(RETURN TO THE MAHONING AND TRUMBULL COUNTIES INDEX)

50 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. satisfactory. Still at such a meeting you should not depend upon those in attendance (without notice) to furnish recollections and incidents. Some one who is capable should be appointed to go to work at once and collect all the earliest scraps of history about our valley that can be obtained, and, if you please, have it presented in the form of an address for the occasion. "Youngstown was the center and mustering ground for the early proprietors and settlers of the Western Reserve, when it was all embraced 'under Trumbull County. It was the point where three- fourths of the owners of the three millions of acres of the Reserve halted to arrange for the 'looking up of the lands that had been apportioned to them by the Connecticut Land Company. Here was a prominent point when Cleveland was barely known. Nearly every man prominent in Northern Ohio at the organization of the State Government first made his appearance in the State at Youngstown. Here should your history begin. And then in every town some one should be appointed to write early history. The proceedings of the meeting and history furnished should be published in pamphlet form to 'be paid for by subscription and sale of pamphlets. If you please, it may, in connection with this meeting, be continued from year to year, unless the history of the valley be written up, the whole may then be published in a volume that will give more satisfaction to our posterity than any records we shall be likely to leave them. If you start something of this kind your meeting will give inspiration for its continuance, and will bring out much history which will be forever lost to us without some such efforts. "I like the interest you are manifesting in this matter and hope some such benefits as I have suggested may result from it. " Yours truly, F. KINSMAN. "To Wm. POWERS, Esq." The above sentiments are fully concurred in, in letters received from Hon. Eben Newton, H. B. Perkins, B. P. Baldwin, Nath. Mitchell, Dr. Eli Mygott, Sheldon Newton, Richard Fitch, F. A. Boardman, and others. To carry out the above let there be a meeting of citizens at the parlors of the Tod House, to which the proprietors have kindly consented, on Saturday evening, the 5th inst., at eight o'clock. "In accordance with a call published, quite a number of the old citizens of this city met at the 'rod House, Saturday evening, June 5th. John M. Edwards was called to the chair, and stated the object MAHONING VALLEY - 51 of the meeting, to consult as to the advisability of having a reunion of old citizens of the Mahoning Valley on September 10th next. Henry K. Wick was appointed Secretary. William Powers handed to the chairman, to be read, quite a number of letters received by him from old citizens of the valley outside the city, in answer to letters sent out by him, all heartily approving of such a meeting, and speaking in high terms of the enjoyment furnished by the meeting of last year. It was then resolved by those present to have a reunion, end the following gentlemen were appointed a committee of arrangements : William Powers, Chairman . R. M. Montgomery, Youngstown ; Eli Mygott, Poland; John M. Edwards, Youngstown ; Henry Tod, Youngstown; T. H. Wells, Youngstown; C. B. Wick, Youngstown; Richard Fitch, Ellsworth; H. B. Perkins, Warren; Joseph Barclay, Youngstown; B. P. Baldwin, Newton Falls; Junius Brown, Lowell; Dr. T. Woodbridge, Youngstown; C. H. Andrews, Youngstown; J. H. Brown, Youngstown ; H. B. Wick, Youngstown; Wm. S. Parmelee, Youngstown; Hon. Eben Newton, Canfield; Hon. Sheldon Newton, Boardman; Boyd M'Clellan, Liberty ; N. Mitchell, Hubbard; W. Porter, Austintown; Fred'k Kinsman, Warren ; R. M'Curdy, Youngstown; John R. Squire, Youngstown; Henry K. Wick, Youngstown; W. L. Campbell, Youngstown; W. L. Brown, Youngstown; L. F. Shoaf, Youngstown ; Josiah Robbins, Niles ; Jonathan Warner, Mineral Ridge; Abner Osborn, Girard; Joshua Kyle, Mineral Ridge; Thos. W. Sanderson, Youngstown; John Shields, Coitsville. To meet on Saturday, June 12th. "T. H. Wells moved that the committee have power to appoint sub-committees, and add to their number as they may think best. Carried. "On motion of Joseph Barclay, adjourned to meet at the Tod House on Saturday evening, June 12, to complete arrangements. "A full attendance of the members of the committee is desired. "HENRY K. WICK, Secretary." Meeting of the committee was held on the 12th inst. at the Tod House, Wm. Powers, Chairman, Henry K. Wick, Secretary. On motion of Dr. T. Woodbridge a committee on historical reminiscences was appointed, as follows: John M. Edwards, Esq., Youngstown, Chairman; Prof. J. T. Kirtland, Cleveland; Hon. Eben Newton, Canfield ; Hon. Fred'k Kinsman, Warren; Jacob H. Baldwin, Esq., Kinsman; Dr. T. Woodbridge, Youngstown. On motion, said committee was authorized to add to their number and appoint township committees. 52 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. Meeting adjourned, to meet at Youngstown Savings and Loan Association, on 22d instant. At the adjourned pioneer reunion committee-meeting, held at the Youngstown Savings and Loan Association, there was a very fair representation from the valley. Among those present were Hon.. Sheldon Newton, of Boardman; Wm. Porter, of Austintown; Abner Osborn, of Girard ; Boyd M'Clelland, of Liberty ; John Shields, Coitsville; Dr. T. Woodbridge, Wm. Powers, John M. Edwards, John Stambaugh, and Joseph Barclay, of Youngstown. It was decided to hold a meeting in Wick's grove on September 10th. On the suggestion of Wm. Porter it was decided to be the better plan to have a basket-picnic, neighbors and friends joining in making up baskets of refreshments. It was moved by Boyd M'Clelland that parties having interesting relics be invited to bring them on for exhibition. Mr. Osborn suggested that a short description of the articles sent for exhibition be sent to the secretary or attached to the article. The order of exercises determined upon was somewhat similar to that of last year. The following committee was appointed on Toasts: Sheldon Newton, Thos. H. Wells, Robert M'Curdy, Walter L. Campbell, and Wm. M. Osborn. Committee on Ground and Tables: Boyd M'Clelland, J. D. Barclay, and H. B. Wick. Committee on Music: L. F. Shoaf, C. B. Wick, and W. L. Campbell. Committee on Finance: Wm. Powers, Robert Mackey, H. K. Wick, H. O. Bonnell, and George Margerum. The selection of the historian for the occasion will be made by the historical committee, appointed at a former meeting. The committee adjourned, subject to the call of the chairman, Wm. Powers. On the 25th of June the following call was published: " The 10th of September, 1813, is remembered by the oldest class of citizens, as a memory of dread and anxiety followed by an evening of victory and security. Some are among us who participated in the struggles and joined in the shouts of relief and joy that day. A very few are still among us whose recollections reach back full and distinct into the last century, while a large class have clear and vivid memories of pioneer life, with its hardships, its penalties, MAHONING VALLEY - 53 its labors, its sympathies, amusements, and merry-making. It seems fitting and proper that these should all come together to meet old friends and quicken the memories of their youth, recount some of their experiences, and instruct by giving some of their life histories. To attain this object, a Committee of Arrangements has been appointed by a public meeting in the city of Youngstown, who now cordially invite all persons of the Mahoning Valley to meet at Youngstown on the 10th of next September, at ten o'clock in the morning, then and there greet their old friends and accept the congratulations of their new acquaintances. The committee also invite all the younger class of citizens to meet them on that day arrangements will be made for the accommodation of all. Those having relics of by-gone days are requested to bring them for exhibition. Knowing the impossibility of accommodating, by a public dinner, such a number as may reasonably be expected to be present, it is thought best that the 'noon meal' be taken as in olden time from the basket, and it seems that the hour thus devoted could be pleasantly spent by neighbors and friends at emptying the baskets by them previously filled. "WILLIAM POWERS. "Chairman Committee Arrangements. "YOUNGSTOWN, June 25, 1875." " TO THE PIONEERS OF THE MAHONING VALLEY AND THEIR DESCENDANTS : " You have been already notified in our city and valley papers that a reunion of the early settlers of the valley and their descendants will be held in Youngstown on September 10th, next, and a general invitation has been extended to all the citizens of the valley to attend and participate with us in the exercises and festivities of the occasion. It is our desire to collect facts and reminiscences of the settlement and history of the valley including pioneer enterprises in coal mining and iron and other manufacturing, canal, railroads, etc. John E. Edwards, of Youngstown; Dr. J. T. Kirtland, of Cleveland; Frederick Kinsman, of Warren; Jacob H. Baldwin, of Kinsman; Eben Newton, of Canfield; and Dr. T. Woodbridge, of Youngstown, were appointed a Committee for that purpose. To enable us to perform our duties we earnestly ask your assistance in our work. We request you to prepare as full sketches as you are enabled to do from your knowledge or from tradition of the biography of the 'early settlers, your own and others,—the date and place of their birth; marriage, and date of their removal here ; incidents of their journey ; experiences in the new country ; after history of themselves and 54 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. families ; date of their decease, if dead ; and all incidents of interest or importance in their history or that of their fellow-pioneers in connection with their own. We request also township histories, and generally narratives of any important events which may have occurred in early or later times. We are aware that there is a vast fund of traditional history as yet unwritten, which is interesting, and as time passes will increase in interest, and which may now be collected; but if not soon collected will be lost. This we desire to collect, and as many of the contributions we receive as time will permit will be read at our reunion. We desire to publish them all. And the manuscripts will be preserved with the records and papers of the Historical Society, which, it is proposed to organize at the reunion. Please address communications to JOHN M. EDWARDS. "Chairman of Historical Committee "YOUNGSTOWN, July I, 1874." PROGRAMME FOR PIONEER REUNION AT YOUNGSTOWN, O., SEPTEMBER 10, 1875. As it is expected a large number of elderly persons will be present on this occasion, and to provide for their comfort in the best manner the committee have concluded to hold all the exercises in time Opera-house, thus furnishing all comfortable seats and-a better opportunity of hearing than in the open air. The ladies have arranged for the use of the basement of the Baptist Church for dinner, and have appointed suitable persons to take charge of baskets as they are brought in, and to wait upon visitors. This place being so convenient to the Opera-house, with no stairs to climb either at Opera-house or church, the day can be spent by elderly people with as little fatigue as ordinary days at homes. Should there not be accommodation for all in the basement of the church, to have their basket picnic, the grove will be open and free for all that can not be accommodated there, or in case of bad weather, sufficient hall room will be secured, and hot tea and coffee furnished at all places, whether in grove or hall: bring your cup and spoon along, the older the better. The time allowed for dinner will be from twelve to two o'clock sharp. The citizens of each township are requested to select one person from their own number as a general director, and to act as Vice-President during the day. All are cordially invited to attend; drop your cares and troubles and come and meet your friends. As there are no special invitations issued to attend this gathering the committee trust that not one will feel slighted, but that all will feel MAHONING VALLEY - 55 free to come and participate and enjoy the festivities of the day. The ladies of this city met in the Opera-house, Saturday, August 28th, and appointed the following committee for the occasion : Miss Grace Tod, Chairman; Mrs. Richard Brown, Mrs. Mary Bentley, Mrs. John Besore, Mrs. William Breaden, Mrs. M. T. Jewell, Mrs. William Barclay, Mrs. James Ford, Mrs. W. H. Wick, Mrs. A. J. Williams, Miss Lute Van Fleet, Miss Eliza Powers, Miss Sarah Reno. The ladies wish it understood that single persons without baskets hesitation in joining in the picnic dinner, as there will be plenty for all. Visitors may rest assured that this committee of ladies will do all in their power to make their visit pleasant and agreeable at this reunion. In addition to the above Committee on Reception the following named gentleman have been selected to assist : John Kimmel', Chairman ; Joseph H. Brown, R. M'Millan, W. W. M'Keown, William Pollock. PROGRAMME. Meeting will assemble at the Opera-house, and will be called to order at half past ten o'clock. H. B. Wick, Chairman; John M. Edwards, Secretary. Music by the Mechanics' Band—Auld Lang Syne. Prayer by Benjamin Stevens, of Warren, Ohio: Music. Welcome Address by John M. Edwards, of Youngstown, Ohio. Music Reports in History by the committee—John M. Edwards, Youngstown, O.; Jared T. Kirtland, Cleveland, O.; Eben Newton, Canfield, O.; Jacob H. Baldwin, Kinsman, O.; Frederick Kinsman, Warren, O.; T. Woodbridge Youngstown, O. Music. Reading of Communications. Music. Intermission for dinner and hand-shaking until two o'clock. Reassemble at two o'clock, sharp. Toast -- "The First White Settler—James Hillman." Respondent, Roswell M. Grant, Mayslick, Ky. NOTE.—After the regular respondent to each toast, except the last, volunteer five-minute speeches are requested. Music 56 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. Toast—" The Bells and Beaux of Early Times." Fletcher Hogue, Sandy Lake, Mercer County, Penn. Music-" The Girl I Left Behind Me." Toast—" The Stage Coach, Horseback, and Afoot." Matthew Birchard, Warren, 0. Music. Toast--" Our Sacrifices and Privations." Respondent, Sheldon Newton, Boardman, 0. Music—" Perry's Victory." Toast—" The Houses and Home Life of Pioneers." Respondent, Alex. M'Kinnie, Fort Wayne, Ind. Music. Toast—" The Latch String." Respondent, Tod Ford, Akron, O. Music—" Yankee Doodle." Toast—"Manufacturers of the last Seventy-five Years." Respondent, Thomas Struthers, Warren, Penn. Music. Toast—" This Day." Respondent, Eben Newton, Canfield, 0. NOTE.—The meeting will adjourn immediately after this response. Interspersed through the proceedings of the day will be exhibitions of relics and mementos and their history read. The committee will exhibit the articles brought in, provided a written description be attached, with owner's name. This they insist upon, as it will be impossible to remember a verbal description. Articles brought in. prior to the day can have descriptions written by the committee: Those having joined and those wishing to join the Historical Society to be formed that day, are requested to assemble in the dress circle of the Opera-house at eight o'clock, P. M., to perfect an organization of the Society, after which there will be an old fashioned cotillion, to commence at half-past eight o'clock. Music—Germania Band, of Cleveland, 0. DIRECTORS.—German Lanterman, Youngstown ; James Brown, Lowell; Madison Powers, Liberty ; Frederick Kinsman, Warren; T. W. Kennedy, Struthers; H. B. Wick, Youngstown; Sheldon Newton, Boardman; John M. Edwards, Youngstown ; Warren Hine, Canfield. WILLIAM POWERS, Chairman Committee of Arrangements. MAHONING VALLEY - 57 FIRST ANNUAL REUNION OF THE PIONEERS OF MAHONING AND TRUMBULL COUNTIES, O. September 10, 1875. H. B. WICK, Chairman. WM. POWERS, Chairman Committee of Arrangements. JOHN M. EDWARDS, Secretary. BENJ. WEAVER, Stenographer, DIRECTORS—German Lanterman, Youngstown ; James Brown, Lowell; Madison Powers, Liberty; Fred Kinsman, Warren ; Charles Smith, Warren ; T. W. Kennedy, Struthers ; H. B. Wick, Youngstown ; Sheldon Newton, Boardman ; John M. Edwards, Youngstown; Warren Hine, Canfield. COMMITTEE ON RECEPTION—Miss Grace Tod, Chairman ; Mrs. Richard Brown, Mrs. Mary Bentley, Mrs. John Besore, Mrs. Wm. Breaden, Mrs. M. T. Jewell, Mrs. Wm. Barclay, Mrs. James Ford, Mrs. W. H. Wick, Mrs. A. J. Williams, Miss Lute Van Fleet, Miss Eliza Powers, Miss Sarah Reno, John Kimmel], Joseph H. Brown, R. M'Millan, W. W. M'Keown, Wm. Pollock. On the 10th day of September, 1875, the pioneers of Mahoning and Trumbull Counties, Ohio, assembled in the Opera-house in the city of Youngstown, Ohio, and celebrated their first annual reunion, as follows : MR. HUGH B. WICK : "Ladies and Gentlemen,—You will please come to order ; it is now near twelve o'clock, and there is a great deal to be done. The first thing in order, according to the programme, is prayer by Benj. Stevens, of Warren, 0.; but, in consequence of Mr. Stevens's age and of Isis not feeling very well this morning, we will substitute Robert Montgomery, who will please come forward." PRAYER BY MR. MONTGOMERY. "O thou most high and holy God over all the earth, in the beginning and unto the -end the same unchangeable God, without variance or shadow of turning, rejoicing in thine immutability, rejoicing that thou art the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, realizing something of thy being and character as the everlasting God, we would come before thee at all times and under all circumstances, and Pay our vows and acknowledge our allegiance; but especially now, 0 God, as we are assembled in this peculiar capacity, a pioneer reunion, we would ask that thou wouldst be with us, and that thy blessing may rest upon us. We look up to thee as the great Creator and sovereign pioneer of all things, and we ask thee to be one Respondent, Respondent, 58 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. amongst us. As we are here reflecting upon the relations of youth and manhood and age, and as we are considering the relations of this life through its various stages, youth, manhood, and age, to the endless life to come, we ask thy blessing. We ask thee to bless our intercourse with each other to-day. May this be a pleasant and profitable reunion and the precursor of the better and holier reunion beyond the grave. Let thy kind hand be over us in mercy, and be with us through all the pleasures of this meeting, and through all its duties be thou on our right hand and on our left ; and, as we consider our relations to each other, as we look back to the past, as we look forward to the future, may all our aspirations be to join in that one great reunion in the better life to come through the merits of our elder brother thy son. Hear us in his name, and bless us. Amen. John M. Edwards, Esq., delivered the following welcoming address: "Pioneers of the Mahoning Valley, their Descendants, Ladies, and Gentlemen : "One year ago we assembled in this house, on the call of a number of old citizens inviting all those who resided here thirty years since, or prior to that time, and their descendants, to hold a reunion. A large number assembled—many from long distances, some to revisit the place of their birth, others to greet again old acquaintances, revive old memories, and view old scenes from which they had been absent for years. That meeting was a success—far, indeed, beyond our anticipations. All were glad that it had been held. Our visitors from abroad were glad that they had come, and a wish was generally expressed that future reunions might be held. The invitation, by which we are assembled to-day, is broader than that of last year. It was extended to the pioneers of the Mahoning Valley and their descendants. In one respect it may be said that the invitation embraces all the inhabitants of the valley, for we are all now pioneers. It is true that but few of those brave and hardy men are left among us, who, with their brawny arms and sharp axes felled the giant oaks, white woods, hickories, beeches, and other vegetation of that dense native forest, which three-quarters of a century since covered this valley and all this western country, made the clearings and raised the log cabins; but we, their descendants and successors, have been pioneering all through that three-quarters of a century ; and there is still much pioneering to be done by those who are here now and those who may come after us before this will be a finished country. MAHONIING VALLEY - 59 "Time would fail me, on this occasion, to recount the history of the pioneering to which I allude. The delving into the depths of the earth and developing and bringing into practical use the vast beds of mineral coal which underlie our valley, the erection of furnaces and rolling-mills, the construction of the once famous but now superseded canal, the building of our railroads, the manufactures, and other business interests of various kinds, in which we are all engaged, and which are fast bringing this valley into prominence as one of the most favored portions of our country. This will form a topic for the future historian, and give him just ground to commend our energy and enterprise as pioneers in building up our valley and in doing our full part in advancing our country to the first place among the nations of the world. " In my historical address last year I stated that it was probable that John Young purchased this township, by contract, of the Connecticut Land Company before the Reserve was divided, by draft, among the stockholders, but that the records did not show the fact. I wrote to Charles C. Young, Esq., of Brooklyn, N. Y., a son of John Young, requesting information, if he could give me any, in regard to this matter. He promptly and cheerfully responded to my request, and sent me an ancient document, which is presented for your inspection to-day, furnishing the desired information. "From this document it appears that a contract was made between the Directors of the Connecticut Land Company and John Young, for himself and Philo White, which contract was conditioned for the sale and settling of a township of land in the Connecticut Reserve, so called, and which township, by agreement between said Directors and said Young, was understood to be township No. 2, in the 2d range. The document now spoken of is not the original contract, but it is a map of the township divided into lots. On one of these lots, which includes about one-third of the township, on the east side, is this entry: 5,500 acres disposed of to Hill, Shehy, and others, by contract with John Young, on which they are to settle with seventeen families.' On the other lots, which are of different sizes, are entered the number of acres and names of the then proprietors, Young, White, and Storrs. On the margin of the map is the following entry : This may certify that we, being equally interested in township No. 2 in the 2d range in the Connecticut Reserve, do agree to the above sale of the 5,500 acres to the actual settlers as above, and do likewise agree to the division of the remainder in the manner to which our names are annexed in the above sketch. Mid- 60 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. dletown, January 30, 1797.' The names of those signing the agreement are cut off. They were, probably, John Young, Philo White, and Lemuel Storrs. On the same sheet with the map is a conveyance from Philo White to John Young, for the consideration of one thousand and fifty dollars, of all his interest in the original contract, which it recites. This conveyance is dated February ninth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven.' Mr. Charles C. Young has not in his possession the original contract. It is probably lost, and therefore we are unable to state its precise date. "The survey of the Reserve into townships was commenced in the early part of 1796, at the Pennsylvania line and at the south-east corner ; consequently, this township was one of the first surveyed, and it is probable that John Young contracted for its purchase in the latter part of 1796, or in January, 1797, and that, early in 1797, he visited the township with Alfred Wolcott, his surveyor, and others, and commenced its settlement. The draft or division of the townships of the Reserve among the stockholders of the company was made in January, 1798, and settlements were commenced in the Spring of that year by the stockholders, their agents, and purchasers from them. Consequently, from documentary history as well as from tradition, we learn the fact that this township was the pioneer towns ship in the settlement of the Reserve. As its citizens we have invited you to meet here as our guests at this reunion. "Fellow-pioneers, who are with us here to-day, we greet you; one and all, with a hearty welcome. May this, our first reunion of the pioneers of the Mahoning Valley and their descendants, be the pioneer of many pleasant and happy reunions in the days and years to come." MR. WILLIAM POWERS : "Before proceeding further with the regular order of business, permit me to show you, ladies and gentlemen, the saddle upon which one of the first white women, Mrs. Hillman, visited the valley." The exhibition of this saddle excited considerable interest. Mr. H. B. WICK : " The next thing in order is the Reports in History by the Committee : John M. Edwards, Youngstown, O., Jared T. Kirtland, Cleveland, 0.; Eben Newton, Canfield, 0.; Jacob H. Baldwin, Kinsman, 0.; Frederick Kinsman, Warren, O.; T. Woodbridge, Youngstown, 0. Will the Hon. Eben Newton report?" JUDGE NEWTON: "I trust you will excuse me ; but absence from home has prevented me from acting with the committee. I do not know what they have done or what arrangements they have made." MAHONING VALLEY - 61 Mr. H. B. WICK: "Mr. Edwards is present and we will be glad to hear from JOHN M. EDWARDS : "In my address I spoke of having received a communication from Mr. Charles C. Young, of Brooklyn, New York who is the fourth son of Mr. John Young, the proprietor of this township. I will now read to you the communication." "JOHN M. EDWARDS, ESQ., "Dear Sir,—There are some points in our family history which I deem it proper to amplify and explain more clearly. They were of Scotch origin and settled in the north of Ireland, late in the sixteenth or early part of the seventeenth century, in or near Londonderry, famous in Irish history for its magnanimous endurance of seige and starvation, in the reign of William the Third, of England. Here in 1623, the first of the family whose record is known to us was boon. In 1718 he, in his ninety-sixth year, with his son and grandson, their brothers and sisters and sisters' husbands, in all fourteen, formed a part of a Scotch-Irish colony, which sailed away from Ireland, and landed in Boston, Massachusetts, the same year. The whole colony moved on to Worcester, where they settled, and nearly all in time died, and were buried. "My grandfather, Dr. John Young, was born in Worcester, in 1739; removed to Peterborough, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire ; practiced medicine, and died there in 1807. "My father, John Young, was born in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1763, emigrated to Whitestown, New York, about 1780, and in June, 1792, was married to his life-long wife, Mary Stone White, the youngest daughter of Hugh White, the first settler and original proprietor of a large tract of wild land. He was a New Englander, of English descent, who had, after the Revolution in 1785, removed, with his family of a wife and eight children—five sons and three daughters—from Middletown Connecticut, to the wilderness, four miles west and north of Utica. Utica had then one shantie with a small family in it, but Whitestown none. There he settled alone with his whole family, on the land he had previously purchased, of good quality as it proved, and on a single tract, large enough to provide a farm for each of his eight children, who all settled down upon them directly around him. "He gave his name to the town, became in time a judge of the court, and died in 1812. He was a brave and sturdy old patriarch, and by great physical strength, sound practical sense, and kindness of heart, held even the Indians in wholesome fear, and lived in peace 62 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. with them all. There our father lived until 1796, when his own land interest was removed to Ohio, and in 1797 he began the settlement of Youngstown. In 1799 he removed his family, wife and two children, John and George, to Youngstown, where two more were born to him—William, in November, 1799, and Mary, in February, 1802, both still living. In 1803 our mother, finding the trials of her country life there, with the latch-string always out and a table free to all, too great with her young family, for her power of endurance, our father in deference to her earnest entreaties, closed up his business as best he could, and returned with his family to Whitestown, and to the home and farm which her father had provided and kept for them. "Our father's nominal occupation after his return was that of a farmer, but not much given to manual labor. He soon became interested in the then great Western Turnpike, from Utica to Canandaigua, and for many years was engaged in its construction and superintendency; and still later on other public works, such as the Erie canal, which canal ran for miles in plain sight from our house, and upon which one of my brothers was then employed as .a civil engineer. "He was a Mason of a high order, and brought back with him from Ohio the prefix of 'Judge,' by which he was ever known and addressed. It some incidental way it came to him and remained a fixture for life. With great strength of will and force of character, he was yet full of intelligence, courtesy, and kindness, a genial soul who made many friends but few enemies that we ever heard of. "Although never- a professor of religion, yet he had a profound respect for all its institutions, and conformed to all its outward observances. His co-operation, too, with our mother's religious training of their children always seemed hearty and sincere. His own ScotchIrish-Protestant training told well upon him in his active, enterprising life, and while he seemed to need a double measure of grace, yet we have good hope that he at last found rest and peace in the smile of the Master. "He never used the rod upon his children. That branch of home training came from the other side of the house, and always when required, with loving severity. A look and a nod were always enough from him. Indeed, family government, training of children meant something then. It seems to have nearly disappeared from our world, and may almost be numbered as among the lost arts. He died quietly at his home, after not a long but a severe illness, in April, MAHONING VALLEY - 63 1825, aged sixty-two years—twenty-two years after his return from Youngstown. " Our mother survived him fourteen years, and died at last full of joyful hope, in September, 1839, in the old home of her father, in the village of Whitestown, New York, aged sixty-seven years. "Of the seven children all survived our father, and all our mother, save one. One more, the youngest, died in 1862, aged only fifty-three, and of the five who still survive, three sons and two daughters, the oldest is nearly eighty-two, and the youngest in her seventieth year. Very truly yours, C. C. YOUNG. "NEW YORK, August 25, 1875." Mr. William Powers exhibited some relics, a complete list of which will hereafter appear. Mrs. Elizabeth Lanterman, ninety-six years of age, was requested to rise. Robert Montgomery then read the following letter from Jacob H. Baldwin, of Kinsman, who first settled in this township in the neighborhood of Baldwin's mill : " KINSMAN, September 6, 1875. "JOHN M. EDWARDS, ESQ., Chairman Historical Committee Pioneers Reunion, Youngstown, Ohio : " In contributing my small portion of the early history of Trumbull and Mahoning Counties, it will be necessary for me to give a short history of my own life and experience. I came to this State in November, 1811, from Washington County, New York, being then nineteen years of age. I was married in 1815, and settled in April, 1816, at Baldwin's mills, township of Youngstown, and commenced keeping a dry goods store in company with my uncle, Eli Baldwin. My neighbors and customers were Thomas Packard (grandfather of Warren and A. J. Packard), John Woods (father of Dr. Woods), Benjmin Ross, Joshua Kyle, Robert Kyle, William Smith, James Taylor, Wendle Grove, Camden Cleveland, Paine Cleveland, Josiah Robbins, Hugh Beard, John Beard, James Hillman, etc. In 1819 I was appointed County Collector by the Commissioners of Trumbull County (who were James Mackey, of Youngstown; John H. Patch, of Canfield, and William Bushnell, of Hartford). The taxes were collected by a personal demand at the residence of each tax-payer, giving the collector an excellent opportunity of making himself acquainted with the county as well as the people. In 1820 I was again appointed collector, and also received from the Marshal of Ohio (John 64 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. Hamm, of Zanesville) an appointment to take the census of Trumbull County, then containing thirty-five townships, the population being then only 15,542. In the Winter of 1820-21, while in Columbus, settling with, the State Treasurer, the General Assembly had just passed an act creating the office of County Auditor, in which an auditor for one year was to be appointed in each county. Our county was then represented by Eli Baldwin, Senator, and Dan Heaton and Elisha Whittlesey in the lower house. I was asked by them to accept the appointment, which I agreed to after reading the act, after which the County Auditor was elected on the second Monday in October for two years. I was elected eight times, making seventeen years. In the year 1840 I was appointed by the Court of Common Pleas an appraiser of real estate for taxation, the duties of which I commenced in Poland, early in May, and finished in October or November, being constantly on horseback every day (Sunday only excepted). My friend, Joel B. Buttles, was taking the census at this time, and electioneering for Martin Van Buren. I was in the crowd that sang Tippecanoe and Tyler too,' and, of course, we often came in collision. In all those years my acquaintance in and through the county was of necessity greater than men in private life, and the memory of those days is now much more strongly impressed on my mind than more recent events; and during' all this long period of time railroads and telegraphs were unknown, yet the population increased rapidly in the rural districts, although the towns and villages remained nearly stationary. In after years it was interesting to observe the rapid increase of population and business in the towns and villages after the canal and the railroads were built. "Nothing more clearly indicates the growth of the counties than the increase of the fees of county officers. The County Auditor's fees in 1822 was a little over two hundred dollars, increasing gradually as business increased, until now they amount to nearly three thousand dollars annually. No year during the seventeen years that I held the office did the fees and emoluments reach one thousand dollars, except the last one, 1838. "Respectfully, yours,  JACOB H. BALDWIN." John M. Edwards read the following letter : " BROOKLYN, N. Y., August 25, 1875. "JOHN M. EDWARDS, ESQ.: "Dear Sir,—Your letter and papers were duly received. My delay in replying has been unavoidable. MAHONING VALLEY - 65 “I should take great pleasure in your meeting on the 10th of September, but my health and business engagements will prevent my leaving home. I sent your printed call to my brother William, who was born there in 1799, but his age and infirmities are even greater mine, and so, to my regret, no representative of the family will than be there. In remembrance and sympathy, however, I shall be with y011 on that day, and hope to hear a good report of all that is said and done. "In reply to your call for old papers, I have to say that after my father's death in 1825, and my mother's sale of her home-farm a few years later, the old tin case containing the Ohio title, deeds, surveys, maps, etc., was mislaid and finally lost, but I still continue the search for it. A small package has, however, come to me, from which I select a few and send you. The first, and only one of much interest, is indorsed, 'Philo White's conveyance to John Young.' In this you will find all we now know of the original contract of purchase; and from this it appears that my mother's brother, Philo White, of Whitestown, N. Y., together with Lemuel Storrs, of Middletown, Conn., a lawyer by profession and practice there, and from whence the White family emigrated in 1785, were at first equally interested with my father in the purchase; that a private company-article was entered into between them in regard to it, but the contract itself was made by my father alone with the Connecticut Land Company, to whom only they executed their deed for the township, as recorded in 1800; that the date of the contract must have been in 1796, if not 1795, to give time for the survey, inspection, and location of the land, which my father, as a practical surveyor, would hardly have thought of buying without ; and then for the sale to Shelry and division of the balance on paper, for which preliminary surveys must have been made, all before January, 1797, and February 9, 1797, the date of White's conveyance, back to my father, of all his interest therein. "Mr. Storrs's release must also have been executed at about the same time, for, although I find no such instrument in my package, yet the cancellation of the division memorandum on this conveyance, followed by the conveyance of White, the absence of all records, and the deed of the whole township to my father alone in 1800, would seem to be conclusive on the point—and this corresponds with our family tradition. "No. 2 is a specimen release of some seven hundred and forty-five acres from the lien of the mortgage given for the purchase money. "No. 3. Survey of town plat, Rayne's land and others. 66 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. "No. 4. Town plat of Youngstown, recorded August 19, 1802. "No. 5. Memorandum of contracts outstanding in my father's handwriting, as most of his papers were, but without date, for $7,396. "Among the others I find a copy of a power of attorney to his agent, T. Kirkland, Esq., dated July, 1804 (the year and month of my birth), with the names of thirty-four persons, whose contracts were still outstanding, amounting to $12,000. These were closed up with reasonable dispatch, and my father was understood to have done reasonably well with his purchase; but I find no account of his actual payments and receipts. "He visited there occasionally after his return in 1803—the last time in his own sleigh in 1814, with his brother John, then of the navy, in company, on his way from the lakes to Washington. "My brother relates that, in 1800, when he was there, only six and seven years of age, he remembered the black coal laying loose about, and the use they made of it in marking the line of blazed trees to designate the highway. "I regret that I can not do more for you in the way of original maps and legal instruments, but have done all I can. As it may be a matter of interest to know more of my father's family, both before and after him, I give you a memorandum of names and dates in another paper. The old papers you will, of course, return to me, but my own communications are left entirely at your discretion. "Very respectfully, yours, C. C. YOUNG." Mr. H. B. Wick: "The Hon. George Mygat, of Cleveland, is present, and we would be glad to listen to any thing he may say." HON. GEORGE MYGAT : "I had no expectation when I came here of talking to such an audience as this ; neither am I accustomed to public speaking. I could not be expected to say much of myself. I am highly gratified to see so many here to-day of the descendants representing the first, second, third, and perhaps the fourth generations. My father brought me to Canfield, then in Trumbull County, Ohio, when I was ten years of age ; my birthday occurred while I was on the road from Connecticut to Ohio. I went to school before coming to Ohio ; but after coming to Ohio my educational advantages were limited. I had substantially to pick up what little education I received, which was not very much; but I was somewhat honored by the people of the old County of Trumbull. I succeeded Mr. Baldwin, I believe in 1821, in collecting the taxes of Trum- MAHONING VALLEY - 67 bull County. We were compelled then to go about on horseback ; and in consequence of that I became acquainted with the older citizens of the county. In 1829 I was elected sheriff of Trumbull County, and re-elected in 1831, making four years that I served as sheriff of Trumbull County ; and happily for me I never did any thing, to my knowledge, to disgrace my good name or that of my father. "But these questions I would ask: Our fathers, where are they ? Our mothers, where are they? Our children, many of them, where are they? St. Paul, in the tenth chapter of Hebrews speaks of many worthies who had gone in consequence of their faith. Faith in what? Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior—who had gone to be witnesses of those who still remained. And in the beginning of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, I think it is, he says, 'We are surrounded by a great multitude of witnesses.' Well now we are surrounded, friends, by many more witnesses than were then gone to their reward in heaven. Many of our parents are witnesses—of what ? Witnesses of us; I have no doubt of it at all. Bless their good memories, in those early days the sons helped their fathers, and the daughters helped their mothers, and none of us felt then it was a disgrace for us to labor, but felt it was an honor, and we still feel it to be an honor. We owe every thing to our fathers who have been in their graves many years. Their characters were such as to make a lasting impression upon us. I can remember very well with what delight I used to come to Youngstown on these flats and attend general muster ; I considered it one of the happiest days of the whole year. William Rayne was Colonel; James Mackey was Lieutenant; Louis Williams was aid. Generals Wadsworth and Perkins were there. I remember Dr. Dutton, Henry Wick, Dr. Manning, Homer Hines, James Woodbridge, and I guess I could name scores not only in Youngstown but all around, and I honor their memories to this day. Many of you probably are descendants of these men. They were all honorable men, just men, men who left their influence for good. I wish I were capable of talking to you as you deserve to be talked to; but I am not." (Applause.) "810 EUCLID AVENUE, CLEVELAND, August 12, 1875. "JOHN. M. EDWARDS, ESQ: "My Dear Sir,—I send you with this sheet a sketch giving an account of my father moving his family from Connecticut to Ohio in 1807, and some other items in regard to Canfield, but do not know that it is any thing of the kind that you intended or wished to have 68 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. sent you, and if not please put it into the fire. It is my present intention to be at Youngstown on the 10th proximo, as I am confident that I shall enjoy such a meeting very much. I lived in Trumbull County almost twenty-seven years, and knew very many of the principal men in the county and in every township, then comprising thirty-five townships. I collected the taxes of the county in the Fall of 1821, and was sheriff from 1829 to 1833, four years, consequently had a good opportunity of knowing many of its citizens, and although more than forty-one years since I left it, I have ever entertained a love for old Trumbull County and its inhabitants. "Very respectfully, GEORGE MYGATT." "Comfort S. Mygatt, from Danbury, Fairfield County, Connecticut, reached Canfield, then in Trumbull County, on the 7th of July, 1807, with his family, consisting of himself and wife, four daughters, two sons and two step-sons, making in all, ten persons, and made Canfield their home. Eight of the ten have been dead for some years. Henry Stiles, of Warren, being the last of the dead. He died in August, 1869, in the seventy-second year of his age. • The two surviving members of the family are Mrs. Lucy M. Adams, of Warren, and George Mygatt, of Cleveland. Mr. Mygatt died in October, 1823, having lived in Canfield sixteen years. Soon after coming to Canfield he entered in partnership with Herman Canfield and Zalmon Fitch, under the firm name of Mygatt, Canfield, and Fitch, and opened a store consisting of dry goods, dry and wet groceries, medicines, salt, etc., and continued together for some two years, when the partnership was dissolved and the business continued by Mr. Mygatt during the remainder of his life. The country was very new at that time, but an abundant supply of all the necessaries of life, even at that early day. There are but three persons now living who were living within Two Miles Square, at the Center of Canfield, in 1807, and they are Mrs. Judge Newton, Mrs. Charles Ruggles, and Dr. Lovereign Bostwick. The principal and representative men living in Canfield at that time were General Elijah Wadsworth, Dr. Shadrach Bostwick, Elisha Whittlesey, Zalmon Fitch, Cook Fitch, Herman Canfield, Ensign Church, Trial Tanner, Jonah Scovil, Wm. Chapman, Wm. Chidester, David Hine, John Reed, Adam Turner, Jonah Turner, John Harding, Samuel Blocker, Henry Ohl, Martin White, Henry Yager, George Linn, Peter Lian, Isaac Wilcox, Aaron Collar, James Doud, Eleazor Gilson, Samuel Gilson, Arad Way, Nathan Landon, Azariah Wetmore, Josiah Wetmore, Simeon Sprague, Wm. MAHONING VALLEY - 69 Sprague, Ira Sprague, Charles Chittender, Old Father Everett, and others. Religious meetings were held on the Sabbath with much regularity, by the Congregationalists and Methodists, with occasional preaching by ministers of those denominations. Mr. Mygatt started a team, consisting of two pair of oxen and two horses, with a large wagon loaded with household goods, for Ohio, about the first of June, 1807, and one week after, started with his family with four horses; and a fifth horse to hitch on when necessary—which was often the case. The first team was overhauled in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, by Mr. Mygatt and family, and from there over the mountains kept company to Ohio. On the 4th of July all were in Pittsburg together, The first team was just five weeks and the latter four weeks on the journey. In 1811, Mr. and Mrs. Mygatt rode on horseback from Canfield to Danbury, but returned back in a two-wheeled carriage, driving one horse before the other, and were eleven days coming five hundred and thirty miles, being the distance between Danbury and Canfield. In the war of 1812 three of Mr. Mygatt's sons-in-law and one son marched to Cleveland immediately after the surrender of General Hull at Detroit, to wit: Elisha Whittlesey, Lewis Hoyt, Zalmon Fitch, and Comfort Mygatt. "In 1807 George Tod was presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas; Thomas Hughes, Ephriam Quinby, and Herman Canfield, Associate Judges; George Parsons, Clerk; and Trial Tanner, Sheriff. The old Western Reserve Bank commenced business with Simon Perkins as President, and Zalmon Fitch as Cashier in November, 1813." Mr. HUGH B. WICK.: "Judge Newton will now make some remmarks.” Judge EBEN NEWTON: "Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,— I am now requested to state some few incidents in connection with the history of this part of the country. I was appointed as a member of the committee on history ; and if I had apprehended there would have been so much interest in this matter, I would have written out a partial history of what I know and have seen take place. Perhaps, then, I would have in some way answered the expectation ; but I have not done it. You must be aware, friends, that fifty years bring to mind many recollections. When we call to mind what has transpired in that period, and the men who have existed and been foremost in the active duties of life, we find there is very considerable to interest us in meeting together as we have met here to-day. 70 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS I can dwell but a single moment upon these matters, because there is so much to be done. I will mention a very few instances. Perhaps no part of the country is a better illustration of the fact of what has taken place in the last fifty years than this valley, and yet when you come to recur to its early history you will see that the great spirit which led to this vast improvement originated with one single man. That man has now passed away, but the fruits of his enterprise, industry, energy, and his liberality are spread all over this land. When I call to mind some of the incidents connected with the early history of my acquaintance with old Judge Day, it is exceedingly interesting. I remember very well of hearing him make an argument at the bar of Trumbull County. He at near by myself with his son David. He was in the habit, in his old age, of talking very loud. He was always energetic; but, as he grew old, this propensity increased. He exerted all his strength in making the speech, and he was very much exhausted. When he had finished, he turned around to David, and said: 'David, you have always been very kind to me, but your exertions for me are pretty nearly over; it is the last effort I ever shall make.' He died not very long after that. "There was Judge Rayne. I knew him very well, and have had very many pleasant interviews with him. There was Dr. Manning, with whom I was long acquainted, and had a vast amount of social and business intercourse with him in a public and private capacity. And the old gentleman, in his last sickness, I am told—for I was absent at the time—expressed a desire to live until he could see me, one of his old acquaintances ; but he died before I returned home. There are many things crowding upon my mind, and so fast that I am scarcely able to separate and detail them to you. I will not attempt to go on, because there is more that will be important, and I shall, perhaps, have occasion hereafter to refer to a paper that I have partially prepared. I informally address you now as though I were shaking hands with each of you in active life. This is one of the most interesting scenes of my life. When I arose this morning and heard the rain falling, I .thought that I was sick and would not come; but I reflected for a while and of the interesting things that would transpire, and I rallied, and I am here before you." (Applause.) Wm. Powers then read the following report of the Historical Committee of "ye olden times:" "The recital of personal history and tradition has a wonderful charm about it—more especially when the listener is young. What MAHONING VALLEY - 71 a deep and absorbing interest centers in the incidents, and with what avidity we listen for every word! The writer's father was a pioneer, and away back in infancy I, with the rest of the family, gathered around the evening fire, after the older children had returned from school in the short Winter days, and the chores were all done, even to getting in the big back -log, fore-stick, and kindling wood for morning, while he would relate some incidents of his life. Many a time in those quiet, pleasant evenings in the country, have we sat up later than the usual bed-time—eight o'clock—listening to my father, and, occasionally, to neighbor Amos Loveland, a seven years' soldier in the Revolution, relating incidents of their lives. "The one I propose to speak of now occurred in the history of my grandfather, Abraham Powers, in the month of February, 1778. He lived in Ligoniers Valley, Westmoreland County, Pa. This valley is one of those places which a pioneer would select, when the choice is free, to open up a new home—a rich, beautiful valley, with Laurel Hill on the east, and Chestnut Ridge on the west. In this had gathered a number of families, and, at that time, the most westerly settlement in the State of Pennsylvania. The Indians were revengeful, and the massacre of Wyoming occurred the following Summer. The Winter was intensely cold, and the snow lay two feet deep on the ground, here and there. About the first of the month a band of Indians entered the settlement and murdered a family, but one child escaping. After taking such household goods as they fancied, they set the cabin on fire and left. This murder aroused the settlers, and seventy—all the able-bodied men who could find horses to ride—started in pursuit within a few hours. They followed the trail down the Loyalhanna to the Kiskiminetis, and down that river to the Alleghany, crossing the latter stream on the ice about thirty miles above where Pittsburg now stands. They continued the pursuit down the rivers to the mouth of Big Beaver, then up that stream and the Mahoning to the first inhabited village they saw, which was in this township and upon land now owned by the writer. With their utmost exertion they could travel no faster than the Indians/ who were also mounted and usually camped at night-fall where the Indians had camped the night before. Upon their discovery of the town they were saluted by the rapid firing of single guns. They returned a round or volley at the only Indian in sight, who fell wounded, but, rising partly on his knee, continued firing, when, at the second round, he fell dead, with seven balls in his body. Captain Pipe was as brave an old man as ever faced an army alone. There 72 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. was no one with him but his daughter, a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. Concealed behind some logs she loaded the guns, of which they had several, while the old chief did the shooting. They scraped the snow and leaves away the best they could and laid the body close beside a large log near where he fell, and covered it with leaves and such branches of trees and parts of the huts as they could readily get. They found quite a quantity of corn stored in pens and potatoes in holes. After burning the town and the corn, with the squaw as a prisoner, they continued to follow the trail to the Salt Spring, near Mineral Ridge, and there held a council of war, and determined, from information received from their prisoner, that a thousand warriors were collected at Sandusky, returned home, having been absent two weeks. The squaw was released this side of Pittsburg. In 1802 my father, Isaac Powers, and grandfather found the bones of the dead old hero and gave them such Christian burial as they could. The town site, corn-field, and potato holes had become overgrown with a thick growth of underbrush, mostly hickory and black walnut, .which he cut away, all but one walnut about the size of a man's wrist, which he allowed to remain to mark the grave of Captain Pipe and the site of Pipestown. That tree stands there to-day, fresh, sound, and green, loaded with its rich crop of nuts, as it has been every year in my recollection, and little does the mischievous boy dream, when stealing the nuts, why that tree was left to grow. It stands alone near the south bank of the Mahoning, and directly opposite the mouth of Dry Run. I have measured it this week, and find it at one foot from the ground fifteen feet in circumference, or five feet in diameter. At six feet from the ground ten feet and eight inches around, or three feet seven inches in diameter; and at nine feet is larger than the first measurement, where it branches out with eight large limbs, each one fifteen inches or over in diameter; its height I estimate at seventy-five feet, the spread of its branches, from north to south, is seventy-six feet, and from east to west seventy-eight feet. (Applause.) " WILLIAM POWERS. "YOUNGSTOWN, September 10." Mr. Powers then exhibited a sea-shell, marked "dinner-horn," brought from the sea one hundred years ago by the grandfather of Alex. Stewart. Recess until 2 P. M. Two O'CLOCK P. M.—During the intermission the old people took dinner at the Baptist Church, and at Powers' Coal Company's office. After dinner they witnessed the evolutions of the artillery MAHONING VALLEY - 73 company, and watched admiringly while the firemen threw water from the steamer and the Water Works, on the Public Square. AFTERNOON SESSION. Immediately on reassembling in the afternoon, Mrs. Elizabeth Lanterman, aged ninety-six; German Lanterman, her son, aged sixty- one; Mrs. Laura Gilbert, granddaughter, aged forty-seven; Mrs. Kate Campbell, great-grandchild, aged twenty-three; Miss Laura Campbell, great-great-grandchild, aged three ; all came forward and took seats upon the platform, all born and raised, except Mrs. Lanterman, in Mahoning and Trumbull Counties. Their appearance upon the platform was greeted with cheers and applause. Mr. WM. POWERS: "Mr. Chairman I presume it is understood by most of you that it is our purpose to form an Historical Society to keep this matter up from year to year. We have a book on which we are getting names of persons who desire to join that Society. We will organize the Society this evening in this house. After the organization of the Society our friend, Wick, will lead off in an old fashioned cotillion." Mr. WICK: " Toasts are the next thing in order, and the first toast on the programme is, 'The First White Settler—James Hillman.' Respondent, Roswell M. Grant, Mayslick, Ky." In the absence of Mr. Grant, John M. Edwards responded as follows: "Mr. Roswell M. Grant is the brother of Jesse Grant, and an uncle of General Grant. It seems he has been unable to be present, but has taken pains to write the following : " MAYSLICK, September 8, 1875. " WM. POWERS, Chairman Committee of Arrangements : "Dear Sir,—After the receipt of your letter, I then thought I would be present at the meeting of the old pioneers' reunion, but I find I can not do so; next Monday, the 13th, I have to attend county court, and it is very important I should do so. "Last night I wrote a sketch of James Hillman. The first part is verbatim of what I have heard Hillman and wife speak of many times, but from 1807, and up to the time I left Youngstown, I was an eyewitness of what I have stated. All I have seen or heard I never forget. " What I have written has been done in a hurry. You can read what part you may think proper, or all if you see proper to do so. Ten thousand incidents I could relate if present. I fear this may not reach you in time. 74 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. " My kindest regards to all the old pioneers, hoping to see some of them yet this Fall, as I expect to visit my old friends. I never expect to keep house again but make my home with my children. "I remain, yours truly, R. M. GRANT'' " I will now read what he says in response to 'the toast : " MAYSLICK, MASON CO., Ky., September 7, 1875, "James Hillman was born October, 1764, in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. His father, James Hillman, moved near Pittsburg, and settled some three miles below on the bank of the Ohio River, where I think he remained to the day of his death. James Hillman enlisted in the Revolutionary War, was captured, I think, at the battle of Yorktown. Here I could tell what happened between him and a British officer,,but I decline to do so; but after he gave the officer a severe whipping he made his escape, and returned to his father. After his return he went to a corn-husking, where he met a Miss Catherine . After dancing with her for some time, he proposed marriage. A 'squire being present, they were married the same night. I have heard Mrs. Hillman many a time say that she never had a pair of shoes or stockings until after her marriage, and I have heard them both say that she had neither shoe or stocking when they were married. After their marriage James Hillman built a cabin on the bank of the Ohio River below Pittsburg, where he lived for some years, living by hunting and taking emigrants up and down the Ohio, Big Beaver, and Mahoning Rivers in a canoe. While in that capacity, John Young came from the east as far as Pittsburg, and wanted a conveyance up the Mahoning, where he intended to lay out a town. He was referred to James Hillman, who took him and his baggage to the present town of Youngstown. Mrs. Hillman went with them. After their arrival at Youngstown, John Young offered Mrs. Hillman her choice of six acres, any place she would choose it in the town plot if she would remain. She did so. Mrs. Hillman took her six acres east of Wm. Rayne's, and. on a road that ran north from the Public Square, in front of George Tod's residence, and running east. on the main street as far as where Sam Stewart kept tavern, and back to the hill. James Hillman lived there and helped John Young lay out the town. He then bought a farm of some two hundred acres opposite town, where he built a frame house and lived for some years. Dr. Dutton and James Hillman built a mill in partnership, Hillman bought Dutton out. James Hillman was sheriff, I think, of what is now called Mahoning, Trumbull, MAHONING VALLEY - 75 Medina, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, and Portage Counties. About the years 1807 or 1808 he had gone security for so many that he was compelled to sell his farm and mill. He then bought Samuel Stewart's tavern stand, opposite where Dr. Dutton lived. During the War of 1812 he volunteered under the command of Col. Wm. Rayen. Prior to that he had the command of the regiment for some years; also justice of the peace for many years, before and after the war. "Many incidents of that war I could relate, but will relate a few: There was a man by the name of Jacob Swager that lived as a squatter upon the land of an old man by the name of Shehy. He had nothing but a very fine mare he called Nancy, and his rifle. She had a colt then five years old. After James Hillman had volunteered, Luke Swager offered him his fine bay horse for the campaign, which he accepted. After taking him through many tight places which I could relate, they returned home safe. I will have to go back some years. The year I can't recollect, but there was a salt spring some nine miles west of Youngstown, where people of the east of Youngstown came for fifty or sixty miles to make salt. They would have two kettles swung across a horse. I have seen them pass frequently ; on one occasion one man passed by himself. Some two weeks after, James Hillman was passing the spring; his dog, 'Bounce,' (I recollect the dog well) commenced to bark and scratch. The Colonel went to where the dog was, there he found the man buried about one foot deep, and covered with brush. He came to town and reported to George Tod, Wm. Rayen, Dr. Dutton, and others. There had been some three hundred Indians around Youngstown, Canfield, and Ellsworth for some time, but they had all disappeared. J. Hillman was selected to bring them to justice. James Hillman followed them some days by himself. Not far from old Chillicothe he overtook them. He called a counsel, he stated his. business, told them they had to return. After counsel of one day they agreed to return. The chief, I now forget his name, stated that one of his men had killed the man ; that he had stopped at the camp of the salt-maker; that the salt-maker had a small jug of whisky ; gave him a drink. The Indian wanted more; he refused to give it, and that he killed him and took the whisky. He then dug a hole with his knife and tomahawk ; buried him; then covered the grave with brush. James Hillman, alone and by himself, brought the whole tribe back to Youngstown. They were tried on the bluff back of the Mahoning, between George Tod's residence and Mr. Honye's, and opposite the old mill. Simon Perkins, of Warren, I think, acted as Judge, and 76 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS Alvin Pense, of Warren, as counsel for one party, and George Tod for the other. After a trial of some two days they thought best to acquit the Indian by the chief going his security for his future conduct. " Some two years after the above there was a party of Indians lived near Ravenna, Deerfield, and Atwater, of about four hundred strong, and of all ages and sizes. John Diven lived in Deerfield; he had traded horses with an Indian. The Indian thought he was . cheated. John Diven refused to trade back. On Christmas night there was a ball at the house of Judge Day. John Diven and his brother Daniel was there. John Diven married a Miss Ely, of Deerfield. Daniel Diven was to be married New-Years' day; all the parties were at the ball. About dark the Indian came to the door and wanted to see John Diven ; he refused to go out. Daniel Diven told John to swap coat and hat and he would go out. They done so. Just as Daniel Diven stepped out of the door the Indian shot Daniel Diven through both eyes, laying both eye-balls on his cheeks. The Indians all left that night. It was twenty-five miles to Youngstown, but two messengers came to James Hillman in the night and told their business. After feeding their horses and eating something themselves, they left for Deerfield before day. "Upon arriving there they found some fifty or sixty men ready to start in pursuit of the Indians. J. Hillman told them if they wanted to go they could do so, but if he went he went by himself. They had to consent, and James Hillman started by himself. There was no snow on the ground, but the ground was very rough. He could track them; as the rough ground had wore out their moccasins, their feet were cut and bleeding. After a hard day's ride he came upon their camp. He fell hack out of sight and encamped for the night. Early next morning he went up to their camp. The squaws were getting breakfast. The men were asleep. The Indians had a small fork stuck in the ground, with their guns leaning on it, and their shot- pouch and powder-horns hanging in the fork. The squaws did not see him until. he came within fifty yards of them. They gave the alarm ; in a moment every Indian was upon his feet. He drew his gun upon the chief; told him to order every man to stack his gun against a certain tree or he would pull the trigger. The chief knew the Colonel so well that he gave the order. So soon as their guns, tomahawks, and knives were stuck against the tree, Colonel Hillman took possession of the tree. He then told them his business; told him one of his men had shot Daniel Diven ; that they had to return ; MAHONING VALLEY - 75 that he knew the man that shot Daniel Diven ; if they would return peaceably and give up the man that shot Daniel Diven none of the balance would be hurt, and that they all knew him. If they refused he would kill at least twenty before they could recover their arms ; that the chief would be the first man to fall. He told them to eat their breakfast, and told them to send him his breakfast; after that he would hear what they had to say. After breakfast the chief told hint that they would have to hold a council before they could give him an answer. They went off some two hundred yards, and, after being absent some two hours, they returned in the war paint. So soon as the Colonel saw their decision, and when they came near enough, he raised his gun, ordered the chief to halt or he was a dead man. He then told them to go back and take off that paint. After a parley of half an hour they returned to hold another council, which held for some time. They came back with the emblem of peace. He then told them to send out hunters for meat, and for them to mend their moccasins, and to remain where they were until morning. The fourth day after, he brought the whole party into Warren, where the authority put the chief under guard. They remained there for some time. How it was settled I have forgotten. 1 have seen Daniel Diven in Youngstown frequently. I was in Deerfield in July, 1824. I called to see him. He appeared very cheerful, and was very pleasant ; thanked me for calling upon him. He had not forgotten me. " There was a great contest between Youngstown and Warren for the county-seat. Warren had a horse named Dave ; they offered to bet five hundred dollars that he could beat any thing Youngstown could scare up. George Tod took the bet. James Hillman had a small bay mare he called the Fly. George Tod picked upon her to ,beat the Dave; he kept her himself. I know, from what I have heard Ingersol Tod say, that his pa stayed in the stable every night for two weeks before the race. They ran on the street from William Rayen's residence to Crab Creek, said to be one mile. Youngstown and Warren was well represented. Youngstown had the south side, Warren the north side ; all who were in favor of Youngstown for the county-seat formed the south side ; all for Warren the north side. The line formed early. Every one was clearing their track. They het what money they had, then their watches, penknives, hats, coats, vests, and shoes. Alexander Walker rode the Fly. The horses started even, side and side, until they got to Henry Wick's store. In going down the descent from Wick's store Fly gained a full length. Then the rider of the Dave commenced whipping. About Hugh Bry- 78 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS son's store Dave came alongside. A. Walker gave the whip with a loud yell, and Fly shot ahead. In passing Bruce's, the last house, she was four lengths ahead; at Crab Creek she was some six lengths ahead, nor did he check her up until he passed Mr. Thornton's, a mile below ; in fact, not until he got to Mr. Shehy's. George Tod, and, I think, Calvin Pease, of Warren, rode behind. Tod kept on until he got to Shehy's, where he had to assist Ellick and lead him back. I mention this race, thinking some of my old schoolmates may recollect it. "From my earliest recollection James Hillman was surveyor for the Mahoning Valley. After he returned from the War of 1812 he sold the tavern stand to a Mr. Comstock ; bought the Crab Creek farm ; built a frame house ; sold that farm; bought the Bissell House, with six acres of land on the north side of the Street, also twenty-one acres on the south side of the street, joining Tod's twenty-five acres. Tod's ran to Crab Creek and both tracks on the river. In 1814 James Hillman was elected to the legislature. He also filled many offices. In 1820 he joined the Methodist Church. I was present at the time. "I was in Youngstown a few days in July, 1824—the last time I was ever there, fifty-one years ago. I must give you some of the old pioneer sport. There was a club of twelve—General Wadsworth and Mr. Mygatt, of Canfield ; Simon Perkins and Calvin Pease, of Warren ; Dr. Tylor, of Tylorstown, as it was then called; Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Clendennen, of Coitsville ; Captain H., of Poland; George Tod, Wm. Rayen, John E. Woodbridge, and James Hillman, of Youngstown. When the Mahoning would freeze solid they would speak for a dinner in Warren. They would start in their two-horse sleighs on the ice at Youngstown, all abreast. The six hindmost, upon the arrival at Warren, had to foot the bill, which was a set price, twenty-four dollars. About the year 1809 they was each to take a hog or pig, keep it two years. The six littlest hogs had to foot the bill. James Hillman's hog weighed over five hundred pounds. I do n't recollect the weights of any of the balance but Dr. Tylor's. It weighed over seven hundred pounds. They were weighed on James Hillman's balance scales. After Dr. Tylor's hog was weighed Wm. Rayen bet the next dinner that he and Mrs. Rayen could get on the other side and tip up the hog. The bet was taken. They had to put fourteen pounds on Dr. Tylor's hog to balance the scales. I could relate a great many incidents that David Tod and myself have seen at these dinner parties. The dinners were mostly at Will- MAHONING VALLEY - 79 iam Rayen's or James Hillman's. We were always present to see the sport. "It would be a proud day for me if I could be with you, and I fully intended to have done so, but I could not get back in time to attend to business on the 13th, as I wrote you. "My kindest regards to all my old friends and pioneers. Hoping to see them soon, I remain, yours, truly, “R. M. GRANT.” "The Belles and Beaux of Early Times" was the next toast, and was responded to by FLETCHER HOGUE, Sandy Lake, Mercer County, Penn., as follows: “I appreciate very much the honor conferred to me by my town's friends in giving me this pleasure. But they are very much mistaken in the man whom they have selected. I was born in this town in 1806, and I appreciate very much the early methods that they had in the selecting of husband and wife. As you heard read from Mr. Grant's le:ter, Mrs. Hillman did not have any shoes until after she was married. They were hardy pioneers, and it was not so much about the selection of stripe for their dress as now. It did n't take fifteen and sixteen yards to make them a suit—there were not so many flounces on their dresses. The ladies would meet and would get some threads on a stick, and the conversation was on copperas and white. Copperas and white was all the rage, and they would roll two threads of copperas and one of white. 'Do n't you think, Jane, that would be a nice figure 1' (Laughter.) "The conversation of the belles and beaux, at that time, would be a little like this : 'John, I love you." Well, I love you, Kate.' That was all. Well, but how are you going to support me l' He would extend his stalwart arms and his sun-burned hands and say, `These are that which will administer to your comfort and mine and to our progeny.' " I will relate a circumstance that occurred in this town, and I might as well tell the names before I go any further, because I won't go more than three or four rods in my speech before you will say you know who it is. G. S. Morley and William Kirtz came to this town— I do n't remember the year—and built a mill over where it now stands, and they got it running somewhere in the Fall months, and they did n't have any fire in the mill. It was then about Christmas time. My friend, Isaac Powers, lived contiguous to my father's farm ; and he was going down to the mill, and said to me, 'Fletch, won't 80 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS you go down to the mill with me ?' I said, 'Yes.' We got on a sled made of two boards and cross-pieces, and had a sorrel horse to draw us, and came down to the mill. After he had handed his grist to Kirtz, the miller says, You boys go in the house and get warm.' It was fearfully cold. Levy Morley and Aunt Hannah had pioneered from the Eastern States to this country, and they had a little girl named Rosetta Marina, and she was tired from the journey and lay sleeping on two chairs. Mother Kirtz said to the little girl, 'Rosetta Marina, jump up.' And she jumped up with her flaxen hair stream- ing. She gazed at us, and, after passing out of the door, I said to my friend, for he was a ,friend of mine, 'Isaac, I am going to have that girl for my wife.' He says, You shall not, Fletch ; I am going to have her for mine.' said I, 'we '11 see.' (Laughter.) " The pioneers of this county were born and brought up stalwart folks, and we hand down to you one of the best gifts that-ever was on this earth. The ladies say now, What have I got to do with politics ?' Why, I say there is no person who has the influence over the husband that a kind wife has. She says, John, vote right this time,' and he does it. (Laughter.) "My friend Powers, sitting before me) lived contiguous to me, and we never had but one difficulty in our whole lives, and that only lasted from sundown to the next day at nine o'clock. Now, can you, of the present generation, do better than that ? Never ! I do n't admire long speeches, which are usually dull. I would say, in con- clusion, peace to the ashes and joy to the memory of those pioneers that are gone." (Applause.) - A VOICE : " Who got that girl?" • Mr. FLETCHER HOGUE : " Well, John F. Hogue." The toast, "Our Sacrifices and Privations," was responded to by Hon. SHELDON NEWTON, of Boardman, as follows : "My friends, I am fearful that many in this sheet of upturned faces will be seriously disappointed in my remarks. It has been customary heretofore with me to have somewhat of the fire of youth about me, and, if possible, to raise even a little hilarity and fun ; but the truth is, to-day I feel more like preaching than making sport. "It is a solemn thing when we look back threescore years or more, when we were little children, and our parents in the very prime of life, some of them situated among the sturdy hills of New England, others from the flats of Pennsylvania, some from Eastern Virginia, Maryland, and perhaps other places; most of them corn- MAHONING VALLEY - 81 fortable as to this world's goods; yet, having rising families to look after and care for, they thought it best for the welfare of their little ones to go where land was cheap and fertile. After a thoughtful calculation, they concluded to leave the homes of their fathers and mothers, where they had spent the days of their youth, where each had courted their spouse, where they were married and became husbands and wives, and we—their little children—can just remember the hill-tops, the gurgling brook particularly, the hillside orchard, the wide-spread fields, the bleating herds, that surrounded us. I say, some of us can just remember these when our parents concluded to come here—come to Youngstown, to Canfield, Poland, Boardman, Austintown, and all the country round about—then the wildest of wild places. And what did they do this for l Not to make themselves comfortable, for they were better off at home. They left all for the sake of us—their children— notwithstanding they knew we had got to rough it through the days of childhood, and perhaps well up to man and womanhood. They knew we had got to suffer for the want of book knowledge, yet they trusted that we should inherit that good name that our ancestors for generations had possessed, which would in part make up for some of the 'high-faluting' knowledge of the present day. But it seemed to inc that our parents had sacrified every thing for us; they had come to this wild country and settled down to the drudgery of the first years of pioneer life. They knew nothing but work, build a log but to cover them, and us; then, chop, turn brush, roll logs, make fence, go without tea and coffee, go entirely without store clothes. You old ladies know exactly what I mean when I say store clothes. We made our own shoes, even if they were moccasins. They went without fruit of any kind for the first ten years, except wild fruit. I well remember the first four apples that grew on Boardman Hill, and that was in 1812. And what recompense did they receive for all their privation? Hardly any thing. If their children grew up dutiful, thank God; that was nearly enough. If they could leave their children a broad acre, then they went away satisfied. “But they, our parents, have all passed away, after nothing but a life of privation, toil, and want. A large majority of them passed off forty or fifty years ago. Part of them died in log houses, some of them buried in some lone neglected spot, and not a mound or stone to tell where they rest. In some cases life was longer, fortune dealt kindly with them, and in the course of long years they were pros- 82 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS pered and possessed broad farms, houses, and all the comforts of life, but these were only exceptions. Why, our dear mother died near fifty years ago. There was a stone placed at the bead of her grave that was from some quarry near by. Near fifty Winters have frozen and scaled off till the stone now lies prostrate on her grave. And if God spares me only a little longer I will have it replaced and made of a more durable material. " Why, friends, we have a grand, magnificent country round about us; where will we go on God's footstool to find a better? Here are all the-comforts grown and made at our very door. We can go to Illinois and other places and roam in corn-fields year in and year out. We can go to Minnesota and roll in wheat the balance of our lives. But if we want all the good things of this world combined and grown in one place, come back to Mahoning County, and here we have it to our hearts' content. And who made it ? Who brought it from a desert waste to its present splendid appearance, its fine houses and barns, villages and cities? Our fathers began it, but we ourselves have finished it up till to-day. " Depend upon it, it is we that have made the country ; we that have cleared and driven back the most dense forests. It is not because hundreds of laborers and artisans have nestled in and around Youngstown; have thrown together immense piles of brick, mortar, and stone. Yet, even here in this superb structure, which now encloses us, they have thrown together a hundred thousand dollars worth of material, the finish and appearance, the beauty of which is not surpassed in all Northern Ohio. "Perhaps I might stop here, for they have just opened an opera- house in Cleveland that cost one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Now old and gray-headed laborers, it is we that are at the foundation of this; it was we that furnished the bread and meat to support bone and muscle of the laborers while they are building this city. In fact, it is our town, of which we may well be proud. " With most of us age is bearing heavy upon us, infirmities are bending us down. Since our last reunion death has carried away Old Father Fitch, who then met with us, who was then just tottering in the stages of mortality ; as it were, was just stepping upon the threshold of the other world. He, with a score of other pioneers within the circuit of our acquaintance, has passed off within the last year. "We are admonished that time is fast closing around us. Those of us who are present are sure that our vision will be thinner and thinner. Yes, I think I can see the circumference of life fast clos- MAHONING VALLEY - 83 ing in. I think I can see all earthly things fast fading away. I know that time is short. I can see yonder streaks of light. I think I can see the break of day that is to usher in that morning when our reunion shall be eternal beyond the grave.), Judge NEWTON, of Canfield, then responded to the toast, "This Day," as follows: "It is a pleasure for me to meet this reunion of old men and women ; yet that pleasure is mingled with sorrow when I reflect that all through the pathway of life it is strewed with wrecks, yet a few have so navigated the stream of life as to reach fourscore. Still, the great ocean that engulfs all has stamped us as his prey. As I look over the audience I see some with whom I mingled in the active duties and responsibilities of life for over fifty years. As I have but ten minutes, I can scarcely glance at the incidents of a professional life of fifty-two years. When I look over the northern part of Ohio. as the field of my labor, and search for my early professional associates in every county on the Reserve, I find all dead but Rufus P.. Spaulding. His professional life is one year longer than mine, though his years a few less. One great reason why so few lawyers live to be old men and fill out the full measure of our days is, we attempt to carry all the business and pleasures of life along with us; whereas, but few physical frames and intellectual acquirements are firm and fertile enough to succeed in but one regular business. Out of thirty judges who sat with me on the bench all are dead but four—Mr. Kinsman, Porter, Brownlee, and Thompson. When I look for men of great promise there seems to be something that cuts them off before their measure is full. Permit me to refer to a few who have been neglected when dead, as is apt to be the case. "Samuel Wheeler, who lived in Ashtabula County, possessed as many qualifications to make a great man as any I know of, yet he lacked one, he was indolent. Before he could be brought up to make a great effort, he required to be whipped and abused, and then he was as strong as a lion. All feared and loved him. Mr. Whittlesey was in his way. He became uneasy and disgusted at delay, and died early, entirely unnecessary. Had he lived to have been fully developed he would have been a great man. "Ralph Granger, of Geauga, who in physical form and mental and personal accomplishments had no superior, and might have been an ornament to his country, but he had too much money, loved ease and pleasure and died early. 84 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. " Jonathan Sloane, of Portage, was a most commanding man, of extraordinary mental acquirements, but he became disgusted with the small business of the profession and want of culture in his brethren, lived a bachelor, had not any strong necessity to work, loved his ease and dignified retirement, neglected many opportunities, and wore himself out with ease before the measure of his days were full. "Roswell Stone, a fine physical form and constitution. I knew him early in Connecticut, when preparing for college. He was laborious, ambitious, and promising, and carried himself through and to his profession with much credit, against poverty and difficulties, and as honors were about to fall to him he bartered them for social pleasures, and early passed away. " Gregory Powers, of Summit, one of the most promising men of the profession, rising rapidly. He was impetuous and impulsive, disregarded his constitution, and overworked. About forty years ago we were concerned on opposite sides of an important case. I had the best side. He was pale and ghastly, physically weak and mentally strong. It was before the Supreme Court. They encouraged, and, I thought, helped him. He became aroused and made a powerful effort and beat me, but it was his last. He died in a few days. "John W. Willey, of Cuyahoga, was a brilliant and accomplished lawyer, a fine advocate, a fine companion, a gentlemen, but physically weak. He trembled like an aspen leaf as he talked, but like it he struggled and worked and bustled about, but early fell and was gone. "These years to which I refer are full of useful and instructive incidents, but I can not longer follow this vein. "These years, enlarging the number to seventy-five, has done more to people, utilize, and improve the condition of the world and its inhabitants than any thousand years before. .Substantially within that period a new world has been discovered and filled with living life, activity, and usefulness. Religion has been extended and made known to every nationality and people of the globe. Equal privileges and immunities have been extended over the new world, and fast becoming contagious over the whole earth. "Woman has been elevated to an equality with man. Their general sphere is to mold and give character to him. They are made of the same flesh and blood, and .endowed with the same general characteristics. They may not excel in the physical sciences, but they more than equal in the practical duties of life. " Steam has been utilized and made one of the great agencies of MAHONING VALLEY - 85 man. Electricity has been made to talk instantaneously from the bottom of the sea with different nations. Oceans have been made subservient to the wishes and ambition of man. Railroads have girdled the earth and tunneled her mountains. The earth has been anew linked together by intercommunication, old isolations abandoned, prejudices thrown away. The English language fast becoming the language of the world, the world becoming Americanized. I am an American, is a better passport than parchments over the world. General education is pervading the public mind. School-houses and churches are dotting over the world instead of swallowing up the wealth of cities. "Failing to lift the hat in honor to a king does not set nations at war. Warriors are becoming mechanics, husbandmen, and shepherds. By reason o f invention and improvment in machinery, the useful arts have been extended, and industry promoted. The bowels of the earth dug and used to enlighten and Christianize the world. The barren hills and rich valleys even of our new world teem with food sufficient to feed the famishing nations of the world. "If America will become wise by studying the history of the older nations, and avoiding the rocks upon which they have shipwrecked, she will become the light of the world. "Man knows but little of what he can do or what the earth will produce, until he tries, and tries again. In 1851 our government sent Col. James Collier to California to look to her new possessions. He came back, and I well remember his report ; he said it was the most God-forsaken country in the world, the most barren spot on earth; it could never support an agricultural population. After twenty-four years what is it l The garden of the world, sustaining a population of millions, and its exports carried to the ends of the earth, to the astonishment of all. Within thirty years our inventions, agricultural implements, and artisans have visited the old crumbling cities of Europe. Old Rome, for many years the city of the world, has caught the inspiration, and improved more even within twenty- five years, than for one thousand before. America is now building a anticipating on one of her seven hills, composed of all the marbles of Italy, and was last year in a very forward condition, and Garibaldi is now anticipating an improvement of the Tiber from the Mediterranean, twelve miles, to Rome, and thereby making her a sea-port. "Florence is now inhabited by American artists and Yankee school-teachers, and her hills being covered by American dwellings. Milan has caught the breeze and is arching over her streets) and 86 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. has 85,750 children attending her city public-schools, at an expense annually to the city of $312,000, and her free hospitals are a model for all cities. "And even London, since the advent of Prince Albert, the plebeian, within thirty years has improved more in material, wealth, and beauty, than in any two hundred years before; and our athletics, Weston and others, have so improved the speed of traveling that England has caught the fire, so that the fat Englishman, Matthew Webb, has swam the boisterous channel dividing England and France, of about twenty-five miles in width, in twenty-one consecutive hours, and it is pronounced by the English press as the greatest physical feat of the country. I think I should rather undertake it at my age than to cross again in their boat. "Constantinople has caught the passing tide, and commenced to improve her back-grounds after the American fashion ; the two great oceans are made to shake hands together. "My friends, though age has whitened our heads- and furrowed our checks and dimmed the eye, let us again rally and add one more decade to the catalogue of improvements."„ The toast, "The Stage-coach, Horseback, and Afoot," in the absence of Matthew Burchard, Esq., of Warren, was responded to by A. W. Jones, Esq., and Walter L. Campbell. Mr. JONES responded with the following: "The Days Before Railroads and Telegraphs." "Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—As we cast our eyes back through the past centuries, of even our own proud America, the time naturally divides itself into distinct periods, according to the improvements that have been made in transportation of persons, property, and information. Hence we had the period of the Indian trail, the blazed path, the bridle path, the crooked wagon road, to avoid obstacles, the worked wagon-road, and post-road, with its era of post-boys, and stage-coaches, and flat-boat navigation. Then came a wonderful advance, the period of canals and steamboat navigation, and lastly, railroads and telegraphs. "I fancy now that I see the pilgrims as they came on shore from the May-flower, and had offered up their thanks and songs of praise to their Creator, for his protection in their long ship voyage, as they discovered the trail, which had been made by the foot of the red man, which led them directly upon Plymouth Rock. "Here, on December 11, 1620, civilization began to dawn upon MAHONING VALLEY - 87 America. Here the rude trail of the Indian began to give way to the prepared road of enlightened civilization. "From that time forward towns began to grow up. The products of the husbandman were reared, and the necessity for communication overcame the obstacles in the way, and the blazed path through the woods showed to the pack-horse and his master the course from settlement to settlement. As time advanced this gave place to better roads, and the blazed path, carrying with it the morning of civilization, moved westward to the frontier, and has since been battling with the , trail and barbarities of the wild Indian, until it has struck the Pacific shores and has in turn given place to higher improvements. And information was not less marked in its course. To these sturdy pioneers no daily newspaper greeted them at their breakfast tables, to inform them of the doings of Parliament the day before, the failures in Wall Street, and accident to the King of China, the birth of a young Sartoris, or the brutality of an Indian tribe on the Western frontier. This information came by the courier, that went by chance or purposely in boat, from settlement to settlement, to warn them of approaching danger, or advise with them with reference to another burden imposed by an English Parliament. But the spread of information has in a great measure followed in the wake of improvements in transportations. But it is not until within the last century that even wagon roads have been brought to any degree of perfection in this country; and then by the aid of national legislation. "When the Constitution of the United States was formed, it authorized Congress to establish post-offices and post-roads, and then commenced in earnest the establishment of a system of roads, that undoubtedly looked to the inhabitants of that day as almost perfection. Under that authority national roads were built in every direction. One from Washington to St. Louis, running through our own State is a line mark to-day, by which Ohio is divided into two parts, above and below the national road. "In 1791, we had but eighty-nine post-offices, and but 1,905 miles post-roads. That has increased, until now we have almost 30,000 post-offices, and 100,000,000 of annual miles of post service. With the post-roads came the stage-coach with its four and six horses, that dashed along its course night and day, changing horses every ten or twelve miles. How has many a boy's ambition been raised as he saw the stage-driver come out, mount the boot, gather up the lines of his four-horse team, crack his whip and go off on a run, with the hope that at some future time lie might be elevated to the 88 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. proud and commanding position of a stage-driver. In those days the stage-driver, like the New York Supervisor, was the most noted man in town. All courted his society, and delighted to hear the news along the stage route, and his thrilling adventures and wonderful achievements. But no more do we hear the stage-driver's born along our village streets as formerly, when he whirled up to the post-office or stage hotel. The stage-driver has gone, and we hear no more of him, except, perhaps, of the single exception of Hank Monks, and the ride that he gave to that great and intensely American statesman, Horace Greeley. The idea of pleasure excursions never dawned upon the minds of the sturdy pioneers of yore, and had the proposition been suggested to. Colonel Hillman and John Young, when they came to Mahoning Valley, that the time would come when their posterity would be able to make an excursion to Niagara Falls, remain there nine hours and get home within twenty-four hours, and all for five dollars, they would have looked upon him very much as we would now look upon the individual that would propose an excursion to the moon. "Before the days of railroads and telegraph the products of the West and the frontier was carried to the Eastern markets and the seaboard in wagons, at large expense and by slow progress, and these wagons, in time, returned with the manufactures of New England. But the development of the country demanded cheaper and more extensive facilities for the exchange of the commodities of this great nation, and skilled and inventive mechanics were called into requisition, to give to the world a plan. Then came the period of canals, and I fancy that some of the old pioneers will remember what rejoicing there was in the Mahoning Valley when the first canal-boat was propelled along the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal. Little thought had they then that in the year 1875 the canal would be abandoned, and the ditch filled up and the old canal-boat rotten on the shore, as a thing of the past. But the nation demanded more and quicker transportation, and, thanks be to the mechanics of America, they were equal to the necessities of the nation, and out came the locomotive and the railroad train, which has revolutionized the whole country. It has placed the granaries of the West at the very doors of the operatives of the East, and in turn it has opened up a home market for the manufactures of the East in the garden of the West, and to-day can be heard in almost every city, town, and hamlet of this great country the shrill whistle of the locomotive, that has taken the place of the stage-horn of olden times. MAHONING VALLEY - 89 "Closely connected with the railroad system of America is its companion, the telegraph line, by which New York and San Francisco can utilize the electric current, and converse together as though they were both upon Manhattan Island instead of being separated by the greatest and grandest nation beneath the sun. For these great achievements and improvements we are indebted to the liberality, the intelligence, and love of country of the sterling pioneers. "Whether or not these great means of transit shall in turn be superseded by something better, I dare not suggest or speculate upon, but leave it as a problem that will be worked out and solved by the intelligence and inventive genius of the American-mechanic, to whom the world is so largely indebted for wonders in the past." At the conclusion of Mr. Jones's response, Mr. CAMPBELL responded as follows : "Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—I would that there had been some one here to-day who could have responded fittingly from actual experience to this toast of 'The Stage - coach, Horseback, and Afoot.' It is a remarkable commentary on the progressive spirit that has characterized our age, that for those who are now not very far advanced in life the stage-coach has little more than a traditional existence, is hardly more than a dream—is almost a fancy. Of course, as Mr. Jones suggested, we have lingering reminiscences of the appearance of the driver as he sat aloft with his reins in hand, and the childish awe with which we regarded his matchless power. Of course, we remember how we listened for the twang of his horn and the crack of his whip and followed with eager ears his coach as it rolled away; but that is about all. The stage-coach has gone, and I am not of those who cast regretful glances on the swiftly receding shores of the past, and mourn with a comfortless sorrow over the wrecks that time has made. The stage-coach has rolled away, as we have often heard it in the darkness, into the gloom of the dead past ; but out of that gloom there has come the capacious palace-car ; the locomotive has taken the place of the four-in-hand, and now we do not wait for our intelligence for the slow process of mails, but as by a lightning's flash we receive it almost at the instant of happening, from the utmost corner of the globe. There has been a change— a change from the stage-coach to the railroad, from the mail to the telegraph. While I can not exclaim with Sthenelas, who was wearied by the narrations of Nestor with regard to the achievements of the ancestors, 'Let us thank the gods that we are better than our fathers,' 90 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. I can say this, that in this particular, at least, we are better off than our fathers. Catching the spirit of enterprise that animated them, it has been developed and pushed forward until to-day, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the Gulf, there is a net-work of railroads. It is a railroad age. We are told that this railroad power is a despotism advancing upon the citadel of our liberties. It may be, it may be ! I am not here to-day to argue State affairs ; but, if it be a despot, it is an exceedingly gracious one. Its progress has not been like the march of the conqueror through fields of blood. Its path has not been, like his, marked with waste of country and sack of town. It has not, like him, achieved bad eminence by working havoc. All along its shining way can be traced the course of a national material development that knows no parallel. Not yet a half a century has passed since first the feasibility of steam transportation by land was demonstrated, and yet, within this comparatively short period what a vast empire has been won from savagery to civilization, from waste to use. The locomotive has crushed the frail wigwams of the Indian village and driven the lazy inhabitants to find new lairs in lava-beds and mountain fastnesses, where they still continue to lie and steal and scalp with that same delightful indifference to honor and manhood that has always given to their race such an exquisite charm. Hunting-grounds have been transformed into productive fields, and pastures, where but now roamed the untamed bison, fatten the flocks and herds of civilized man ; where but yesterday a few thousand roaming barbarians eked out a scant existence by fishing and hunting, millions of population to-day, by industry and commerce, live and thrive. Held by rigorous natural requirements, civilization in this country must long have clung to sea-coast, lake shore, or river bank, had not a new servant come to its aid. The railroad gave it wings that released it from dependence on navigable waters, lifted it over mountain barriers, and, . with rapid flight, carried it inland far away from its original seat. The language of the most extravagant hyperbole would seem commonplace when applied to the wonders the railroad has wrought. Why, it touches deep marshes, and they become firm foundations for magnificent cities. It enters uninhabited prairies, and powerful States, imperial in wealth and population, are born in a day. It pushes across plains which but now were supposed to be arid wastes, and they are at once covered with the ranches of herdsmen. It climbs the heights and penetrates the canyons of the Rocky Mountains, and there coal and iron and silver and gold tell of glories soon to be. A MAHONING VALLEY - 91 tithe of the praise it deserves has not yet been told. Patriotism claims it as a powerful, an almost indispensable, ally. 'Without the facilities of intercourse afforded by steam locomotion, a very great duration of the Republic could hardly be hoped. The jarring interests, the sectional prejudices and antipathies, the diversity of language and custom and tradition obtaining among a people composed of many different nationalities, living in regions widely separated from each other, unless counteracted, must surely have produced, in time, disintegration. Steam is annihilating distance, overcoming local jealousies and hereditary national hates, and sounding the deep-hidden harmonies of seemingly discordant interests. Under its benign influence sources of weakness are converted into elements Of national strength. Extent of territory no longer excites those gloomy forebodings which saw States, far removed from the political center, and consequently little sensible of dependence upon it, under one pretext or another, ever ripe for revolution. Forty years ago Columbus was further from Washington than is Sacramento to-day. " The diversity of industries, the variety of products, the countless sources of wealth, which can only be found with territorial greatness, we can therefore enjoy without encountering the centrifugal tendencies hitherto necessarily connected with it. Tinder the enlarging culture and constant contact from travel, peculiarities arising from birth are yielding to the symmetry produced by association. Thus are we developing a national character not the less strong on account of being the fusion of many different elements ; not the less rich because composed of many different national peculiarities. "The power that has been the author of all this prosperity, that has built these cities, founded these States, peopled these plains, discovered and developed the riches of mountain and valley, that has given to our union an assured hope of permanence, and to our people a unity, strength, and richness of character that has scattered with lavish hand blessings wherever it has gone, this railroad power, with all due respect to our pioneer fathers, I extol above the stage-coach, or horseback, or afoot. "Thus I respond to the toast. Appreciating all the honors and heroism that belong to the earlier age, and tracing the achievements of the present to the spirit of enterprise imbued by the pioneers, still I exult in the railroad over the stage-coach, the telegraph over the mail, the present over the past. Great honor to the fathers, some honor to the children too." 92 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. Mr. ALEXANDER M'KINNEY, Fort Wayne, Indiana, responded to the toast " The Houses and Home Life of Pioneers," as follows: "Ladies and Gentlemen, and Fellow-pioneers.—If I were not to say that I rejoice and am exceedingly glad to meet you here to-day, I would do great injustice to myself. I thank God he has kept me to see this day. Now, as to the houses and homes of pioneers, the first experience I had in the homes of the pioneers goes back to 1804; my parents with an equipage .that was generally brought by early settlers arrived out here on the opposite side of the river, about fifty rods south of your beautiful cemetery. It is now in the bounds of this city. I remember very well indeed when we landed; there were the logs put up for the sides of the house, and a roof of clapboards as was the fashion in those days, and a place cut out for a door, but there was no door there. There were the sleepers but there was no floor. "I will relate a little incident that occurred which probably makes the matter more vivid upon my mind. Leaving a comfortable home, my mother landed here with five children. My uncle, Joshua Kyle, who had been here two or three years had a saw-mill built and running, and he took my mother, myself, and younger sister honle with him, leaving father and the elder boys to take care of the house and cattle. There were two or three cows and some sheep we brought. They stayed all night at the log house. Next day there were a lot of boards put over the sleepers which made a loose floor, on which we could place our luggage and household goods. That was my first experience of pioneering. " The settlement was very scant. We had log cabins then, and we had coon skins, but we had no hard cider. After the logs were piled up for the side of the house the man would go out with a broad-ax and scratch them down a little so that they would be a little smoother on the inside. Some places where there was good timber that would split well, they would split the log in two and that was considered a good deal better. There were not many nails used in building in those days; every man had the charge of the erection of his own temple. I suppose in the majority of the houses there was n't a pound of nails used in the whole building. No nails were made then except by the blacksmith. The furniture was very crude. If the people were fortunate enough to bring furniture with them they had it, otherwise they had to do the best they could. There were then but two or three frame houses in the country; one was occupied MAHONING VALLEY - 93 by Judge Rayne and one by Judge Young. 'Squire Hillman had one. They were very rudely constructed. "As to our own house there was no door for some time. We hung up a quilt, and a big bull-dog constituted the door. The furniture generally consisted of a spinning-wheel, and in some cases a loom. The house was a factory in one sense, for whatever we had to wear we manufactured for ourselves as a general thing. The men raised the flax, and the women spun it and wove it. The wool was shorn from the sheep and picked and carded by hand. We had hand-cards, and carded the wool and made the cloth. If there was a fulling-mill in the neighborhood, it was taken there and made into Winter wear. We wore flannel in the Winter and linen in the Summer. The doors were hung on wooden hinges, generally with the latch-string out. Some houses had chairs and some benches. In many cases they used, as there was generally a baby in the house, a sugar-trough to rock the baby in. " The home life then, as to-day, was varied by the surroundings. We were deprived of many privileges that home life affords now, but the same love was found there. I remember having a conversation with our lamented Governor Tod, a few years before he died, and our conversation ran back to early days, and in his familiar way said, 'Mac, we were not raised as we have raised our boys ;' and he related several incidents. No kinder mothers lived than we had, and so there were the same affections in the family as there are to-day. "In their reference to travel, in responding to the toast on that subject, they neglected to tell one thing that I will refer to. If we wanted to go any place we had to go on foot or on horseback. If a young gentleman wanted to take his lady to singing-school he took her on the horse with him. As for carriages, there were none up until after I was a married man and was housekeeping. " But the same God was worshiped then, and the same religion taught, as now. And to illustrate, I will refer to two men journeying in the wild Western country, and they came to a cabin and desired lodging. The gentleman was not at home, but the lady told them they could stay, and after they had been there awhile he came home ; he was a rough-looking, wild back-woods hunter ; and when they were shown up into the loft to bed (by-the-bye, the Way we had to go up-stairs then was with two split sticks with rounds stuck in) the man put up his rifle and they were a good deal uneasy, thought they were not safe. They concluded that 94 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. one would sleep while the other would watch, for they were afraid they would be murdered before morning. They had n't been abed long until they heard a voice which they thought sounded like somebody reading, and they listened, and it was the rough hunter who was reading his chapter from his Bible. After he had got through, he. and his wife got down on their knees and prayed devoutly for them.. selves and the strangers staying over night with them. After they had got through, one of the men says to the other, guess we need not be uneasy; if the man prays there is no danger of him killing us./ So we see that the same God was worshiped in the pioneer's cabin that we worship now in our glorious temples with their spires reaching heavenward, and may that same God continue to prosper us and bless us !" (Applause.) Mr. TOD FORD responded to the toast, "The Latch-string," as follows: " When I first saw my name in print, as one who would take part in this meeting of sear and yellow leaves, I must say I felt a little out of place, for what business had I, so energetic with youth, and with a future so brilliant in prospect, among these heads; gray with long and honorable lives ; among these forms, bent with the cares and responsibilities of the years that are gone? I spoke about this to Cale Wick. He regarded me at first sternly, and then with that look of profound wisdom upon his face, which you who know and love him have so often noticed, he said impressively, Ford, we live in deeds not years. The boy David who killed Gollob,' and in so doing conquered an army hostile to God, in that simple act alone lived longer in the annals of the record book which the angels keep than did Methuselah, who crowded hard on one thousand years. To be sure, Ford,' he continued, 'you are not feeble with old age, but then when we consider the shining purity of your moral character, and your great and noble deeds, why—your 're feeble enough.' This, of course, consoled me. But then, ladies and gents, after all, it matters nothing on this day and occasion what may be the number of our years, for whether in the prime of life, or pressing closely upon the allotted threescore years and ten, we are to-day living only among the scenes of our young lives, for our hearts have taken us back to boy and girlhood, and we forget that we are old. "You ask me, sir, to respond to the toast, 'The Latch-string.' My acquaintance with latch-strings is limited. We have at home only a white porcelain knob that turns very softly and silently during the day, MAHONING VALLEY - 95 but which at night, when a fellow comes home late and doesn't want to make any noise, emits a harsh, grating kind of sound, very disturbing to the nerves. I understand from Mr. that it was far different in his day ; that when any member of his family, having pulled off his boots outside, the old hickory latch always attended to its business quietly, and, as though in sympathy with the late-corner, fell into its place as silently as an angel footstep on the golden stair. But aside from my meagre acquaintance with the subject of this toast there is still a further difficulty, for in this day and generation of reckless expenditure, when mere empty show so captivates the hearts of men, how can we give an interest to that which is plain and homely? Now, when a single door in the house of an A. T. Stewart with its mountings costing seven hundred dollars, is calling forth the enthusiastic admiration of the public, what can be said of the simple piece of twine that, hanging from its gimlet-hole, was the front-door's most extravagant ornament in our grandfathers' time I But, my friends, much as you might admire, and justly, too, the elegantly chased silver trappings upon a Stewart's door, I fancy they have for you nothing of the charm of this simple contrivance, which, as you think back upon it now, again lets you in among the precious experiences of your boy and girlhood home. There 's no beauty, you know, like the beauty of tender associations. My mother is seventy years old, and upon her face is written the history of a life-time; but I would n't swap her for the best-looking woman in America. And just so the old latchstring, with its hundred dear old-time suggestions lurking in every knot and raveled thread, has for us a beauty and a value which the wealth and skill of man can not give. To us who, unfortunately, came into the world too late to clear dense acres of forest lands, to rear our own habitations, to do chores, and to otherwise experience the delights of pioneer life, the latch-string still remains only in imagination, to be sure, but in imagination as vivid as reality. It remains to us as a symbol of hospitality—for the old saying, ' The latchstring is out,' is as fresh and full of warm meaning to-day as when hospitality first found in it a cordial expression. It is a phrase with a heart-beat in it, and, though uttered by the money-prince of New York or the thrifty farmer of the country, it has the same ring of sincerity that it had in those old days when hearts were warmer and bigger than now. And so, even at the present hour, so long after the days of pioneer simplicity, with our country grown so rich, and its ways so extravagantly luxurious, if we wish to express our hospitality in the warmest possible manner and leave no doubt in the mind 96 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. of him whom we would make our guest of the welcome that shall be his, we must, in our infancy, go back to the old settler's door, borrow from it the rude twine and hickory, and fixing it upon our own, say to the guest whom we would entertain, So the latch-string hangeth out for you—let it be pulled.' And well may it be a fitting symbol of hospitality, too, for it existed when hospitality meant outstretched arms. "I know how apt we are to.unjustly magnify the worth and virtues of former times and depreciate our own. It is one of the frailties of human nature, but it is not strange that our fathers should have larger hearts and warmer sympathies than we—we live in business communities ; they lived in a community of homes. We are in the constant whirl and excitement of money-making and outside gayeties, and a thousand and one daily events that take our minds from home and home objects. They lived for their home, and in their home alone. You have here in Youngstown 15,000 neighbors, each has his individual pleasures and sorrows, and the sight of them has become so common to you that it fails to awaken your sympathy. They, a mere handful of families, sprinkled down among the uncut forest became dependent ,upon each other for cheering society and comforts—became, in fact, one great family, vying with each other in friendly offices, and growing more and more sympathetic and kindly as the days passed by. In the city of New York, you know, you may live for years without even a bowing acquaintance with your next-door neighbor. Pleasure and sorrow, sickness and death, may enter your sitting-room, but in the great city full, pleasure and sorrow and sickness and death come so often that they do not touch the hearts of others, and men almost forget how to pity. Not so in your olden time. Then the first-born brought joy to other hearts than father and mother, and when death came for your best-beloved, there were other cheeks against yours, and other tears that mingled with yours as they fell in common sorrow. Why, then, is it strange that your hospitality should be something more than a name, and your symbol, the latch-string, our symbol, and the symbol of others to come hereafter, even down to the latest generations ? " My friends, the sun of this tenth day of September is in the west, and another anniversary so pleasant in anticipation, so touchingly glad in actual experience, will soon be numbered with your tender memories. Some who were with you one year ago are not here to-day, and will be with you no more till this life shall close and another life begin ; and when the 10th of September shall again touch your hearts MAHONING VALLEY - 97 with its reminiscences of the old days that are so dear to you, still others will be missed with tears. We all of us remember that little item which so lately went the rounds of the papers, how a Kentucky mother, learning that a disease of the eye, with which she was suffering, must soon deprive her of her eye-sight, repaired at once to her home and dressed her little ones in their sweetest attire, that her recollections of them might be as pleasant as possible ; and so, with their faces upturned to hers, weeping for some great misfortune they could not understand, her light went out, leaving her children's features only a pleasant memory. “When your sun is in the west, and death shall seal your eyes to all the scenes of earth, may the memories of them be only pleasant ones, bringing with them a place that shall be sweet and abiding ; and, when you approach the portals of heaven, may you 'find hanging from a gimlet-hole in the pearly gates the old, old latch-string." (Loud applause.) After the announcement by Wm. Powers that the proceedings of the pioneer meetings of this and last year would be gathered together and bound in one volume, the meeting adjourned, to make preparation for the evening's entertainment. The following is a complete list of the relics on exhibition with the names of exhibitors, so far as could be ascertained, attached. RELICS. The following are the relics of the older time, exhibited during the day : An old Bible, the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, dated 1740. A piece of hand embroidery work, the property of Mrs. E. A.. Bence, of Poland, supposed to be nearly one hundred years old. A china set, once the property of Dr. John Weatherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and now belonging to Dr. T. H. Stewart, of Church Hill. It is about one hundred years old. A spinning-wheel, the property of J. R. Noble, of Hubbard, manufactured by Ephriam Lyon, of Connecticut, in 1773, for Rachel Noble, mother of Austin and J. R. Noble, of Hubbard. The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments; in scribed on the inside of the cover was "William M'Clelland, his book, 1776.” "The Builder's Jewel, or the Youth's Instructor;" written on the inside was " Joseph Thomalson Wierick, Bridge, County for Cum- berland, April 6, 1733. Put on exhibition by Thomas Nichols. 98 - HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. A large pewter dish, the property of Mrs. Jane Wick, given to her by her mother, Mrs. Sarah Kirkpatrick, imported from Scotland about the year 1650. A photograph of Charles Young, fourth son of John Young, the first settler of Youngstown. Three tin breakfast plates, a large platter, and two wooden combs, the property of Mrs. James Russell, of Kinsman, had belonged to Mrs. Russell's great-grandmother, and was brought to Coitsville from Center County, Penn., by Mrs. Rebecca Cowdery, Mrs. Russell's mother and as near as can be ascertained, they are about two hundred years old. A large sea-shell, the property of Tobias Kimmel'. His father brought it to this country in 1802. It is said to be over two hundred years old. A family record, worked in embroidery by hand, made by Mary Skinner, aged nine years, August 28, 1799 ; the property of Miss H. Hine, of Painesville, Ohio. An old Bible, the property of Amandia Trigg, printed by Henry Hill and John Fields, dated 1660. The American Preceptor, banded in by Sam Holland, used by Mrs. Wilson S. Thorn in early times. An old volume, printed at Warren, entitled, "The Trump of Fame," dated Tuesday, June 18, 1842, property of A. W. Jones, Esq. Mr. J. C. Smith, of this city, exhibited an eight dollar-bill, Continental money, printed by Hall and Sillers, at Philadelphia, Penn., in 1776. A leather wallet, handed in by Nead Powers; this wallet was brought to Youngstown by Joseph Bissell in the year 1800. A large tumbler, handed in by John Steward, of Lowell, said to be over one hundred and fifty years old. Four bridle buckles, worn over one hundred years ago. No name attached. A couple of spread-eagle plates, the property of Mrs. Sarah Osborn, brought by her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Miller, from Perry County, Penn., in 1807. Handed in by Henry Osborn. Four silver spoons, a wedding present in 1818, by Mrs. George M'Kee. A gold necklace, presented to Miss Lydia Hancock by her father, General Hancock, in 1775. Handed in by Mrs. George M'Kee. Gold coins, found in the royal forest of Dean Glouchestershire, England, dated 1304, 1662, 1775, now the property of R. Prigg. MAHONING VALLEY - 99 A notice, served on five Grand, and seven Petit jurors, by George Phelps, then Clerk of Hubbard Township, dated Warren, February 2, 1806, found in the Register office by J. F. M'Gowan, on September 4, 1875, handed in by James Lewis. A platter, the property of Mrs. Mary Powers, of Girard, presented to her by Mrs. Elizabeth Lanterman, in her seventy-sixth year, and formerly the property of her great-great-grandmother. It is supposed to be over two hundred years old. A dinner horn, brought from the sea one hundred years ago by Robert Stewart, now the property of A. S. Stewart. A silver milk-pitcher, sugar-bowl, a tea and coffee pot, the property of Mrs. S. Clark, brought from Shamms Valley, Penn., by her grandmother, Mrs. M. Cord, in 1775. A china coffee-cup, the property of L. A. Gilbert; bought by Amy Rush in the first store opened in Youngstown, about the year 1800. A family record, worked in embroidery, the property of Miss H. Hine, of Painesville, Ohio, made by Polly Skinner, aged nine years, in 1802. Sixteen copies of the Western Reserve Chronicle, printed at Warren, between the years 1817 and 1828. A wooden butter-dish, first used by Hannah Wick, wife of Henry Wick, Sr. It was made from a piece of wood before the era of turning lathes. When Mrs. Wick quit making butter, she bequeathed the dish to Betsy Kimmel, wife of John Kimmel, who has used it ever since. A hatchet and pipe, found on the farm of Mrs. John Vanwye, two miles south of Warren, on the banks of the Mahoning, by her son/ Bonier W. Vanwye, in June, 1869, while hoeing corn. A counterpane, embroidered in North Carolina by Mrs. Nancy Scott, who raised the cotton, carded, spun, and wove it, and sold it to Judge Wm. Rayen, deceased, who used it for a great many years and gave it to Mrs. Cotton, deceased. It is now owned by Mrs. S. Calender, of Girard. Mr. George Webb, of Ellsworth, exhibited a pair of drumsticks which, in brief, have the following history : They were purchased by Samuel Lovett, of New London, Connecticut, in the city of Boston in 1738, and were used by him in the war of the Revolution; they also were used in the war of 1812. They were presented by Lovett, in year 1808, to John C. Webb, then of Connecticut, now of Ellsworth, Ohio. Mr. Webb at that time was nineteen years old, is now eighty-six