and the money applied in building the line to Paulding. When the interest on these bonds became due, the township trustees, acting under legal advice, refused payment. The holders of the bonds then commenced action to enforce collection, and the case drifted along through various courts. Judge Jackson, of the United States circuit court de, cided in favor of the bondholders. The case was finally settled in January, 1891, by a decision of the United States supreme court declaring the law unconstitutional under which the bonds were issued. About $8o,000 of these bonds were negotiated and that amount together with the cost of litigation, was lost by those who purchased them.
In the summer of 1888, the American Midland, or Mahoning railroad, was graded through the southern part of the county, parallel to the Nickel Plate, and about four miles south of it. The road then, like some of its predecessors, passed into a quiet sleep from which it was fully awakened in the fall of 1891. Two trunk lines pass through Paulding county east and west, and the Mackinaw, an excellent road, cleaves her center north and south. Upon the prospects of the Mahoning road the villages of Grover Hill and Mandale were located upon its line in the county.
CHAPTER VIH.
MILITARY HISTORY.
"Cease to consult the time, for action calls ;
War, dreadful war, approaches to our walls."
THE part taken by Paulding county in the late civil war is a particularly bright one, and may go upon the pages of this volume as on an escutcheon garnished with glory. With pride will it be cherished in the memories of her citizens, and by them proudly handed down to posterity, even as is being done. When on that dark April morning in 1861, the lightning flashed the startling news over the world that Fort Sumpter had fallen before the bombs of the rebel Beauregard, it aroused a throb in the pulse of little Paulding which beat in unison with that of the patriotic north ; and in a few days a company of her gallant sons had responded to the president's call for 75,000 three months' men. This was company G, of the Fourteenth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. It was recruited from all part of the county and rendezvoused at Antwerp about the 22nd of April, 1861. Its commissioned officers were : --John S. Snook, captain ; Alfred M. Russell, first lieutenant, and John Crosson, second lieutenant. A member of the company says : "At Antwerp we were drawn up in line preparatory to being mustered into the United States service. Before being mustered in we were told that all who did not wish to muster with the company might step two paces to the front.
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Only one man stepped out. * * * Old Mr. Lewis Ward was there with us blowing the fife. He must have been sixty years old. I never shall forget how badly the old gentleman felt when told that his age prohibited his going with us. Tears rolled clown his furrowed cheeks, and his every expression showed how intense was his desire to march to the front with the boys and do battle for his country." The company joined the regiment at Toledo and with it was sent to Camp Taylor at Cleveland, where, after a few weeks' drill, it received orders to join McClellan's forces, and go. forth to the stern realities of war. The company with its regiment was the first organized force to invade the rebel soil at Parkersburg, Virginia, which it did on the 24th of May, a day made memorable by the death of the gallant young Colonel Ellsworth at Alexandria. The company- served in West Virginia, took part in the engagements at Philippi and Carrick's Ford, and was mustered out of service- August 13th, having served its term of enlistment.
The first company to be organized in the county under the three years' call was company F of the Thirty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. It was recruited, during the summer of 1861, in the eastern part of the county, mostly in Brown township, and when not more than twelve or fifteen men had been enrolled, they met on Saturdays at Fort Brown —historical ground--for drill. Its election of officers resulted in John H. Adams being chosen captain ; John Crosson,.
first lieutenant, and Elias W. Gleason, second lieutenant.. Webster Jones, a soldier of the Mexican war, who had been largely instrumental in the recruiting service, was chosen orderly sergeant, and soon after arose to a lieutency in the company, and afterward to a captaincy in the regiment. In the latter part of August the company joined its regiment at Camp Trimble, Defiance, Ohio, and on the 8th day
98 - PAULDING COUNTY, OHIO.
of September started for Camp Dennison, where, after a few weeks spent in drilling, the regiment was ordered to join the forces under Gen. Buell in Kentucky, and spent the winter of 1861-2 in that state, participating in the battle of Mill Spring. The company veteranized with its regiment in 1863, came home on a thirty days' furlough, recruited its depleted ranks, and returning took part in many of the bloody engagements fought by the western army ; marched with Sherman to the sea and through the Carolinas, passed in the grand review at Washington city and was mustered out of service at Louisville, Ky., July 12, 1865. Capt. Adams contracted disease soon after entering the service, came home and died, and was succeeded by Capt. Crosson, who was killed in the terrible charge which the regiment made at the battle of Jonesboro September I, 1864. This was the severest engagement in which the company participated during the war, and its loss in killed and wounded numbered nearly one-half of the officers and men engaged in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle. Paris Tucker received eleven wounds, two of them bayonet thrusts, and yet lived many years after the war. Capt. Jones was severely wounded in the face in this battle, but is yet living.
Company G of the Fourteenth regiment, was at home only about two weeks from the three months' service when it began organizing for the three years' service, the date of enlistment being August 26, 1861. W. H. Eckels was commissioned captain; Crawford C. Adams, first lieutenant, and Henry B. Ferguson, second lieutenant. It served again in the "Old Fourteenth," James B. Steedman, commanding. It took part in the campaigns of Kentucky and Tennessee, and at the battle of Chickamauga suffered terrible loss ; out of forty-seven men, eight were killed, nineteen wounded, and three taken prisoners; a total of thirty, or more than
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sixty per cent. The loss of the entire regiment was a one- third greater per cent than that of the English light brigade in its famous charge at the battle of Balaklava. After the fight at Chickamauga, the company, with the army, fell back to Chattanooga, and after a siege of about two months took part in the celebrated and successful charge on Missionary Ridge. On the 14th of December, 1863, it veteranized and :came home on a thirty-days' furlough. After this the company served in the Georgia campaign, and went with Sherman to the sea, across the Carolinas to Raleigh, and was present when the surrender of General Johnston took place. It then marched through Richmond, Va., thence to Washington, D. C., and from there to Louisville, Ky., where it was mustered out, receiving final discharge at Cleveland, Ohio, July 11, 1865. The company served in all from April 22, 1861, to July 1I, 1865, a period of four years, two months and nineteen days. The following graphic history of company C, Sixty-eighth Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, is furnished by Captain Patrick R. Mooney, of Antwerp :
"Organized November 25, 1861, with the following officers : Captain, P. H. Mooney ; first lieutenant, J. C. Banks ; second lieutenant, George W. Kniss, the company mustering 101 men, rank and file. Mustered into service by P. H. Mooney, captain and organizer of said company ; attached to the sixty-eighth regiment Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, second brigade, third division, seventeenth army corps, army of the Tennessee. Division commanded by John A. Logan ; corps commanded by Brig. Gen. McPherson, who was killed July 22, 1864, before Atlanta, November 25, 1861, the company went from Antwerp, Ohio, to Camp Latty, at Napoleon, Ohio, the place of rendezvous. January 21, 1862, ordered to Camp Chase, Ohio ; February 29, ordered to Fort Donelson, Tenn.; March 7, ordered to Metal Landing, Tenn. ; 15th,
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ordered to Crump's Landing, Tenn.; April 6 and 7, took part in the battle of Shiloh, Tenn.; April 17, ordered to Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.; 29th, to Corinth, Miss. ; June 2d, ordered to Bolivar, Tenn., under division commander, Gen. Lew Wallace ; June 28, marched to Grand Junction, Tenn., after Jackson's guerrillas; July 25, returned to Bolivar, where we remained constructing fortifications, company C occupying Fort Anaca, until September 22, when we were ordered to Iuka, Miss., via Corinth. This company skirmished with the enemy under Van Dorn and Price with good effect ; the enemy being driven out we returned to Bolivar September 26. October 3, 1862, were ordered to Pocahontas on the Hatchee river, to intercept rebel forces under Van Dorn and Price retreating from Corinth after a sanguinary battle with Gen. Rosecrans. Our forces, including company C, met the retreating enemy at Hatchee river, where a severe battle took place, in which company C took an active part with the regiment, receiving praise for gallant conduct under Gen. . We returned to Bolivar, October 7, guarding thirty-six prisoners. This company was on the march through central Mississippi, and was with the regiment during the expedition and seige of Vicksburg ; crossed the Mississippi river below Grand Gulf ; marched to the battle of Thompson's Hill, Miss., May I, 1863 ; met the enemy at Raymond, Miss., and routed him May 15, 1863 ; thence to Jackson, Miss., May 14 ; thence to Champion Hill, Miss., May 16, 1863 ; then crossed the Big Black to the siege of Vicksburg, May 18 to July 4, 1863 ; battle of Clinton and Jackson, Miss., February 5, 1864, and went to Meridian and burned the town and prison sheds. We were engaged for six successive clays as sharpshooters, receiving praise for gallant conduct ; was on the expedition under command of Maj. Gen. F. P..- Blair, making a tour around by Yazoo City. This company June 5, 1863, was
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in the rifle pits as before, and was in the expedition after the fall of -Vicksburg under Maj. Gen. Sherman against Johnson at Jackson, Miss The company, with the regiment, guarded 554 prisoners into Vicksburg, Miss., where we remained until March 17, 1864, when we got furlough home. Returned to Cario, Ill., in May, 1864, and marched from Clifton, Tenn., across Alabama, to Big Shanty, Ga., June 9, where a battle ensued ; also Kenesaw Mountain and Brush Mountain until June 30, 1864 ; June 27, Kennesaw Mountain general assault ; battle. of Nickajack Creek, Ga., July 25; Atlanta, (Hood's first sortie) July 22, 1864; Atlanta, Ga., siege of July 28 to September 2, 1864 ; battle of Jonesboro, Ga., August 31 to September 1, 1864; also Lovejoy Station, Ga., September 2-6, 1864. After the fall of Atlanta went into camp at West Point, near Atlanta. This company marched from Atlanta, Ga., with Sherman to the sea and the siege of Savannah, Ga., December 10-21, 1864. Also battles as follows : Pocotalego, S. C., January 14-16, 1865; Orangeburg, S. C., Februry I2, 1865 ; Columbia, S. C., February 16-17, 1865 ; Cheraw, S. C., March 2-3, 1865 ; Bentonville, N. C., March 19, 1865; Goldsboro, N. C., March 21, 1865 ; thence to Richmond, Va., to Washington, D. C., where the company marched in the grand review of the president of the United States and all government officials; thence to, Louisville, Ky, where the company was mustered out on Cyrus M. Roberts, captain Ohio Veteran
Volunteer Infantry.”
The following of company I, One Hundredth Ohio Volunteer, was written by a member of the company and published in the Antwerp Argus July 23, 1891:
Company I, of the One Hundredth regiment, was raised at Antwerp upon the second call for 300,000 men in August, 1862. The company left here about 100 strong, under corn-
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mand of Capt Kauffman ; D. S. Hughes, first lieutenant ; J. S. Champion, second lieutenant. The first rendezvous was at Toledo. From thence they went to Covington, Ky., where they first sighted the "Johnnies." The regiment was a part of the Twenty-third corps commanded by Gen. Schofield,. and saw some hard service. Their first regular engagement was at Buzzard's Roost, Ga. At the fight at Eutaw Creek the regiment lost 104 men out of z00 who were engaged. At the battle of Nashville the regiment captured a battery of eight guns after a desperate struggle.
From Nashville the regiment went to Baltimore, and from there to Cape Fear, and were in the hard fights at Wilmington and Goldsboro, N. C.
The principal battles in which the company was engaged were : Knoxville, Columbia, Franklin and Nashville, Tenn.; Buzzard's Roost, Atlanta, Ga., Raleigh, Wilmington and Eutaw Creek, N. C.
The regiment was mustered out at Greensboro, N. C., June 20, 1865, and received their final discharge at Cleveland, Ohio, July t, 1865.
Captain Kauffman died at Knoxville in the spring of 1863, and was succeeded by Captain D. S. Rughes, who had command of the company at the time of its discharge.
Paulding county furnished two companies to the 100-day service of 1864, and as the important part taken by the Ohio. 100-day men in looming into especial and merited significance, a brief history of the movement which led to their call into the United States service may not be out of place Brough was emphatically a war governor, and to him belongs the praise of being the originator of the movement which released so many of the veteran soldiers from guard duty and sent them to the front to swell the armies of Grant. Brough suggested a call of the governors of Iowa, Wiscon-
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sin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, which resulted in a tender of 85,000 men for a period of 100 days, each state to furnish the following number : Iowa, 10,000; Wisconsin, 5,000; Illinois and Indiana, 20,000 each, and Ohio, 30,000 men. The proposition was forwarded to Washington and immediately accepted by Secretary Stanton. Governor Brough ordered Adjutant General Cowan to issue an order to the commandants of battalions and regiments in the state calling them into active service. These had been organized really for the defense of the state, and were not in duty bound to respond, but; as the governor had relied upon their patriotism in issuing the call, they responded with alacrity, as he had believed they would. Only one company in the United States service, and that company was dishonorably discharged from the service of the state. When the above call was made there was existing in the county a military organization by Major Andrew P. Meng. The battalion consisted of three companies—A, B and C—and was organized in the spring of 1863. When called into active service the battalion rendezvoused at Antwerp, May 2, 1864, drilled two days and was sent home, with orders to report on the loth of the same month. Upon the loth, the members of the battalion all reporting, they were soon on their way to serve the general government. At Toledo it was ascertained that the troop did not consist of three maximum companies, and company C was consolidated with companies A and B. By this arrangement some of the commissioned officers lost their commands, the ranking officers only being retained. With these two companies the battalions proceeded to Columbus, where it was consolidated with the Thirty-second battalion, from Logan county, and one company from Montgomery county and became companies .A and H, of the One Hundredth and Thirty-second regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and as such was sworn
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into the service of the United States, Major Meng continuing to hold the same rank in the new organization that he had held in the battalion. The commissioned officers of company A were : John J. Shirley, captain ; Fielding S. Cable, first lieutenant, and Peter Snook, second lieutenant. Of company H, the officers were : I3. F. H. Hankins, captain ; Eli H. Day, first lieutenant, and William Good, second lieutenant.
After a few days spent in drilling at Camp Chase, Colonel Haines was ordered to report with his regiment at Washington, D. C. Accordingly, on the 19th of May, it took its line of march, and on the 22nd arrived at Washington, going over the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. At Washington it was ordered into camp at Arlington Heights, and remained there until about the first of June, when it boarded the steamer "John Brooks," and was sent to White House Landing, Va., which was then the base of supplies for that portion of Grant's army then in active operations before Richmond. At this place it was attached to the second brigade, second division, of the eighteenth army corps, commanded by General "Baldy" Smith. The base of supplies having been transferred to the south of Richmond, the regiment, on the 13th of June, was sent to Bermuda Hundred, and for the remainder of its term of service did honorable duty in the trenches in front of Petersburg. Its term of enlistment having expired, it was ordered to Camp Chase, Ohio, about the last of August and was mustered out September to, 1864. True it is, the term of service of companies A and H, One Hundred and Thirty-second Ohio, was short, but the glory of their achievements will grow in brilliancy the more there is known of them. Besides these six companies, which were organized in the county, many of its citizens enlisted in other regiments of the state, so that at one time during the war scarcely a "corporal's guard" was left in the county. There were two
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drafts ordered in the county, but this would not have been, had not many of the enlisted men been credited to other counties. Had proper credit been given, there would have been no drafts in the county, as her quotas would have been much more than filled by volunteer enlistments. As proof of this the following instance is given : In Brown township, in the spring of 1865, a draft was pending, and six men wanted, when there were but three able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in the township. What is true of Brown township may also be true of the other townships. Since the war many ex-soldiers of other counties of the state, and of other states, have found homes in the county ; and of these none have brighter military records than General S. R. Mott, Colonel Joseph M. Gaston, Major A. B. Holcombe and Colonel Robert S. Murphy. General Mott served as lieutenant-colonel of the Fifty-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was breveted brigadier-general of United States Volunteers, for gallant service on the field of battle ; Colonel Gaston served four years, one month and seventeen days in the Sixteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and as colonel of United Veteran Union post at Paulding; Major Holcombe served in a New York regiment, and in 1887 was chosen brigadier- general of the Grand Army of the Republic brigade of the Sixth Ohio Congressional district ; R. S. Murphy served as first lieutenant of company H, Thirtieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and is now a grand army colonel in the county. Francis B. DeWitt, who has the distinguished honor of be- ing the youngest soldier in the rebellion, resides in the county. He enlisted in the fall of 1861, when only about thirteen years old, and served in the One Hundred and Twenty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, until the close of the war, nearly four years. He took part in the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and is the original "Drummer Boy of Shiloh." There are
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are several Grand Army, Union Veterans unions and Sons of Veterans posts in the county ; and about one thousand resident veterans. The beautiful and patriotic custom of annually decking soldiers' graves with flowers is tenderly and zealously observed every 3oth of May, and the exercises largely participated in by both citizens and ex-soldiers.
Bring flowers the sweetest,
Bring flowers the rarest,
And scatter them o'er our fallen braves ;
Bring flowers the brightest,
Bring flowers the fairest,
And strew them profusely on our dead heroes' graves.
The Reservoir War.—The early history of the world is so intermingled with fable, that it is almost impossible to separate truth from falsehood. Many of the wars of the reputed gods were only the productions of some vivid fancy ; but not so the reservoir war. It was not merely the creation of the mind but a stern reality, as many living witnesses can testify who saw the grim visages of armed troops ,quartered in the county for a whole week, in the spring of 1877, to quell what was purported to be a "lawless mob." From time immemorial it has been the custom of all eminent historians who wrote of wars to prelude the actual jingling of arms with the causes which led to the sanguinary conflicts. With no pretense to eminence, yet would our humble pen ask permission to, at least, be permitted to follow in the beaten path of those whose business it has been to rivet burning truths upon the lasting page. At this date, and when the white- winged dove of peace is again hovering over the county, a history of the reservoir war and the causes which led to it may be truthfully and impartially- told. In 1826 certain lands in what are now Crane and Carryall townships were set apart, by an act of the Ohio legislature, for the purpose of
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locating thereon a reservoir, designed to be a feeder of the Wabash & Erie canal, which was then under contemplation of being built, and which was completed in 1843. Work on this reservoir began in 1840, and it was completed about two years later. It was formed by clearing away the timber, throwing up an embankment and cutting off the waters of Six Mile Creek, from whence it derived the name of Six Mile Reservoir. The embankments inclosed only about 3,- 600 acres of land, but the cutting off of the creek caused it in time of freshets to overflow its banks, which were shallow, and to spread over many thousand acres west of the reservoir, rendering it impossible to put it in a state of cultivation. It is estimated that about 14,000 or 15,000 acres of fertile land in the county were thus rendered worthless. For many years, and while the canal was in active operation, nothing was said of the devastating features of the reservoir. It was regarded as a public necessity and the citizens acquiesced in the desolation which it wrought. But when Indiana had abandoned her portion of the canal, and when that portion in Ohio between Junction and the state line was no longer navigated except now and then by a solitary wood boat, or a. floating boarding house, for gangs of timbermen, then an entirely different phase was put upon the reservoir and its desolate surroundings. The citizens of Antwerp-then the most populous village in the county—looked forth and saw, upon the very verge of their south suburbs, a large, gloomy and impenetrable swamp, made so by a portion of the public- works which were no longer a source of revenue to the state, but virtually abandoned by it ; and they readily and justly concluded that the time for its legal abandonment had fully arrived.
Accordingly, in the winter of 1886, a petition was gotten up, setting forth in vivid, yet not overdrawn, colors, the•
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grievances brought about by the Six Mile reservoir and its attendant influences, and praying for the abatement of what was now pronounced an eye-sore upon the county and a nuisance to the vicinity in which it was located. The petition received many signers in all parts of the county, and upon being sent to Hon. John L. Geyer, then representive from the county, he prepared a bill for the abandonment of the reservoir, and that portion of the Wabash & Erie canal extending from Junction to the Indiana state line. At this juncture the bill found a formidable and wary foe in the city of Defiance; and for the following reasons : It was a manufacturing city, and the products of its factories were mostly of wood. The vast forests in the vicinity of the reservoir were to them a territory of great wealth, inasmuch as they furnished much of the raw material for" the factories ; and the canal was a valuable channel, as it afforded excellent means for the transportation of said wealth to their city. What was the Ups to Antwerp and Paulding county was a Golconda to Defiance. It is not to be wondered at then in a business point of view, that the citizens of that city sent large and influential lobbies to Columbus to oppose the passage of the bill. It was ably championed by Mr. Geyer and passed the house ; but in the senate the influence brought to bear by the Defiance lobby was too powerful, and it was defeated in that body March 9, 1887, by a vote of twenty-six to eight. When the news of the defeat of the bill reached the county, the deep rumb!ings of rage were heard in the breast of her citizens, and particularly in those residing in Antwerp and vicinity. In the failure of the passage of the bill they considered themselves sorely aggrieved. They felt that by the action of the senate a large, unsightly and miasmatic swamp had been fastened upon the fertile bosom of the county; and it is supposed that about this date the organization of
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a mysterious body, afterward known as the "Dynamiters," began ; and that the avowed purpose of this organization was the destruction of the useless reservoir and canal. The state board of public works, one member of which resided at Defiance, as if in anticipation of that which did happen, placed a few citizen guards, employed by the state, on the banks of the reservoir, and at the locks along the canal, to protect them from invasion. But notwithstanding this precaution, on the night of April 25, 1877, a loud explosion was heard in the vicinity of the reservoir, and on the following morning it was ascertained that the guards had been overpowered (without injury, however, to any of them) by a large force of masked men, and that the bulkhead of the reservoir and three locks on the canal had been blown out, or injured by dynamite. The startling news flew like lightning throughout the county, and state, and the following and similar telegrams were dispatched to Gov. Foraker from Defiance :
Two hundred men marched on the.canal in a body, captured the guard and held them in confinement until daylight. They worked all night on the front and rear of the reservoir, cutting the ground enough to let the water out. Then they poured coal oil on the lock and the keeper's house, burning it up. One hundred more men went to Tate's and the other remaining lock, blowing them up with dynamite. No locks remain on the Wabash canal, and mob law reigns supreme. The people of Defiance and Paulding counties call on you to protect the state property.
E. SQUIRE.
Acting upon these telegrams, Gov. Foraker immediately telegraphed Adj.-Gen. Axline to assemble a portion of the state troops and to proceed at once to the scene of conflict ; and also issued the following proclammation, copies of which were posted up throughout the county :
STATE OF OHIO, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, COLUMBUS, April 26, 1887.
WHEREAS, It has been reported to me that on the night of
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the 25th inst. an armed mob of lawless and rioting men drove away from the public works of the state in Paulding county, the guards who were in possession' of the same, and with dynamite blew up certain locks of the canal, and with powder and fire destroyed others, and otherwise by cutting the banks of the canal and reservoir, did great damage and injury thereto ; and,
WHEREAS, This armed and lawless mob are reported to be still banded together for the purpose of preventing the state authorities from again taking possession and control of the property so wrongfully wrested from them, and threaten by voilence to prohibit the , repair of the damage so aforesaid inflicted by them; and,
WHEREAS, The civil authorities of Paulding county appear to be either unable or unwilling to suppress said rioters and protect the authorities of the state in resuming control of the property of the state and making repairs thereof, and appear to be either unable or unwilling to disperse said mob and preserve the public peace,
Now, therefore, I, Joseph B. Foraker, governor of the state of Ohio, do hereby call upon said rioters and evil-disposed persons to desist at once from their unlawful actions and to disperse at once to their homes, and I hereby warn them; failing to do so, they will be immediately compelled to such a course so far as the protection, repair and preservation of the public property of the state is concerned. All persons failing to serve and comply with the commands hereof, will do so at their peril.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and caused to be affixed the great seal of the state, at Columbus, this 26th day of April, in the year of our Lord, 1887.
J. B. FORAKER.
In obedience to the governor, Adj.-Gen. Axline dispatched the following order to Maj. Bunker, commanding the Sixteenth regiment at Toledo :
By the governor,
J. S. ROBINSON, Secretary of State.
COLUMBUS, April 26, 1887.—Assemble about fifty men from Sixteenth regiment as soon as possible for duty in Paulding county and await further orders.
H. A. AXLINE, Adjutant General.
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Maj. Bunker immediately issued the following order to the captains of companies A, C. and H :
TOLEDO, April 26, 1887.
Special Order No.
In compliance with the above order, you will forthwith assemble your company at its armory ready for duty.
H: S. BUNKER, Major Commanding.
I. T. MERRILL, Adjutant.
At 8 o'clock p. m., April 26, Gen. Axline, at the head of a force consisting of portions of the Sixteenth regiment, "commanded by Maj. H. S. Bunker ; and a part of the Fourth battery, First regiment, Ohio National Guard, commanded by Capt. 0. J. Hopkins, arrived at Cecil, a distance of four miles from the reservoir. Total number of the force was fifty-three enlisted men and nine officers. The infantry was armed with muskets and bayonets and 2,000 rounds of ammunition; the battery was armed with a gatling gun, and 4,500 rounds of ammunition. Headquarters were established at Cecil, and the troops fed at the Mackinaw House, after which a detachment of twenty-eight men, headed by Gen. Axline, moved forward to the reservoir and took possession -of the same without firing a gun, or even sighting an enemy. Within twelve hours after receiving orders, Gen. Axline was on the ground with an armed force ready to protect the state property. The next day, April 27, the whole command marched to the front and went into camp at the notheast corner of the reservoir. This camp was appropriately named Camp Dynamite. It was not fortified, but tents were pitched, and the gatling gun placed in position to rake the north and :east banks of the reservoir in case of a hostile demonstration by land'; or to pour its leaden hail over the bosom of old canal in case of a gunboat attack. Guards were thrown out, picket posts established, and everything in true military style.
112 - HISTORY OF
But no enemy appeared. No attacks were made. All around was as peaceful and quiet as the grave, save the roar of the mighty waters that rushed in torrents through the aperture made in the reservoir bank. Attempts were made by the board of public works to repair it, but they were unsuccessful ; and the damage done was never fully repaired. Citizens from all parts of the county, excited by the novelty of an armed body of troops within her borders, flocked in great numbers to see the gatling gun, and mingled on the best of terms with the soldiery, gaily conversing and cracking jokes with the officers and men. Never was an invading body of troops more kindly treated in an enemy's country than was Maj. Bunker's command by the citizens of the county. On the Sabbath that the soldiers were at Camp Dynamite, Rev. J. W. McClusky, of Antwerp, attended the camp and divine services were held. A waggish Antwerper (perhaps a dynamiter), says the words of the text were : "The sword of Foraker be upon us, and the roaring of mighty waters is heard throughout the land, and groans and lamentations riseth up from the city of Defiance ; but the reservoir must go." The troops were stationed in the county about one week and were then recalled'. The only victim of the war was Fred Reeves, aged nineteen, private in company R. He accidentally shot himself through the head while on guard duty at Cecil an hour or two after the first arrival of the troops at that place. He was killed instantly and his remains were taken to Toledo the following day for burial, escorted by a corporal and two of his comrades. The citizens and soldiers alike mourned the sad and untimely fate of young Reeves.
In about four weeks after the departure of the militia, Governor Foraker visited Antwerp in person. He was kindly received by the citizens, and by them escorted to the late 'seat of war. He looked upon the dilapidated reservoir
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and all its desolate surroundings, and in a speech made to the crowd who had assembled to greet him said that he was convinced that the citizens of the county had grievances and that they should receive his immediate attention. A second bill for the abandonment of the reservoir and canal was presented to the Ohio legislature in the winter of 1887-8, and this time was successful.
It passed both houses and became a law May 17, 1888. On the following fourth of July the
citizens of Antwerp and the county celebrated the event at Antwerp with a grand jollification, in which the troops which had been called out from Toledo heartily participated. The results of the war were that the abandonment of the reservoir was hastened by it, a canal commission of three persons was appointed who sold the state lands which it contained; the channel of Six M ile was again opened, and now large fields of corn and other cereals are grown upon what was a dismal and desolate swamp. The state paid the expenses of the war, and no restitution was made of the property destroyed. The dynamiters ! Who they were, from whence they came, or whither they went, is associated with as much mysteriousness' as are the pre-historic races. We know that they existed only by the traces of identity which they left behind them. None of them were ever punished. The ban, ner under which they rallied their forces was exhibited at the Antwerp jollification. It was a strip of black bunting, on one side of which was inscribed "No Compromise!" and on the other "The Reservoir Must Go !"
CHAPTER IX.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
PAULDING COUNTY is abreast with the times in her educational interests. The general spirit of enterprise manifested in business circles, and the rapid progress in other public improvements, have demanded a corresponding development in the system of education. To this demand the citizens have ably and generously responded. The log cabin of pioneer days, with its puncheon floor, clap-board roof and greased paper for windows, has rotted away, and been supplanted by good substantial frame or brick structures. Large public school buildings have been and are being erected in all the towns of any considerable size, which are modeled after the latest and best styles of architecture, and furnished with all the modern appliances. In a few instances uniform courses of study have been adopted, which are admirably adapted to the wants of the public who are preparing to enter college, and are especially suited to the practical needs of the masses. The Paulding, Antwerp and Payne schools are foremost in this particular, being thoroughly graded with a view to having a systematic course of study and a conferring of degrees upon graduates. There are marked signs of progress in the intellectual and practical knowledge of the teachers throughout the county. Annual institutes have been held for the past twenty-five years, and quarterly institutes for the past four or five years. The examiners of the county have generally been, and are, men of true moral
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and intellectual worth, and have sought by rigid and thorough examinations of teachers to secure a genuine system and high standard of education. The first board of examiners was J. 0. Shannon, S. N. Webb and H. A. Brown ; and the following are names of persons who have since served in that official capacity : John D. Carlton, Russell Cushman, A. J. Champion, Samuel Means, Andrew Durfey, W. C. Means, Kelsey Vanderhoof, A. M. Russell, I. N. Glover, C. W. Prettyman, J. H. McCague, H. M. Ayres, T. H. B. Bashore, F. B. DeWitt, W. H. Snook, John D. Lamb, C. B. May, W. B. Jackson, J. J. Clark, W. H. Mustard, Lewis Snyder, W. B. Brown, A. D. Male, J. M. Birkhold and L. J. Shafer. John D. Carlton was the first person who commenced the vocation of teaching in the county.
CHAPTER X.
CHURCHES.
As the details of the early church organizations, also of the present church edifices, have been given in the preceding pages of this history there remains but little more to be said, unless it would be to give an extended and complete sketch of each church, and that, owing to our limited space, cannot be done without infringing upon some of the other topics that must be mentioned. As has been shown the early Christians of the county met at the log dwellings of the pioneers, and cabin school houses, to sing their songs of praise, and lift heir hearts in prayer to the Most High. Happily, that is all past now, and neat and commodious edifices are erected in all parts of the county, where the various denominations can meet for worship. As a sample of the growth and development of Christianity in the county we will give the full history of one church, and what is true of its organization and advancement is in a measure true of all the others. Bethel Christian church, in Paulding county, was organized in a school house in sub-district No. 4, Auglaize township, on the 9th day of February, 1858, by Elders John Gillespie and John Bushong. This territory was then in the Auglaize conference, but when the Maumee conference was formed the church was transferred to it. In 1868 the Auglaize and Maumee conferences were consolidated into one, called the Northwestern Ohio Christian conference; and in which the church has been since that time.
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The charter members of the church were named : John Rickner, Rachael Rickner, John Gillespie, Susannah Gillespie, A. J. Frederick, Elizabeth Frederick, Ichabod Gillespie, D. P. W. Rains, Thomas Graham, Jemima Graham, William and Nancy Smith, and Jacob and Rosannah Eitniaerfourteen in all. There are now on the church roster about 140 members. A hewed log church 25x30 feet in size was built in 1857, and used as a place of worship until 1874, when a neat frame structure 34x44 feet in dimensions was erected, and is yet in use as a church.
The names of ministers who have served as pastors of the church are : Rev. John Gillespie, eleven years ; Rev. John Bushong, one year ; Rev. Enos Foster, two years ; Rev. Branson Good, six months ; Rev. Ruff, three years ; Rev. P. Richardson, one year ; Rec. C. C. Sink, eight months ; Rev. Lewis Gander, one year ; Rev. Rapp, one year ; Rev. Elijah Coil, six months ; Rev. Garner, one year ; Rev. G. R. Mell, three years ; Rev. W. N. Deck, three years, and Rev. Leonard, the present pastor. John H. McCague has held the offices of deacon and clerk in the church from the year 186o down to the present time. The first Sunday school that the church organized was in the spring of 1866, of which S. T. Morris was superintendent. The church has at present a very large and interesting Sunday school, with J. M. Morris at its head as superintendent. The moral and christian in. fluence which the church has thrown out upon the community around it is acknowledged and felt by all. May it long exist to spread its good work is the wish of the humble writer who traces its history today.
One of the first circuit riders to visit Paulding county was Elnathan C. Gavitt, who in after years became a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church, and resided at Lima. The following sketch is given by him in an ad-
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dress before a meeting of the Maumee Valley Pioneer association at Defiance on the 22nd of February, 1878. He says "I was born in Ohio. My parents emigrated to this state in 1805. This is my native home; here are the graves of my parents, wife and children. Many are the attachments and fond recollections which cluster around the scenes of my early days. My first missionary work commenced among the Wyandots at Upper Sandusky. This mission was first established by a colored man, Rev. John Stewart, a local minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, in 1816, and was the first Protestant Indian mission this side of the Allegheny mountains. My missionary work commenced among them in 1832, in connection with Rev. Thos. Thompson. At that day it was the policy of the church to hunt up all the white settlements and carry the gospel to them. Emigration to northern Ohio had commenced, the Maumee valley was fast filling up, and hence our missionary work was not wholly confined to the Indians, but extended over a large territory now included in the following counties : Crawford, Marion, Hardin, Auglaize, Allen, Van Wert, Hancock, Putnam, Paulding, Defiance, Williams, Fulton, Lucas, "Henry, Wood, Ottawa, and several appointments within the bounds of Sandusky and Seneca. Traveling most of the time without roads or bridges, fording streams or swimming our horses, and sometimes lodging in the wilderness, preaching from two to three times a day, and all this had to be accomplished every four weeks, so as to reach the mission at Upper Sandusky by Saturday night, as one of the missionaries had to remain until the other returned, to superintend the house, farm and school, having from sixty to eighty children to be provided for. Letothers think as they may as to Christianity and the gospel ministry, it was the love of souls, the moral and religious improvement of these new settlements that prompted
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the ministers to make the sacrifices they did, and not the love of fame or wealth. My colleague, being a married man, was allowed a salary of $200 per year ; but being a single man, I was only allowed $100; but this amount was not to come from the Indians, but must be secured from the whites, and each member was expected to pay 25 cents per quarter, which was called quarterage. The country being new and the people poor, the minister generally received about one- half his salary. The first five years of my itineracy I did not receive more than $40 or $50 per year, and much of this was in such articles as they could conveniently spare. However, it was customary for all the membership to pay something according to their ability, but such families as were destute of means were cheerfully excused, providing they kept on hand a good supply of yellow-legged chickens.
"Most of the time while at the mission I provided for myself, cooking and loging in the school house. My food was of the plainest quality, consisting principally of deer or bear meat, coon or possum, with some dried corn and cranberries sweetened with Indian sugar, but not always free from hair or feathers. My bed was composed of skins, my pillow a calico sack filled with dry grass, the covering my horse blanket or cloak. I preached on the Sabbath, taught during the week, and doctored at night, except in extreme cases."
When we. reflect upon this sketch of Elder Gavitt, we cannot help exclaiming : What a striking contrast there is between the pioneer circuit rider of fifty years ago and the well fed, well paid and not overworked ministers of the present time ! The location of the churches of the county and their -various denominations will be found in the township and village history of this volume.
CHAPTER XVI.
HISTORY OF PAULDING.
In the year 1849, as a party of gentlemen in Van Wert were discussing the probable future of the northwestern counties of Ohio, one of them remarked that "the county seat of Paulding county was not where it should be and would probably be changed sometime." A shrewd speculator, hearing the above remark, quickly concluded that the ' change might be hastened by immediate and energetic action, and that he might profit by it. Accordingly lands were purchased near the geographical center of the county and the village of Paulding laid out by George Marsh, August to, 1850. It was located in the midst of a dense forest, several miles from any human dwelling. By a special act of legislature the county seat was located there a few months after. The whole business had been conducted so quietly and suddenly that it was not until after the change had been made that the people of Charloe began to fully realize the prize they had. A few attempts were made to get the county seat away from Paulding, but they were futile, and after a few years its permanency was no longer doubted. Whether the location of the county seat at Paulding at the time that it was, was a speculative scheme or not, it was a good thing for the county, and in all probability prevented much sectional clashing, and fierce local wars in after years, which would have retarded the progress and development of the county. The county seat is near the center of the county and where it should be.. Upon the removal of the seat of
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justice to Paulding a few log cabins were hastily constructed for the occupation of the county officers. The first house erected was a double-logged, one-story cabin, on the present site of Dr. Flavein's residence, and was built by Elias Shafer. In this cabin two terms of court were held, prior to the building of a court house. It was afterward occupied for several years by T. W. French as a residence. Among the first frame buildings erected were the Exchange Hotel, by Isaiah Richards, on the site of the present Thompson House; the Paulding House, by John Crosson ; Mrs. B. Savage's residence, on the corner of Main and Jackson streets; and a building standing on the bank of Fiat Rock, a few rods above the old bridge, which was built for a resi- L dence by Judge Latty, and yet owned by him. The old log cabins have all rotted down, or been torn away.
The pioneer merchant of Paulding was Elias Shafer. About the year 1857 he opened a small general store in the front part of his dwelling, which stood on the present site of J. B. Brodnix's residence. Dr. A. P. Meng afterward opened a dry goods and grocery store on the corner of Main and Perry streets. Hon. V. V. Pursel was also one of the early merchants of Paulding later on. Joseph Coupland embarked in the grocery business in Paulding in 1868, and soon had a large and flourishing trade. His son, John C. Coupland, is one of the present leading grocers of the city. J. P. Gasser opened a dry goods store in 1872; and M. C. Powell in 1873. For many years these were the leading mercantile houses in the place. Mr. Powell continues in the business and has a large patronage.
The early growth and development of Paulding was very slow ; so slow, indeed, that after a period of twenty years from the date of its location its population was less than 500. But when we take into consideration its isolated
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and forest-surrounded situation, this is not to be wondered at. Since the building of improved roads leading into the village, the location of a railroad, and the establishment of factories, its growth has been phenomenal. The decade between the years 1880 and 1890 was Paulding's developing period. There have been several additions to the original plat of Paulding, viz. : Whinnery's, Dix's, Cullen's, Gasser', Hixson's, De Witt's, Barnes', Morrow's, Cox's, Williams', and Dix's second addition.
The village was incorporated as a hamlet, April 12, 1873. Alonzo H. Selden, Thomas Emery and Peter Kemler were the first trustees ; W. A. Savage, clerk, and S. T. Miller, marshal. It was incorporated as a village, April 13, 1874. Its first officers as a village were : A. FL Selden, mayor ; Joshua Blank, treasurer ; W. A. Savage, clerk ; Jasper A. Ferguson, marshal ; Frank Emerson, street commissioner, and M. C. Powell, George W. Remage, V. V. Pursel, Joseph Coupland, Warren Baldwin and Thomas B. Holland, councilmen.
The first church building erected in Paulding was by the Methodist Episcopal denomination, in 1872, at a cost of about $1,000. It is a neat frame, and was removed in 1874 two squares west to a location on Williams street, and was also removed in 1889 to a location on Caroline street. Near the Presbyterian church stands the Disciple chapel,. erected in 1889. Paulding's second school building was purchased by the United Brethren denomination and fitted up for a church. Its location is on Water street.
The first school house in Paulding was a small. one- story frame, and stood on what is now the southwest corner of the court house square. It was built in 1853, and used for school purposes for about sixteen years, when another was erected, and the old one removed to a location on north
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Main street, and fitted up for a dwelling. The second house erected was a two-story frame with two departments—one on the first and the other on the second floor. It was used for school purposes until superseded by the present one, and was then sold to the United Brethren denomination, as above stated. Paulding's third and present school building is a fine, two-story brick, and was completed in 1884, at a cost of about $2o,000. It is a large and beautiful structure, containing eight departments for study and a large hall for- literary exercises. The building is heated throughout by the Smead system of hot-air furnaces ; and it is well supplied with elegant furniture, wall maps, and other school paraphernalia. Paulding's Union school building is truly an ornament to the town, and a lasting monument to the enterprising citizens who were instrumental in its building.
The city hall was erected in 1883, and is conveniently located on Williams street, in the central part of the city. It is a two-story brick building, with fire-engine room and city prison on first floor, and the council chamber and mayor's office above. Its cost of erection was about $4,000.
The court house and jails which have been built in Paulding have received appropriate mention under the head of county buildings.
The first brick business room in Paulding was erected in 1881, by J. B. Cromley and Dr. P. A. Dix. It is two stories in height, with two business rooms below, and the second floor fitted up for attorneys' offices. It is known as. the Cromley block.