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522 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY CHAPTER XV SIDELIGHTS ON AUGLAIZE COUNTY HISTORY. In much that has been presented in this volume particular stress has been laid upon the duty this generation owes to the memory of the pioneers—the pioneers of Auglaize county, to whom this book is tenderly dedicated. This is a tribute that all alike owe and one of the most gratifying signs of the times is the constantly recurring evidence that it is coming more and more, as the years pass, to be paid with increasing respect and a more wholehearted regard for the services so courageously and nobly rendered by that stalwart generation that wrought here in the days when no labor was performed without difficulty. When President Harding returned to his home at Marion, Ohio, on the Fourth of July, 1922, to participate in the ceremonies incident to the celebration of his home town's centennial anniversary, he wrote for his own newspaper, the Marion Star, a signed editorial that is so fully expressive of this sentiment of devotion to the memory of the pioneers of Ohio, applying as directly to the pioneers of Auglaize county as to those of Marion county or to those of any of the counties of northwestern Ohio, as eminently to be worthy of preservation in the permanent chronicles of this region. Said the President : "While Marion is celebrating the centennial of the city's founding it is fine to rejoice in the coming together again, to find happiness in the exchange of sentiments born of homecoming, to recall the pride in things accomplished, and above all else appraise the qualities of men and measures which made us what we are today. The latter is essential to the preparedness for greater progress in the future. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 523 "Sturdy men pioneered the way to early settlement—and sturdy women, too. They blazed the way of development in Ohio and sent many of their sons and daughters to the peaceful conquest of the greater West—the Mississippi and Missouri valleys. Resolute and able men made secure the social order here, and simple and courageous men blended determination with genius and made the industrial beginning. They had little of wealth, but they wrought wealth out of opportunity. Only a few knew their struggles, their sacrifices, but honesty, simplicity, industry, capacity and determination are known to have been the chief essentials of their success. These make for success anywhere and are available to all who aspire. "Let Marion preserve every good lesson of the yesterdays and resolve to go on, adding to the stride in industry and commerce and determine that every enlargement in material growth shall reflect larger progress in the finer attainments which make a community worth while. The fit counterpart to the city of material success is the city of happy homes, ample education, fortunate and profitable employment, worship of God facilitated, a civic conscience and a community soul." Along this very line and at about the same time a thoughtful commentator wrote anent the exhumation at Maumee of a skeleton supposed to have been that of a soldier who fell at the battle of Fallen Timbers the following bit of expressive sentiment for the Toledo Blade: "We dig up bones from a Maumee battlefield. It's a good thing for us now and then to have something to remind us that life was not always so soft for Americans as it is now. We glide smoothly up the river road and down again on pneumatic tires and sitting on cushions. Pretty nice for us. But somebody had to fight for all this and die for it and have his bones dug up that we might be reminded of it. We shall never be grateful enough in all this country, which was once a frontier, for the hardihood and courage and good sense of the pioneer fathers of the nation. They wore pants without creases and swung axes instead of golf clubs. It's easy to sit on a foundation. It takes rough work to lay the stone." 524 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY AUGLAIZE COUNTY PICTURED IN FICTION. The region comprised within the confines of Auglaize county has attracted the attention of at least one writer of fiction, who has drawn upon his imagination to repeople the scene with characters once active here and in so doing has worked out a very interesting historical romance, the incidents of the story having to do with the stirring actions taking place hereabout during the time of the War of 1812. In his tale, "The Ward of Tecumseh" (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1914), Crittenden Marriott follows the fortunes of a young white girl, the motherless daughter of a Frenchman who had left the Marietta colony following the death of his wife and taking the child with him had penetrated the then wilderness and settled at Pickawillany where upon his death not long afterward he had entrusted the child to Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, whose ward she thus became and who was reared at the Indian council town of Wapakoneta, conforming in all ways to the customs of her savage protectors. She is seventeen years of age when the story opens and the trail of her adventures following the beginning of hostilities carries the reader easily along the way from Wapakoneta down the Piqua trail, thence back to Girty's Town (St. Marys), along the river trail to Ft. Wayne, down the Maumee to Defiance, with vivid pictures of the battle of the Raisin river and of the battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh met his death and where his ward eventually found the way to happiness with the dashing young lover she had acquired along the way. In the story reappear Colonel Johnson, the Indian agent at Piqua, Simon Girty, Tecumseh, old Chief Blackhoof, Brighthorn, Peter Bondy (Pierre Bondie) and some others whose names have become familiar to the readers of local history, and some interesting pictures of the times and circumstances are drawn by the author. It will be permissible to give here Mr. Marriott's conception of the probable condition of things at Wapakoneta at the time his story opens. "The sun was about to climb above HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 525 the rim of the world," he wrote in introducing the heroine. "Already the hite dawn was silvering the gray mists that lay alike on plain and in river and half hid the mossy green boles of the trees that stood at the edge of the forest. From beneath it sounded the low murmur of the water of the Auglaize, toiling sluggishly through the timbers that choked its bed and gave it its Indian name of Cowthenake, Fallen Timber river. High above it whimpered the humming rush of wild ducks. From the black wall of the forest that led northward to the Black Swamp came the waking call of birds. "Steadily the light grew. The first yellow shafts shimmered along the surface of the mist, stirring it to sudden life. Out of the draperies of fog, points seemed to rise, black against the curtain of the dawn. To them the mists clung with moist, tenacious fingers, resisting for the moment the call of the sun, then shimmering away, leaving only a trace of tears to sparkle in the sunlight. "Steadily the sun mounted and steadily the mists shrank. The spectral points, first evidence that land and not water lay beneath the fog, broadened downward, here into tufts of hemlock, there into smoother, more regular shapes that spoke of human workmanship. Louder and louder grew the rippling of the river. Then, abruptly, the carpet of mist rose in the air, shredding into a thousand wisps of white ; for a moment it obscured the view, then it was gone, floating away toward the great forest as if seeking sanctuary in its chilly depths. The black river was still half veiled, but the land lay bare, sparkling with jeweled dew drops. "Close beside the river, on an elevation that rose, island like, above the surrounding plain, stood the Indian village, row after row of cabins, strongly built of heavy logs, roofed with poles and chinked with moss and clay. In and out among them moved half-wolfish dogs that had crept from their lairs to welcome the rising sun. "No human being was visible, but an indistinct murmur, coming from nowhere and everywhere, mingled with the rush of the river and the whisper of the wind in the green rushes 526 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY and the tall grass. The huts seemed to stir visibly; first from one and then from a score, men, women and children bobbed out, some merrily, some grumpily, to stretch themselves in the sunshine and to breathe in the soft morning air before it began to quiver in the baking heat that would surely and swiftly come. For early June was no less hot in northern Ohio in 1812, when the whole country was one vast alternation of swamp and forest, than it is a hundred years later when the land has been drained and the forest cut away." It was amid such a scene that the heroine, the ward of Tecumseh, made her appearance. "Of the Christian God she knew nothing," the author pointed out ; "missionaries had not yet brought him to Wapakoneta, though the time when they would do so was close at hand." The hero of the tale first makes his appearance on his ancestral acres in Alabama, where comes to him the chance to go to Ohio. "And to go to Ohio—the very name was a challenge," says the story. "The Ohio of 1812 was not the Ohio of today, not the smiling level country, set with towns, criscrossed with railways, plastered with rich farms where the harvest leaps to the tickling of the hoe. It was far away, black with the vast shadow of perpetual forests, beneath which quaked great morasses. Within it roved bears, deer, buffalo, panthers, venomous snakes, renegades, murderers, Indians—the bravest and most warlike that the land had yet known. Across it ran the frontier, beyond which all things were possible. For thirty years and more, in peace and in war, British officers and British agents had crossed it and had passed up and down behind it, loaded with arms and provisions and rewards for the scalps of American men and women and children. Steadily, irresistibly, unceasingly, the Americans had driven back the frontier, making every fresh advance with their blood, their sweat and their agony; and as steadily the redcoats had rementreated, but had ever sent their savage emissaries to do their devilish work. Ohio had taken the place of Kentucky as a watchword with the adventurous youth of the East; to grow HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 527 old without giving Ohio a chance to kill one had become almost a reproach." Mr. Marriott's conception of the scene at the council house at Wapakoneta where the Indian chiefs of this region were debating Tecumseh's proposal to join with the British is stirring. "Little sleep was there for anyone in the Shawnee camp that night," he wrote. "Hour after hour the witch drums boomed and the leaping ghost fires flamed to the far- off blinking stars. Hour after hour the thunderous chanting of the braves shivered through the forest, waking the resting birds and scaring the four-footed prowlers of the night. Hour after hour the chiefs debated peace and war, now listening to the words of the redcoat emissary of the British king, now hearkening to Tecumseh, now turning ear to Catahecasa (Blackhoof) or to Wathethewela (Brighthorn) as they spoke for peace, declaring the British would fight for a time and then go away, but that the Long Knives from the south would stay forever. Hour after hour the wheeling stars, a silver dust behind the chariot of the moon, rose, passed and sank. Hour after hour the mounting mists of the Black Swamp wavered and fell back, driven away by the heat of the fires and the hot breaths of the warriors. Dawn was breaking in the east as Tecumseh and his devoted few struck their hatchets into the war post and left the council to prepare for their northern venture, leaving the bulk of the Shawnees loyal to the Seventeen Fires." Concerning the heroine's progress down the trail from Girty's Town, along the St. Marys river to Ft. Wayne, the author's picture points out that "the road led through the Black Swamp, that great morass of water-soaked quagmire that covered all northwestern Ohio, stretching forty miles from north to south and 120 miles from west to east, from Ft. Wayne to the Cuyahoga and the Western Reserve. All over it giant trees soared heavenward, springing from sunlight-starved ground on which no undergrowth could root. Between lay fallen limbs and rotting tree trunks, thick 528 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY water-soaked moss and carpets of moldering leaves, layer upon layer. No one that had crossed it ever forgot the treacherous quicksands that hid beneath the blighted plants, the crumbling logs half sunk in shiny pools where copperheads lay in wait, the low-hung branches that dripped moisture to the stunted vegetation, the clouds of venomous mosquitoes, the brilliant flies that clustered upon the dead even before it was dead, the labyrinths of tortuous runways. Except at midday no ray of sunshine ever penetrated the canopy of interlaced branches that arched overhead and that, to a soaring bird, must have looked as solid and unbroken as a grassy field. "Underfoot the ground was spongy with standing water that moved sluggishly, if at all, through creeks and rivers almost level with the surface. Shallow pools, alive with watersnakes, were everywhere. A few roads, so-called, ran through this swamp. Mad Anthony Wayne had chopped a way through it from Greenville to Ft. Defiance, that time he crushed the Miamis' pride and retrieved Harmar's and St. Clair's defeats. Hull and his army were even then carving another road through it from Urbana to Detroit and disgrace and defeat. A third road, little more than a trail, followed down the Auglaize. Across these north-south passages ran the east-west road down the St. Marys from Girty's Town to Ft. Wayne * * * an Indian trail broadened by white men who had hewed down the great trees that had stood along it, making a rutted, stump-encumbered mudhole-filled passage through which a wagon must move slowly and perilously. Once started along it the teamster must go on. There was no place to turn aside and few places where it was possible to turn back." SIMON KENTON AND SIMON GIRTY AT WAPAKONETA. All the chronicles of the days of Indian occupancy in northwestern Ohio are replete with references to the operations of the infamous Girty brothers, particularly of the evil deeds of those despicable renegades, Simon and James Girty, HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 529 and it will be but proper in this connection to make some further reference to the operations of these men in the territory now comprised within Auglaize county. As previously has been set out it was the trading post of James Girty at the head of pirogue navigation on the St. Marys river that gave the original name of Girty's Town to the present city of St. Marys. When after the treaty of Greenville in 1795 the white man's law began to be partially operative throughout this region, James Girty recognized the "handwriting on the wall" so far as it concerned persons of his ilk and it was not long thereafter that he sold his trading post to Charlie Murray and moved down the Maumee. Though the name of Simon Girty, through his connection with the burning at the stake of Col. William Crawford, up in the Sandusky country in 1782, and other similar Indian atrocities, has perhaps been held more widely in execration than those of the other Girtys, all attained a distinctly bad eminence and some of the older chronicles preserve the tradition that James Girty was "a much more heartless renegade than his brother Simon." It is narrated that the four Girty brothers were taken prisoners by the Indians in Pennsylvania in their youth and grew up to the life of the wild, James being adopted by the Shawnees, Simon by the Delawares (or Senecas), George by the Delawares and Thomas by another tribe. Upon reaching manhood Simon Girty left the Indians and enlisted with the English at Pittsburg, but presently deserted and with those other renegades, McKee and Elliott, reverted to the wild, thereafter his hand being found against the whites during the French and Indian war and during the later frontier struggles and with the British during the War of 1812 and was long a trusted counsellor of the Indians. Butterfield's History says that "Simon was the most conspicuous in his day and was a leading and influential chief among the allied Indians, and was ever present and took an active part in all their councils and deliberations." Concerning the operations of James Girty at Girty's Town (St. Marys), this same authority says (33) 530 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY that "James enjoyed for a little over seven years a complete monopoly of the Indian trade at his trading house. He shipped peltry down the St. Marys river to the Maumee, thence down that stream to the Rapid and from that place across Lake Erie to Detroit, returning with stores to be disposed of to the Indians at large profits. During his residence at what is now St. Marys he was frequently frightened by reports of the American troops, but until the fall of 1790 they all proved to be false alarms. He had timely warning of the approach of General Harmar and moved his goods first to the headwaters of the Maumee and immediately after down the river to the Grand Glaize." In the still interesting "Western Annals" it is said of James Girty that "in the most sanguinary spirit he added all the vices of the depraved frontier men, with whom he frequently associated. It is represented that he often visited Kentucky at the time of the first settlement, and many of the inhabitants felt the effects of his courage and cruelty. Neither age nor sex found mercy at his hands. His delight was in carnage. When unable to walk, in consequence of disease, he laid low with his hatchet captive women and children who came within his reach. Traders who were acquainted with him say that so furious was he that he would not have turned on his heel to save a prisoner from the flames. His pleasure was to see new and refined tortures inflicted and to perfect this gratification he frequently gave directions. To this barbarian are to be attributed many of the cruelties charged upon his brother Simon." At the beginning of the War of 1812 he retired to Canada and later settled in Middle Sister island, where he died on April 17, 1817. "Come, all you good people, wherever you be, Pray draw near awhile and listen to me : A story I'll tell you which happened of late Concerning brave Crawford's most cruel fate." HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 531 Here is the introduction to one of the real American frontier ballads, the theme of which was the horrid torture and burning at the stake of Col. William Crawford by Indians in 1782. Simon Girty was one of the active participants in this cruel act, which was but one among many infamies which caused his name to be execrated throughout the whole Ohio and Indiana frontier country in the days when white men were beginning to make settlements here. It is said of him, however, that he "was a bosom friend of Simon Kenton and once saved the latter from being killed by the Indians, who had taken him prisoner." Concerning this incident, it is narrated in the publications of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (vol. vii, p. 75) that in October, 1778, Simon Kenton, whose name is inseparably connected with the early tales of this frontier, was captured along the Ohio river by Indians. His companion, Montgomery, was killed and scalped. It was charged by the Indians that Kenton and Montgomery had been stealing horses from the Indian Chillicothe or village (now Oldtown in the vicinity of Xenia) and attempting to run them across the Ohio into Kentucky. Kenton was taken to the Indian village and compelled to run the gauntlet. The spot where this grim performance was enacted is now marked by a stone marker erected by the society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Kenton was beaten with switches and clubs and at each blow his captors jeered "Steal Indian hoss, hey 2" Blackfish, then chief of the Shawnees at that point, interviewed him in no polite language. Kenton was strapped to an unbroken colt and taken to the Mad river village west of the present city of Springfield. Then he was taken to Machack (West Liberty) and thence to Wapatomica (near Zanesfield in Logan county). Kenton was sitting on the floor in the latter place when in marched Simon and James Girty, John Ward and Indians, with eight captives and seven scalps. Simon recognized his old time friend and interested himself in his behalf. Remarkable as it may appear, Girty was greatly affected by the meeting. He bought him a new outfit at the traders and successfully in- 532 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY terceded with the chiefs for Kenton's life. Some time afterward a war party returned with the news that they had been defeated. Desiring revenge and finding a white captive in the village they seized upon Kenton. At Girty's suggestion the captive was taken to Solomons Town, not far away, where Girty had his lodge, but the Indians demanded that they proceed to Wapakoneta and appear before the great council. This was done and Kenton's heart sank as he entered the door, for he saw about him dark and scowling faces which boded no good. All present grasped Girty's hand but refused that of Kenton. The warriors made alternate speeches nearly all night. Girty frequently spoke with feeling of his friend, how that he had once saved his life and that he would give any sum to have him preserved. The council finally decided upon Kenton's death and Girty broke the news to him. However, Girty persuaded them to select the Sandusky country as the place of torture and, sending word, he bribed a trader, who by considerable sums of money and goods ransomed Kenton from his captors. Kenton thus was permitted to get on to Detroit and finally got back to Kentucky. Simon Kenton afterward made his home in this region and died in the neighboring county of Logan in 1836, he then being eighty-one years of age, and was buried there. His body later was moved to Urbana, where his grave is marked by an appropriate stone, recalling William Hubbard's poem "At the Grave of Simon Kenton," beginning: "Tread lightly, this is hallowed ground; tread reverently here ! Beneath this sod in silence sleeps the brave old pioneer, Who never quailed in darkest hour, whose heart ne'er felt a fear ; Tread lightly, then, and here bestow the tribute of a tear." HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 533 CAPTAIN ELLIOTT BEFRIENDED BY ANDY JACKSON. Concerning Captain Elliott, the old Government blacksmith at the Indian village at Wapakoneta, who afterward served as first sheriff of Auglaize county and who died at his home at St. Marys in the spring of 1859, it is written that he had command of a company under General Winchester during the War of 1812 and participated in the bloody battle of the River Raisin. At the conclusion of the capitulation he, with other prisoners, was marched to Malden and thence, through the deep snow and in bitterly cold weather, to Amherstburg, where the 540 prisoners were crowded into a wood- yard without shelter. Three days later they were started on the march to Ft. George on the Niagara strait, where after suffering "great hardships from the severity of the weather, the want of provisions and the inhumanity of the guards," they were paroled and returned home by way of Erie and Pittsburg and thence down the Ohio. Upon returning to his home in Highland county, Captain Elliott resumed his trade of blacksmithing and presently moved to Miami county, where he was engaged in that same line when three years later he was appointed smith at the Wapakoneta agency. In 1832 when the Wapakoneta reservation was taken over from the Indians the Government agent, James B. Gardner, "refused to settle with him and ordered him off the reservation and confiscated his property." It was then that Captain Elliott moved over to St. Marys and established himself there, where he spent the remainder of his life. It is narrated that not long after locating at St. Marys he presented his claim against the Government for losses sustained in his ejectment from Wapakoneta, but that General Cass, then secretary of war, refused to accede to the demand on the ground that "there was no precedent for it." Captain Elliott then concluded to go to Washington and call personally on President Jackson. He found no difficulty in getting an interview with the President and when the latter found that his caller was the second man who had set foot on the shore 534 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY at Malden during the War of 1812 became interested in him and asked what his mission was in Washington. Captain Elliott told the President of the treatment he had received at Gardner 's hands, whereupon the President rose and, taking his hat and cane, said, "Come with me, Captain Elliott." Walking with his caller to the war office, the President took Elliott before the secretary of war and said, "General Cass, this is Captain Elliott, of Ohio. Audit his claim and pay it. Good morning, sir." "Sit down, Captain," said the secretary. In about twenty minutes the account was hunted out and it was but little later when Captain Elliott had a warrant on the treasury for his money and was soon on his way home rejoicing. JONATHAN CHAPMAN ("JOHNNY APPLESEED"). A frequent visitor in this section during the pioneer period from about 1820 up to the time of his death in 1847 was that picturesque character, Jonathan Chapman, or "Johnny Appleseed," who created so distinct an impression upon the people of that period throughout central and western Ohio and eastern Indiana that his name still is held in remembrance through all that region. Quite a literature has grown up around this quaint character and in all the counties in which his gentle presence was felt during the long period of his wandering stories are told of him, some legendary, no doubt, but all interesting. From the best accounts it would appear that Chapman was born at Springfield, Mass., in 1775. He always was reticent concerning himself and his biographers thus have been forced often into the realm of conjecture when trying to account for his wandering ways. It is known, however, that from boyhood he was intensely fond of the outdoor way of living and that an instinctive love for botanical research drove him to the fields and woods. His singular penchant for planting apple seeds must have been developed prior to his coming West, for it is said that upon his first appearance on the Ohio, above Steubenville, he was in charge of HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 535 two canoes, lashed together and laden with apple seeds gathered from the cider presses of Pennsylvania. That was about 1806, three years after Ohio had become a state. Thereafter his operations were confined to this state and to eastern Indiana. His field of operations at first were chiefly confined to the Muskingum valley, but presently were extended and the older chronicles state that his first visit to what is now Auglaize county was made about 1820, when he planted an orchard on the Berryman farm in Logan township and another on the Barrington farm south of St. Marys. Thereafter he made annual visits here for the purpose of pruning and otherwise tending his nurseries and repairing the protective fences it was his wont to erect around the young orchards, and also to distribute seeds and seedlings to the neighboring settlers. He also had a nursery on the Auglaize and others between here and Lake Erie, as well as over in eastern Indiana, where his last days were spent. Prof. J. D. Simkins's review of the history of St. Marys neighborhood (1901) quotes Samuel Scott, one of the pioneers of that place, as saying that he often had seen "Johnny" and that he was peculiar in dress, manner and habits. He invariably wore cast-off clothes and if he had a good suit no one ever saw him wearing it. He went barefoot in the summer, or wore sandals of his own make, and in winter wore shoes that had been discarded by others. When he would run short of a hat it was his custom to devise another out of pasteboard. In the reminiscences of the late A. J. Linzee, written thirty years or more ago, Mr. Linzee sets out that "I knew `Johnny Appleseed' very well, for during the years from 1837 to 1845 he usually stayed over night with us on the 'Old Town' farm (west of St. Marys) on an average of twice a year. He always wore a coffee-sack shirt, exhibited great religious zeal (was a Swedenborgian), never slept on a bed but on a rug in front of the fireplace, and always distributed tracts." By some it was thought that "Johnny" was not as destitute as he appeared to be and that he was the owner of a   536 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY farm some place in Ohio All agreed that he was a peculiar, harmless, loving, quaint character. The Indians loved him because of his innate kindness and sympathetic nature and favored him in all ways possible. Although his apple trees were not grafted and thus not of the largest value, yet the apples from these trees were much appreciated in the days before the more cultivated nurseries took the field, and some of his trees are still standing. At Mansfield twenty years or more ago the old settlers of that neighborhood caused to be erected to his memory a modest marble shaft, suitably inscribed to the "pioneer apple nurseryman of Highland county, from 1810-1830." In a review of the life and works of this quaint character published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine for November, 1871, under the heading "A Pioneer Hero," it is pointed out that "in personal appearance Chapman was a small, wiry man, full of restless activity; he had long dark hair, a scanty beard that was never shaved, and keen black eyes that sparkled with a peculiar brightness. His dress was of the oddest description. Generally, even in the coldest weather, he went barefooted, but sometimes, for his long journeys, he would make himself a rude pair of sandals; at other times he would wear any cast-off foot-covering he chanced to find—a boot on one foot and an old brogan or a moccasin on the other. It appears to have been a matter of conscience with him never to purchase shoes, although he was rarely without money enough to do so. * * * His dress was generally composed of cast-off clothing that he had taken in payment for apple trees; and as the pioneers were far less extravagant than their descendants in such matters, the homespun and buckskin garments that they discarded would not be very elegant or serviceable. In his later years, however, he seems to have thought that even this kind of second-hand raiment was too luxurious, as his principal garment was made of a coffee sack, in which he cut holes for his head and arms to pass through, and pronounced it 'a very HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 537 serviceable cloak, and as good clothing as any man need wear.' "Thus strangely clad, he was perpetually wandering through forests and morasses, and suddenly appearing in white settlements and Indian villages; but there must have been some rare force of gentle goodness dwelling in his looks and breathing in his words, for it is the testimony of all who knew him that, notwithstanding his ridiculous attire, he was always treated with the greatest respect by the rudest frontiersman, and, what is a better test, the boys of the settlements forbore to jeer at him. * * * The Indians also treated Johnny with the greatest kindness. By these wild and sanguinary savages he was regarded as a 'great medicine man,' on account of his strange appearance, eccentric actions and, especially, the fortitude with which he could endure pain, in proof of which he would often thrust pins and needles into his flesh. * * * During the War of 1812, when the frontier settlers were tortured and slaughtered by the savage allies of Great Britain, Johnny Appleseed continued his wanderings, and was never harmed by the roving bands of hostile Indians. On many occasions the impunity with which he ranged the country enabled him to give the settlers warning of approaching danger in time to allow them to take refuge in their block-houses before the savages could attack them. Our informant refers to one of these instances, when the news of Hull's surrender came like a thunderbolt upon the frontier. Large bands of Indians and British were destroying everything before them and murdering defenseless women and children, and even the block-houses were not always a sufficient protection. At this time Johnny traveled day and night, warning the people of the approaching danger. He visited every cabin and delivered this message : ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath annointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm in the forest ; for, behold, the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring flame followeth after them.' The aged man who narrated this incident said that he could 538 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY feel even now the thrill that was caused by this prophetic announcement of the wild-looking herald of danger, who aroused the family on a bright moonlight midnight with his piercing voice. Refusing all offers of food and denying himself a moment's rest, he traversed the border day and night until he had warned every settler of the approaching peril. "In 1838—thirty-seven years after his appearance on Licking creek—Johnny noticed that civilization, wealth and population were pressing into the wilderness of Ohio. Hitherto he had easily kept just in advance of the wave of settlement; but now towns and churches were making their appearance, and even, at long intervals, the stage-driver's horn broke the silence of the grand old forests, and he felt that his work was done in the region in which he had labored so long. He visited every house, and took a solemn farewell of all the families. The little girls who had been delighted with his gifts of fragments of calico and ribbons had become sober matrons, and the boys who had wondered at his ability to bear the pain caused by running needles into his flesh were heads of families. With parting words of admonition he left them and turned his steps steadily toward the setting sun. "During the succeeding nine years he pursued his eccentric avocation on the western border of Ohio and in Indiana. In the summer of 1847, when his labors had literally borne fruit over 100,000 square miles of territory, at the close of a warm day, after traveling twenty miles, he entered the house of a settler in Allen county, Indiana, and was, as usual, warmly welcomed. He declined to eat with the family, but accepted some bread and milk, which he partook of sitting on the door-step and gazing on the setting sun. Later in the evening he delivered his 'news right fresh from heaven' by reading the Beatitudes. Declining other accommodation, he slept, as usual, on the floor, and in the early morning he was found with his features all aglow with a supernal light, and his body so near death that his tongue refused its office. The physician, who was hastily summoned, pronounced him dying, but added that he had never seen a man in so placid a state HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 539 at the approach of death. At seventy-two years of age, forty- six of which had been devoted to his self-imposed mission, he ripened into death as naturally and as beautifully as the seeds of his own planting had grown into fibre and bud and blossom and the matured fruit. "Thus died one of the memorable men of pioneer times, who never inflicted pain or knew an enemy—a man of strange habits, in whom there dwelt a comprehensive love that reached with one hand downward to the lowest forms of life, and with the other upward to the very throne of God. A laboring, self-denying benefactor of his race, homeless, solitary and ragged, he trod the thorny earth with bare and bleeding feet, intent only on making the wilderness fruitful. Now, 'no man knoweth of his sepulchre,' but his deeds will live in the fragrance of the apple blossoms he loved so well, and the story of his life, however crudely narrated, will be a perpetual proof that true heroism, pure benevolence, noble virtues and deeds that deserve immortality may be found under meanest apparel and far from gilded halls and towering spires." Chapman never married and rumor said that an unhappy love affair was the cause of his living the life of a celibate and recluse. He died at the home of William Worth, in St. Joseph township, Allen county, Indiana, March 11, 1847, he then being seventy-two years of age, and is buried in the Archer graveyard a few miles north of the city of Ft. Wayne. As has been pointed out in one of the Ohio State Historical Society's publications, "the most cursory knowledge of the life and belief of 'Johnny Appleseed' is convincing as to his innate tenderness of heart and simplicity of faith. He loved nature in all her forms with passionate devotion. It is everywhere to be inferred that in spite of the grotesque apparel, unnatural manner of living and crude method of dealing, he was nevertheless greatly respected by all who came into contact with him. He was a benefactor of his race. He served his day and generation to the best of his ability and oppor- 540 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY tunity. No man could do better." As Lydia Maria Child's poem, "Appleseed John," has it : So he kept traveling far and wide Till his old limbs failed him and he died. He said at last: " 'Tis a comfort to feel I've done some good in the world, though not a great deal." Weary travelers journeying West, In the shade of his trees find pleasant rest. And often they start with glad surprise At the rosy fruit that around them lies. And if they inquire whence came such trees, Where not a bough once swayed in the breeze, The reply still comes, as they travel on, "These trees were planted by Appleseed John." THE IMMORTAL J. N. To that generation of newspaper men in the Middle West now fast passing off the face of the earth mention of the name of the "Immortal J. N." will recall associations of other days in a very vivid fashion. The Immortal J. N., who died about twenty years ago, was an Ohioan by birth and rearing but a sort of a citizen of the world by choice and inclination, whose wanderings began, like those of "Johnny Appleseed," in the days of his young manhood and continued until the time of his death when an old, broken man about 1901. There are several traditions concerning the motive behind the wanderings of J. N., but whatever started him going his harmless and self-imposed mission in life after he got going was to "remove the pressure and lift the veil"—whatever that process might be, for in his rambling and most often incoherent utterances on the subject poor old J. N. never seemed able to bring his topic to a satisfactory conclusion and his audiences thus were left in doubt as to his mission in life. J. N. Free, for Free was his name, though to the world he preferred to be known as the Immortal J. N., was a man of somewhat imposing appearance, tall and straight, and in his old age his HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 541 flowing white hair and mustache were sufficient to attract the attention of strangers passing him on the streets. Though not in any sense a member of that tribe of itinerants contemporary with his wanderings known as pilgrim printers, J. N.'s first calling place upon reaching town would be the newspaper office, where he would scribble an "item" of news announcing his arrival and setting out that he would address the populace at a certain hour and place, the latter preferably being the steps of the court house, if in a county- seat town, upon the all-important subject of lifting the veil and removing the pressure. It is not now recalled that this mysterious pressure was bearing down more immediately upon the body politic than upon things in general, for J. N. never was able to make himself clear on his self-absorbing topic. Often his appearance in a town would be preceded by a postal card addressed simply to "The Intelligent the dash standing for the name of the editor of the paper and the expressive "intelligent" designed to differentiate the addressee from all others, divers or singular, of such name in the town; and, interesting to record, the postoffice chaps invariably got the card delivered to the person for whom it was intended. On this card J. N. would make announcement of his pending arrival and presently would follow his card by dropping in as per announcement. Unlike the ordinary vagrant or harmless itinerant, the Immortal J. N. always was supplied with money for his needs and he never was a "pan-handler." Through some mysterious influence, variously though never wholly satisfactorily explained, he also for many years was kept supplied with annual passes over most of the railways running through the Midwest country and thus he always rode in state instead of following the humble path of the ordinary wayfarer. He would stop at first class hotels and in many of them would receive free accommodations. If pressed for pay for his lodging, he would adroitly lead the proprietor to an admission that he would throw off half the charge in consideration of the guests distinguished services and accomplishments, where- 542 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY upon old J. N. would draw himself up proudly and with an air of great dignity exclaim: "Very well, sir; I will allow no one to exceed me in courtesy—I will throw off the other half," and with that would bow himself out, his bill, as usual, unpaid. J. N. was of good family and often would be importuned by his kinsfolk to cease his fruitless wanderings, but the wanderlust was on him and he kept going until within a few months of his death, his last days being spent in the pleasant home of a niece in Ohio—the "veil" still obscurant and the "pressure" still persisting, his mission unaccomplished. J. N. was for many years well known in the newspaper offices of this section of Ohio and in the files of the local newspapers kept in the Auglaize county court house there are numerous references to his visits to Wapakoneta, one of the earliest of these references being carried in the Democrat of July 6, 1865, where, under the heading "J. N. in the Dungeon Cell," it is set out that "the ancient world was full of immortal spirits—orators, statesmen, poets, philosophers, martyrs, but it remained for the present day (in the person of J. N. Free, once an obscure gentleman) to cast 'the blackness of darkness' over all that was past and all that was to come, whether in the world of poetry, philosophy, oratory or any of the other learned sciences. This great man favored Wapakoneta with a visit on Monday last and at his own request was conducted by Sheriff Mouch to the darkest dungeon of our prison, where he was chained and handcuffed—being the eighteenth time he has martyred himself for the cause he advocates. J. N. remained in prison until 6 o'clock in the evening, when he came forth and addressed the people. Standing a willing martyr for his cause—assuming the pressure for all the profound truths ennunciated—the fertile products of his master mind—J. N. symbolized the many conflicting views of his appreciative auditory and by the mighty power of his persuasive eloquence brought about a reconciliation to his own illustrious views." HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 543 In the above there is something so distinctly reminiscent of the style and character of the rambling and incoherent scribblings that J. N. was wont to contribute to the newspapers during the time of his wanderings, that it is not at all unlikely (indeed, the presumption is quite in favor of it) the story was written by the Immortal J. N. himself and that the editor of the Democrat complaisantly "ran" it just as written. It at least is an interesting reminiscence of a quaint somewhat mysterious and not altogether unloveable character that once was known wherever newspapers were printed throughout the Middle West. "BUCKEYE" AS THE SOBRIQUET FOR OHIO AND OHIOANS. It may be interesting to many of the younger generation to know how the prideful sobriquet "Buckeye" came to be applied to Ohioans. In an interesting brochure on this subject written by Capt. William M. Farrar, of Ohio, in 1888, it is pointed out that the buckeye was much prized by the Indians, from whose rude language comes its name, "Hetuck," meaning the eye of the buck, because of the striking resemblance in color and shape between the brown nut and the eye of that animal. It then is set out that among the spectators who witnessed the ceremony of the opening of the first court in the Northwest Territory at Marietta on September 2, 1788, and were deeply impressed by its solemnity and seeming significance was a large body of Indians collected from some of the most powerful tribes of the northwest. Always fond of ceremony among themselves they witnessed the parade with the greatest interest and were especially impressed with the high sheriff (Col. Ebenezer Sproat) who led the procession with drawn sword. His fine physical proportions and dignified bearing excited their highest admiration, which they expressed by the word "Hetuck" (big buckeye), not spoken in derision but as an expression of their admiration. This term afterward was often jocularly applied to Colonel Sproat and became a sort of a nickname by which he was familiarly 544 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY known among his associates. This was certainly the first known application of this term to an individual, but there is no evidence that the name continued to be so used and applied from that time forward, or that it became a fixed and accepted sobriquet of the state and people until more than half a century afterward, when in the crucible of what is known as the "bitterest, longest and most extraordinary political contest ever waged in the United States" the name Buckeye became forever fixed as the sobriquet of the state of Ohio and of its people. In 1840 when Gen. William Henry Harrison became the candidate of his party for President an opposition newspaper said that "he was better fitted to sit in a log cabin and drink hard cider than rule in the White House." This precipitated the memorable "log cabin" campaign of that year. In Ohio, Harrison's state, political fervor never was at greater heat. When the convention for the nomination of a candidate for Governor was held at Columbus delegations from all parts of the state were present and among the numerous curious devices resorted to to give expression to the ideas embodied in the campaign there appeared in the procession a veritable log cabin, built of buckeye logs, from Clark county, mounted on a wagon and drawn through the streets, the crew accompanying this exhibit singing lustily : Oh where, tell me where, Was your buckeye cabin made? 'Twas built among the merry boys Who wield the plow and spade; Where the log cabins stand, In the bonnie buckeye shade. Oh what, tell me what, Is to be your cabin's fate? We'll wheel it to the capital And place it there elate, For a token and a sign Of the bonnie Buckeye State. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 545 From that time forward the buckeye became an important factor in the canvass and buckeye cabins were multiplied and drawn in processions at all the leading meetings,, while the name was applied to General Harrison, as— Hurrah for the father of the Great West, For the Buckeye who follows the plow. The name was also applied to Mr. Corwin, the candidate for Governor, as- Tom Corwin is a Buckeye boy, Who stands not for the pay. And generally, as— Come all ye jolly Buckeye boys, And listen to my song. See what a host of lumber And buckeye poles are here— And Buckeye boys without number, Aloft the logs to rear. The buckeye thus not only was woven into song and sung and shouted from every log cabin, but it became a popular emblem of the party and an article of commerce, more especially along the old National road, over 'which the public travel of the country was carried in that day of stage coaches, and men and boys worked up a 'considerable traffic by going into the woods in the morning and returning carrying great bundles of buckeye sticks to be converted into canes and sold to travelers or sent to adjoining states to be used for campaign purposes. When the long and 'heated canvass finally closed with a sweeping victory the crystallization was complete, and the name "Buckeye" was irrevocably fixed upon the state and the people of Ohio and continues to the present day, one of the most popular and familiar sobriquets in use. (34) 546 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY GEN. AUGUST WILLICH. To many still living in Auglaize county the memory of Gen. August Willich is one of the most precious ties connecting the ,present with the past. Concerning this "grand old man" perhaps no finer tribute here could be paid than that carried in Henry Howe's "Historical Collections," where it is set out that St. Marys will long be memorable as the last home and final resting place of that old hero, August Willich. On his monument here is this extraordinary record: "Born Novbr. 19, 1810, in Braunsberg, Prussia ; died Jan. 22, 1878, at St. Marys, Ohio. Comdg. Army of the Revolution in Germany, 1849 ; private 9th Reg. 0. V. I., April 22, 1861; Col. 32d Regt. Ind. Vol. Inf., Aug. 25, 1861; Brig. Gen. U. S. Vol., July 17, 1862; Bvt. Maj. Gen. U. S. Vol., Octbr. 21, 1865." A friend at St. Marys who loved him as a brother thus outlines for these pages the story of his heroic and noble life : Gen. August Willich was born in Braunsberg, Prussia, November 19, 1810. When twelve years of age he was appointed a cadet at the military school in Potsdam and three years later he entered the military academy at Berlin, whence in 1828 he was commissioned a lieutenant and assigned to the artillery. Democratic sentiments were prevalent among the officers of this corps and many were assigned to other commands. Willich, then a captain, was sent to Ft. Kolberg in 1846; he resigned his commission, which a year later was accepted. Thereafter he became a conspicuous leader of the revolutionary and working classes, assuming the trade and garb of a carpenter. In March, 1848, he commanded the popular assault and capture of the town hall in Cologne; a month later a republic was declared in Baden and Willich was tendered the command of all the revolutionary forces; on April 20, 1848, this force was attacked by an overwhelming force of the government troops, defeating and scattering them. Willich, with over a thousand of his followers, sought and found refuge in the young and hospitable Republic of HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 547 France. The next year, 1849, Willich again crossed the boundary and besieged the fortress of Landau until it was relieved by an army under the Prince of Prussia, now (1888) Emperor of Germany. After several other exploits all revolutionary forces were defeated and on July 11 the last column under Willich crossed the border into Switzerland. Crossing France on his way to England, Willich was arrested at Lyons by order of the then President, Louis Napoleon, to be surrendered to Prussia, but was released in consequence of public demonstrations in his favor. In 1853 Willich came to the United States and found employment on the coast survey from Hilton Head to South Carolina, under Captain Moffitt, later commander of the rebel cruiser Florida. In 1858 he was called to Cincinnati to assume the editorial chair of the German Republican, the organ of the workingmen. On the breaking out of the war he joined the 9th regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and as a private, adjutant and major organized and drilled it. After the battle of Rich Mountain he was commissioned a colonel by Governor Morton of Indiana and organized the 32d regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, with which he entered the field and participated in the battle of Mumfordsville, Ky.. December 16, 1861. A few days later occurred the brilliant fight of the regiment with the Texas Rangers at Green river under Colonel Terry, who was killed and his forces totally routed. General Willich's history thereafter is part of the history of the Army of the Cumberland His memorable exploit at Shiloh was followed by a commission as brigadier general. At Stone River, by the unfortunate fall of his horse, he was taken prisoner. At the battle of Chickamauga he held the right of Thomas's line and with his brigade covered the rear of our forces on its retreat to Rossville. At Missionary Ridge his brigade was among the first to storm the rebel works, resulting in the rout of the enemy. His career in the Atlanta campaign was cut short by a serious wound in the shoulder, received at Resaca, Ga. He then was placed in command of the post at Cincinnati until March, 1865, when 548 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY he assumed command of his brigade and accompanied it to Texas, until its return and his muster out as brevet major general. In 1867 General Willich was elected auditor of Hamilton county. Upon the expiration of his term in 1869 he revisited Germany and again took up the studies of his youth (philosophy) at the University of Berlin. His request to enter the army in the French-German war of 1870 was not granted and he returned to his adopted country, making his home at St. Marys, Ohio, with his old friend, Major Charles Hipp, and many other pleasant and congenial friends. In those few years General Willich was a prominent figure in all social circles, hailed by every child in town, and died on January 22, 1878, from paralysis of the heart, followed to his grave in the beautiful Elmwood cemetery by three companies of State militia, delegations from the 9th Ohio and 32d Indiana volunteers, the children of the schools and a vast concourse of sorrowing friends. In his "Ohio in the War," Whitelaw Reid gives Willich extraordinary commendation. He says : "In the opening of Rosecrans' campaign against Bragg in 1863, General Willich took Liberty Gap with his brigade, supported by two regiments from another command. Rosecrans characterizes this as the finest fighting he witnessed in the war. The maneuvering of the brigade was by bugle signals and the precision of the movements was equal to a parade." General Willich's services at Chickamauga under the direction of Thomas were gallant in the extreme. He was finally left to cover the retreat and maintained his position until the whole army arrived safely at Chattanooga. But it was at the battle of Mission Ridge especially that his military career was crowned with one of the grandest feats of the war. Says Reid: "In the action on the third day, when Sherman had made his unsuccessful charges and Grant gave his well known order for .the center to take the enemy's works at the foot of the ridge and stay there, Willich's and Hazen's brigades were in the front with Sheridan's and other divisions in echelon, to HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 549 the rear. The whole line moved in double quick through woods and fields and carried the works—Willich's brigade going up under the concentrated fire of batteries at a point where two roads met. At this point General Willich said that he saw to obey General Grant's order and remain at the works at the foot of the Ridge would mean the destruction of the center. To fall back would have been the loss of the battle, with the sacrifice of Sherman. In this emergency, with no time for consultation with the division general or any other commander, he sent three of his aides to different regiments and rode himself to the 8th Kansas and gave the order to storm the top of the Ridge. How brilliantly the order was executed the whole world knows." AN AUGLAIZE COUNTY WORLD WAR HERO. Auglaize county furnished one very conspicuous figure in the World war, the story of which is very well told in the following terse little item in The Auglaize Republican of November 21, 1918, which under the heading "Wapakoneta Man Leads Way to Germany" sets out that "a former Wapakoneta man in the person of Gen. Joseph T. Dickman gave the word of command which started the American army on the way to the Rhine Monday. General Dickman is in command of the Third Army—the army of occupation. He is a son of the late Theo Dickman, a native of Germany, and was born at Dayton, spent his boyhood at Minster and was educated in the Wapakoneta high school, afterward going to West Point. His prominence does not come as a matter of luck. He was early recognized as a young man of unusual ability and his career in the army has been one of exceptional merit. Lately he has been one of the generals who succeeded in hammering the German army into retreat along the Marne and the Meuse. The fact that the commander of the occupied region of Germany is the son of a German immigrant may awaken the people of the Fatherland to the beauties of a republican form of government." 550 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Along this same line, an editorial in the Republican in 1889, during a period of "strained diplomatic relations" between this country and Germany, puts the case thus : "We have heard the question asked several times of late if German- Americans would be loyal to their adopted country in case of war with Germany. Of course, no one who is familiar with the history of the Germans in this country from the time of the Revolutionary war, when Baron von Steuben rendered Washington such valuable assistance, down to the present time, would ask such a question. It is best answered by referring to their past record, which shows them to have been in the front rank in every step taken to improve the country or defend the Union. It is the most natural thing in the world that they should love the land of their birth. No serious trouble is likely to occur between Germany and the United States, but if there ever should be a conflict every German- American very properly would deem it an insult to doubt his loyalty. They will sing with reference to the United States: " `Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein, Kein Bismarck kann hier Herrsches sein'." As one of the Lima newspapers said in commenting on the fact that young Dickman had taken his examination for West Point in that city in 1877, "It seems fitting that the son of ancestors who left the Teuton fatherland because of the tyranny there, should lead the hosts of freedom into the land wrecked by a brutal and misguided autocracy." It is a matter of further local interest to note that Capt. Robert McMurray, then mayor of Wapakoneta and editor of the Democrat, prompted young Dickman to try for West Point and that Prof. C. W. Williamson, who so often has been mentioned in these pages, was a member of the examining board which passed upon his qualifications for admission to the military academy. General Dickman, who was retired on October 6, 1921, upon reaching the age of sixty-four years, and who is now the presiding officer of the general staff's "plucking board," HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 551 has had much military experience. Prior to the World war he participated in two campaigns in the Philippine insurrection and was chief of staff of the relief expedition to Pekin at the time of the Boxer insurrection in China. During the World war General Dickman commanded the Third division in the Aisne offensive, in the Chateau Thierry sector, in the Champagne-Marne defensive and in the Aisne-Marne offensive ; commanded the Fourth army corps in the St. Mihiel offensive ; commanded the First army corps in the Meuse- Argonne offensive, and finally exercised the command of lieutenant general in commanding the Third army in the occupation of Germany. He was awarded the distinguished service medal for his service with the American expeditionary forces. A HISTORICAL INCIDENT OF LOCAL IMPORTANCE. Naturally, in a county such as this, peopled as it is by such a large proportion of persons of German ancestry, there were many young men of immediate German stock who went into the army. There is no gainsaying that they did their duty, according to their various stations, as loyally and as determinedly as did General Dickman. The latter simply occupied a conspicuous position and his name came into prominence not only in his old home county but throughout the world. All were equally patriotic and loyal. Along this very line, and commenting on the visit of a United States agent to Wapakoneta shortly after the declaration of war against Germany in April, 1917, for the purpose of investigating what was said to have been "a number of disloyal expressions by persons who sympathized with Germany," the Republican for April 19, reported that the agent "appeared to be satisfied that all was well in Wapakoneta, and he will so report to the department." The newspaper then continued: "It is surprising that any one should question the loyalty of the people of Wapakoneta and vicinity. While it is true that there were many partisans of Germany prior to the declaration of war, this was considered only a natural condition owing to the large 552 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY number of persons of German birth residing here. Since the war declaration the sentiment has been all for the United States." It hardly could have been otherwise, when it is considered that the world was in arms against the very thing which two or three generations before had driven the grandfathers or the great-grandfathers of these boys to the shores of this country to find the liberty that was denied them at home. A review of the settlement period of this county reveals that the great part of those elements of the basic population of the county made up of persons of German birth or stock came in here following the consummation of the great colonization movements attending the extensive German immigration to America during the early '30s and during the later period of similar emigration in the late '40s and early '50s of the past century. In this connection, a word concerning political conditions in Germany and throughout central Europe generally about that time may be regarded as timely, as marking a historical period of great importance in Auglaize county. In 1832 there arose in the Palitanate and through the southern section of Germany a somewhat famous commotion among the peasantry, by which a demand was made of the then ruling authorities for a larger measure of liberty for the people. It was doubtless a preliminary symptom of the greater commotion that occurred sixteen years later, in 1848, and which led to an actual and somewhat remarkable outbreak, but which was crushed with a relentless hand and which furnished the inspiring cause for the great immigration movement of that period, this latter movement having been participated in by some of the strongest minds and figures in the political life of the period in Germany, these including Carl Schurz, Gen. Franz Sigel and many others of this sturdy and independent type, not the least of whom was Gen. August Willich, of excellent local memory, whose last days were spent at St. Marys, in this county, and of whom further and fitting mention is made in the preceding pages. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 553 The revolt of 1832 was led by two of the professors and many of the students of Heidelberg University and had an immense popular following, the movement coming to a culmination at a popular gathering assembled at Homburg auf der Hohe, since then a noted watering place. At this gathering eloquent speeches were made in favor of popular rights and the government was denounced in scathing terms. As a result the offending professors were arrested and thrown into prison. The threatened revolt was thus summarily and for the time effectively nipped in the bud. Thousands fully sympathized with the spirit of the occasion, being animated by a desire for a larger measure of liberty, which actuated the German masses at that time and which the gathering in question represented, and were thus overwhelmed with disappointment when the leaders of the movement were imprisoned and when the hopes that had inspired their countrymen were thus suppressed. The result was that thousands lost hope of ever seeing a better day in Germany. Naturally, they instinctively turned their thoughts toward the New World and to the then recently established American Republic, and it was thus that the emigration of 1832-3 was started. Thousands came over. Most of these upon becoming established here influenced friends and kinsfolk in the old country to join them here. After the -unsuccessful revolution of 1848 there was a similar exodus. Auglaize county gained many of these new citizens, in some communities of the county this sturdy, independent, liberty loving stock having formed the basic element of the local population, as will be noted by a perusal of the names of the original land holders of this county as set out elsewhere in this work. While formerly and for many years, and even to some extent today in certain communities in this county, some of the folk customs of the mother country were kept up and observance of the traditions of the Fatherland maintained, there ever was in this observance a careful recognition of the basic customs and traditions of their adopted country, and while on occasion the flag of Germany would be unfurled to 554 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY the breeze in celebration of some anniversary dear to the hearts of those observing the day, this appearance of the flag of their old country was only tributary to the appearance of the flag of their new country—the two flying side by side. The Fourth of July—significant date in the history of liberty loving people the world over—was celebrated by none more enthusiastically than by the newcomers, whose children and children's children thus were taught the great story of that day. Simply as a sidelight on this practice, the following item of news from the columns of the Wapakoneta Republican of July 9, 1885, may prove interesting to the readers of another generation: "The Swabischer Unterstuetzung's Verein gave a Fourth of July celebration at Walters Grove. Before repairing to the grove they made a very creditable parade headed by the German band, one of the interesting features of which was a wagon filled with some of Wapakoneta's fairest daughters dressed to represent the fair damsels of south Germany. The wagon was gaily trimmed with United States and German flags and with flowers and branches of trees." Though the teaching of German in the public schools of Ohio formerly and long was a pretty general part of the curriculum, of recent years it has been pretty generally abandoned. It is thus interesting to note that in the continued teaching of this language Auglaize county takes the lead. A newspaper item in the spring of 1922 follows : "That Auglaize county heads the list of all counties in the state of Ohio in the number of pupils enrolled in public schools who are studying the German language is shown in the report of the state school superintendent. It shows that out of 224 students in Ohio studying the language, 101 are in Auglaize county. The only other counties which have German in the schools at all are Mercer, Allen and Putnam. County Superintendent Drummond said that he believed there were about seventy boys and girls in the county who are taking the language at the present time. These are in the Minster, New Bremen and New Knoxville schools. At New Bremen, 'tis said, the de- HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 555 mand for the teaching of German in the high school is almost nil, and it is probable that the language may be dropped from the curriculum there." As a closing thought in this connection the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the summer of 1922, commenting on the promotion of Carl T. Vogelgesang to the rank of rear admiral of the United States navy, said that "it would be difficult to imagine a more thoroughly Teutonic name than that of Admiral Vogelgesang. As a matter of fact, he is a native of California, but had he been born in Bavaria or Prussia or Meckelburg it would be a matter of no moment. Throughout the World war countless officers and men of German birth and German descent proved themselves among the most loyal and efficient fighters for the American cause. The elevation of Carl T. Vogelgesang to the rank of rear admiral is a sufficient refutation of the charge of our professional pro-Germans that America harbors unjust animosities against all men of German blood. It is not against German blood or German birth that Americans protest, but against the 'hyphen.' The German-American now, as before and during America's participation in the war, is an American for convenience and a German by choice, by conviction and by sympathy. Admiral Vogelgesang is not a German-American. He is all American, and the accident of German ancestry and a heavily German name has not proved a handicap to his patriotic service or to his merited advancement." ROBBERY OF THE AUGLAIZE COUNTY TREASURY. Mention previously has been made of the embezzlements of two county treasurers, the first instance of such abuse of public confidence having occurred in 1877 and the second in 1887—these incidents having created what still are recalled as the greatest sensations ever noted in the civic life of Auglaize county. In his accounts of these incidents, the late Prof. C. W. Williamson, whose review of earlier conditions in Auglaize county has so often and deservedly been quoted in 556 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY this work, observed that "it may seem to the general reader that an undue amount of attention has been given to the two robberies. The writer feels that the interest taken in them at the time they were committed, and since then, warrants the notice given them in this connection." That the present generation may be informed concerning these matters of such engrossing interest, Professor Williamson's account of the two cases of defalcation is here reproduced, the same starting with the observation that "from 1848 to 1877 there was no event worthy of note to disturb the public mind with regard to the efficiency and honesty of the public officials of the county until the morning of the 7th of September, 1877, when the citizens of Wapakoneta were startled with the announcement that the county treasury (Lewis Myers then having been treasurer) had been robbed. Immediately following the discovery of the robbery the following editorial, from the pen of Attorney George W. Andrews, appeared in the Auglaize County Democrat: " 'In an interview, Myers reports that on the evening of September 6th, at 10 o'clock, as he was passing a dark alley near his house a blanket was thrown over his head and that he was carried back along the alley to the river bank, where he was kept about an hour, and then carried across lots to the court house, which was opened by the men having him in charge, by some mysterious means. When in the hall he was, with revolvers pressed to his head, commanded to open the doors of the safe. With hopes of relief by delay, he denied having the keys ; but the fiends had planned their devilment with too much certainty to be baffled—they knew he had the means of getting to the money, and so he was forced to the work. The masked villains whispered with forked-lightning words : "Open the safe." Summoning his departing si rength, he denied his knowledge of the combination to enable him to open the doors, but the answer came hissing in his ears : "We know you took money from the safe without help this afternoon." As he stubbornly refused, they tied his hands behind him, made a fire on the stone floor under his HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 557 legs, and as the flames burned through the clothing on his extremities, they pressed revolvers to his temples and told him: "Open the safe, or you live but a little while longer." " 'In this moment of supreme horror, in the inner court of an improvised hell, Lewis Myers, whose unblemished name for a quarter of a century was unchangeably the synonym of integrity, did what probably every man in the county would have done—he opened the safe, and the three ambassadors from Tophet took the county's money and bore it boldly away to make returns thereof to their master in hell. Certainly so, for of their aproach and departure they left no material sign. We spoke of three; the fourth demon remained for two hours, a hellish specter keeping watch with cocked revolver pointed near the head of Myers as he sat bound to a chair, with a gag in his mouth and his arms pinioned behind him and the chair lashed to the stove in the office. And then, like a weird fiend, as he was, he vanished to take his place in Satan's convocation.' "On the 7th, the day following the robbery, a meeting of the county commissioners was held and a reward of 51,000 was offered for the arrest and conviction of the robbers. As a result of the offered reward, a number of detectives appeared and were soon engaged in investigations that ended in barren results. The excitement and distrust of the people were intensified to such a degree that some of the detectives were taken before the municipal authorities and required to show their credentials. John T. Norris, of Springfield, Ohio, the only successful one of the number, secreted himself under Myers's house at night to note any movement of the family that he might consider suspicious, and to overhear any conversation that might occur in the room above him. After remaining in his place of concealment for a time, the family above retired for the night. When everything became quiet the detective threw open the door of his dark lantern and proceeded toward the aperture through which he had entered. When near the point of exit he found a portion of a broom handle, from which a part had been cut off. This 558 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY relic he carried away with him. Upon comparing it the next day with the gag reported to have been used upon Myers, the evidence was considered sufficient to warrant his arrest. A warrant was accordingly issued and he was placed under arrest. A week later James F. Smith, the county auditor, was arrested on a charge of being an accomplice in the robbery and was confined in the county jail to await the meeting of the grand jury. "Theodore Dickman had been elected the previous year to succeed Myers and was present at the time specified by statute to take charge of the office. Myers and the auditor asked the commissioners for a delay from day to day to enable them to compare and correct the books. The delay continued until the morning of the 7th when the robbery was reported. The commissioners took charge of the office on the morning of the 7th and proceeded to investigate the condition of the treasury. The examination revealed a deficit of $27,- 155.59. At the conclusion of the investigation Mr. Dickman, treasurer-elect, took charge of the office. Lewis Myers and James F. Smith were indicted at the October term of court. When arraigned in court Myers pleaded guilty as charged in the indictment and was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in the penitentiary. James F. Smith pleaded 'not guilty' and after the third trial was acquitted. "A meeting of the county commissioners was held immediately after the conviction of Myers, to consider the proper steps to be taken in the collection of the money embezzled. After due deliberation each of the bondsmen was given the privilege of paying his liability on the bond in three equal annual payments. After much agitation by the bondsmen and their friends, in the months that followed, the propriety of relieving them of their liability on the bond was submitted to a vote of the people at the April election in 1880. Unexpectedly to the advocates of the measure, it was defeated by a majority of over 1,700 votes." It is but proper to recall here, in the interest of historical accuracy, that there was an abiding conviction in the minds HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 559 of many persons that a shortage existed in the county treasury prior to the time Mr. Myers took over the office, and they freely gave expression to their opinion. Mr. Myers was elected county treasurer while a resident of St. Johns, where he was engaged in business, and he enjoyed the respect and the confidence of the people of St. Johns and the entire community. In this same connection the minority (Republican) newspaper, the Wapakoneta Bee, at that time published by the Holbrooks, carried a story of the cleaning out of the county treasury which gives an interesting account of that incident from a somewhat different angle. In its issue of September 22, 1877, the Bee had the following: "Myers made a clean breast of it this afternoon. This is how it came about. He waived examination at the preliminary hearing yesterday, thereby creating a feeling of distrust on the part of his recognizers and they refused to go his bond for his appearance at court. He therefore could not find men willing to assume the obligation, which was fixed at $25,000, and was committed to jail. "In the treasury examination Myers swore that he had never loaned a cent to the several parties about whom he was questioned, but upon examining them they testified quite differently. J. F. Mesloh, the county representative, testified under oath that he borrowed about 82,000 from Myers at different times during his term of office. He said, however, that he borrowed it without suspecting it was county money and paid it all back except $431.50. "M. Mouch testified that he borrowed $5,000 from the treasurer the day after he took possession and $1,500 several weeks afterward. Mouch knew it came from the treasury, but has paid the amount except about $2,000. Twelve or thirteen thousand thus loaned has been traced to prominent Democrats of the county, but they have not yet been brought before the examiner. "This afternoon Detective Norris and seven of the bondsmen went to the jail to persuade Myers to make a confession. 560 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY His sons also pressed him to tell all. When told of the testimony of the men he had favored he weakened and told the story of his fall, which we will give briefly and for what it is worth. One day about eighteen months ago he was in his office with the auditor, J. F. Smith. He had occasion to go for a moment and when he returned a package of $7,000 was missing from the safe, which he had left open. Myers—with a simplicity that seems incredible—said little to Smith about the matter and never revealed the loss to anyone except his son Lawrence. Smith said he would never cover it up for him, and it was planned between them to rob the treasury over nine months ago, but Myers could never screw his courage up to the sticking point until the last hour. Had they executed the plan in August a haul of about 870,000 would have been secured. The treasurer had made up his mind to be a defaulter without robbing the treasury, but the auditor would not let him. No one helped him rob the safe on the night of the festival except J. F. Smith. He did not intend to 'peach' but when he became convinced that the ring intended to make a scapegoat out of him his intention changed. Mesloh still owed over $1,400 of the treasury's money and Myers had burned his note for $1,000 for fear it might be discovered. This places Mesloh in an ugly position and he will probably be indicted for perjury as well as for conspiring to rob the treasury. "On the strength of Myers's confession and other strong circumstances of guilt, a warrant for the arrest of Smith was put in the hands of Norris. Smith was attending a Democratic rally at Lima and Norris went after him in a buggy, bringing him here at 8:30 p. m. Great excitement prevailed in the town and among the incensed Germans there was talk of lynching the prisoner. Threats of violence were also made against his obstreperous attorney, W. V. M. Layton. Smith was lodged in jail and will be arraigned in the morning, but he will inevitably be unable to give bail. Minnie Strip, the woman in the case, has also been arrested and put in jail. Minnie has been Smith's mistress for years and it is thought HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 561 that she has played no insignificant part in the robbery, as he has squandered thousands of dollars annually upon her. This feature adds to the terrible severity of the blow to his wife and family. "About twelve or fourteen thousand dollars were taken from the safe on the night of the robbery, the rest of the deficiency having been loaned out long before. Myers says Smith took the money and that he (Myers) has not got a cent of it. The auditor's house was searched tonight and the sum of $1,795 was found under the carpet. A guard was placed around Minnie Strip's house and it will be searched in the morning. "The ex-parte treasury examination will go on until every man who is suspected of having borrowed money from the treasury is hunted down. In relation to this matter, the next grand jury will doubtless have several prima facie cases of perjury to consider. The county commissioners will meet tomorrow (Thursday) and take the action required in view of the recent disclosures. Fin Smith will be removed from office and some suitable person will be appointed as auditor for the remainder of the term, which expires on the 1st of next November." The Williamson narrative continues: "Ten years later, August 29, 1887, the citizens of Auglaize county were again startled by the report that Israel Lucas, county treasurer, was an embezzler of the county's money to the amount of 831,643.94. On Saturday, the 27th, he left the office in charge of his nephew, Gemmi Lucas, saying that he and his wife would spend Sunday in Toledo visiting friends and would return on Monday. He did not return on Monday. On Tuesday the deputy became suspicious that something was wrong and consulted his father, Middleton Lucas, concerning the situation of affairs. In the evening of the same day the commissioners were called in and an examination was made of the contents of the safe, when it was discovered that a robbery had been committed, amounting to $31,643.94. Instead of 562 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY stopping at Toledo, Lucas and his wife went to Detroit and crossed the river, from which point they went to Toronto. "The excitement in the county following the departure of Lucas was even greater than it was ten years before. The public feeling was greatly intensified when it became known that a number of sureties on his bond had also been bondsmen for Lewis Myers. On the 2d of September the commissioners declared the office vacant and tendered the position to a citizen of St. Marys, who, for certain reasons, declined to accept it. Two other citizens of known integrity were solicited to accept the office before a man was found who had the courage to take charge of the trust. C. C. Pepple, of Wayne township, was prevailed upon to accept the appointment. He served the county faithfully and efficiently for three years. "No trace of the absconding treasurer was discovered until in the following February, when he was located in Toronto by A. Borquin, of New Bremen. With the assistance of Toronto detectives he arrested Lucas and his wife on the charge of bringing stolen money into Canada. Prior to the arrest Detective Borquin had telegraphed to the prosecuting attorney and sheriff of Auglaize county, asking for directions of procedure in making the arrest. A reply was sent, ordering the immediate arrest of Lucas and his wife. A few hours later, C. A. Layton, prosecuting attorney; William Schulenberg, sheriff ; George VanOss and Henry Koop, commissioners, and Charles Huebner, J. Romshe and Christian Heisler, bondsmen, departed from Wapakoneta for Toronto, arriving there on the morning of the 12th. A preliminary hearing was set for Tuesday, at which time Layton, on pretense of wanting time to secure evidence for extraditing the prisoners, secured the postponement of the trial until Friday. At this stage of the proceedings Layton consulted the attorney for the Crown and the two went to work systematically to frighten Lucas by causing him to believe that irregularities had been discovered in the books at Wapakoneta on which a charge of forgery could be made and thereby secure his extradition. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 563 "The prosecutors were assisted very much by the press of Toronto in which the charge of forgery was reiterated from day to day until Lucas became alarmed. On Thursday evening he proposed to compromise. At first he proposed to return $1,000, but was gradually worked up to $12,000. On Friday the prosecutor and commissioners, in consideration of $12,000 deposited by Lucas in a bank at Toronto, relinquished all civil demands upon him. Immediately following the agreement and payment of the money, Lucas and his wife were released. Of the $12,000, $605 were paid to the Crown attorney, detectives and for court expenses. Within a week from that time the Auglaize county treasury received a draft for $11,394.44. In accordance with the reward of 25 per cent offered by the commissioners for the recovery of the whole or any part of the money embezzled, C. A. Layton received $2,848.61." Concerning these cases, the Republican (November 3, 1887) said: "Several times of late we have heard it said that Israel Lucas did not steal the money, he took it. As to that, we confess our inability to figure out the difference. We do not know, either, how much of the swag Lucas got. He may have got it all, and he may not—in fact, the belief is growing that he did not take it all, but was relieved of a considerable amount of the missing money long before he skipped the country. When Myers was arrested it was supposed that he alone had gotten away with the money, but it was developed at his trial that he had only been made a tool of by the others. But poor Myers suffered the penalty while the real culprits escaped punishment. In Lucas's case, however, we are satisfied he got away with a large portion of it." BASE BALL EVER A POPULAR GAME HERE. Among outdoor sports base ball has ever been the favorite hereabout, each season for many years being marked by some form of organized effort along this line, ball teams both at Wapakoneta and at St. Marys as well as in the smaller towns of the county vieing with each other for supremacy on 564 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY the "diamond," even extending their activities into the adjacent counties, and many have been the spirited series of games played out in this region. This interest in the great national game has led to the production of several players who have achieved distinction as stars in the big leagues. Perhaps the most notable of these local figures in the base ball field is "Bob" Ewing, present (1922) sheriff of Auglaize county, who also is engaged in a business enterprise at Wapakoneta. Twenty years and more ago no name in base ball was better known than that of Bob Ewing, then famous pitcher for the Cincinnati "Reds." He grew up at New Hampshire in this county and from boyhood was interested in base ball, even in his youth developing a knack as a pitcher that gave promise of attracting attention And it did. His first professional engagement was with the Toledo team of the old Interstate league, with which he began playing about 1896. He later became connected with the Kansas City team and in 1901 began pitching for the Cincinnati "Reds," an engagement which continued for eight years, at the end of which time he was transferred to the Philadelphia team, with which he remained for several years or until his retirement from professional ball. Ed Vananda, "Whitey" Guese and Harry Eichler are other players here who attained a more than local reputation. Miller Huggins, now manager of the New York team of the American League, "Lefty" Houtz and "Stub" Wentz also have played on the Wapakoneta team. Back in the "good old days" base ball had its votaries no less enthusiastic and its practitioners no less earnest than now, and the newspaper files of the '70s and '80s carry many a good story of the games of that period. There was one game in the middle of July, 1875, that required a column in the Democrat to detail all its good points. This game was a contest between the business and professional men of Wapakoneta, who were divided into two teams determined along physical lines, the "Fats" and the "Leans," the latter of whom won by a score of 37 to 30. Following is the line-up: Leans---J. Leiter, F. Decker, B. Linzee, F. W. Fledderjohn, HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 565 W. Williams, F. Slesser, F. Smith, C. P. Davis, P. Stiles, W. V. M. Layton. Fats—P. Heintz, P. C. Blume, B. Shaffer, M. Steiner, B. Baker, A. P. South, F. E. Kolter, C. A. Layton, J. C. Baeumel and F. C. Vananda. It was during the '80s that there were maintained two stalwart base ball clubs at Wapakoneta, one representing the west side of the town and the other the east side and the rivalry between these two teams was such that spirited sport always could be looked for when they met to try conclusions on the diamond. Wonted friendships ceased when the teams reached the field and the struggle not infrequently was one "of blood" in the literal sense of the term, though it is not recalled that any actual fatalities ever occurred. DESTRUCTIVE STORMS IN AUGLAIZE COUNTY. There seems to be something about this county's situation on the great summit ridge attractive to storms of cyclonic fury and great destruction of property and on occasions loss of life has resulted from these storms, which invariably follow much the same path, beginning about at the Grand Reservoir in the vicinity of St. Marys and extending on east through the county, carrying a swath of ruin through St. Marys, Moulton, Duchouquet, Union, Wayne and Goshen townships. On Tuesday, June 27, 1922, one of these tornadoes started in just after noon west of St. Marys and by the time it had reached that town had attained sufficient velocity to unroof numerous buildings, create much damage at the paper mill and blow down many shade trees. Proceeding east it left a confusion of fallen trees and wire service poles along the highway to Wapakoneta and for a mile or more to the north orchards and insecure farm buildings suffered, while wheat ready for the harvest was flattened in the fields and the blades of the tender corn riddled. The Catholic church at Glynwood in Moulton township was unroofed and continous damage was caused all along the path of the storm until it passed on out of the county in Wayne and Goshen townships. 566 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY The astonishing thing is that but a little more than two months before, on Monday, April 17, 1922, a storm of cyclonic dimensions had taken toll of destruction along pretty much the same course, though somewhat farther north, striking in in the vicinity of Buckland and proceeding east about along the Auglaize-Allen line, destroying a number of farm plants, much live stock, forest trees and orchards and taking tragic toll of life, one person being killed and several others seriously injured. A little less than two years before, about 8 o'clock on Sunday evening, March 28, 1920, a tornado of intense fury cut a pathway through the county, spreading death and destruction in its wake. This tornado entered the county a few miles west of New Bremen and traveled in a northeasterly direction, passing into Allen county a few miles east of Cridersville. In places it appeared to rise and only small damage was done, but in other places, notably at the village of Moulton and in the Two-Mile community north of Wapakoneta, it destroyed everything in its pathway. The path of the storm was at no point more than 300 yards wide and the core of the wind was hardly more than 200 yards wide. The little village of Moulton, half way between the cities of St. Marys and Wapakoneta, was the only populous community in the storm's pathway. The storm entered the village from the southwest, utterly destroying the dwellings of John Kachelries and Charles Katterheinrich, the old M. E. and United Brethren churches, and partially destroying the elevator, store rooms and sheds of the Detjen Grain Company. The dwelling of William Aufderhaar was moved from its foundation and badly damaged and in the homes of Joseph Schutz, just to the north, and Frank Norman windows were broken and furniture damaged. At the John Kachelries home when the storm broke were nine persons, including the members of the family and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Katterheinrich and daughter. This building was entirely swept away, nothing remaining except the foundation and a kitchen range. The furniture, boards and timber from the house were mingled with the wreckage of the Detjen elevator. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 567 In its account of the destruction of the Kachelries home The Auglaize Republican said: "Mr. Kachelries heard the fearful warning of the approaching storm and went to the kitchen door to look out. Mrs. Kachelries had her four-year-old son, Lester, in her lap, but set the child down and she and the other persons in the room started for the kitchen. As Mr. Kachelries opened the door the house was lifted from its foundation and they were left groping in the darkness. The older people suffered some injuries but none of a serious character. As soon as they could, search was instituted for the two younger children, Melvin, aged six years, and Lester, aged four. The body of the older child was found a few hours later in a field a quarter of a mile east of the house, while the body of the younger child was not found until early the following morning when John Lynch discovered it in a pile of wreckage near the grain elevator. The body of the child was severed under the arms. "The home of Charles Katterheinrich was just across the street from the Kachelries home and was swept completely away. The home of Gus Meckstroth, north of the Kachelries home, was badly damaged but not beyond repair. To the north of this home is Trinity Lutheran church, a handsome structure completed only a few years before. The pastor, Rev. George Schultz, was conducting services at the time, about sixty parishioners being present. As soon as the tornado struck the church the electric lights wents out and the minister realized the danger they were in, and advised the people to leave the building. Mr. Schultz and the organist, Miss Minnie Seilschott, were the last to go out and it was a miracle that they escaped death, as brick and timbers were falling around them as they groped their way out in the darkness. Miss Seilschott suffered a fractured collar bone. "The elevator was in the path of the greatest destruction and was left a tangled wreckage. Metal sheeting from the building was found afterward in the Henry Burk woods five miles away. The store room occupied by E. F. Seilschott, who conducted a general store, was badly damaged, the upper floor 568 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY being entirely destroyed. The third fatality occurred in front of this store, Henry Lechner, aged eighteen, son of J. J. Lechner, being caught beneath the wreckage. He lived but a few hours after being taken out by a rescuing party. The core of the storm also swept over the home and farm buildings of George Miller, tenanted by William Kruse. The dwelling was turned completely about, and all the doors and windows were blown out, and the barn was demolished. All telephone and electric poles and wires were down and Western Ohio cars were stopped. "From Moulton the tornado continued in a northeast course through the county, unroofing or leveling dwellings and barns all along its pathway. The buildings on the farm of Mrs. Ellen Crawford, four miles north of Wapakoneta, were leveled and the orchard was destroyed, the trees being blown out by the roots or leveled to the ground. This farm was tenanted by a son, F. A. Crawford and wife and adopted son, but all miraculously escaped serious injury. A little more than a mile northeast the Two-Mile Christian church was completely wrecked. The congregation had gathered for evening service, but fortunately a short time before the approach of the tornado word had been received that the minister could not be present and the congregation was dismissed, otherwise there probably would have been great loss of life. The barns on the C. M. Lee and Fred Frank farms were wrecked and the house, barn and other buildings on the William McDougle farm, one and a half miles southwest of Cridersville were leveled by the storm, as also were all the buildings on the farm leased by Fred Snyder near the Christian church. Moses Archer, aged fifty-five, who resided on a farm east of Cridersville, was instantly killed by falling timber. He and his family had retired for the night and when the tornado struck the building a heavy piece of timber fell across the bed, striking him on the head and fracturing his skull. Fletcher Chapel M. E. church, east of Cridersville, was unroofed and the members of the Samuel Spyker family HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 569 were injured when their house was blown down. All the buildings on this farm were completely wrecked. "In the pathway of the tornado west of Moulton buildings were blown down or wrecked on the E. Carl Lietz farm tenanted by Wilder Colvin and family, the Fred Quellhorst farm, the John Quellhorst farm, the August Dammeyer farm, the Herman Harmeyer farm, the William Katterheinrich farm and the Bert Miller farm, where every building on the place was a complete wreck. Barns also were blown down on the farms of August Wittenbrink, Martin Kuck, Ed Kellermeyer, Louis Schierhold and Ed Kuenning. On the Louis Link farm northeast of Moulton a fine barn and all outbuildings, including a garage and new automobile, were destroyed. Besides the killed in this storm more than a score suffered personal injury, while perhaps fifty or more whom we have not mentioned suffered losses from buildings being wrecked, live stock killed and orchards and valuable timber destroyed. The stories of all persons who went through the storm differ only in detail. None of them know how it happened. All of them agree, however, that the tornado lasted but a few seconds." LATER DESTRUCTIVE STORMS. The destructive cyclone that swept through the northern part of Auglaize county on Monday, April 17, 1922, traveled from the southwest to the northeast in the same general direction taken by the tornado above described. Persons caught in the path of this storm say that the sound of the approaching storm was as that of a mighty airplane ; then a roaring and crashing of timbers, and in an instant it was all over. This was succeeded by a moment of calm and then a steady blow. This storm had all the terrifying characteristics of the "twisters" of the Western plains. It was preceded by a funnel-shaped cloud, an electrical storm of unusual severity and a heavy downpour of rain. What telephone wires remained after the storm were kept busy summoning help from Wapakoneta and nearby towns, and parties quickly were 570 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY organized to search the ruins of dwelling houses for missing persons. Many were injured, but only one person, J. M. Riley, north of Wapakoneta, died from injuries received. The path of this storm, beginning at the home of Leslie Zerkle, west of Buckland, and continuing to a point near Westminster, in Allen county, was a scene of desolation. On the Zerkle farm the house was unroofed. On the Henry Holtzapple farm a barn was torn down and on the William Gochenour farm two good barns, two silos, a tool shed and a granary were destroyed, while two head of horses were badly injured and the orchard was uprooted. At Stanley Scott's farm the new and modern dwelling house was moved off the foundation and was badly damaged, while just across the highway Mrs. Alice Dingledine's home was demolished, together with barn, granary, orchard and fences, and trees were blown about over the surrounding country. All the buildings on the Wes Haas farm, including a wind pump, were blown down with the exception of the dwelling houses, and trees in the yard and orchard were destroyed. A barn was unroofed on the Eldon Shappel farm, tenanted by Orville Bowsher, and the dwelling, all outbuildings and wind pump were completely wrecked. Mrs. Bowsher and her month-old baby were in bed at the time of the storm and miraculously escaped death, the woman being able safely to crawl out from beneath the wreckage with her babe, and in an almost nude state to walk through the driving rain to the home of John H. Bowsher nearly a mile distant. On the J. M. Riley farm all the buildings were blown away and the family, consisting of the husband, wife and one child, were all injured, Mr. Riley fatally. The Eldon Shappel farm was the scene of desolation. It had a fine set of buildings and all were destroyed, together with the fences, trees and some live stock. One horse, a valuable animal, was blown nearly a quarter of a mile and was so badly injured that it was deemed an act of mercy to kill it. Other farmers who lost their homes, barns or out buildings were Clell Mowery, E. F. Reichelderfer, Harvey Mowery, Elmer DeLong, Harvey Ritter, Lydia HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 571 Mowery, Hartman Fritz, A. C. Golden and Charles Ebersole. Everything in the path of the tornado, including wire fences, all telephone and telegraph lines and poles and much valuable timber, was razed. When a little more than two months later, Tuesday, June 27, 1922, a terrific wind and hail storm passed through the northern section of Auglaize county almost equal damage was done, buildings, standing timber and growing crops in the path of the storm being destroyed. This storm was not of the "twister" kind that had wrought such destruction along much the same path in the preceding April, but it was little less destructive and the loss to farmers in this county was estimated at not less than $100,000. From St. Marys, where the damage to electric lines put the power and light plant out of commission and the roof was blown off the cigar factory, the storm took a northeast course, doing great damage in the vicinity of Glynwood, in Moulton township. At Glynwood the roof was blown off St. Patrick's Catholic church. On the Mary Connoughton farm nearby the forest trees were stripped and all the windows on the west side of the house were broken. A hen setting on a nest in a fence corner was found with hail banked six inches high around her, but undisturbed and faithful to her trust. This faithful hen was uninjured but 200 other chickens of the flock were killed. Continuing in a northeasterly direction from Glynwood, the storm seemed to center at the Joseph Doorley farm, where the garage was blown down, the silo wrecked, windows blown out of the house, fences leveled and the crops utterly ruined. A silo was wrecked on the John Riebesell farm near Moulton and west of that place telephone poles were blown across the paved highway, blocking traffic. On the north side of Wapakoneta a silo was blown down and many trees were stripped of their branches. Northeast of the city a large barn on the Roy Tieben farm was wrecked and a barn on the Mrs. Daniel Fox farm nearby was blown down. Northwest of town the roof on the barn on John Madigan's farm was blown off and silos on the farms of Frank Con- 572 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY noughton, north of Glynwood, and William Kohler, on the Washington pike, were destroyed. Many others were losers by reason of this storm, but fortunately there was no loss of life. SIMILAR STORMS OF FORTY YEARS AGO. In the middle '80s there were two similar storms, occurring two years apart. In 1884 a revolving storm passed through the townships of St. Marys, Moulton, Duchouquet and Union, blowing down houses, unroofing barns and uprootting trees, besides entailing much further damage in the destruction of growing crops. In May, 1886, a second tornado swept through much the same district, starting in St. Marys township and sweeping on to Union township, where it changed to a northeast direction. Many buildings in the track of this storm were destroyed and forest trees and orchards were uprooted. It is narrated that this latter storm was accompanied by violent electrical discharges, resembling the rapid firing of heavy artillery, these discharges apparently being from the earth upward and presenting the appearance of tongues of fire. Professor Williamson's recollection of this phenomenon was that "as the storm passed over forests the electrical tongues shot upward to a considerable distance above the tree tops, presenting a scene of great sublimity " In his observations concerning storms throughout this region the Professor set out that "this county has never been visited by a violent storm either from the northeast or southeast, nor do the clouds from any eastern point between north and south exhibit many electrical phenomena. But from every direction on the opposite side of the meridian they come charged with lightning and are driven by impetuous winds." It is recalled that in the summer of 1894 a cloudburst occurred at Wapakoneta, where four inches of rain fell within a period of twenty minutes. On a Sunday afternoon in June, 1915, eight inches of hail fell in the business section of Wapakoneta within about the same length of time. Concerning climatic changes in progress throughout this region, Professor Williamson, who was a close meteorologi- HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 573 cal observer, concluded that "the productive character of the soil varies much at the present time (written twenty years ago) from what it was in the time of the early settlement of the county. At that time the ponds and swails were filled with water during the greater part of the year. From these reservoirs vapors were constantly ascending through the dense foliage of the forest, saturating the air to a degree most favorable to the growth of vegetation. All varieties of fruit trees flourished at that time and bore fruit in abundance. The temperature, too, ranged higher and was more equable during the spring and summer months. The winter temperature was not so low—rarely falling below zero—and the precipitation of snow was greater and lay on the ground for greater lengths of time. Such were the conditions of climate from 1845 to the winter of 1855-6, within which time large areas of forest were cleared away and the surface partially drained. Following the changed conditions the atmosphere became dryer and the temperature lower. In the winter of 1855-6 temperature sank to 15 degrees below zero, thereby killing all the peach trees in central :and northern Ohio. Fifteen years later the climate became so dry as to affect the apple crop. Since that time there has been a gradual decrease in the amount of humidity during the summer season and a corresponding diminution in the amount of snow in the winter. With the increased dryness of the atmosphere certain varieties of timber began to die. About 1855 the shellbark hickory began to exhibit signs of decay, which continued until that variety of timber was greatly reduced. The decay of hard maple, beech and oak commenced soon afterward and is still in progress." THE COLD NEW YEARS DAY OF 1863. January 1st, 1863, so often referred to as the "cold New Year's day," was a day to be remembered, for it was the coldest day in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. On the afternoon of the 31st of December—New Year's Eve—the temperature was unusually high, being slightly above 70 de- 574 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY grees, but on New Year's morning the thermometers registered 30 to 35 degrees below zero, or a change within twenty- four hours of more than 100 degrees. Never will the persons then living, eight years old or more, forget that day as long as they live for it was impossible to remain out of doors any length of time without paying the penalty. A stiff wind was blowing and it was full of moisture, making it impossible to endure very long. It was the custom in those days, in the country especially, for the neighbors to gather at some designated place and spend the evening in social intercourse and feasting on apples, cider, cake, etc., and then near the hour of midnight the men would go out and as they would say "shoot the old year out and the New Year in." There were gathered here and there young and old, in almost every neighborhood on this eventful New Year's Eve fully expecting to return home shortly after midnight but it had grown so cold by that time that few of them ventured out and they remained at their neighbor's home all night without retiring. The only exceptions were men who had left their wives and children at home and they felt impelled to start home to protect their families. Many of them, however, suffered from frozen feet or ears. This unusual cold snap was felt throughout the United States, and many Union soldiers were frozen to death in the Southern states. The records show that many hundreds of people were frozen in the Middle West and Western states. LASTLY : THE STUDY OF BIOGRAPHY. The second volume of this work, to which the attention of the reader now passes, has to do with the biographies of the leading families of Auglaize county; these representing, naturally, in the main what commonly and properly are known. as "the old families" of the county. The thoughtful reader of the concluding volume of this work cannot fail in his perusal of its pages to be impressed with the statements that "biography is the home aspect of HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 575 history," and that "history, after all, is but collective biography." The collective biographies of the individuals composing a community, under the analysis of the thoughtful student of biography, become the history of the community thus composed. Particularly is this true of such a community as that of which this history treats. In this collection of biographies, therefore, will be found much of the heretofore unwritten history of Auglaize county; intimate and informative details of the lives and labors of those stalwart men who took posssession here and then passed on, leaving to their descendants the task of carrying on the great work they had so laboriously and so unselfishly begun. In the generations which have succeeded these "old families" in the main have persisted. In the nature of things, intermarriages in these families have been frequent, so that there has arisen here a fine community of interest based upon ties that bind this community as few such in the state are bound; creating, in fact, a real community, a fine neighborly relation in which all share, and in which all take a proper pride. Due to these intermarriages and the continuing relations borne by the "old families" to the work of the community, the biographies contained in the succeeding pages will be found to cross and to recross, repeated references being found to the work done by the original settlers in establishing neighborly relations here. There will also be noted throughout these pages repeated references to the influence exerted by the various church establishments that were set up here in the then wilderness in the days of the pioneers and of the manner in which the influence of these respective establishments has persisted in the families now representing the pioneer stock. Other relations will be noted by the thoughtful reader, and it is to these that special attention is called, for in all this correlation there will be found much that will help in the critical interpretation of the real history of the community which the historian has so understandingly presented in the pages which precede this. Therefore the biographical volume of this work will be found to possess as much of value to the student of history 576 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY as has the historical volume and its pages should be read with as much care, for therein often will be found statements of fact that will make clear passages in the present volume that otherwise might not carry their full meaning save to those fully informed regarding the history of their home county. To the intelligent student of biography the following volume ought to prove a veritable "mine" of interest and to him is addressed a special invitation to give the succeeding pages his most thoughtful attention. If read from a correlative viewpoint they will be found to be not only wonderfully informative, but intensely interesting, and fought to stimulate the growing interest in the science that treats of tracing pedigrees as well as to accent the importance of the same in connection with local historical research, pointing out the duty of the family to preserve a record of individual descent. Of late years there has been created in this country an interest in genealogical research that has led to much well-directed and intelligent action along that line. Quite a few Auglaize county families have carefully compiled records carrying much valuable information of a genealogical character relating to their particular lines, and it is exceedingly gratifying to note that American families are thus apparently finding much of interest in this process of taking stock of who and what they are. The threads that were broken in the days of immigration are being picked up, and connections re-established with the mother country, while members of successive generations of the American descent are being traced back and set out in sober printed array with those of the present generation in order that their posterity may have a proper introduction to their forefathers and to their "folks." It is an interesting study, and those who have been caught in the mazes of this sort of research declare it to be a most fascinating one. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 577 That you may know 'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim Picked from the wormholes of long vanish'd days, Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd, He sends you this most memorable line, In every branch truly demonstrative ; Willing you, overlook this pedigree. —King Henry V. Shakespeare knew the value of "pedigree." The modern live stock breeder knows—none better—the value of "pedigree." If it was important to the claimant of a throne to show that his claim to individual descent was "no sinister nor no awkward claim picked from the wormholes of long vanish'd days, nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd;" if it is important to the intelligent breeder of live stock to know that the strain of his breeding stock runs unsullied, is it not equally important that American families should have some definite information relative to the lines from which they have sprung? Hence the present value of definite genealogical research; hence the creation of a sense of duty on the part of each family to preserve a record of individual descent, —a service of inestimable value to future generations of the family—for unless records that are now perhaps readily accessible for such a purpose are thus definitely preserved they in all probability will be lost to the succeeding generation, or at least consigned to "the dust of old oblivion," thus entailing upon the family a distinct and definite loss that will be a matter of regret to every member thereof. Remember "Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors." "Rely upon it," said William E. Gladstone, "that the man who does not worthily estimate his own dead forefathers will himself do very little to add credit or do honor to his own country." It is trusted therefore that it will not be regarded as presumptuous in this connection to suggest the importance of preserving such records. Your grandchildren and theirs some day may be vitally interested to know who your grandparents (36) 578 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY were. The preservation of such details of genealogy may spare them what otherwise might prove a difficult, if not a wholly fruitless, task. Those who have sought through the biographical volume of this History of Auglaize County thus to preserve family records as a part of the definite history of their county have done well, and are to be commended for their forethought. They have responded to the call of a plain family duty and future generations of their line will thank them. They thus have relieved their posterity of the graceless task of being compelled to pick "from the wormholes of long vanish'd days" an "awkward claim" to descent. They have made their "memorable line in every branch truly demonstrative." They have obeyed the exhortations, "Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation." "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations ; ask thy father and he will show thee ; thy elders and they will tell thee." "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things."