History of Mahoning County CHAPTER I GEOLOGY Geological Structure of the State—The Geological Foundations of Ohio of Marine Origin —Prehistoric Conditions—First Land Plants: Origin of Coal Fields—First Permanent Dry Land—Age of Reptiles: First Mammals—The Glacial Period—Effect of Glacial Action on the Landscape— Surface Feat tires of Mahoning County—Geological Structure of Mahoning County—Conglometate—Fossil Nuts and Fruits of the Carboniferous Age Found in Mahoning County. Geology is the science that investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic Kingdoms of Nature. In order to render intelligible the statements that to follow, a brief account will here be given of the geological series of the State, and its geological structure. The geological structure of Ohio is as simple as that of almost any other 40,000 square miles of the earth's surface. So far as its exposed rock series is concerned, Ohio is built throughout its whole extent of stratified deposits or, in other words, of beds of sand, clay and limestone, in all their various gradations, that were deposited or that grew in water. There are in the Ohio series no igneous nor metamorphic rocks whatever that is. there are no rocks that have assumed their present form and condition from a molten state, or that subsequent to their original form- ation have been transformed by heat. The only qualification which this statement needs pertains to the beds of drift by which a large part of the State is covered. These drift beds contain bowlders in large amount that were derived from the igneous and metamorphic rocks that are found around the shores of Lakes Superior and Huron. But these bowlders are recognized by all, even by the least observant, as foreign to the Ohio scale. They are familiarly known as "lost rocks" or "erratics." If we should descend deep enough below the surface, we should reach the limit of these stratified deposits and come to the great foundations of the continent which are the surface rocks in parts of Canada, New England and the West. The granite of Plymouth Rock underlies the continent. But the drill has never vet hewed its way down to these massive 22 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY bed within our boundaries, and thus expose them to view. THE GEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OHIO OF MARINE ORIGIN. The rocks that constitute the present surface of Ohio were formed in water and none of them have been modified or masked by the action of high temperatures. They remain in substantially the same condition in which they were formed. With the exceptions of the coal seams and a few beds associated with them, and of the drift deposits, all the formations of Ohio grew in the sea. There are no lake or river deposits among them; but by countless and infallible signs they testify to a marine origin. The remnants of life which they contain, often in the greatest abundance, are decisive as to this point. The sea in which or around which they grew was the former extension of the Gulf of Mexico. When the rocks of Ohio were in process of ,formation, the waters and genial climate of the Gulf extended without interruption to the borders of the Great Lakes. All of these rocks had their origin under such conditions. The rocks of Ohio constitute an orderly series. They occur in wide-spread sheets, the lowermost of which are co-extensive with the limits of the State. As we ascend in the scale, the strata constantly occupy smaller areas, but the last deposits, viz : those of the Carboniferous period are still found to cover at least one-fourth of the entire area of the State. Some of these formations can be followed into and across adjacent States in apparent unbroken continuity. The edges of the successive deposits in the Ohio series are exposed in innumerable natural sections, so that their true order can generally be determined with certainty and ease. For the accumulation and growth of this great series of deposits, vast periods of time are required. Many millions of years must be used in any rational explanation of their origin and history. All of the stages of this history have practically unlimited amounts of past time upon which to draw. They have all gone forward on so large a scale, so far as time is concerned, that the few thousand years of human history would not make an appreciable factor in any of them. In other words, five thousand years, or ten thousand years, were too small a period to be counted in the formation of coal, for example, or in the accumulation of petroleum, or the shaping of the surface of the State by the agency of erosion. The time that has passed since man has been in the world has been computed by some geologists as less than half of one per cent. of the entire time occupied by geological history. It is true of geological history as it is of human history, that it begins far this side of the beginning of things. Geology shows us that the existing system of things had a beginning with a time very long ago as measured in years when this section was in the bottom of a great sea of wide area but not of very great depth,— a time when the waters of the Gulf of Mexico covered all the basin of the Mississippi and the place now occupied by the lower of the great lakes, and sent one broad arm through northeastern Canada to join the Arctic and another across Mexico to join the Pacific. PREHISTORIC CONDITIONS. There were then no Appalachian mountains, but to the east of their present position, and to the north of the Great Lakes, there lay a large continent on whose shores played the waves of this great sea, and over whose surface rivers were flowing, bearing their sediments into its waters. In the depth's of this sea, at about north latitude 41 degrees and west longitude 81 degrees, were being deposited layer upon layer, the massive rock foundations of that structure which, when it shall rise 4,000 or 5.000 feet high, shall bear upon its top, as a modern skyscraper bears a roof garden. the little area familiar to us as Mahoning county. The nearest land was several hundred miles to the northeast, and but little clay and sand can drift so far from shore. The climate was of a tropical warmth. Winter had not yet come to cast his mantle of snow and ice each half-year over nature. Life was swarming, but how different from the life of today. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 23 There were no fishes in that ancient sea but the waters were rich in lime which they had dissolved from the rocks, and those forms of life which needed this material to build themselves shells for protection or structures to support their soft tissues, were in their element. Corals grew all over the sea bottom and stone lillies sank their roots into the soft sea-bed and sent their stems upward with their bud-like bodies at the summit. Molluscs, animals similar to cuttle fishes, each ensconced in the end of a long tapering chambered shell, preyed upon whatever was unlucky enough to come within reach of their long sucker-tipped arms ; microscopic forms of life were there in abundance, and their tiny shells of lime contributed no small part to the massive foundation layers; swimming animals called trilobites, each looking much like a huge sowbug, two feet long, and covered with a horny shell whose segments were so jointed as to permit the animal to roll itself into a ball like the armadillo, were present in immense numbers. Nor was vegetable life entirely wanting, for there were traces of seaweeds in those early rocks. For long ages the cast-off shells of all these forms of life accumulated on the bed, crumbled to pieces and hardened into limestone hundreds of feet in thickness. It was then that the famous Trenton limestone was formed, which in the western part of our State yields such a copious flow of gas and oil when penetrated by the drill. It has never been reached here, for it probably lies nearly 4,000 feet below the surface. It is extremely doubtful, however, whether it would yield returns if we were to reach it. But by this time the continent of North America was steadily but slowly rising, the sea which covered its interior was getting shallower, and the shores of the continent to the east and north-east were getting nearer and nearer to the area we are now considering. Occasionally, when the waves and current were strongest, some clay or sand from the shore would drift over it. Thus some beds of shale and sandstone were sandwiched in among the heavier layers of limestone. Some dry land had now appeared to the southwest near the future site of Cincinnati, and the sediment came from that direction also. At .length the amount of sediment drifting in from the surrounding land areas became so great as to fairly exceed the deposits resulting from the accumulation of the remains of corals and shellfish, and there succeeded a long period in which, while there were still some limestones, clay and sand were swept in so abundantly that shales and sandstones became the prevailing rocks. There appeared at this time the first of the backboned animals in the form of fishes, but 'very unlike the fishes of today. There were sharks whose mouths were literally full of teeth, set like cobble-stones in a pavement. There were fish with the long conical teeth o f reptiles, and with bodies covered all over with great plates, like those of the alligator, except that they were heavier and more bony; they were the ironclads of those seas, and were giants of their kind, for some of them are thought to have been more than thirty feet in length. The long leathery stems of sea-weed grew luxuriantly, intertwining to form veritable Sargasso seas on the surface of the water. Steadily during all this time the continent was emerging from the sea ; steadily the 'land area to the northeast had been extended toward us. From the area of dry land which had appeared about Cincinnati, a long low arch extending northward through the western part of the State had risen above the water. At length when another two thousand feet of the ample foundation upon which Mahoning county rests had been laid down, consisting of great beds of shale, some black with the abundant organic matter buried in them from which oil and gas may be generated to serve man in some far-distant future, others red with iron, others blue and clay-like,, all interspersed with an occasional bed of limestone or sandstone, this long age came to an end. A new era was dawning. The sea had now become so shallow that occasionally the waves disturbed it to its bottom, and thus coarse material was transported a long way from shore. A bluish-grey sandstone 5o to zoo feet in 24 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY thickness was spread above the shales. This —one of the upper stories of our skyscraper—is the Berea sandstone so extensively quarried for building purposes in northern Ohio. It lies near the present surface in the northeastern part of the county, but is several hundred feet below it in the southern part. The condition changed again, and material was deposited which hardened into shales and shaley sandstones and flagstones. Once more the transporting power of the water was increased and an immense sheet of coarse sand and gravel, 15o feet in thickness, was gradually spread over this region. This is known as the conglomerate, because it is full of pebbles: it forms the foundation upon which the productive coal measures rest: above it coal may lie. below it never. FIRST LAND PLANTS : ORIGIN OF COAL FIELDS. Ere long, here and there in the shallowing sea, some low and swampy areas began to show themselves above the surface. The roof -f our structure is beginning to appear. Over these swampy areas slowly crept the vegetation, which had previously grown upon the nearest land, and for the first time land plants took root within the limits of our Mahoning county. The swamp areas extended and the plants, stimulated by a climate of tropical warmth and abundant moisture. spread and grew ranker until the entire surface of the county was one continuous marsh covered with a dense and tangled vegetation of most luxuriant growth. This is the opening of the Carboniferous period—that period in the history of the earth which witnessed the laying down of the great coal fields of Ohio and Pennsylvania. What a strange scene would have been presented to view could we have been permitted to gaze upon the vegetation of our county then. Ferns were everywhere—ferns which sent their straight and leaf-scarred trunks twenty and thirty feet into the air, while upon their summits were majestic and graceful crowns of spreading fronds that would make the possessor of the finest botanical garden of today green with envy. Strange and mighty-trees grew on these marshes, whose trunks and few branches were shaggy with the long strap-shaped leaves that covered them. The trunks of some were fluted like Corinthian columns. and all were beautifully marked with leaf scars. There are now no trees at all like them. The straight tapering stems of rushes. slightly- resembling the scouring rushes of today, but almost tree-like in size, were clustered over the marshes in impenetrable thickets. We would look the earth over now in vain to find such wealth of plant life as then struggled for existence in the marshes that covered Ma-honing county. But among all this wealth of tropical vegetation there was not one plant on whose branches a single flower unfolded its petals in the sunlight. No butterflies or honey loving insects could live in that flowerless world. No bird sang to his mate among those trees or winged his flight above them. The highest animal to be found in our county then were reptile-like creatures which, like frogs, passed through a tadpole stage in their development. The atmosphere was too heavy laden with moisture and stifling gases for the higher land animals. For ages the leaves, trunks and branches fell upon the marshes, and accumulated peat. But along with the general uprising of the continent as a whole, there seems to have been in this coal field a gradual sinking, though at a varying rate. When the sinking was slow, the peat accumulated so as to build the surface up as rapidly as it sank, thus preserving the marsh but at intervals the sinking became too rapid, the marsh plants were drowned. the sea again prevailed, and sediment was deposited over the peat. Smothered decay, under great pressure, 'transformed the peat into coal. and the sediments above it hardened into shales and sandstones. FIRST PERMANENT DRY LAND. How many times coal-marsh and sea alternated over this period it is impossible to say. In some parts of our county there are the remains of seven of these old peat marshes in AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 25 the form of coal beds, one over the other, with intervening beds of shale and sandstone. Yet some time before the close of the coal period the uprising of the continent as a whole brought this county well above the level of the sea, and made it permanently dry land. Then streams began to flow over its surface and to excavate their valleys. Upland vegetation took the place of that which had covered the marshes. This new growth consisted largely of cone-bearing trees, but very unlike the pines. spruces and hemlocks of today. None of them had the needle-shaped leaves common in the cone-bearers familiar to us, but instead their leaves were flat and more or less strap-shaped. Instead of bearing their seeds in cones, they bore nut-like fruits. We now reach a period when the geological history of our county is interrupted, at least so far as we can learn from any deposits at or beneath its surface. Geological history is written in the seas and along the shores and only in very exceptional cases on dry land. Certain changes that have taken place in our county since it became permanently dry land are apparent. From a position at the sea level it has been raised until now its highest point is 1,343 feet above it. or about 565 feet above Lake Erie. When the last seam of coal was formed over its surface it was level, like the marsh in which was formed the peat that preceded the coal: now the coal seams descend about 200 feet in passing from the north to the south line of the county. It is evident, too, that great quantities of material must have been removed from its surface. Every rain drop that falls on hare ground moves some tiny particles of earth from a higher to a lower level ; every rill that trickles down the hillside hears with it some material it has gathered ; every stream in flood-time is loaded with sediment ; and so it has been ever since rain began to fall and streams to flow over our surface. Prof. Dana. who is regarded as one of our most conservative authorities, thinks it probable that at least 12.000,000 years have elapsed since the close of the coal period. and if our county became dry land before its close, it must have been exposed to the action of the elements much longer. If we assume the time to have been only 10,000,000 years, and the average rate at which the surface has been worn away to have been the same as that at which the basin of the Mississippi is now wearing away, namely one foot in 5,000 years, we reach, the conclusion that a layer 2,000 feet thick has been carried away from the present surface of Mahoning county. This may seem startling to one who has given the subject but little thought, but it is probably under rather than above the truth. Many beds of workable coal, with their intervening layers of shale and sandstone, probably once lay above the present surface, but the destroying tooth of time has been gnawing away at them until we have but a Mere remnant left. Nature has her economies, but, from a human standpoint, she has her wastes as well. AGE OF REPTILES: FIRST MAMMALS. The coal age was followed by the age of reptiles, some of which were probably the largest land animals that ever lived ; while the forests of broad-leaved evergreens were gradully replaced by those of needle-shaped leaves bearing true cones. Timidly among the strange reptiles appeared the first land mammals. small in size and low in structure. Gradually the reptiles declined while the mammals grew larger and more numerous, until they became the rulers of the forest and the plain. Is it possible I am speaking of Mahoning county when I say that the elephant and the still larger mastodon there in all probability cropped the tender herbage and blew their shrill trumpets in the forests; that the howl of the hyena was heard in the hills; that the saber-toothed tiger made his lair in the thickets and the rhinocerous forced his way through the dense underbrush ; that troops of wild horses galloped across it and 'occasionally the camel and the tapir were found within its borders ; that in the woods and by the streams were parrots and trogons and flamingoes, and other 26 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY birds found not only far to the south? Yet such in all probability was the life of our county in that age. THE GLACIAL PERIOD. Toward the close of this age the seasons became more marked. Something much like winter came with each round of the sun, and for the first time snowflakes whitened the surface of our county. As the result of causes not yet well understood, the temperature continued to fall and the winters grew longer and longer. Soon on the highlands of Canada more snow fell each winter than the summer's sun could melt away, and the edge of the snow mass crept southward. The ice age was coming on. The tropical plants of our forests gradually disappeared to be replaced by the deciduous trees, and these in time gave way to the hardened pine, spruce and hemlock, which waged a gallant but losing fight with the oncoming cold. Our birds and animals sought a more congenial clime to the southward. At length there came a summer in which the snow that had fallen over the desolate surface of our county the previous winter did not all melt away; the close of the next summer saw it deeper still. The ice age had come. For centuries the snow deepened. How high it piled above the surface here we cannot tell, but in New England it covered the White Mountains, 6,000 feet high, and here it may have been 2,000 feet thick or even more. Along with this accumulation of snow, and probably one cause of the cold at that time, the highlands of Canada were uplifted several hundred feet above their present level. The snow compacted in its lower parts into ice by the weight of the mass above, and forced southward both by the slope and the pressure of the deeper accumulations to the north, was transformed into a mighty glacier which began its slow but resistless march southward. The surface of our county then was much more rugged than it is now, for it had been dry land for millions of years, and the streams had cut very deep valleys across it. The moving glacier acted upon this broken surface like an immense rasp, of which fragments of hard rock frozen into its under surface formed the teeth. Moving from the northeast it cut away all portions of the surface, but, as it bore hardest on the hills, the general effect was to destroy inequalities, though soft strata were cut away more rapidly than were hard ones. Our rocks, wherever exposed, show the planed and grooved characteristics of glacial action. How much soil and rock this immense ice-plow shaved off from the surface, or how long our county was subject to its action, we cannot say. Finally, however, the rigors of the long winter began to soften. Once more the melting exceeded the snowfall, and the ice-sheet was doomed. Slowly grew thinner and slowly its southern edge receded northward. It was long after this change began before even the southern border of Mahoning county peered out from under its cover of ice, and much longer still, for the change was slow, before the ice had retreated beyond the northern boundary. As the glacier melted away, the immense amount of material which it had torn up from the rocks beneath, much of which had been pulverized as though ground between the upper and nether millstones, was left unevenly distributed over the rock surface, and it is this material, known as the "drift," that constitutes our present soil. EFFECT OF GLACIAL ACTION ON THE LANDSCAPE. The rounded gravel knolls so common in the southwestern part of our county and the less common gravel ridges, are characteristic of glacial deposits, and are supposed to mark the places where the edges of the ice remained nearly constant for a long time, the rate of melting being just equal to the onward motion of the ice. Thus a heavy belt of material, forming what is called a Morain, was accumulated along the ice front. Detached masses of ice sometimes became deeply buried in these deposits and when long afterwards they melted, the gravel above them settled down, AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 27 leaving peculiar pits and amphitheater depressions among the gravel knolls. This is the origin of some of our small lakes and catholes. To these causes we owe the variety of soil, and, to a certain extent, the variety of landscape found in different parts of our county. Since the final retreat of the ice our streams have been steadily at work cutting their way through the drift. Of the stream channels cut in the rock previous to the ice age, smaller ones were probably obliterated by the grinding action of the glacier, but some of the larger and deeper seem to remain even yet, though deeply buried and sometimes completely choked by the drift. The larger of our new streams as they found their way over the drift seem generally to have followed the course of the old channels, but they are sometimes compelled to turn aside, and in that case they soon cut through the drift and have since been flowing over rocky beds, which, like that of Niagara, have been excavated since the retreat of the ice. The boulders or "hard-heads" of granite and allied rocks so frequently strewn over our surface, are not our products. They were produced in the highlands of Canada long, long ago, packed in ice and imported duty free. Theirs was a long, hard journey of hundreds of years, and it must have been tedious even for a boulder. Only the most hardy' among them survived to reach their journey's end, and they had their once sharp angles worn off and many had one or more faces ground smooth where they were pressed against the bed rock beneath the glacier and forced onward. SURFACE FEATURES OF MAHONING COUNTY. Viewed as a whole, the surface of Mahoning county may be regarded. as an undulating plain, sloping gently to the north, its southern line running on or near the divide between the waters of the Mahoning, on the north and the Little Beaver on the south, and having an altitude of from three to five hundred feet above the valleys of the north border. Topographically, the county forms a portion of the highlands of the southern rim of the lake basin, but since the rim is cut through by the deep gorge of the Mahoning, the drainage, though locally northward, is all carried through that channel into the Ohio. But little of the surface is even locally level, but consists of an alternation of broad valleys of excavation, separated by rounded hills and table lands, with gentle slopes. It is all varied and picturesque, while at the same time it is well adapted for agricultural purposes, and is now very generally in a high state of cultivation. The soil is in some places derived from the decomposition of the underlying rocks; but it, for the most part, rests upon a sheet of drift material, for the county lies within the drift area, though reaching its margin on the south. The general slope of the surface, and part of the local erosion, seem to have been produced by the southern extension of a tongue or lobe of the great glacier, which, moving from the north, excavated the low country that lies between the highlands of Geauga and Portage on the west and those of Pennsylvania on the east. By this agent the northern out-crop of rocks which underlies the county have been ground away, and a large amount of material transported southward from its place of origin. As the eroded rocks were largely sandstone and conglomerate, much of the transported material is sand and gravel. Glacial marks are seen on the exposed surfaces of the harder rocks in nearly all parts of the county, and they are especially noticeable on the sandstone ledges on the northeast side of the Ma-honing in Youngstown and Poland and on the higher strata of the same character in the southern part of Canfield and Ellsworth. The direction of the glacial scratches is nearly north and south; but they are sometimes reflected by local impediments a few degrees either east or west. One of the most interesting features in the surface geology of Mahoning county is the deep erosion of the valley of the Mahoning. In Trumbull county the river flows through a gently undulating country, and its banks are so low that it can hardly be said to have a well defined valley. This is due to the general 28 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY prevalence of soft, shaley rocks which have been broadly and evenly eroded. Soon after entering Mahoning county the river encounters the conglomerate and the heavy bedded sandstones that overlie the coal. These form bold bluffs which gradually approach, until at Lowell, the valley is quite narrow and about three hundred feet deep; for the search for oil, which has been made at numerous points between Youngstown and Newcastle. Pennsylvania, has shown that in this interval the river is now running considerably above its ancient bed. At the State line it was found necessary to sink through eighty feet of sand and gravel in the old channel before solid rock was reached: and in some wells, near the junction of the Mahoning and Chenango, pipe was driven one hundred and forty feet to the rock. These facts were among the first observed of those which led to the discovery that our principal rivers were flowing at a lower level when the continent was higher than now ; the valley of the Mahoning, which is evidently excavated from the solid rock. must have been cut out when the drainage southward was much freer than at present. and this seems to have been one of the channels .through which the lake basin, filled to a much higher level than now with water, communicated with the Ohio, and thus with the gulf. The fact that rock is frequently seen in the bottom of the river does not conflict with the statements made above. for the stream clops not follow the line of its ancient bed ; but when the old channel was filled, and the work of excavation began amain. the course of the river crossed Projections from the sides of the valley. and in these maces has a rock bottom. The borings to which this reference has been made prove that there is a continuous, deeply excavated trough running, beneath the bottom land of the valley. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF MAHONING COUNTY. The rocks which underlie Mahoning county all belong to the carboniferous system. They include exposures of the Waverly at base, the conglomerate and the lower group of coal seams, except the uppermost, No. 7, with their associated sandstones, shales, limestones, fire clays and iron ore. The dip of all the strata is toward the southeast, from ten to twenty feet to the mile; and as a consequence the outcrop of the different members of the series form irregular belts, conforming to the topography, but having a general east and west direction ; but the outcrop of the rocks, which are lowest geographically, being lowest topographically, are found on the northern margin of the county. while the highest cap the hills along the southern boundary. The extensive explorations for coal in Mahoning county show that the Waverly rocks for a long time formed the surface, and were extensively eroded before the deposition of the next succeeding rock. tile, conglomerate. Hence its upper surface is very irregular, showing hills and valleys over which the conglomerate and coal measures were deposited. sometimes in local depressions with Waverly borders, so that both are found at a lower level than the adjacent outcrop of Waverly rock. This has produced much confusion in the search for coal: but all the drillers have noticed that the surface of the Waverly is reached at various depths and that hills of "bottom rock" cut out the coal. In such cases the coal was never formed on these hills. but had accumulated in lower ground surrounding them as a bed of peat that reached to a limited distance up their sides. CONGLOMERATE. Probably but little of the area of Mahoning county is underlain by the conglomerate. Patches of it are found in the northwestern corner, and these may extend for a long distance southward : but the great sheet of conglomerate which occupies Geauga county and the northern part of Portage county, thins out rapidly toward the east and between Niles and the State line it either does not exist, or is represented by a thin bed of sandstone without pebbles. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 29 FAMOUS COAL OF MAHONING COUNTY. Coal No. One. This is the seam which furnishes the famous Brier Hill, or Mahoning coal, so extensively used for iron smelting and widely distributed through the markets of the northwest. It is the same seam that is so largely worked in western Pennsylvania. The true position of this coal seam is from twenty to fifty feet above the conglomerate. The quality of the Mahoning Valley coal is so excellent and the coal field lies so near the Great Lakes market that it has become the basis of an extensive commerce, and the mainspring of the most important iron industry of the West. The first development of coal mining in the valley of the Mahoning took place at the old Brier Hill and Crab Creek mines near the north line of Youngstown. The search for coal has radiated from this center in every direction, and as a consequence the country about Youngstown has been more thoroughly explored than any other part of the county. A number of extensive basins have been discovered here, and several of them have been extensively worked. FOSSIL NUTS AND FRUITS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS AGE FOUND IN MAHONING COUNTY. In the shale over coal number one, in Youngstown, also in the carboniferous sand rocks which cap the hills, are to be found beautiful specimens of the fossil nuts and fruits of the carboniferous age. Among the varieties found near Youngstown are the following: Trigonocarpon Triloculare, Trigonocarpon Tricuspidatum, Trigonocarpon Fragariordes (Mill Creek Park), Cardiocarpon Elongatum, Cardiocarpon Anulatus McGinnisii—this last named specimen was discovered by Mr. W. H. McGinnis, local geologist for Mahoning county—also fine specimens of the Rhabdocarpon Adamsii. The species known as Trigonocarpon Gigantum has also been discovered here, but is very rarely met with. It is more abundantly found near Lisbon, in Colum biana county. In Ellsworth township, Mahoning county, are found the most beautiful, perfect, and highly crystalized specimens of Selenite, a variety of gypsum. They are much sought after by geologists from all parts of the world. They are indeed a most wonderful illustration of the simplicity of nature in the midst of diversity. In a stratum of iron ore which was formerly mined near the old Mill Creek furnace in what is now Mill Creek Park, the shales which hold the nodules, are great numbers of very beautifully preserved fossil plants, several of which •have not yet been found elsewhere, making this the most interesting locality of fossils yet found in the county. In the center of a block of coal, taken from the Wetmore mine, in Canfield township, a beautiful fossil fish was found with all its scales and fin rays complete; it is a species of Paleonicus (P. Pettiganus), Newberryii ; the writer hereof has also several beautiful specimens of fossil fish; about five inches in length, and well preserved. These species are Priscacara Pealie (Sunfish), also two specimens of fossil fish known as Dyplomistus Humilis (Herring) ; they are imbedded in solid rock and show both the positive and negative sides. In the spring of 1890 an exceedingly rare and valuable fossil was found by Prof. W. H. McGinnis of Youngstown. Upon a very critical examination by Professor Orton, then State Geologist for Ohio, and Professor Collacott, of the Ohio State University, it was decided by them to be the fossil head of the Musk Ox. The fossil skull was found in a sand hank in what is now beautiful Mill Creek. Park. This bed of sand is located near the "Narrows," and is about sixty feet high and extends to an unknown depth below the surface of Mill Creek. When Prof. Newberry made his geological survey of this portion of Ohio he visited this sand bank and declared that it was a former channel of the Mahoning River that had become completely filled up, with gravel and sand; and that at the "Narrows" Mill Creek had worn its way through the sand and left the strata of and and 30 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY gravel exposed. The folowing letter from Professor Orton shows the great importance of the discovery : Ohio State University. Dept. of Geology. Columbus, Ohio, January 29, 1898. Prof. W. H. McGinnis, Youngstown. My Dear Sir : The skull proves to be musk ox, which has never been reported from Ohio before, the only two specimens ever having been reported found in the United States was one from Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, and one from Arkansas. You have by your discovery and contribution to this Institution contributed to science a most valuable specimen, and for which you have the thanks of the Institution. Yours truly, EDWARD ORTON. Many other beautiful specimens of fossils have been found at various times in the rock stratas and coal measures of Mahoning county, which time and space will not now permit us to enumerate. In the treatment of this subject, Local Geology, or the Geological Formation of Mahoning County, the writer has endeavored to be practical, not drawing from the imaginary, but from the real facts as found in the great book of Nature; for what are the different stratas of rock but pages from the great book of Nature, created by God's own finger? For on every rock on which we tread Are written words, if rightly read, That leads us from earth's fragrant sod, To holiness, to hope and God. W. H. McG. CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC RACES Speculation on the Origin of the American. Race—Antiquity of Man in America—Probable European Origin of the American Races—The Mound Builders. On the discovery of the Western World by Europeans, there was much speculation among the learned as to the origin of its inhabitants. The native Americans were different not only in color, but in many peculiarities of appearance, language and habits from any of the then known races of the Old World. Many interesting, and some wildly fanciful hypotheses were brought forward, and defended with great display of erudition. By some the newfound sons of the forest were declared to be the descendants of the "ten lost 'tribes of Israel." Others referred to the "Lost Atlantis," which was supposed to have formerly existed as a sort of land connection between Northern Africa and South America, and to which an apparent but vague allusion may be found in Pliny. "Such connection," says Dr. D. G. Brinton, in his scholarly work, 'The American Race,' there once undoubtedly was but far back in the Eocene period of the tertiary, long before Man appeared upon the scene. The wide difference between the existing fauna and flora of Africa and South America proves that there has been no connection in the life-time of the present species." Other scholars have since maintained that the continent was peopled from Polynesia, or directly from China or Japan, but neither hypothesis will stand a careful examination in the light of known scientific facts. Perhaps the favorite theory of the present day is that the first inhabitants came from northeastern Asia, either by way of the Aleutian islands or Behring strait. There are a number of cogent facts which go far to destroy the plausibility of this theory, but which it is unnecessary to enter into here. The reader will find them fully considered in the work above alluded to, and in the writings of other modern ethnographers. ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA. That man was here at a very early period, there is abundant evidence to prove, in the roughly chipped stone weapons, and other Paleolithic implements, that from time to time have been found in deposits of gravel and loess dating back to the Glacial Epoch. In a bed of loess in the Missouri valley, Prof. Aughey found a rudely chipped arrowhead beneath the vertebra of an elephant. Again, a primitive hearth was discovered in digging a' well along the old beach of Lake Ontario. According to Prof. G. K. Gilbert, this dated from a period "when the northern shore of that body of water was the sheer wall of a mighty glacier, and the channel of the Niagara river had not yet begun to be furrowed out of the rock by the receding waters." Some hundreds of stone 32 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY implements of the true paleolithic type, together with some fragments of human skeletons, were discovered by Dr, C, C, Abbot in the gravels near Trenton, on the Delaware. These evidences, with many others which we have not space to mention, prove clearly that tool-making, fife-using Man "was here long before either Northern Asia or the Polynesian islands were inhabited, as it is well known that those parts of the world were first peopled in neolithic times." PROBABLE EUROPEAN ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN RACES, The modern geological discovery that at one time—about the middle and later glacial epoch—there occurred an uplift of the northern part of the continent, and also of the north Alantic basin, seems to answer the question, as to whence' came the first inhabitants of the New World. According to Prof. Geikie, and other competent scientists, this uplift amounted to a vertical elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the present level, and resulted in establishing a continuous .land connection between the higher latitudes of the two continents, which remained till the post-glacial period, This is confirmed by the character of the glacial scoriæ of the rocks of Shetland, the Faroe islands, Iceland and South Greenland, which give unmistakable indications of having been formed by land ice; and by a comparison of the fauna and flora of the two continents, both living and fossil. This land bridge formed a barrier between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, so that the temperature of the higher latitudes was much higher than at present. Says Dr, Brinton, after a thorough consideration of the subject, "The evidence, therefore, is cumulative that at the close of the last glacial epoch, and for an indefinite time previous, the comparatively shallow bed of the North Atlantic Was above water and this was about the time that we find men in the same stage of culture living on both its shores." It thus seems conclusive that the earliest inhabitants of the American continent, came, as did the Spanish, French and English discoverers untold centuries later, though in a very. different manner, from the region of Western Europe. THE MOUND BUILDERS. In this reference to the prehistoric inhabitants of the continent, it remains but to add a brief word in regard to the so-called mysterious race of Moundbuilders, whose works are found in parts of Ohio (though none in Mahoning county), and in some neighboring States. The mounds, fortifications, and other relics left by this race, have in recent years been thoroughly investigated by competent and pains-taking scientists. They contain no evidence to prove that this people was in any essential respects different from the familiar red races whom the first white discoverers found in possession of the soil. Mr. Warren K. Moorehead, in his "Primitive Man on the Ohio," thus sums up the result of years of laborious exploration and careful investigation of these relics : "Nothing more than the upper status of savagery was attained by any race or tribe living within the limits of the present State of Ohio, all statements to the contrary being misrepresentations, If we go by field testimony alone (not to omit the reports of early travelers among North American tribes) we can assign primitive high attainments in but few. things, and these indicate neither civilization nor any approach to it. "First, he excelled in building earthern fortifications, and in the interment of his dead ; second, he made surprisingly long journeys for mica, copper, lead, shells, and other foreign substances to be used as tools or ornaments; third, he was an adept in the chase and in war fourth, he chipped flint and made carvings cn bone, stone and slate exceedingly well, when we consider the primitive tools he employed: fifth, a few of the more skillful men of his tribe made fairly good representations of animals, birds and human figures in stone. This sums up in brief all that he seemed capa- AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 33 ble of, which we in our day consider remarkable. "On the other hand he failed to grasp the idea of communication by written characters, the use of metal (except in the cold state), the cutting of stone or the making of brick for building purposes, and the construction of permanent homes. Ideas of transportation, other than upon his own back or in frail canoes, or the use of coal, which was so abundant about him and which he frequently made into pendants and ornaments, and a thousand other things which civilized beings enjoy, were utterly beyond his comprehension. Instead of living peacefully in villages, and improving a country unequalled in natural resources, of which he was the sole possessor, he spent his time in petty warfare, or in savage worship, and in the observance of the grossest superstitions. He possessed no knowledge of surgery or the setting of bones, unless we accept as evidence two neatly knitted bones found at Foster's, which by some extra effort he may have accomplished. But while admitting these two specimens to be actually and carefully set with splints, we have scores of femora, humeri and other bones from Forts Ancient and Oregonia, which are worn flat against unnatural sockets, formed after the bones had been displaced. We have broken fibula and tibia which had never been reset. They were bent like a bow, and nature alone had aided them - 2 - in coming together. It has been the mistake of many writers upon the antiquities of Ohio, to accept as evidences of the civilization of these peoples the mere fact that they could build circular and square embankments, and great fortifications. Any school boy knows that he can form a perfect circle by taking hold of the hands of his comrades, placing one of the number at ten feet from the line, to observe that the rest keep properly stretched out. The boy at one end acts as a pivot, the other swinging in a circle, while the boy at the end farthest from the pivot marks upon the ground with a stick as far out from the line as he can reach. Four hundred men placed in lines of one hundred each can easily mark a square which will be but two or three feet out of geometrical proportions. "The impression usually conveyed by the term 'Mound Builders' will not stand the light of modern science. While it may be more or less of a disappointment to many not to be able to place primitive man in Ohio on an equality with the status of Mexican or South American tribes, yet it is a gratification to know that the vexatious question concerning his movements and everyday life has been very nearly settled. There is a fascination in studying him even as a savage, and investigating the numerous remains which attest his occupancy of this territory." CHAPTER III FRENCH DISCOVERIES AND EXPLORATIONS Early French Explorers—Varrazano, Cartier, and Roberval—Expedition. of De Monts—Champlain Explores Acadia—Establishment of Missions— First English Opposition—Attacks by the Indians—Exploration of the Great Lakes and the .Mississippi. The French, who early established claims to a large portion of North America, gained access to the interior of the continent by way of the Gulf and the River of St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes with their connecting waterways. John Verrazano, a native of Florence, sailing under authority of Francis I, in 1523, discovered the mainland in the neighborhood of Cape Fear, N. C. He then coasted in a northerly direction as far as Cape Breton, landing at intervals to traffic with the Indians, by whom he was well received. He named the country New France and claimed it in the name of the king. Jacques Cartier made three voyages to America, between 1534 and 1542, and probably another in 1543. In his first voyage he explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, after passing through the strait of Belle Isle. The gloomy and inhospitable coast of Labrador he described as "very likely the land given by God to Cain." Visiting the picturesque Bay of Gaspe he there erected a large cross bearing a shield with the lillies of France, and the inscription "Vive le Roy de France." His second voyage. 1535-36, was made with a little fleet of three vessels. Coming to anchor in a small bay he gave to it the name of St. Laurent, which name was afterward gradually transferred to the whole gulf and to the river itself, which latter he explored as far as the island of Orleans. He was received by the Indians with an enthusiastic display of friendly feeling. Being taken by them to the mountain which overlooked the noble panoama of river and forest at the junction of the Ottawa with the St. Lawrence, he gave to it the name "Mont Real," which name was subsequently taken and retained by the great city it now overlooks. Cartier made a third voyage in 1542, in which, however, he made no new discoveries. But in this year, and up to the autumn 0f 1543, the Saguenay river and the surrounding country' were explored by Roberval, who had been appointed by Francis I as his lieutenant in Canada. French fur traders had now found their way to Anticosti Island and to the mouth of the Saguenay, where there was an Indian trading post: but these traders made no attempt to settle the country. In the spring of 1602, under authority of Henry IV, two vessels left France in charge of Pontgrave, a rich merchant of St. Malo, for the purposes of trade and colonization. Pont-grave was accompanied by Samuel Champlain, who was later to gain lasting fame for himself AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 35 as one of the most indefatigable of French explorers. They ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the island of Montreal, and Champlain explored the Saguenay for a considerable distance. The fruit of the expedition was to add largely to the knowledge which France possessed of Canada and the country around the Gulf. EXPEDITION OF DE MONTS. Soon after the return of this expedition a new company was formed, at the head 0f which was Sieur Henri de Monts, who received a royal commission as the King's lieutenant in Canada and adjacent countries, with the special object of exploring the ill-defined region called "La Cadie," now known as Nova Scotia.. Champlain was a member of this expedition also. In June, 1604., they sailed into the beautiful harbor of Port Royal, which Champlain called "the most commodious and pleasant place that we had yet seen on the continent." De Monts and his associates explored the Bay of Fundy and discovered the St. John and St. Croix rivers. Champlain remained three years in Acadia, making explorations and surveys of the southern coast -of Nova Scotia, of the shores of the Bay of Fundy and of the coast of New England. from the St. Croix to Vineyard Sound, De Monts, after an unsuccessful attempt to effect a settlement on the St. Croix, removed his colony in the spring to the banks of the Annapolis, where he founded the city of that name. ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS. John de Biencourt, better known as Baron de Pontricourt, who had accompanied De Monts, and who had returned to France before him, after obtaining a renewed grant from the King, returned to Port Royal in June, 1610. He was accompanied by Father Fléché, a Catholic priest, who, upon landing, at once began the work of converting the Indians. A younger Biencourt, son of the above-named, came out in the following year, bringing with him Fathers Biard and Masse, two Jesuit priests, who engaged with zeal in the conversion of the savages. Other Jesuit fathers soon after came out, under the auspices of Mme. de Guercheville, who had bought the claims of de Monts, and who had also received a grant from the King, of the territory extending from Florida to Canada. France being now ruled in reality by the cruel and ambitious Marie de Medice, as regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIII, the Jesuits were "virtually in possession of North America, as far as a French deed could give it away." But in making this liberal grant, the French monarch failed to take into account the English, who laid claim to the same territory by right of the discoveries of the Cabots, and who had already established a colony at Virginia, and made explorations along the coast as far as the Kennebec river. FIRST ENGLISH OPPOSITION. Samuel Argal, a young English sea captain from Virginia, who early in 1613 was cruising off the coast of Maine, learning from the Indians of the presence of the French in that vicinity, attacked and destroyed the Settlement of St. Sauveur. Soon after, on a second expedition made under the authority of Sir Thomas Dale, governor of Virginia, he destroyed also that of Port Royal. The latter settlement in later years "arose from its ashes, and the fleur-de-lis, or the red cross, floated from its walls, according as the French or English were the victors in the long struggle that ensued for the possession of Acadia." In 1608 Samuel Champlain again entered the St. Lawrence, and laid the foundations of the present city of Quebec. This was one year after Captain Newport, representing the great company of Virginia, "to whom King james II gave a charter covering the territory of an empire, had brought the first permanent English colony of 100 persons tip the James river in Chesapeake Bay. From this time forward France and England became rivals in America." Champlain. who was now acting as the representative of De Monts. and who, until his 36 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY death twenty-seven years later, held the position of lieutenant-governor, during the summer of 1609 joined a party of the Algonquin and Huron Indians of Canada, in an expedition up the Richelieu river to Lake Champlain, against the Iroquois; an act for which in later years the French had to pay dearly. After another visit to France, for the purpose of consulting with De Monts, Champlain returned in the spring of 1610, to the St. Lawrence. He again assisted the allied Canadian tribes against the Iroquois. He appointed Frenchmen to learn the language and customs of the natives, so as to be of use afterwards as interpreters. He also encouraged the policy of establishing missions. "Such a policy," says Bancroft, "was congenial to the Catholic church, and was favored by the conditions of the charter itself, which recognized the neophyte among the savages as an enfranchised citizen of France." ATTACKS BY THE INDIANS. In the work of Christianizing the Indians, the Jesuit missionaries were much hampered by the hostility of the powerful Iroquois. The ire of these war-like and omnipresent savages, of whom a fuller account will be given in the succeeding chapter, had been aroused by the part which Champlain had taken in assisting their enemies, the Algonquins and Hurons, against them. They sent out their war parties for long distances in all directions, and torture and death was generally the fate of those who fell into their hands. To avoid them, the missionaries, instead of following the easiest and most direct routes to the interior, were often obliged to make long detours through the primeval forest, wading innumerable streams. and carrying their canoes on their shoulders for leagues through the dense woods, or dragging them through shallows and rapids and by circuitous paths to avoid waterfalls. In spite of these precautions. some of them were captured and fell victims to the relentless savages. Father Jogues, who had been once captured and tortured by the Iroquois, and who, after escaping and revisiting France, returned in 1647 to America, was killed while endeavoring to ne gotiate a treaty with them. But in. spite of such events, and although, in 1648, the missionary settlements in Canada were attacked and destroyed by the Iroquois, some of the missionaries, as well as many of their converts, falling victims to the fury of the conquerors, the zeal of the Jesuits could not be daunted. Missionaries in greater numbers entered upon the work so fatefully begun, and continued it through all vicissitudes until at last friendly relations were brought about with their former enemies. These improved conditions were chiefly due to a large military reinforcement which, in 1665, arrived from France under command of the Marquis de Tracy, who had been sent out by Louis XIV, to inquire into and regulate the affairs of the colony. Within a few weeks more than 2,000 persons, soldiers and settlers, arrived in Canada. Existing fortifications were strengthened, and four new forts were erected from the mouth of the Richelieu to Isle La Mothe on Lake Champlain. These measures had a most salutary effect upon the Indians. Four tribes of the Iroquois at once made overtures for peace. The Mohawks, who held back, were punished by a powerful expedition which destroyed their villages and stores, and soon they also were ready to make terms. For twenty years thereafter Canada "had a respite from the raids which ha.d so severely disturbed her tranquility, and was enabled at last to organize her new government, extend her settlements, and develop her strength for days of future trial." Under Louis XIV Canada became a royal province, and its political and social conditions began to assume those forms which, with but slight modifications, they retained during the whole of the French regime. EXPLORATION OF THE GREAT LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI. But French discovery and enterprise were not destined to halt upon the banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributary waterways. In 1667 Father Claude Allouez, while engaged in missionary work among the Chippewas, first AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 37 heard of a river to the westward called by the natives "Messippi," or great river. This river had also been heard of by Jean Nicolet. a trader and interpreter, who, sometime .before the death of Champlain, had ventured into the region of the Great Lakes. and as far as the valley of the Fox river. He is considered to have been the first European who reached Sault Ste. Marie. In 1671, Simon Francois Daumont, Sieur St. Lusson, under a commission from the governor of Ouebec, and accompanied by Nicholas Perrot and Louis Jolliet,• took possession at Sault Ste. Marie of the basin of the lakes and the tributary rivers. A mission had been established here some two years previously by Claude Dablon and James Marquette, it thus being the oldest settlement by Europeans within the present limits of Michigan. In the spring of 1673. Louis Jolliet, a pioneer trader of great courage, coolness, and resolution, and Father Marquette. a zealous and self-sacrificing missionary. were chosen to explore the West and find the great river of which SO many vague accounts had reached the settlements. With five companions. and two canoes, they crossed the wilderness which stretched beyond Green Bay, ascended the Fo river. then with Indian guides, traversed the portage to the Wisconsin, thus reaching the lower "divide" between the valleys of the lakes and that of the Mississippi. Launching their frail canoes on the Wisconsin, they followed its course, until. on the 17th of June. 1673, they found themselves, "with a great and inexpressible joy." on the bosom of a mighty river which they recognized as the Mississippi. Descending its current to the mouth of the Arkansas, they there gathered sufficient information from the Indians to assure them that the great river emptied its waters, not into the Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. Returning by way of the Illinois and Desplains rivers, they crossed the Chicago portage. and at last found themselves on the southern shore of .Lake Michigan. Jolliet reached Canada in the following summer. Marquette remained to labor among the Indians, and died in the spring of 1675, by the banks of a small tream which flows into Lake Michigan on the western shore. Before the end of the seventeenth century, the portages at the head of Lake Michigan had become widely known, and there had been a trading post for some fifteen years at the Chicago river. The work, so well begun by Marquette and Jolliet, of solving the mystery that had so long surrounded the Mississippi river, was completed by Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, a native of Rouen, who had come to Canada when a young man. Of an adventurour disposition, he had been greatly interested by the reports of the "great water" in the West, which, in common with many others at that time, he thought might lead to the Gulf of California. In the summer of 1668, while on an expedition with two priests, to the extreme western end of Ontario, he met and conversed with Jolliet. Leaving his companions, he plunged into the wilderness, and for two years thereafter was engaged in independent exploration of which we have very little account. In 1677 he visited France, and received from the King letters-patent authorizing him to build forts south and west in that region "through which it would seem a passage to Mexico can he discovered." In the following year, with the encouragement and support of Frontenac, then governor of Canada, and accompanied by Henri de Tonty and Father Louis Hennepin, he made an expedition to the Niagara district, and built on Lake Erie the first vessel that ever ventured on the Lakes, which he called the "Griffin." This vessel was lost while returning from Green Bay with a cargo of furs, a calamity that was only the beginning of many misfortunes that might well have discouraged a man of less resolute and indomitable nature. Soon afterwards he had to contend with the disaffection of his own men, who in his absence and that of Tonty, destroyed a fort which he had built on the Illinois river, near the site of the present city of Peoria. For this act the men were subsequently punished. Father Hennepin. while on an expedition to the upper Mississippi, had been captured by a wandering tribe of Sioux. The Iroquois 38 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY now began to be troublesome, their war parties attacking the Illinois and burning their vil- lages. Tonty had disappeared, having been obliged, while on an expedition, to take refuge from the Iroquois in a village of the Pottawatamies at the head of Green Bay. La Salle subsequently found him at Mackinac, while on his way to Canada for men and supplies. "On the 6th of February, 1682," says Bourinot, in "The Story of Canada," "La Salle passed down the swift current of the Mississippi, on that memorable voyage, which led him to the Gulf of Mexico, He was accompanied by Tonty and Father Membré, one of the Recollet order, whom he always preferred to the Jesuits, The Indians of the expedition were Abenakis and Mohegans, who had left the far-off Atlantic coast and Acadian rivers, and wandered into the great West after the unsuccessful war in New England which was waged by the Sachem Metacomet, better known as King Philip, They met with a kindly reception from the Indians encamped by the side of the river, and, for the first time, saw the villages of the Taensas and Natchez, who were worshippers of the sun, At last on the 6th of April, LaSalle, Tonty and Dautrey, went separately in canoes through the three channels of the Mississippi, and emerged on the bosom of the Great Gulf." Near the mouth of the river they raised a column with an inscription, taking possession of the country in the name of the King of France, "It can be said," says Bourinot, "that Frenchmen had at last laid a basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons, and make good her claim to such vast imperial domain, The future was to show that she was unequal to the task." CHAPTER IV INDIAN OCCUPANCY The Iroquois—Their Famous League, Habits, and Costumes—The Algonquins, Their Commerce, Picture-Writing, and Religion—Indian Warfare—Iroquois Conquests—Extermination of the Eries—The Chahta-Muskoki Stock. The Indian tribes which at the time of the first European discoveries occupied that part of North America east of the Mississippi, and between Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, were embraced, with some few exceptions, in two generic divisions—the Algonquins and the Iroquois. These two great families were separated from each other by radical differences of language, rather than by any special racial or physical characteristics. To the Iroquois linguistic stock belonged the Eries, who inhabited the country immediately south of Lake Erie; the Hurons, or Wyandots, whose home lay between Lakes Ontario and Huron ; the Andastes or Conestogas and the Susquehannocks, of the lower Susquehanna ; the Cherokees, who were found on the upper Tennessee ; the Tuscaroras of Virginia and North Carolina ; the Neutral Nation, who lived to the west of the Niagara river ; the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas. who occupied almost the entire area of New York, except the lower Hudson. Of the five tribes last named, the Mohawks occupied the Mohawk valley and the vicinity of Lakes George and Champlain, while the other four tribes were found in the region south of Lake Oontario. THE IROQUOIS. The name Iroquois, though French in form, is said to have been derived from "Hiro" (I have spoken)—the conclusion of all their harangues —and "Koué ;" an exclamation of sorrow when it was prolonged, and of joy when pronounced shortly. The Iroquois were an inland people, whose original home was probably in the district between the lower St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay. They possessed an intelligence superior to that of most of the Indian tribes. This was exemplified in the famous league or confederation between the five tribes of league York, above mentioned (long known as the Five Nations), which was effected about the middle of the Fifteenth century by Hiawatha, a sagacious chief of the Onondagas, and the subject of Longfellow's poem of that name. Says Horatio Hale, in his work entitled "The Iroquois Book of Rites," "The system he devised was not to be a loose or transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives to be elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior, 40 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the federation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. That this beneficent and farsighted plan failed of its ultimate object was due less to any inherent defects than to the fact that that object was too far advanced for the comprehension of those for whose benefit it was designed. Though retaining its governmental value in the regulation of tribal affairs. the league was soon perverted into a means of conquest and aggression until the name of Iroquois became a terror to all the surrounding nations. It included, besides the five New York tribes above mentioned, some portions of the Neutral Nation, and, at a later date, the Tuscaroras, who, about 1712, were driven from North Carolina by the British: the confederation after this date being known as the Six Nations. It was to these tribes only that the name Iroquois was applied by the early French and English settlers. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. The Iroquois called themselves in general Ho-de-no-saunee, "The people of the long house," each tribe living in a separate village of long houses. large enough to hold from five to twenty families each. "Each family was a clan or kin resembling the gens of the Romans —a group of males and females, whose kinship was reckoned only through females—the universal custom in archaic times in America." As the marriage tie was loosely regarded, all rank, titles, and property were based upon the rights of the woman alone. The child belonged to the clan, not of the father, but of the mother, Each of the long houses was occupied by related families, the mothers and their children belonging to the same clan, while the husbands and fathers belonged to other clans ; consequequently the clan or kin of the mother predominated in the household. Every clan had a name, derived from the animal world, as a rule, which was represented in the "totem," or coatof-arms, of the kin or gens, found over the door of a long house, or tattooed on the arms or bodies of its members. Being originally a nation of one stock and each tribe containing parts of the original clans, "all the members of the same clan, whatever tribe they belonged to, were brothers or sisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common female ancestor." No marriage could take place between members of the same clan or kin. Yet while the Iroquois woman had so much importance in the household and in the regulation of inheritance, as well as a voice in the councils of the tribe, she was almost as much a drudge as the squaw of the savage Micmacs of Acadia. Besides building better cabins and strongholds than other tribes the Iroquois also cultivated more maize. Although they had devised no method of recording history, they had many myths and legends, which were handed down with great minuteness from generation to generation. In remembering them they were aided by the wampum belts and strings, which served by the arrangement and design of the beads to fix certain facts and expressions in their memory. "The Iroquois myths,- says Brinton, "refer to the struggle of the first two brothers. the dark twin and the white, a familiar symbolism, in which we see the personification of the light and darkness, and the struggle of day and night." THE ALGONQUINS. The Algonquin stock was both more numerous and more widely scattered than that of the Iroquois. Their various tribes, according to linguistic identification, were distributed as follows : Abnakis, in Nova Scotia and on the south bank of the St. Lawrence; Arapahoes, head waters of Kansas river : Blackfeet, head waters of the Missouri river ; Cheyennes, upper waters of Arkansas river; Chippeways, shores of Lake Superior Crees or Sauteux, southern shores of Hudson's Bay ; Delawares or Len-apes, on the Delaware river ; Illinois, on the Illinois river ; Kaskaskias, on the Mississippi below the Illinois river ; Kickapoos, on the upper Illinois river ; Meliseets. in Nova Scotia AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 41 and New Brunswick ; Miamis, between, the Miami and Wabash rivers; Micmacs, in Nova Scotia; Menominees, near Green Bay; Mahegans, on lower Hudson river ; Manhattans, about New York bay; Nanticoke, on Chesapeake bay; Ottawas, on the Ottawa river and south of Lake Huron; Pampticokes, near Cape Hatteras; Passamaquoddies, on the Schoodic river; Piankishaws, on the middle Ohio river ; Pottawattomies, south of Lake Michigan; Sacs and Foxes, on the Sac river; Secoffies, in Labrador; Shawnees, on Tennessee river; Weas, near the Piankishaws. The Crees, one of the most important tribes, retained the original language of the stock in its purest form ; while the Nanticokes of Maryland, the Powhatans of Virginia, and the Pamticokes of the Carolinas spoke dialects which diverged more or less widely from it. The traditions, customs, and language of these tribes seem to point to some spot north of the St. Lawrence, and east of Lake Ontario, as the original home of the stock. The totemic system prevailed among the Algonquins, as also descent in the female line, but not the same communal life as among the Iroquois. "Only rarely do we meet with the 'long house' occupied by a number of kindred families." Most of the tribes manufactured pottery. though of a coarse and heavy kind. They employed copper in the manufacture of ornaments, knives and chisels, though their arrowheads and axes were usually of stone. They also carried on an extensive commerce in various articles with very distant parts, their trading operations extending even as far as Vancouver Island, whence they obtained the black slate, ornamented pipes of the Haidah Indians. Some tribes, as the Lenapés and the Chippeways, had developed the art of picture writing from the representative to the symbolic stage, as had been done by the Aztecs and kindred races of Mexico ; it was employed to preserve the national history and the rites of the secret societies. The religion of the Algonquins "was based upon the worship of light, especially in its concrete manifestations, as the sun and fire ; of the four winds as typical of the cardinal points. and as the rain-bringers; and of the totemic animal." They also, like the Iroquois, had numerous myths, which in the case of the Lena* had been partially preserved, and present the outlines common to the stock. INDIAN WARFARE. The Algonquin and Huron-Iroquois nations had many customs in common. . Though a general war could only be engaged in on the approval of the council, yet any number of warriors might go on the war path at any time against the enemies of the tribe. Their favorite method of fighting was by a surprise or sudden onslaught. A siege soon exhausted their patience and resources. "To steal stealthily at night through the maze of the woods, tamahawk their sleeping foes, and take many scalps, was the height of an Indian's bliss. Curious to say, the Indians took little precaution to guard against such surprises, but thought they were protected by their manitous or guardian spirits." It was a general Indian belief that after death all men passed to the land of Shades—a land where trees, flowers, animals, and men were spirits. "By midnigth moons, o'er moistening dews In vestments for the chase arrayed, The hunter still the deer pursues, The hunter and the deer a shade." IROQUOIS CONQUESTS. The league formed by the Iroquois (using the name in its limited application to the five tribes of New York), excited the jealousy and fear of all the surrounding nations, and their apprehensions were subsequently justified in the career of conquests and aggression pursued by the Iroquois. The Adirondacks, Hurons, Eries, Andastes, Shawnees, Illinois, Miamis, Delawares, Susquehannocks, Uamis, Nanticokes, and Minsi, in turn fell victims to their prowess, some of them, like the Adirondacks and Eries, being practically annihilated. At last they claimed by right of conquest, the whole of the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Lakes to the Carolinas. 42 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY EXTERMINATION OF THE ERIES. Their battle with the Eries, which has been often told, was perhaps the most desperately. contested of any in their war-like and bloodstained history. It is said by some writers to have taken place in 1656, at a point about half way between Canandaigua Lake and the Genesee river. The Eries, who were known also as Erries, Erigas, or Errieonons, and who, as we have seen, were of the same blood, and spoke a dialect of the same language as the Iroquois, occupied the region lying immediately south of Lake Erie, and their claims doubtless extended over all of northeastern Ohio and a part of western New York. Their tribal seat was on the Sandusky plains. They are described as being a most powerful and warlike tribe. Their jealousy of the Iroquois it is said was brought to a culmination by a gymnastic contest in which they had invited the latter to participate with them. The invitation, after being given and declined several times was finally accepted, a place of meeting appointed, and one hundred young Iroquois braves were selected to maintain the honor of their respected tribes. Each side deposited a valuable stake. The game of ball, which had been proposed, was won by the Iroquois, who thereupon took possession of their prizes and prepared to take their leave. But the Eries, dissatisfied with the result of the game, proposed a running match, to be contested by ten men on a side. This was agreed to, and the Iroquois were again victorious. The chief of the Eries now proposed a wrestling match, also between ten contestants on a side, to which he attached the bloody condition that each victor should dispatch his adversary on the spot, by braining him with a tomahawk, and bearing off his scalp as a trophy. This challenge was reluctantly agreed to by the Iroquois, who privately resolved, perhaps from motives of prudence, not to execute the sanguinary part of the proposition. Victory again inclined to the champions of the Five Nations. As the first victorious Iroquois stepped back, declining to execute 'his defeated adversary, the chief of the Eries, now furious with rage and shame, himself seized the tomahawk and at a single blow scattered the brains of his vanquished warrior on the ground. A second and third Erie warrior after a similar defeat met the same fate. The chief of the Iroquois, seeing the terrible excitement which agitated the multitude, now gave the signal to retreat, and soon every member of the party was lost to in the depths of the forest. The long slumbering hatred of the Eries for the Iroquois was now thoroughly aroused. Though they felt that they were no match for the Five Nations collectively, they formed a plan to accomplish the destruction of the tribes by attacking them suddenly and in detail. To this end they made quick and secret preparations, selecting the Senecas as the objects of their first onslaught. But the Senecas had received timely warning from a woman of their tribe, who was the widow of an Erie warrior, and it was with the united Five Nations that the Eries, soon after beginning the assault, found that they had to cope. Nerved to desperation by the knowledge that the loss of the battle meant their utter destruction, they performed terrific feats of valor, and the result was long in doubt. But after one side and then the other had been several times successively driven back, and both parties were beginning to tire, the Iroquois brought up a reserve of one thousand young men, who had never been in battle, and who had been lying in ambush. These rushed upon the now almost exhausted Eries with such fury that the latter, unable any longer to sustain the contest, gave way and fled, to bear the news of their terrible defeat to the old men, women and children of the tribe. The Iroquois long kept up the pursuit, and five months elapsed before their last scalp-laden warriors returned to join in celebrating their victory over their last and most powerful enemies, the Eries. It is said that many years after, a powerful war party of the descendants of the Eries came from beyond the Mississippi and attacked the Senecas, who were then in possession of the Erie's former territory, but were utterly defeated and slain to a man. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 43 THE CHAHTA-MUSKOKI STOCK. With the other Indian tribes inhabiting the extensive region referred to at the beginning of this chapter, this history has little to do. They included the Seminoles, in Florida ; the Apalaches, on Apalache bay; the Chickasaws on the head waters of Mobile river; the Choctaws, between. the Mobile and Mississippi rivers, and the Yemassees. around Port Royal Bay, South Carolina. They all belonged r to the ChahtaMuskoki stock, some branches of which were found west of the Mississippi river. De Soto and other early European explorers, describe some of these tribes as being extensively engaged in agriculture, dwelling in per- manent towns and well-constructed wooden edifices, many of which were situated on high mounds of artificial construction, and using for weapons and utensils stone implements of great beauty of workmanship. They manufactured tasteful ornaments of gold, which metal they obtained from the auriferous sands of the Macooche and other streams by which they resided. Says Dr. Brinton, "Their artistic development was strikingly similar to that of the Mound Builders, who have left such interesting remains in the Ohio valley, and there is, to say the least, a strong probability that they are the descendants of the constructors of those ancient works, driven to the South by the irruptions of the wild tribes of the north. CHAPTER V COLONIAL CHARTERS AND LAND TITLES Erroneous Ideas of Early Navigators and Geographers—Attempts to Reach the South Sea Overland—Virginia's Charters—Massachusetts' Charters—The Grant to Penn—Overlapping Boundaries—Dispute with Virginia—Connecticut's Claims—Conflict with Pennsylvania--Council of Trenton—Western Reserve. While the French were pushing their way into. the interior of North America by means of the river St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, the English were no less busy in making settlements along the North Atlantic coast. Some few of these, notably the early settlements of Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia—were failures, owing chiefly to the character of. the colonists themselves, who were for the most part gentlemen adventurers, disinclined to labor, and hoping to acquire sudden wealth by the discovery of precious metals rather than by the slower and more laborious methods of cultivating the soil or establishing profitable industries. Later efforts, undertaken under more favorable auspices, and by men of a different stamp, proved successful. Into the history of these early colonies, as defined in their respective charters. so far as is has to do with the region northwest of the Ohio river, long known after its discovery by the French as the Northwest territory. The ignorance which long prevailed as to the extent of the continent westward, was the source of great confusion and error among early geographers, and led to a general overlapping of the boundaries of neighboring colonies, as defined in their respective charters. Says Winsor, in his history of "The Mississippi Basin," "The charters which the English king had given while parceling out the Atlantic seaboard of the present United States, carried the bounds of the several grants westward to the great ocean supposed to lie somewhere beyond the Alleghenies. Though Drake and others had followed the Pacific northward to upper California, the determination of longitude was still so uncertain that different estimates prevailed as to the width of the continent. When the charter of Virginia was confirmed, in 1609, there was dying out a conception which had prevailed among geographers, but which the institutions of Mercator had clone much to dispel, that a great western sea approached the Atlantic somewhere midway along- its seaboard. This theory had come clown from the voyage of Varrazano." Thus a map of Virginia, sold in Lond0n in 1651, lays down the Hudson river .as communicating by a "mighty great lake" with the "sea of China and the Indies," and bears the inscription, running along the shore of California, "whose happy shores (in ten clays' march with fifty foot and thirty horsemen from the head of James river, over those hills and through the rich adjacent valleys beautifyed AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 45 with as profitable rivers which necessarily must run into that peaceful Indian sea) may be discovered to the exceeding benefit of Great Britain and joye of all true English." Smith, Hudson, and Cartier expected to find the Indian road in the rivers that they explored. Captain Newport, in 1680, brought over from England a barge so constructed that it could be taken to pieces and then put together, with which he and his company were instructed to ascend the James river as far as the falls and descend to the South sea, being ordered "not to return without a lump of gold as a certainty of the said sea." This persistent misconception of North America was due to the mental prepossession which prevented men seeing any insuperable obstacle to their finding a western sea-road to the Indies, and to the fact that Balboa, Drake, and others, from the mountains of Darien, had seen the two 0ceans that wash its shores. The English, shut out from the St. Lawrence river by the French, and from the Gulf of Mexico by the Spanish, and confronted at a distance of from one to two hundred miles from the coast by the great Appalachian mountain range, which long proved an almost insuperable barrier to western settlement, were much slower than their rivals in seeing -in North America a vast continent. VIRGINIA'S CHARTERS. The first charter of Virginia, granted by James I, in 1606, to the London and Plymouth companies bestowed on them in equal proportions the territory in America, including adjacent islands, lying between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude. It was stipulated that one-fifth of the precious metals found should belong to the king; also that all waterways near the colony were to be explored for the purpose of finding a short and easy route to the Pacific ocean. The second Virginia charter, granted by James I, in 1609, to the London and Plymouth and others, constituting the London company, defined the limits of the company's territory as follows: "all those lands, countries, and territories, situate, lying, and being, in that part of America called Virginia, from the Point of Land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the Sea Coast t0 the Northward two hundred miles, and from the said Point of Cape Comfort all along the Sea Coast to the Southward two hundred Miles, and all that Space and Circuit of land lying from the Sea Coast of the Precinct aforesaid up into the Land, throughout from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest, and also all Islands lying within one hundred Miles, along the Coast of both Seas of the Precinct aforesaid." This is the first of the "from sea to sea" boundaries that play so important a part in history. Some vagueness in the phrase "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest" gave rise to a long discussion as to its meaning, but as construed by Virginia, more than one-half the North American continent was embraced within the boundary lines, including the whole of the Northwest territory. MASSACHUSETTS' CHARTERS. The first charter upon which Massachusetts based her claim to lands in the west, was granted by James I to the Plymouth Company in 1620, and was the second of the two charters into which that of 1606 was merged. It defined the company's territory as "that aforesaid part of America lying and being in breadth from 40 degrees of northerly latitude from the equinoctial line to 48 degrees of the said northerly latitude inclusively, and in length of, and within all the breadth aforesaid, throughout all the Maine lands from sea to sea * * and also with the said islands and seas adjoining, provided always, that the said islands, or any of the premises hereinbefore mentioned, and by these presents intended and meant to be granted, be not actually possessed or inhabited. by any other Christian prince or estate, nor to be within the bounds, limits and territories of that Southern Colony heretofore by us granted to he planted by diverrs of our loving subjects in the south part," etc. The king also declared it to be his will and pleasure that the said territory, in order to be more certainly known and distinguished, should be called by the name 46 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY of New England in America. It embraced, according to the described boundary lines, the greater part of the present inhabited British possessions to the north of the United States all of what is now New England, New York, one-half of New jersey, nearly all of Pennsylvania, more than the northern half of Ohio, and the states and territories to the west, north of the fortieth parallel. In 1629, Charles I confirmed a charter which had been granted to the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the council at Plymouth, and in which the boundaries of Massachusetts were defined as extending from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles River and the most southerly point in Massachusetts Bay, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea. THE GRANT TO PENN. The Pennsylvania charter, granted by Charles II to William Penn, in 1681, was the cause of more disputes than any other in our history. The limits of the grant were thus defined : "All that tract or part of land in America, with all the islands therein contained, as the same is bounded on the east by Delaware River, from twelve miles distance northwards of New Castle Town unto the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said river doth extend so far northward ; but if the said river shall not extend so far northward, then by the said river so far as it doth extend, and from the head of the said river the eastern bounds to be determined by a meridian line, to be drawn from the head of the said river, unto the said three and fortieth degree. The said lands to extend westward five degrees in longitude, to be computed from the said eastern bounds and the said lands to be bounded on the north by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, and on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle northward and westward unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line westward to the limit of longitude above mentioned." Penn soon after extended his province by the purchase of Delaware from the Duke of York; he also obtained from him the relinquishment of his claim to the western shore of the river above the twelve-mile circle, which had been drawn to leave the town of New Castle in the Duke's hands. The question arose as to the meaning of the descriptions, "the beginning of the fortieth," and "the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of north latitude." Penn took the ground that they meant the belts lying between 39, 40, 42 and 43 degrees, and that his southern and northern boundaries were consequently 39 and 42 degrees north. This construction, which made Pennsylvania overlap the boundaries of Maryland and Virginia on the south, and of Connecticut on the north, involved him and his successors in the most bitter disputes with those colonies. That with Maryland, which continued for more than eighty years, and greatly retarded the settlement and development of a beautiful and fertile country, after much litigation, was settled by a compromise on the part of proprietors in 1760. DISPUTE WITH VIRGINIA. The controversy with Virginia did not begin formally until 1752, its immediate cause being the settlement of Pennsylvanians west of the mountains in territory that in 1738 the General Assembly of Virginia—bounding it on the east by the Blue Ridge, and on the west and northwest by "the utmost limits of Virginia" —had created Augusta County. Carried on by Governors Dinwiddie and Hamilton on a question of fortifying the forks of the Ohio, it was for a time interrupted by the French and Indian war. Braddock's defeat enabled the French commander on the Ohio to destroy the English settlements and drive off the inhabitants, but after Fort Duquesne fell into the hands of the English, in 1758, Virginians and Pennsylvanians again began to make their way into the disputed territory, which by that time had been given a county organization by the government of Pennsylvania also, it being thus under two different political jurisdictions. This gave rise to much strife and turbulance, and AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 47 more acrimonious correspondence between the respective governors, now Penn and Dunmore. The latter aimed at, and finally succeeded in bringing on an Indian war, which takes its name from him. After the trouble between the two colonies had gone on for some years longer, with high-handed proceedings on both sides, for which Lord Dunmore's arbitrary western policy was mainly responsible, it was brought to a termination at the opening of the revolutionary war by a petition from the members of Congress, who, July 25, 1775, for the benefit of the patriot cause, united in the following recommendation : "We recommend it to you that all bodies of armed men, kept up by either party, be dismissed ; and that all those on either side who are in confinement, or on bail, for taking part in the contest, be discharged." In 1779 commissioners appointed by the two States met at Baltimore and signed an agreement "to extend Mason and Dixon's line due west five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the River Delaware, for the southern extremity of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian line drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the said State be the western boundary of Pennsylvani forever." This contract being duly ratified by the legislatures of the two States, Mason and Dixon's line was extended in 1785, and the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania established. When the State of Ohio was formed in 1802, the territory left of Virginia east of the Ohio River and north of the Mason and Dixon's line, which then showed its peculiar proportions for the first time on the may of the United States. was dubbed the "Panhandle" by the Hon. John McMillen, delegate from Brooke County. CONNECTICUT'S CLAIMS. To understand the dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, in which we are more interested, and which was in fact by far the most important, it will be necessary to glance briefly at the early history of the latter colony. Connecticut, as originally constituted. included the three towns of Windsor, Hartford and Weathersfield, which were settled in 1636 and 1637 by emigration from Massachusetts, and were for a short time under the protection of that colony. New Haven, founded in 1638, was at first a separate colony, not included in Connecticut, and had no other title than one obtained by purchase from the Indians. Neither the Connecticut nor the New Haven colonists "had any title to the lands that they occupied, proceeding from the Crown, previous to the charter that constituted the Connecticut Company, granted by Charles II, April 23, 1662, which gave the colony the following limits." "We * * * do give, grant and confirm unto the said Governor and Company, and their successors, all that part of our dominions in New England in America bounded on the east by Narragansett River, commonly called Narragansett Bay, where the said river falleth into the sea, and on the north by the line of the Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea, and in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts Colony, running from east to west, that is to say, from the said Narragansett Bay on the east, to the south sea on the west part, with the islands thereunto adjoining." "This charter," says Hillman, "consolidated Connecticut and New Haven ; it cut into the grant made to Roger Williams and his associates in 1643, and it did not recognize the presence of the Dutch on the Hudson even to the extent of making the familiar reservation in favor of a Christian prince holding or Christian people inhabitating." The northern boundary of the colony, identical, according to the charter, with the southern boundary of Massachusetts, was not, however, settled for more than a century, owing to its 'having been incorrectly surveyed in 1642. This gave rise to disputes between the two colonies, which were not ended until 1714, when both parties agreed on a compromise line almost identical with the present boundary. This line conforms in general to the parallel of 42 degrees 2 minutes; it marks the southern limit of the Massachusetts claim and the northern limit of the Connecticut claim west of the Delaware. 43 - HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW YORK. The Connecticut settlements were much annoyed for many years by the Dutch, who early in the seventeenth century had planted themselves firmly upon the North River, as they called the Hudson, and who claimed all the coast as far as the Connecticut. The English, basing their claims on the discoveries of the Cabots, had always denied the validity of the Dutch title. In 1664, Charles II granted to his brother, James, Duke of York, a vaguely defined tract of country in New England, beginning at St. Croix, and including "all that island or islands commonly called by the several name or names of Matowacks or Long Island scituate, lying and being toward the west of Cape Codd and ye narrow Higansetts abutting upon the maine land between the two Rivers there called or knowne by the several names of Conecticutt and Hudsons River and all the land from the west side of Connecticut to ye east side of Delaware Bay and also all those severall Islands called or knowne by the names of Martin's Vinyard and Nantukes otherwise Nantuckett together with all ye lands islands soyles rivers harbours mines minerals quarryes woods marshes waters lakes, etc." "The next year a fleet sent out by the Royal Duke took possession of New Netherlands. A few years later the Dutch recovered the province for a single year, but that article of the treaty of Westminster, 1674, which required the surrender by both parties of all conquests made in the course of the preceding war, remaining in the hands of the conqueror, gave the English a secure title as against the Dutch. A second charter, dated 1674, confirmed the Duke in possession of the province, the boundary descriptions remaining much as before. The Duke gave the province the name by which it has since been known." Between 1662 and 1664 Charles II issued several conflicting charters, widely overlapping the boundary lines of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, a condition of things that was then the rule rather than the exception. Indeed, much of the boundary work done in Colonial times was of a nature to justify Rufus Choate's celebrated description of a phase of some dispute arising from this cause: "The commissioners might as well have decided that the line between the States was bounded on the north by a bramble bush, on the south by a bluejay, on the west by a hive of bees in swarming time, and on the east by five hundred foxes with fire-brands tied to their tails." The establishment of New York as a separate English colony put a new aspect on the claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut as based upon their "sea to sea" charters. There were some disputes, followed by adjustments and readjustments of boundaries, the lines being finally agreed upon in 1773, with some slight modifications, just as they are today. "When the two States were afterward told that by consenting to the lines east of the Hudson they had barred their own charter rights to extend farther west, they replied that the Duke of York's grant was bounded on the west by the Delaware. that he had jumped them, therefore, only to that limit and that their consenting to the fact in no sense barred them west of his boundary." PURCHASES FROM THE INDIANS. The grant made to Penn carried to 42 degrees north, conflicted with the Connecticut charter of 1662, as well as with all others in which Connecticut was interested, and caused uncertainty as to the political jurisdiction and right of soil in a rich and fertile region of more than 5,000,000 acres of lands, west of the Delaware and between the forty-first and forty-second parallels. In 1753, the Susquehanna Company was organized for the purpose of settling the lands claimed by Connecticut west of New York. In the following year a tract 120 miles in length, from ten miles east of the Susquehanna westward, was purchased by the company from certain Iroquois chiefs. In the same year the Albany Congress, which had been called under authority of the home government for the consideration of existing affairs in the several colonies, passed resolutions AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 49 declaring the validity of the Massachusetts and Connecticut claims west of the Delaware, and also of the western claims of Virginia. It also devised a practical system for carrying on western colonization. The Delaware Company was soon after organized, which also purchased lands from the Indians. In 1768 five townships were organized in the Wyoming Valley by the older company. CONFLICT WITH PENNSYLVANIA WESTERN RESERVE. The Pennsylvania proprietors, who had hitherto done nothing but make protests, now purchased from the Indians, at a congress held at Fort Stanwix, all that part of the Province of Pennsylvania not previously purchased them, and this included the whole Connecticut claim. They also began to lease lands in the Connecticut district on the condition that the leasees should defend them against the Connecticut claimants. The attempts of the lessees to oust the settlers in p0ssession brought on a skirmish of writs and arrests that has been termed the first Pennamite and Yankee war. It is unnecessary to follow the contest in its subsequent details. It was continued under one aspect or another, resort even being had to miltary f0rce, until 1775, when the Continental Congress intervened with a remonstrance, which caused both parties to suspend hostilities. In 1782 a Federal Court, convened at Trenton, decided against the claims of Connecticut. This decision applied to the whole Connecticut claim within the charter limits of Pennsylvania. Connecticut made no objection. Keeping in view the fact that Pennsylvania had a definite boundary on the west, she carried her stake westward and drove it into the ground five degrees west of the Delaware; "that is, she asserted her right to the strip of land lying between 41 and 42 degrees 2 minutes west of Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River, which by the treaties of 1763 and 1783 had taken the place of the South Sea as the western boundary. This tract was the Western Reserve, and included within its limits what is now Mahoning County. - 3 -