150 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY sentiment even in the North was confined to opposition to its extension, the people of Northeastern Ohio were more advanced in their opposition and did not hesitate to act in flat violation of the supposed rights of slave holders by assisting in the escape of fugitive slaves. On one such occasion, in 1823, a negro, his wife and two children, who had escaped from their master in Virginia and had made their way northward into Trumbull County on foot, were observed passing through the Village of Bloomfield, en route to Ashtabula whence they hoped to escape into Canada. It was naturally presumed that they were runaways, but among such a sympathetic people they were not molested. At dark the same evening the owner of the slaves, his son and a third man reached the village and made inquiries concerning their chattels. Being assured that the fugitives were but a short distance ahead, and being tired from hard riding, the pursuers decided to remain over night and resume the pursuit in the morning. Charging the landlord to call them without fail at an early hour, they retired. The accommodating innkeeper thereupon gave orders that there was to be absolute quiet in the tavern the following morning and that no one was to stir until called by the proprietor himself. The word was then passed about that the slave hunters were in town and that, unless thwarted, they would overtake the runaways the following morning, an announcement that occasioned great consternation. The inhabitants determined that the hunt was going to be unsuccessful and, under the leadership of Ephraim Brown, a party of villagers started out after 'dark in a covered wagon, drawn by a team, to overtake and hide the fleeing family. The runaways were discovered secreted at a home a dozen miles north of Bloomfield and the rescuers met a hostile reception, being mistaken at first for slave hunters. On satisfying the home owner of their good intentions, however, and acquainting him with the danger that the negroes were in, he joined in their plans for the escape. The fugitives were carried to a farm that boasted a barn standing some distance back from the road. Here they were secreted. Meanwhile there was wrath in the Bloomfield inn. The slave owner and his aides had found riding a good antidote for insomnia and in the blissful stillness of the morning slumbered on until long after the sun had risen. When they awoke and realized what hour it was the storm broke. The landlord was profuse in his apologies, but found himself beset with many annoyances in his desire to make up for lost time by speeding the slave hunters onward. He dressed hurriedly down to his boots, but one of these was found only after a lengthy search. When he reached the barn with his guests the barn was locked and the key had been left at the tavern. At the tavern the key was not in its accustomed place and it was found only after a long hunt. When the horses were led out each lacked a shoe, although the Virginians swore mightily that the animals had been well shod the night before. At the blacksmith shop the faithful smithy was for once derelict. Instead of being at his forge he was absent and no one knew his whereabouts. There was another search, and, when found, the smith lacked his accustomed skill. There YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 151 was not a shoe or a nail in stock, although the thrifty blacksmiths of those days usually kept a good supply made ahead. It was unusually tedious work for the smith to forge shoes and nail them on. Hours after the time at which they had hoped to resume their search, the slave hunters finally got under way. At noon the pursuers passed the barn in Southern Ashtabula County where their prey was hidden. When they were a safe distance along the road the wagon and its inmates drove from the barn and the negroes were taken back to Bloomfield where•they were kid into a- deep wood and secreted in a rude but that had been hastily erected that morning by the villagers. They were provided with food and assured of their safety. Three days later the slave hunters again put up at the Bloomfield tavern on their return journey. They had given up the search. But at Bloomfield they were arrested on a charge of running. past a tollgate on the pike just north of Warren. On passing the gate they had intended to, take the state road to Painesville, and were passed with the payment of half fare on making this representation. The road to Bloomfield, which they subsequently followed, required full fare, so that the hunters were guilty of misrepresentation, although not intentionally so. They were refused food for their horses, they were arrested for hitching their steeds, to a sign post after they had been refused stall place at the village stable, and were fined $25 and costs. Altogether it was neither a fruitful nor an enjoyable trip for the Virginians. Assisting runaway slaves was at that time not an offense against the law as it was in later years, except that a slave was considered property, and helping a black man to escape was helping to deprive a man of his property. It was incidents of this kind, however, that brought into existence the "Underground Railroad," that strange system by means of which black fugitives were hurried along from the Mason and Dixon line to the Canadian border and freedom. The name, of course, was descriptive of the methods used, as there was neither a railroad nor an underground route of any kind for they use of the blacks. Slaves who were fortunate enough to escape from their masters were merely carried along under cover of darkness. ,from one "station" to the- next until finally they had reached Canada. These "stations," it might be explained, were the homes of persons inimical to slavery, or secret hiding places known only to these persons. The "Underground Railroad" was largely an Ohio organization Its members were lawbreakers after the Fugitive Slave law was passed, but they were proud of their lawlessness ; just as their descendants today are proud of the work of their ancestors. And the Western Reserve Was a haven for fugitives, for the slave who reached Northeastern Ohio could feel almost certain that he would never be returned to servitude. One of these "underground" stations was located at Youngstown, runaway slaves generally reaching here by way of Salem, a famous station for refugees. Others came by way of Poland. Those prominent in managing the Youngstown station were John Loughridge, leader of the movement; Henry Burnett, James Calvin, John Kirk and Doctor Bane. 152 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY In North and South alike the Reserve was famed, or damned, according to one's views, for its hatred of human slavery and its support o the doctrine of abolition. In Congress Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade thundered against the system that made chattels of human beings, and their denunciation forced recognition of the evils of the system. On the Reserve Betsy M. Cowles aroused the indifferent and has sometimes been credited with doing more than was done by any man to spread the doctrine of abolition. John Brown was a Western Reserve man, and a vigorous opponent of slavery while a resident of Portage and Summit counties, even before he started on the-anti-slavery mission that cost him his life. After Brown's ill-fated raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry his son, John Brown, Jr., was ordered before the United States Senate to give evidence. When he ignored this summons the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate was ordered to arrest him. Fearing that he, and Brown's other sons, would be taken by force an armed organization known as the "Sons of Liberty" was formed on the Reserve to resist by force any attempt to arrest the Browns. Later the organization was expanded to act politically in the overthrow of slavery. In the decade before the Civil war the Western ReserVe was the scene of mass meetings arranged by these liberators at which fiery bolts were hurled against the slave system. Oberlin was a hotbed of abolition. It was Oberlin that opened to the flegro the opportunity for education, and it was Oberlin that trained the lecturers who swarmed forth and aroused Ohio against slavery. Judge James Brownlee, of Poland, cattle dealer for a score of years before the Civil war, attended one of these abolition mass meetings, held at Canfield. Although he was known to be personally opposed to slavery, Judge Brownlee's presence was a surprise to the abolitionists, as he was a staunch Whig in politics and the Whig party had pursued a course that was something between advocacy of slavery and straddling the question. It was this spineless policy, incidentally, that sent the Whig party to its political grave. The Canfield gathering had been called to protest against the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, and the resolutions committee of the assemblage was wrestling with the phraseology of the motion that should go before the meeting condemning this proposed law. Judge -Brownlee drew up a resolution so drastic that even the resolutions committee feared to father it. He then introduced it personally. The resolution read: "Resolved : That come life, come death, come fine or imprisonment, we will neither aid nor abet the capture of a fugitive slave, but on the contrary will harbor and feed, clothe and assist, and give him a practical God-speed toward liberty." The resolution was adopted unanimously and amid enthusiasm. It was no idle boast. The Fugitive Slave law was passed; it was made a serious offense to assist a runaway black man; but the people of the Western Reserve scorned both the law and the government dominated YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 153 by the slave owners. It made the abolitionists more outspoken in their sentiments; it made abolitionists out of the indifferent. These are the men and women who first settled the Western Reserve, the Mahoning Valley, and Youngstown; who made a wilderness into a home for millions ; who single mindedly went ahead in spite of obstacles and discouragements. With them life was largely toil, yet they had their joys and diversions too. They had the virtues of frontiersmen and many of their vices, too, although the Western Reserve had less of uncouthness and lawlessness than most newly settled countries. Their chief fault, perhaps, was narrowness and intolerance, but they were strong in their own convictions and willing to suffer for them. And they were the trail blazers for the twentieth century residents of Youngstown and Northeastern Ohio who have all the advantages and comforts that they lacked—and have those advantages and comforts because these pioneers were willing to forego them for the sake of posterity. CHAPTER IX THE WOMEN PIONEERS HEROIC WIVES AND MOTHERS TO WHOM PRESENT CIVILIZATION OWES A GREAT DEBT-SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR TRIALS AND ACHIEVEMENTS. The reader has probably obtained in preceding pages some conception of the part played by women who came to the Mahoning Valley with husbands or families and helped to conquer the wilderness. It is, however, fitting that some space should be devoted to a story of these women, and perhaps an understanding of their trials may be of value to us who, without a thought of them, enjoy comforts, conveniences and prosperity created largely by men who inherited from them courage, energy and industry in superlative degree. Incidentally this story may help us to realize that the world is growing better morally, physically and mentally, in spite of the tendency of those whose memories of the earlier days are influenced by the spice which youth gives to life and who are sometimes inclined to insist that the old times were the best. Most of women among the earliest arrivals in the Mahoning Valley were brides. Many of them came from homes in the East where, if they did not enjoy the comforts and refinements of the present age, they at least had those of a substantial and progressive civilization, including social pleasures, companionship congenial to them and no hardships except those imposed by the industry which characterized women of all classes in the early days of the republic. A surprising number of these women were daughters of men prominent in the life of their communities and able to give them the advantages of education. Such women were sought out by energetic arid hardy men who had left the eastern states as much through a desire for adventure and a vision of a great new country in which they could attain wealth and political prominence as for any other reason. Of course the greater number were women who had been born on the outposts of civilization, but this did not make their lot an enviable one, although it doubtless helped to make life easier for them than for their sisters more tenderly reared and less accustomed to hardship. Then as now woman was the home maker, but the term was understood among the pioneers in a much more literal sense than that in which we are accustomed to use it. She was expected to provide not only the atmosphere of the home, to bear and rear the children and attend to the domestic duties generally as they are known among us; but it was customary and usually necessary for her to do many other things now done by men or by the complicated machinery of modern community life. The - 154 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 155 pioneer woman often helped her husband in the fields, She always planted and cultivated the garden, milked the cows, made the clothing and prepared the household food. Not infrequently she planted the flax or sheared the sheep, prepared the raw material and spun it into yarn, wove it into cloth, coloring and finishing this to provide the garments worn by herself and her family. All these things were done with appliances of the crudest sort, and they must have required infinite patience, almost inexhaustible energy and tireless industry. Cooking was done over an open fireplace provided with a crane, on which pots and kettles could be hung so that they would swing outward. In addition to the kettles, the utensils consisted of a few cast iron pans or skillets, like the pots unbelievably heavy and inconvenient. Bread was baked in what was known as a reflector, if the family was unusually well to do. Otherwise the baking facilities were confined to a "Dutch Oven," which was a heavy cast iron pot having four legs, beneath which hot coals were raked from the fireplace, these being removed and replaced as often as necessary. This cooking went on continually, and while it was in progress the housewife .kept herself from idleness by making butter in a hand churn, manufacturing soap, washing the family clothing, perhaps at a nearby stream, weeding the garden, feeding the stock, cutting wood for the fireplace, and a few other duties that permitted frequent trips to the fire to see how her boiling, roasting and baking was coming on. The task of providing clothing was probably the most difficult one confronting these women, for their housekeeping was comparatively simple and from this they obtained occasional brief respite. But the spinning went on forever. Preparing the linen thread or the wool yarn for weaving was a task requiring infinite patience. The spinning was at first done by walking back and forth before a large wheel, the low spinning wheel being a later invention. Many a housewife walked miles and miles each evening spinning, while her husband and children slept. One pioneer took the trouble to count the steps made by his helpmeet and has left a record for the benefit of future generations. He figured that the distance traveled back and forth before the spinning wheel in a single evening was more than eight miles. Another of these pioneers has stated that he could never remember a day on which his mother was not the first up in the morning and the last to retire at night. The fact is that spinning and knitting in those days was regarded by women generally as a form of recreation. They carried it on while entertaining their company, traveling to and from church, and whenever, for any reason, they gathered together, as at a funeral or a wedding. The swain in those days sat idly by and admired the lady of his choice while she walked back and forth before the wheel or worked her nimble fingers unceasingly with the needles, and he probably saw nothing wrong in the fact that his contribution to the task was occasionally holding his hands spread so that she could wind upon them yarn to form a skein. Labor hard and incessant was not the only trial of these pioneer women. Their husbands were much given to drinking at "raisings" and similar gatherings and this, we are told, was the cause of much un- 156 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY happiness for wives. These men were rough, hardy customers, with little tenderness in their natures and still less inclination to display such feelings, so that woman, then as now eager for evidence of affection, seldom saw much sign of it in her spouse. She worried, also, over the chances that beset her children, who could not be kept in sight at all times and were often temporarily lost in the woods. These woods surrounded the pioneer homes, shut off the women from companionship of neighbors and added to their loneliness and helplessness in times of peculiar trial, such as sickness, birth and death. At such times they helped one another most unselfishly, a woman often leaving her own brood alone to mount a horse behind some badly worried neighbor and ride to the assistance of his wife. This loneliness and lack of sympathetic companionship is the trial most bitterly complained of by the pioneer women who have recorded their experiences. Next to this they seem to have felt the impossibility of adorning themselves most keenly. Considering that treacherous Indians, scarcity of food, lack of medical attendance and almost universal affliction from "fever and ague," were part of their lot, it might not seem that the scarcity of ribbons and silks should have been a serious matter. Nevertheless it was. Women then as now delighted in those things that make them attractive to the eye, and to have their facilities in this direction confined to what they could make with their own hands was a genuine hardship. In spite of their multifarious duties they generally found time to pay some attention to their personal appearance and the efforts they made in the direction of beautifying themselves were often almost pathetic. Not only were they usually limited to cloth they could make themselves, but for colors they had to depend on what they could make in the way of dyes from barks and berries. They could fashion their own dresses and bonnets, but they could not make shoes. Not all of these women were able to get shoes after those they brought with them had worn out, but those who possessed such luxuries guarded them with great care. They frequently walked barefoot to meeting, carrying their shoes-to the church door in order to save these precious belongings. All women in those days could ride and those who were fortunate enough to have horses traveled in that way, frequently, however, without a saddle. The business of making a living was so urgent that the horses used on the new farms were seldom available for visiting or church-going, even if the pioneer's wife had not been even more urgently occupied than were the horses. Living in an atmosphere and amid conditions of this kind, the pioneer women were very different from their more fortunate sisters of later date. They were naturally masterful, at least in some ways ; but their attitude toward their men folk was humble, because it was thought at that time that a woman's part was to obey and the ordinary husband regarded himself as deserving of much attention from his wife. The men gloried in maintaining discipline in their homes, a process which was not always confined to the children, although these felt it most severely. The harsh and often unreasoning exercise of paternal authority must have been a source of trial to the women of those days. YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 157 In spite of all this, the lives of these women were not without their compensations. Most of the needs and desires of modern life are really fictitious, and they were probably as happy without elaborate homes and gowns as present day women are with these things. They were .chiefly occupied with serious matters, but were sustained by high hopes and strong convictions. They gave much for others and in the giving found the rarest and truest form of pleasure. They all seem to have had hopes and ambitions for their children beyond those of modern days, and these were realized, for among the children of these pioneers were many men and women who accomplished much for themselves and for their country. Certainly the trials of pioneering were not confined to men and it seems entirely probable that women had to bear the heaviest of its burdens. To these women is due the largest measure of admiration and honor of which we are capable, together with the gratitude of the present generation for many things that, without their sacrifices, could not have been. They not only made possible the settlement of the wilderness, but they planted in it the seeds• of morality, religion and progress. Without their influence in the early development of the Mahoning Valley the finest and most enduring features would be missing from its modern life. CHAPTER X YOUNGSTOWN FROM 1802 TO 1840 THE COUNTY SEAT WAR OF 1800 TO 1810-YOUNGSTOWN AND TRUMBULL COUNTY IN THE WAR OF 1812-BEGINNING OF THE IRON INDUSTRY IN THE MAHONING VALLEY-INCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA AND OHIO CANALS. Probably every American city and hamlet has aspired at one time or another to attain the rank of county seat. Only one municipality in a county can hold this distinction, but each municipality wants to be that one. Youngstown, at its founding, was no exception to this rule; yet it was more than seventy-five years after this ambition first sprouted here before it was actually realized. The plans of the State of Connecticut f or the government of its western lands were at all times indefinite, since the first concern of the state was to profit on the sale of the land. When the Connecticut Land Company purchased the Western Reserve, the State of Connecticut ceded to its jurisdictional rights as well as title to the ground, and the land company proposed to set up a state of "New Connecticut." It is wholly probable that old Connecticut was agreeable to this plan. It may have been even instrumental in proposing it, as there was close harmony between the land company members and the government of their home state. The instruction to the directors of the Connecticut Land Company provided, among other things, for the survey and partition into small lots of the township that was to mark the first settlement on the Reserve, the intent being that this town should be the capital of the proposed state. The township at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River—later the City of Cleveland—was, as we have seen, selected as the site of this initial settlement and capital. Thus far the land company, its directors and its agents could arbitrarily guide the destinies of New Connecticut. It so happened, however, that their power ended with the fiat that the town laid out at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River should be platted into lots, and equipped with a sawmill and grist mill to attract prospective settlers. Circumstances that the land company and its directors could not control placed a veto on the remainder of the program. Moses Cleaveland's town became the first settlement in name only. The immigrants from Connecticut and other states failed to heed the schedule mapped out for them—that the northern townships of the Reserve should be settled first. The lake winds were hostile, and the marshy ground along the lake shore was less promising than the high - 158 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 159 ground farther to the south. Then, too, the route from Connecticut and Eastern New York that brought the settlers to the mouths of Conneaut Creek and the Cuyahoga River was abandoned for the southern route by way of Pittsburgh and Beaver and thence up along the Mahoning River. The valley of this stream became the gateway to the Reserve, and here many of those settlers who had not previously purchased land, remained. It was Youngstown, Warren, Canfield and Poland, therefore, that developed into healthy villages in the first three years of white occupation, while Cleveland, Mentor and Ashtabula, on the shore of Lake Erie, lagged behind. As early as 1798, when Youngstown was the only settlement on the southern part of the Reserve, the need of civil government became apparent, and this need was emphasized a year later when several of the nearby townships had been settled. The project for the creation, of a new state had by this time been virtually abandoned, and an appeal to Connecticut to erect the Reserve into a county of old Connecticut was ignored; leaving no alternative except an admission that the Northwest Territory possessed legal jurisdiction over. the Connecticut Land Company's holdings. It was considered inevitable that when an agreement was reached on this point that the Reserve should be created into a county of the Northwest Territory. Even before the settlement was arrived at in the spring of 1800 that separated the Western Reserve entirely from old Connecticut, the rival villages of the Reserve had catalogued their respective claims to the privilege of being the seat of government for the anticipated new county. There was considerably more than civic pride in this ambition. The county seat would be the virtual capital of a commonwealth larger than several of the individual eastern states, and business and growth of population would center about the seat of justice. This meant increased land values and was certain to result in the establishment of a preeminence that it would be difficult for any other community to overcome. It is not surprising then that there was discussion of a courthouse in John Young's town even before the first street was laid out therein, or that Warren, Canfield and Poland were talking county seat about the time the first pioneer cabins were being put up. The diversion of immigration to the Mahoning Valley had practically eliminated Cleveland and other lake settlements from serious consideration for county seat honors. It was recognized that the seat of government would be fixed in one of the southeastern townships, and the discussion of the previous year or two grew into intense rivalry when the news reached the Reserve in • the spring of I8oco that the jurisdiction of the Northwest Territory had been acknowledged and that the way was open for the creation of a-new county. The contest was astonishingly short. As news traveled slowly in those days it was probably in June, 1800, when the announcement of this agreement reached the settlements. The governor of the territory was vested with authority to create new counties and designate county seats merely by his own official decree, and rival towns prepared to press their claims. Youngstown had every apparent advantage. It was the oldest 160 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY and the largest settlement, the commercial center of the southern part of the Reserve, the place where new settlers adjusted their land titles after their arrival from the East, and the first port of call for immigrants. Yet before Youngstown's campaign was fairly under way Governor St. Clair had issued his proclamation of July 10, 1800, creating the Western Reserve into the County of Trumbull and fixing the county seat at Warren. There was wrath in Youngstown at this announcement, and another score was marked up against the .already unpopular St. Clair. Youngstown condemned and denounced, berated the governor for his precipitate action and even questioned the arbitrary power that he had exercised. But all this was fruitless. The decree stood and the county government was organized at Warren within a few weeks, Youngstown being given a sop in a number of appointments to county offices. Actually, the respective qualification possessed by each of the towns that were rival for the county seat had little to do with the selection. Then—as is often the case now—secret maneuvering and wirepulling were far more potent factors in public life than legitimate business and geographical considerations. Political methods were much the same a century and a quarter ago as they are now. Even the famed Ordinance of 1787—magnificent document that it is—was lobbied through Congress, and in its original form lacked the provision against human slavery. It was the protest of the Connecticut men who made up the Ohio Company, and their threat to withdraw from their contemplated purchase of Ohio lands from the Federal Government that forced the adoption of an anti-slavery clause. In the initial contest for the Trumbull County county seat Warren won because Warren residents had the car of the Federal Government and of the territorial governor. They were canny business men, these Warrenites. They had anticipated the erection of a new county and had done much of their campaigning beforehand. Calvin Pease is credited with having exerted much of the influence in favor of Warren. Although a resident of Youngstown in 1800, Pease was a heavy landowner at Warren, and his land would naturally benefit if Warren were projected into the front rank of Western Reserve towns. In addition to this, Pease was a brother-in-law to Gideon Granger, who possessed great political influence and was later postmaster-general. Granger himself, in fact, was credited with being a landowner at Warren, and, in addition, several of the original members of the Connecticut Land Company were investors in Warren Township lands by virtue of the draft of 1798, while Youngstown Township was owned by men outside the company and, in general, by men of less financial and political influence. The combination was too much for Youngstown to beat. With nothing else to do, Youngstown accepted the disappointment and Warren held secure, if grudgingly-admitted, title to the county seat for the next three years. In 18o2, however, a convention sitting at Chillicothe adopted a constitution for a new state, to be formed out of the eastern part of the Northwestern Territory, and to be known as Ohio, and in 1803 Ohio came formally into existence with the election YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 161 of a governor and a state legislature. This changed the complexion of the situation materially. The arbitrary power possessed by the territorial governor was not vested in the chief executive of the new state. The legislature, and not the governor, created counties and fixed county seats, and Youngstown eagerly revived the slumbering warfare by launching a movement to remove the county capital thence from Warren. At this time no actual court house existed at Warren but construction of a county building was begun in 1802 and the structure was nearing completion when it burned down, in 1804. Since this left the rival towns on equal footing insofar as county buildings were concerned, Youngstown opened the removal war wholeheartedly. Warren was served with notice that Youngstown would permit no new county buildings to be erected there. In the meantime the townships adjoining Youngstown had experienced a comparatively rapid growth until the southeastern part of the county cast a great part of the county's vote. This resulted in the election of county commissioners favorable to Youngstown. The legislative delegation that had been almost monopolized by Warren in the first two years of statehood was lost to that town between 1804 and 1805 by the election of George Tod to the State Senate and the distribution Of the two House members between Youngstown and Cleveland. One result of this later situation was the creation in 1805 of a great part of the county northwest of Warren into the County of Geauga. The benefit of this sort of maneuvering, was not lost on the people of the rival towns. Competition became keen in business, sports, socially and even in fights, but the political aspect was paramount. Party politics was laid aside in this day when party feeling ran high ; the chief qualification demanded of each candidate for office—especially of the candidate for a legislative seat—being his sympathies for or against county seat removal, or county division. The Youngstown proposal was for the erection of three counties out of Trumbull County, Youngstown to be the county seat of the same county. The objection that Youngstown was too poorly situated geographically to entitle it to consideration as a county seat received another blow in 1807 when Ashtabula and Portage counties were formed from Trumbull County. This was partly offset, however, a year later when Warren won a geographical advantage by having the five lower townships of Ashtabula County annexed to Trumbull. This legislation, enacted in spite of the fact that Trumbull County was represented in the lower house of the Legislature by two Youngstown partisans, threw Youngstown still farther away from the geographical center of the county. By this time, however, the contest had grown so warm that a finish fight was apparently inevitable. Representation in the 1809-10 session of the Legislature was considered vital to the chances of the rival towns and the election of 1809 was waged solely on the county seat issue. Warren had an advantage, in that Senator Calvin Cone's two-year term did not expire until December, 1810, and Senator Cone, being a Gustavas man, would be inclined to favor Warren if he took sides at all Vol. I-11 162 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY in the fight. Members of the lower house were elected for but one year, and Youngstown prepared to re-elect the two Youngstown partisans who had been elected in 1808, while Warren was determined to elect at least one Warren adherent. Youngstown people, who had, in the meantime, prevented the erection of any county buildings at Warren, won decisively in this 1809 election by re-electing Robert Hughes and Richard J. Elliott to the lower house of the Legislature, also electing a county commissioner favorable to Youngstown. Dismayed at this prospect, Warren decided to protest the election of Hughes, on behalf of Thomas J. Jones, the defeated Warren candidate. Without the ballots of aliens, or alien-born voters, it was believed that Jones would be the victor and Warren moved immediately to have this vote thrown out, a proposal that was unfair, since the voters of alien birth were English-speaking men, many of them property holders and substantial persons and some of them Revolutionary war veterans. Yet the protest was allowed and a court composed of Leonard Case of Warren and William Chidester of Canfield was appointed to take testimony on the alien vote, the testimony to be presented to the Legislature at the contest proceedings. Homer Hine was named to appear at the court as the legal representative of Youngstown while John S. Edwards was selected to represent Warren. The "court" strictly speaking, was not a court at all, but an investigating committee named to inquire into the merits of Warren's protest against the seating of Robert Hughes. It was a traveling committee, the two justices and the attorneys going about to the different townships of lower Trumbull County instead of summoning witnesses to appear at Warren or at any other central point. The first sitting of the justices was held at Hubbard. Not only the witnesses who had been summoned, but hundreds of, partisans from up and down the Mahoning Valley were on hand, and there was intense rivalry and even hatred and rancor. Daniel Sheehy led the alien-born voters, who protested vigorously at this attempt to deprive them of their franchise. In a savage stump speech, said to have been an hour and a half in length, Sheehy questioned the legality of the whole proceeding, counselled the witnesses summoned to refuse to testify and invited direct rebellion against the court. He was silenced only by force, and then not until he had aroused the already angered partisans to fever heat. "Many of those summoned refused to testify until about to be arrested and sent to jail," Justice Case said. "Then they gave testimony. About one hundred depositions were taken." The following day the justices sat at Youngstown and the strife of the day before was duplicated, and perhaps surpassed. Sheehy was more flamingly eloquent than ever and his followers more defiant. Threats had to supplant persuasion as a means of getting evidence, and even these were not successful until Sheehy had been arrested. He suffered no penalty—except that of enforced abstinence from speechmaking—as it was generally realized that the entire investigation was directed against Youngstown's claim to the county seat rather than against anybody's right to vote. And even the suppression of Sheehy YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 163 did not still the storm, as the third day's sitting at Poland was equally boisterous. About 400 depositions in all were taken and Warren adherents believed they had established Jones' claim to the contested legislative seat. But withal, Warren's preparations and the subsequent riot-inciting investigation came to naught as far as the seat in the assembly was concerned. When the House of Representatives of the State Legislature met at Chillicothe on December 4, 1809, Jones' contest was duly filed by Representative Matthias Corwin, but the evidence was considered insufficient and Hughes was seated, a report of the committee on credentials recommending this disposition of the case being adopted by a vote of the House on December 14th. Apparently Youngstown used its victory to little advantage, as the county seat was not removed and there appears to have been little serious effort to have it transferred to Youngstown. Virtually this heated election ended the contest for the time being. In 1810 the rivals compromised by electing George Tod of Youngstown to the State Senate and Aaron Collar of Canfield and Thomas J. Jones—the defeated Warren candidate of 1809 to the lower house of the Legislature. Partly this cessation of hostilities was due to the fact that Youngstown sympathizers had become weary of the continued strife. Youngstown, by virtue of the greater vote in the lower townships of the county, was able to deprive Warren of representation in the Legislature, but aside from this Warren outgeneraled its chief rival in political maneuvering. When Warrenites could elect no assemblymen they sent unofficial "commissioners," or lobbyists, to the capital, and these commissioners guarded Warren's interests assiduously. Partly, too, the truce was forced by the fact that other aspiring towns of Trumbull County became imbued with the belief that if there was going to be a perennial county seat fight it might as well be a free-for-all. Canfield, Poland, Girard, New Lyme and other aspirants appeared in the field, each one eager to be the capital of Trumbull County, or of a brand new county, for erecting new counties was an annual legislative happening in these days. All ambitions alike were fruitless. The county seat remained Warren, and Youngstown temporarily laid aside its ambitions, although it nursed them until they were finally satisfied sixty-five years later. The five Ashtabula County townships that had been juggled around and used as pawns in successively promoting and blasting. Youngstown's hopes were finally restored permanently to Ashtabula County, where they belonged. The inhabitants of these townships were disgusted with the quarrel throughout its entire course. Judge Solomon Griswold expressed their sentiments when he remonstrated that "They have no privileges in either county and are sued in both." Perhaps the chief contributing cause to the armistice, however, was the need of uniting against a common enemy. It is characteristic of Americans that however much they may quarrel among themselves they present a solid front in the face of foreign interference—a fact that was testified to in a way that amazed the world in 1917-18. It was made 164 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY apparent in no less striking manner more than one hundred years prior to the World war. The war with England had presumably ended with the defeat of the invaders and the treaty of 1783 that acknowledged American independence, but peace was theoretical rather than real. England kept none of the promises it made except those it had to keep. It did not abandon all its ambitions to ownership of American soil, and perhaps abandoned none of them. After 1783 the American colonists were subjected to petty attacks and annoyances from the late enemy, and were made the victims of more deadly persecutions in the shape of British-inspired Indian raids. Throughout the first decade of the nineteenth century it was generally accepted that another war with Britain was inevitable, and American resentment increased with the high-handed action taken by England in boarding American merchant ships and kidnapping American citizens under the pretense that they were British deserters, the victims being impressed into service in the British navy. As early as 1803 Americans had held indignation meetings and demanded war with England to avenge these insults, but President Jefferson was opposed to war and tried the ineffectual policy of non-intercourse instead. In 1810, however, war was admittedly no longer avoidable, although President Madison, who had been trained in the Jefferson school, imitated the weak policies of his preceptor by refusing to urge a declaration of war. Nominally the second war with England began in 1812; actually it began in 1811 with a sea victory of Americans over the British in May, and the stunning victory of William Henry Harrison over the Indians under Tecumseh at Tippecanoe on November 7th of the same year. The American belief that the Indian uprising was instigated by the British was confirmed after this battle when the shattered Indian forces retreated to Canada and joined the British. The War of 1812, as a whole, reflects no great credit on either of the American political parties of that era. The party of Jefferson was vacillating, and, in spite of years of warning, was wholly unprepared when war. came. Madison was a statesman and a man of great popularity but was not a war maker of the type of the rugged and virile William Henry Harrison or Andrew Jackson. On the other hand, the Federalists of New England were hostile to the war fought under Democratic auspices, probably because their sea trade had been demoralized by Jefferson's policy of non-intercourse. Their resentment is easily understood but their lack of patriotism is none the less to be condemned. With Ohio far removed from the seaboard it might be presumed that it would be free from the war's alarms, but the truth was the exact reverse. Its position as the frontier state made Ohio peculiarly susceptible to attack, since the Indians were allied with the British, the ambition of the latter was to seize and keep the West, and Detroit was the key not alone to the Northwest but the Great Lakes as well. Ohioans were well aware that war with England meant certain warfare within Ohio or the Northwest Territory and possibly invasion of Ohio by the enemy. YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 165 The need of armed defense was recognized in the Ohio constitution of 1802, that document providing for a state militia organization in which the major-generals and quartermaster-generals were to be appointed, or elected, by joint ballot of both houses of the State Legislature, while officers of the line below this rank were to be elected by under-officers and privates. Provision was made that the captains and subalterns be elected by the enlisted men ; majors elected by the captains and subalterns; colonels elected by the majors, captains and subalterns ; brigadier-generals elected by the commissioned officers of their respective brigades. Commanding officers were to appoint their own staff officers. MAP OF OHIO COUNTIES IN 1802 On January 7, at the second legislative session, Ohio was divided into four divisions with a major-general in command of each. For the Fourth Division, comprising Trumbull, Columbiana and Jefferson counties, Elijah Wadsworth of Canfield was named major-general and Brice Viers quartermaster-general. On April 6, 1804, General Wadsworth issued his first divisional order. This provided for the sub-division of the Fourth Division into two brigades with a total of five regiments. The First Brigade was to include all the militiamen of Trumbull County, this brigade to have. two regiments. The Second Regiment of the brigade included the territory now included in the Townships of Poland, Boardman, Canfield, Ellsworth, Berlin, Coitsville, Youngstown, Austintown, Jackson and Milton in Mahoning County, Hubbard, Brookfield, Vienna, Liberty, Howland, Weathersfield, Warren, Lordstown, Braceville, Newton, Hartford, 166 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY Fowler, Bazetta, Champion and Fowler in Trumbull County, and parts of Summit and Portage counties as they are constituted today. In the words of the commanding officer, the First Regiment was to include all that part of Trumbull County lying north of the line of township five; the Second Regiment "All that part of the County of Trumbull lying south of the First Regiment." On May 7, 1804, regimental elections were held, the following junior officers being elected for the various companies of the Second Regiment: Captains—Homer Hine, Eli Baldwin, John Struthers, Barnabas Harris, George Tod, Samuel Tylee, James Applegate, George Phelps, William Bushnell, Henry Rodgers, Thomas Wright, Ezra Wyatt, John Oviatt. Lieutenants—Aaron Collar, Josiah Walker, John Russell, James Lynn, Moses Latta, Edward Schofield, Henry Hickman, James Heaton, Daniel Humison, John Diver, William Chard, Gersham Judson, Aaron Norton. Ensigns*—Jacob Parkhurst, Nathaniel Blakesley, William Henry, James Struthers, Henry Hull, John Smith, John Elliott, John Ewalt, Ebenezer Coombs John Campbell, David Moore, Thomas Kennedy, James Walker. The Second Regiment was further divided into two battalions, and by vote of the above officers Captains Applegate and Rodgers were elected majors of these battalions. About 1808 the numbers of brigades in the Fourth Division was increased from two to four, the Third Brigade including Trumbull and Ashtabula counties. Brig.-Gen. Simon Perkins of Warren commanded this brigade. The numbers of regiments in the Third Brigade was fixed at three, commanded by Cols. James Hillman of Youngstown, John S. Edwards of Warren and Richard Hayes of Hartford. Each regiment numbered 500 men. In 1809 Colonel Hillman resigned, as he intended at that time to remove from Trumbull County, and William Rayen was elected regimental commander in his place. Officially these regimental commanders were lieutenant-colonels, since the militia organization at that time did not provide for any colonelcies, but except in official communications they were known as colonels and exercised all the prerogatives and were charged with all the responsibilities of that rank. Militia training and mustering days were eventful occasions in pioneer times in Ohio. As the Revolutionary war was scarcely a quarter of a century in the past and the likelihood of another war with England was always present the martial spirit ran high. It would be an exaggeration to say that the state militia of more than 100 years ago was a thoroughly trained and efficient body, but it did preserve the rudiments of military training, and skeleton organizations were maintained at all times. "Early in 1810 I attended a regimental muster in Youngstown," wrote Jared Potter Kirtland in later years. "A war with Great Britain * Corresponding to second lieutenant in the present army organization. YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 167 was anticipated, and the Indians on the frontier were committing depredations. A thorough military spirit pervaded the country, and a full turnout of every able-bodied man was evident on the occasion. It was a matter of surprise to see an apparent wilderness furnish some six or seven hundred soldiers. The regiment formed with its right near Colonel Rayen's residence, and marched to a vacant lot between Main Street and the Mahoning River, near the mouth of Mill Creek, and was there reviewed. Simon Perkins was brigadier-general ; John Stark Edwards, brigade major and inspector; William Rayen, colonel; George Tod, adjutant; John Shannon and McConnell, majors. No one, at that period, was disposed to evade his duties, and, two years afterwards, the efficiency and patriotism of that body of men were thoroughly tried and favorably tested." Events of 1811 swept away any existing doubt that war was a certainty of the near future. The Federalists were still sullen and the older followers of Jefferson and Madison were still dallying, but Harrison's victory and the rage of the Americans when their suspicions of an alliance between the Indians and the British were confirmed caused the war spirit to run higher. A new Congress was elected in which younger members of the Democratic-Republican party were in the majority and they were avowedly for war. That hostilities were foreseen is evident from the fact. W that on Sep- tember 14, 1811, General Wadsworth, through Elisha hittlesey, his aide, addressed an order to each of his four brigade commanders, reading: "I am directed by the commandant of the Fourth Division of the militia of this state to call your attention to the subject of making return of the brigade under your command. It is important that the government of this state and that of the United States should know at a time when war almost appears inevitable, their actual strength. There is little or no doubt but that 'the weighty and important matters' which the President has to lay before Congress, by reason which it is called to meet earlier than usual, relate to our differences with foreign powers. "Should Congress deem it expedient to declare war against one or both of the belligerents, its attention must necessarily be drawn to ascertain the force they could compel to take the field. This information cannot be derived from any other quarter than returns made from the several states, and their neglecting to make returns at the adjutant general's office dries up the source of information on this subject. * * * The general expects from your attention and exertions, that a return of your brigade will be duly made and transmitted to him, agreeable to the 27th. section of the militia law of the state. "With esteem and regard I am your obedient and faithful servant. "ELISHA WHITTLESEY, Aide-de-Camp." The "one or both" belligerents referred to probably means England and France since there were differences with both. In February, 1812, Congress passed an act increasing the strength of the United States army, providing among other things for a regiment 168 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY of volunteers from Ohio and Kentucky. This regiment, of which Samuel H. Wells was commissioned colonel and John Miller lieutenant-colonel, was for regular army service. Each Ohio brigade was to contribute one company to this regiment. On April 28, 1812, General Perkins sent to each of his regimental commanders, Rayen, Edwards and Hayes, notification that each regiment of the Third Brigade would be expected to contribute twenty-three able bodied men if that number could be raised by voluntary enlistment, or thirteen if they were raised by draft, each company to give according to its strength. Two regiments returned volunteers while the draft was resorted to in a third. The final personnel of this company contributed by the Third Brigade is given as follows : Captain, John W. Seeley. Ensign, James Kerr. First Sergeant, Samuel Bills. Third Sergeant, Zadock Dowell. First Corporal, John Cherry. Privates, Asa Lane, Peter Lanterman, Miller Blackley, William Strader, Joseph Netterfield, William Crawford, James Chalpin, Robert Brewer, Nathaniel Stanley, Alexander Hayes, David Kiddie, William Martin, Conrad Knafe, James Anderson, John Strain, Matthew Dobbins, Ezra Buell, Solomon Watrous, Peter Yatman, Urial Burnett, Hugh Markee, Amos Rathburn, David Fitch, Joseph Walker, Michael Crumrine, Barnabas Slavin, Martin Tidd, Jr., Justin. Fobes, William Meeker, James Mears, Aaron Scroggs, Andrew Markee, Jr., Ethen Newman, Daniel Fowler. This list is probably an incomplete one since it does not show the full strength demanded of the Third Brigade, and there are also doubtless inaccuracies in the spelling of some of the names as the record keepers of those days were careless in this respect. The regiment to which these men were assigned was known as the Nineteenth United States Infantry. George Tod, who had been brigade major and inspector on the staff of General Perkins, was named major of this Nineteenth Regiment on July 6, 1812. Subsequently he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Seventeenth United States Infantry. War was formally declared on June 18, 1812, and Ohio militiamen awaited orders to move. The war department plans, however, called for an initial attack by the regulars under Gen. William Hull, commandant at Detroit, who was instructed to cross the river into Canada, seize Malden and invade and hold up Upper Canada. Hull followed these instructions late in July, 1812, but hearing that Major General Brock with a force of British regulars was approaching and that the Indians were also preparing to make a descent on the Americans, he retreated to Detroit. Brock actually arrived at Malden a few days later, and, crossing the river with a force of less than 1,500 men, demanded the surrender of Detroit. Hull ignominiously complied with this demand on August 14, 1812. The surrender meant something more than the giving up of a mere fort. It actually turned over American supplies, placed the British in YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 169 possession of the key to the Northwest, virtually surrendered all Michigan to the British, and laid the frontier wide open to the attack of British and Indians alike. It was a stunning blow to the entire country ; while throughout Ohio and the Northwest the news of the surrender appalled the people. The protection they had depended upon was swept away at one blow. Without waiting for instruction from the war department, General Wadsworth hurriedly ordered the mobilization of the four brigades of his division, ordering them to report at Cleveland preparatory to marching to Northwest Ohio to protect the frontier. Rumors, in fact, were in circulation within a few days after. Hull's surrender that the British were approaching by way of Lake Erie, and as far east as Ashtabula County even civilians mobilized to repel the invaders. The probable basis for this scare was the return to Cleveland of boats bound from Detroit and carrying paroled men whom Hull had so basely surrendered. The regiments commanded by Colonels Rayen and Edwards were on their way to Cleveland almost immediately after the receipt of the news of Hull's surrender. Practically all Trumbull County had been mobilized, and at Cleveland it was actually necessary to send men home. General Wadsworth began immediately to bring order out of chaos. On August 26, 1812, he wrote that many troops had already arrived and that others were coming in continually from all quarters. "I expect in a few days to have sufficient force to repel any force that the enemy can at present bring against us," he said, "but I am destitute of everything needed for the use and support of an army. The troops are badly armed and clothed, with .no provisions or camp equipage, or any means of procuring any. But the dangerous situation of the country obliges me to face every difficulty." The commanding general acted accordingly. Within a week he had dispatched a body of men under General Perkins to Camp Avery, on the Huron River in what is now Erie County. This was to be the headquarters of the Ohio troops guarding the frontier. Early in September General Perkins reached Camp Avery with 400 to 500 troops. The regiment commanded by Colonel Rayen of Youngstown reached there about September 19th. The Ohio militiamen received their first taste of war within a few days. Lack of preparation on the part of the Federal Government made it necessary that the troops care pretty much for themselves in every way, and one of their tasks was to obtain provisions. A quantity of stores had been collected at Sandusky, just north of Camp Avery, to be forwarded to General Hull at Detroit, but with Hull's capitulation the stores were held, and with the arrival of the Ohio men they were available for their use. It was in the attempt to bring these stores to camp, and also to obtain a quantity of wheat on the Ramsdale plantation—located on the peninsula north of Sandusky—that a battle took place with the Indians. From the Huron River west the country was beset with hostile redskins so that the position of the militiamen was at all times dangerous. The news that the Indians were so close was brought to Camp Avery on September 28, 1812. Joshua R. Giddings, then a youth but a member 170 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY of Captain Burnham's company in Perkins' brigade, wrote in later years: "The news found our band in a most enfeebled state. The bilious fever had reduced the number of effective troops until we were able to muster but two guards, consisting of two relieves ; so that each man in health was compelled to stand on his post one-fourth of the time. * * * At that time General Perkins was absent from the camp. Colonel Hayes was dangerously ill of fever, and Major Frazier was absent at Sandusky. I think Major Shannon of Youngstown was commander of the forces at Avery. Capt. Joshua T. Cotton of Austintown was our senior officer. Lieutenant Ramsay and Lieutenant Bartholemew of Vienna accompanied the party." The "party" referred to were the volunteers who went to reinforce the men who had gone for the provisions. They started on the evening of September 28th and reached the peninsula shortly after sunrise. The engagement—actually two separate engagements—was fought with the Indians that day, September 29, 1812, at Ramsdale's plantation, resulting in the killing of six militiamen and the wounding of ten, but achieving a victory nevertheless. In his report to General Wadsworth of the outcome of the battle, General Perkins wrote : "To the Commander at Cleveland : "I arrived at camp last evening, and found .that the engagement on the Peninsula was less unfortunate than was at first apprehended. Our loss is six killed and ten wounded. The wounded are mostly very slight, and none F think, is mortal. "The names of the killed are James S. Bills, Simon Blackman, Daniel Mingus, Abraham Simons, Ramsdale, Mason.* Wounded are Samuel Mann, Moses Eldridge, Jacob French, Samuel W. Tanner, John Carlton, John McMahon, Elias Sperry, James Jack, a Mr. Lee, an inhabitant of this neighborhood, etc. Mr. Ramsdale also of this vicinity. Knowing the anxiety of the inhabitants at the eastward, I detain the messenger no longer than to write the above. SIMON PERKINS. "P. S.—Our men fought well and the Indians suffered very considerably. "Camp at Avery, Huron County, October 3, 1812." Abraham Simon, referred to in the list of killed, was from Boardman Township. He was scalped before his body was recovered, this act of savagery being charged up against Omick, the Ashtabula County Indian, whose son, Devil Poe-Con, had been hanged at Cleveland three months previously for the murder of two white men. The "John McMahon" referred to was probably John McMahon, or McMahan, of Jackson Township, although his name has been confused in tradition with Joseph McMahon, slayer of Captain George, the Indian, at the salt spring in Weathersfield Township in July, 1800. This odd tangle has been explained in a previous chapter. McMahon, or McMahan, was discharged for physical disability following his injury and died, or was killed by the Indians, while making his way home through the forests. * Lieutenant Ramsdell and Alexander Mason. YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 171 On September 5, 1812, the Federal Government called for 100,000 men for regular army service, and on November 28th General Wadsworth notified the war department that he had sent three regiments under General Perkins to report to General William Henry Harrison, commander of the American forces in the Northwest. Having successfully completed the organization of the Fourth Division, placed it on a war footing, and turned it over to General Harrison, General Wadsworth returned home on November 28, 1812, and retired on December 20. He was at that time sixty-five years of age and a Revolutionary war veteran, but the services he rendered were invaluable despite his age. On February 24, 1813, the year's enlistment of the Ohio troops expired and the 1,500 men under General Perkins were mustered out. Their term of service had been short but their work was successful. It was the rapid and willing movement of Ohioans and Kentuckians to Northwestern Ohio in the summer of 1812 that effectually checked any attempt of the British to invade the Western Reserve or Central Ohio, or to send their savage allies on such a mission. Within a few months, in fact, all danger of an enemy invasion into Ohio was definitely ended with the magnificent victory at Put-in-Bay on September 10, 1813, when Oliver Hazard Perry drove the British from Lake Erie, and the crushing defeat that William Henry Harrison administered to the British and the Indians on the banks of the Thames River, in Upper Canada, on October 5, 1813. Harrison's victory on the Thames, Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans, and the splendid and daring work of American seamen on the lakes and on the ocean were the outstanding features of the entire war. It is regrettable that a complete roster of Youngstown and Trumbull County soldiers in the War of 1812 is not available, but such lists cannot be obtained since the records at Columbus were destroyed and those at Washington were burned when the British sacked the national capitol building in 1814. Many soldiers from this neighborhood remained in the service, however, after their original enlistment expired in February, 1813, and some were with Harrison at the Battle of the Thames. Colonel Hillman is credited with being head wagonmaster under General Harrison, and Rev. Joseph Badger was postmaster, chaplain and nurse at Camp Avery. Col. John S. Edwards died of fever in February, 1813, while returning from the Northwest. He had been elected to Congress but a few months previously, being the first resident of the Western Reserve to attain this honor. The sole available record appears to be a return of the draft from the First Regiment, Third Brigade, Fourth Division, made by Colonel Rayen on September 5, 1812, as follows: FIRST COMPANY COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Captain Joshua T. Cotton. Lieutenant George Monteith. Ensign Jacob Erwin. 172 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Sergeant John Cotton. Sergeant John Myers. Sergeant George Wintermute. Sergeant Abraham Wintermute. Corporal John Carlton. Corporal Boardwin Robins. Corporal John Russell. Corporal Jesse Graham. PRIVATES Henry Peter, Daniel Shatto, James Crooks, Matthew Guy, John McCollum, Henry Bronstetter, Robert .Kerr, Henry Crum, Nicholas Vinnemons, William McCreary, Joseph Osborn, Adam Swazer, Henry Thom, John Parkhurst, Samuel White, Seneca Carver, Jacob Hull, John White, John Musgrove, George Smith, John Hayes, Thomas McCreary, John McLaughlin, Michael Storm, John Truesdale, Francis Harvey, Anthony Whitterstay, Thomas Cummins, Jacob Parkhurst, Isaac Parkhurst, Samuel Calhoun, George Gilbert, Abraham Simon, Thomas Craft, Archibald Maurice, James Fitch, Henry Foose, Abraham Leach, Daniel Stewart, Joseph Carter, Isaac Fisher, Jacob Powers, Thomas Irwin, William Munn, Nathan Ague, Philip Kimmel, Abraham Hoover, Benjamin Roll, John McMahon. SECOND COMPANY COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Captain Samuel Dennison. Lieutenant David A. Adams. Ensign William Swan. NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Sergeant Amos Gray. Sergeant William Carlton. Corporal James Walton. Corporal Robert Stewart. Corporal Matthew I. Scott. Corporal David Ramsay. PRIVATES John Dunwoody, Ephraim Armitage, Samuel Ferguson, Conrad Miller, Jacob Feight, Sr., Jacob Oswalt, James Eckman, Andrew Boyd, John Moore, David Kays, John Day, Robert Walker, Thomas Wilson, John Tulley, James Lynn, William Crawford, David Wilson, David McConnell, David McClellan, Isaac Lyon, Samuel Mann, John McMurry, William McMurry, William Bell, John Nelson, Peter Carlton, YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 173 Jacob Feight, Jr., David Stewart, Joseph Baggs, William McKnight, Thomas Fowler, Sampson Moore, John Poynes, Jacob Bradon, Daniel Augustine, John Polly, John Yost. THIRD COMPANY COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Captain Warren Bissell. Lieutenant Alexander Rayen. Ensign Nicholas McConnell. NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Sergeant A. Stilson. Sergeant Asa Baldwin. Sergeant Parkus Woodrough. Sergeant Simon Stall. Corporal William Hamilton. Corporal Jacob Dice. Corporal Emanuel Hull. Corporal Isaac Blackman. PRIVATES David Noble, Aaron Dawson, David Conizer, Henry Rumbel, John Riddle, James Moody, Joseph Mearchant, John Buchannan, John Dickson, John Moore, Joseph McGill, Philip McConnell, Richard McConnell, Robert Goucher, Thomas Combs, William Buchannan, William Reed, William Shields, Alexander Craze, David McCombs, George Mockerman, John Dowler, Josiah Beardsley, John Murphy, Josiah Walker, John Earl, John Ross, John Cowden, John Brothers, Robert McGill, Reynolds Cowden, Samuel Love, William McGill, Walter Buchannan, William Cowden, John Zedaker, William Frankle. CAPTAIN HINE'S COMPANY COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Captain Homer Hine. Lieutenant Edmund P. Tanner, Ensign Thomas McCain. NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Sergeant Julius Tanner. Sergeant Silas Johnson. Sergeant Daniel Fitch. Sergeant John Hutson. Corporal Christopher Rasor. Corporal Joseph Bruce. Corporal John McMullen. 174 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY PRIVATES Henry McKinney, John Turner, John Young, John Chubb, James McDonald, .Jacob Shook, Samuel Green, Conrad Osborn, Benjamin Manchester, William Thomas, William Leonard, John Hill, William Steel, Robert McCreary, Nicholas Leonard, Henry Ripley, James Moore, George Leonard, Robert Cain, Henry Boyd, William McKinney, George Hester, Henry Hock, James Saseton, James Pollock, John McConnell, Arthur Anderson, Elijah Stevenson, Henry Stump, John McColly, Francis Henry, John McKee, James Jack, Garrett Packard. This, as has been pointed out, is not a complete roster of the men from the Mahoning Valley who served in the 1812-13 campaign or at a later date. There are, however, many familiar names in the above lists, while other names are scarcely recognizable because of manifest misspelling. Of the six men killed in the Peninsula battle, two, Abraham Simon and Samuel Mann, are recorded in the above companies, also three of the ten wounded, John Carlton, John McMahon and James Jack. The loss of the county seat and the demoralization caused by the war, that summoned so many of the able-bodied men from home and left those at home living under a nervous strain, were not the only adverse circumstances that impeded the growth of Youngstown in the first fifteen or twenty years of its existence. There were other, and varied, obstacles. Yet in spite of reverses the faith of the early settlers in their new home was never dispelled. As early as 1803 a start was made in an industry that was destined to become the very backbone of the growth and prosperity of the Ma-honing Valley, although Mahoning Valley residents, who leaned toward agriculture did not realize this. On August 31, 1803, Daniel and James Eaton (originally Heaton) contracted for rights to dig coal and make charcoal iron on the banks of Yellow Creek in Poland Township, and began there the erection of a diminutive iron furnace. Construction was begun probably in the same year the contract was made and the blast furnace was completed in 1804. The iron ore found along Yellow Creek was used for raw material and the timber in the surrounding forest was converted into charcoal. For the blast, according to an early description, "A square box was placed upright in a cistern of water communicating with a drain; the upper end was placed in communication by a long pipe with a dam of water, another pipe extending from the side of the upright box into the blast stack." This pioneer stack was bravely named the "Hopewell," but was hardly faithful to its name. In 1806 it met with competition when John Struthers and Robert Montgomery constructed a second furnace on Yellow Creek, a short distance below Eaton's stack. This was equipped with a blast made of fans driven by water wheels and was much more satisfactory than the Eaton primitive stack. In 1807 Montgomery, James Mackey, David Clendennen and Robert Alexander purchased the Hopewell furnace and all ore and other rights from Eaton, who held these from Turhand Kirtland. That it was the ore, water power and timber that they wanted rather than the pioneer furnace is evident from YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 175 the fact that they shut down the Hopewell stack. The Montgomery furnace was operated until 1812 when the furnace hands were called to war. It was never put in blast again. While the Montgomery furnace had a capacity of but two and one-half to three tons per day and the Hopewell furnace probably less, to the Eatons, Struthers, Montgomery, Mackey, Alexander and Clendennen may be properly credited, nevertheless, the beginning of the great iron and steel industry of the Mahoning Valley. New settlers came to Trumbull County and the Western Reserve with a fair degree of rapidity in the first decade of the nineteenth century, but Youngstown of course held only a percentage of these as permanent residents. They were farmers as a whole, these pioneers, and settled on their scattered acres, Warren getting whatever advantage accrued from being, the county capital. Among those who are recorded as settling in Youngstown between 1803 and 1810 are Nicholas Osborne and children—including married sons and their families—William Wier and family and the McKinney family in 1804, Benjamin and Rebeccah Holland in 1806, John E. Woodbridge and wife in 1807, James and Hannah Price in 1809. Another resident of Youngstown from 1805 to 1810 was Jesse R. Grant, then a mere boy. Left motherless in the former year, his father placed him in the care of Judge George Tod and wife with whom he remained until able to strike out for himself in the world. Jesse Grant was the father of Ulysses S. Grant, Civil war commander-in-chief and president of the United States, who was born in Clermont County, Ohio, in 1822. This, of course, is only a partial list of the new settlers of that era. In 1810 Youngstown Township had attained a population of 773. Warren led the list of, Trumbull County townships with 875 inhabitants, while Poland was larger than Youngstown, having a population of 837. Cleveland was the seventh settlement of the county in size at that time, having but 547 inhabitants. At the presidential election of 1812, however, Youngstown cast 76 votes, Warren 71 and Poland 52. Jared Potter Kirtland in describing Youngstown in 1810 says that it was, "A sparsely settled village of one street, the houses mostly log structures, a few frame buildings excepted; of the latter character was the dwelling house and store of Colonel Rayen." Dr. Henry Manning, who came to Youngstown in 1811, describes "Colonel Rayen's tavern" in that year as "A two-story, white house, shingled on the sides instead of weather-boarding. There was a log house attached to it on the north, and a kitchen at the back built of round logs. Between the log and the frame part was a wide hall, open at both ends, and wooden benches on the side for loungers." Not a mansion, perhaps, as we judge homes and hotels today, yet so noticeably superior to the average Youngstown building at that time that it attracted instant attention And in a day when diversions for men were largely confined to con• versation concerning crops and politics and debates on the state of the nation it may be accepted as a fact that the "loungers' " benches were pretty well filled in the evenings and at odd hours of the day. Wet summers in the years 1810, 1811 and 1872 discouraged many 176 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY settlers of the Mahoning Valley as the excessive moisture resulted in poor crops. The war demoralized industry and ended the pioneer attempts at manufacturing. Money was scarce, even after hostilities had ceased in 1815 and "shinplasters" or common barter had to suffice. Actual "hard" money was unknown to many of the villagers. About 1818, however, there was a revival of immigration from Connecticut from which Youngstown benefitted along with the remainder of the Western Reserve. The famed cold summer of 1816 followed by scarcely more favorable growing weather in New England in the two succeeding  YOUNGSTOWN IN 1830 Drawn from a description about fifty years ago and printed in a Youngstown Newspaper about 1880. This view shows West Federal Street from Central Square to Spring Common. The pond in the foreground was located on the north side of the Square. The large building nearby was erected by James McCay in 1829 and was used for a short time as a general store and later as a tavern. years directed the attention westward once more and wagon trains from Connecticut began to come with regularity. In 1818 the first complete school organization in the village was effected by agreement between Jabez P. Manning and subscribers—or parents of pupils—Manning being the teacher at the school on the "Diamond." There were several other schools scattered Throughout the township at this time, but Poland probably had better school facilities than Youngstown. Eight years later, in 1826, Youngstown was divided into seven school districts and an earnest attempt was made to promote education. About this time, too, in 1818 or 1819, the county fair first began to be held at Youngstown, a county fair association being regularly organized. As farming was the mainstay of the Mahoning Valley these annual gatherings were affairs of note. The township, in fact, had prospered in the twoo YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 177 three years prior to 1820, for the census of that year gave Youngstown Township a population of 1,025. In 1826 another attempt was made to revive manufacturing in the Mahoning Valley when a blast furnace was built on Mill Creek by Daniel Eaton, James Eaton and other members of the Eaton family. This was the first iron manufacturing plant in Youngstown Township proper, and, like its predecessors in Poland Township, it was a charcoal furnace. Twenty years later the Mill Creek stack was rebuilt to use bituminous coal, but about the same time another stack, also equipped to use bituminous coal as fuel and having better transportation facilities, was built at Brier Hill, and the Mill Creek furnace went out of existence. This latter was located within what is now Mill Creek Park. The question of transportation, had, in fact, begun to become a very live one even in the '20s, Youngstown people and other residents of the Mahoning Valley beginning to realize that any great growth was dependent upon manufacturing, and manufacturing was dependent upon good transportation and cheap transportation. Not that transportation had been neglected before this time. The Connecticut Land Company provided for the opening of the roads in the Western Reserve even before its settlement was begun, and in the first year of the existence of Youngstown a road was laid out from the Mahoning Valley to Lake Erie, For almost twenty years wagon roads of this kind were perfectly satisfactory but with the growth of the State better facilities for commercial intercourse became necessary, and as this was an era of canals thoughts were naturally directed toward inland waterways. As early as 1817 the project of connecting the Ohio River with Lake Erie by an artificial waterway was discussed and in 182o a state board of canal commissioners was named. It was 1825, however, before an act was passed that resulted in the building of the first cross-state canal, and this waterway did not take in the Mahoning Valley, following instead the Cuyahoga River-Tuscarawas River route from Cleveland, through Akron and thence southward to the Ohio River. The beneficial results of this waterway were plainly apparent. Cleveland, that had lagged behind Youngstown and Warren in population for thirty years, grew rapidly to a city of more than 6,000 inhabitants while Mahoning Valley towns increased but little in size. A project for a lake-to-river canal by way of the Mahoning Valley that had been discussed as early as 1822 was immediately revived. Attention was diverted momentarily from this proposed improvement by a proposal for a railroad from the lake to the river, a project that was advanced as early as 1827. A charter was actually secured for this line, which was to run from Ashtabula County to Columbiana County, and the capital of the company was fixed at $1,000,000. It was a vainly ambitious scheme, however; and failed even before it was fairly under way. This was an Ashtabula County plan and interested Mahoning Valley residents but little. The Mahoning Valley canal project had its ups and downs. A charter was secured in Ohio in January, 1827, and in Pennsylvania in April of the same year, but political uncertainty thwarted any attempts at Vol. I-12 178 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY actual work each time the movement was revived. The canal compan was finally organized in 1835 but the panic of 1836-37 prevented what might have been a favorable start at that time; the same business depression also causing the suspension of work on a second projected railroad known as the Ashtabula, Warren and East Liverpool line. This movement, like that of its predecessor, was backed by Ashtabula County capital. Finally in 1838 business conditions had improved sufficiently to permit the canal project to become a reality. Work was begun that year on the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal that was to extend from the Ohio River by way of Beaver Creek up the Mahoning Valley to Warren and thence to Akron where a connection was to be made with the Ohio canal, giving a .direct waterway from Pittsburgh to Cleveland by way of Youngstown. In May, 1839, the canal was completed from its southern terminus to Warren, and on May 23d a general holiday was declared in the Ma-honing Valley when the first boat reached the northern terminus of the canal. A newspaper account of the celebration says : "On Thursday last, May 23d, our citizens were greeted with the arrival of the boat from Beaver. The packet Ontario, Captain Bronson in charge, came into town in gallant style, amid the roar of cannon and the shouts and hearty cheers of our citizens. The boat was crowded by gentlemen from Pennsylvania and along the line, and accompanied by four excellent bands of music. On arriving at the foot of Main Street they were greeted by the Warren band, and a procession formed which marched through the square to the front of Townes' hotel, where a neat and appropriate address was made to the passengers by John Crowell, Esq., mayor of the town, giving them a hearty welcome in the name of the town authorities and citizens, which was responded to by B. B. Chamberlain of Brighton. The rest of the day was past in hilarity, and on Friday the boat left for Beaver, carrying about forty citizens of Youngstown, who were delighted with the excursion." The Western Reserve Chronicle of May 28 reports the celebra fully and freely. The "hilarity" may have been due to the fact "wine flowed freely and spirited music was rendered by the band." In the afternoon a banquet was served at which Gen. J. W. presided- as toastmaster. The toasts responded to were : "Pennsylvania and Ohio." "The Pennsylvania & Ohio canal." "The Pennsylvania & Ohio Canal Company." "The officers of the canal company." "The engineers corps of the Pennsylvania & Ohio Canal." "The packet Ontario." "The owners and captain of the packet." "The Village of Warren." General Crowell offered another toast to the memory of Gen. Abner Lacock,. the first president of the canal company ; David Tod offered one to the memory of Gen. Roswell Stone and as a final breath taker a toast was proposed to "The Triple Union—The Rivers of the South- YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 179 with the Lakes of the North ; the Cuyahoga with the Big Beaver; Western Pennsylvania with Eastern Ohio ; by the cross-cut canal, through Warren, the center of the Union." The canal was completed to Akron late in 1839 and there was another jollification to signalize this event. It was a small undertaking, this canal, judged by twentieth century standards, and yet an immense one for that day. But two years before the first steam engine northwest of the Ohio River had been given its experimental run up near Toledo, almost ten years were to pass before a steam railroad traversed Ohio from northern to southern boundary, and it was not until fourteen years later that construction of the first railroad was begun in the Mahoning Valley. CHAPTER XI YOUNGSTOWN FROM 1840 TO 1865 THE GROWTH AND DECLINE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA & OHIO CANAL-THE THIRD COUNTY SEAT WAR AND THE CREATION OF MAHONING COUNTY-THE BEGINNING OF YOUNGSTOWN AS A MANUFACTURING CENTER-THE FIRST RAILROAD-YOUNGSTOWN IN CIVIL WAR DAYS. The year 1840 might be said to be the beginning of a turning point in Youngstown's history. Almost a half century had now elapsed since the founding of the settlement and the coming of the white man to Youngstown Township. The earlier settlers who had come here as youthful, vigorous and ambitious men and women had grown to old age and had passed away or were living in quiet retirement. Others who had come as mere children were approaching the age of inactivity. The first born of Youngstown natives were nearing middle life. Youngstown, in short, had attained a ripe age, and yet it was but a drowsy village of less than one thousand inhabitants; the township numbered less than two thousand residents all told. Gradually the adjoining townships that had been included at first in the civil township of Youngstown for governmental purposes were organized separately, and the civil township of Youngstown became identical with the surveyed township that John Young had bought. Yet in 1840 the Village of Youngstown was merely the center of the township, and not a separately incorporated municipality. We may be assured there had been sentiment before this date looking toward incorporation, for small American municipalities always take a pride in forming themselves into regularly organized villages or towns. Yet no serious movement in this direction had been undertaken, although separate school districts had been organized in the township many years before. In the '40s, however, circumstances awakened Youngstown to a realization of its possibilities. Transportation other than that possible on the rude wagon roads of the pioneers had at least become a reality. A dozen years before, as has been remarked, a railroad to connect Youngstown with the outer world had been discussed but necessarily this was a vain ambition, for railroad transportation was itself scarcely more than an experiment at that time. The opening of the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal in 1839-40 was the event that gave a medium for making Youngstown something more than an inland village and paved the way for the development of the entire Mahoning Valley. It was the first step toward transforming this district from an agricultural into a manufacturing region, a movement that has been going on without cessation since that time. - 180 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 181 As early as 1803, as we have seen, attempts had been made to manufacture iron in the Mahoning Valley. Successive works were built along Yellow Creek and along the Mahoning River in Weathersfield Township, and in 1826 the first blast furnace was built on Mill Creek. The pig iron produced by these stacks was used for foundry and domestic purposes and was largely for home consumption. In the same manner coal had been mined in limited quantities for a number of years, but coal mining was not looked upon as a commercial proposition until the late '3os. With the completion of the canal, however, an era of coal mining set in. David Tod, then a young man scarcely more than thirty-five years of age, saw the possibilities in the valley's coal supply and opened a mine on his farm in the northwestern part of the township. This land lay on a hillside sloping toward the river and because of the profusion of briers that it supported the farm had been named "Brier Hill." The coal from this mine was tested for its qualifications as an engine fuel and, being found satisfactory, an extensive traffic in Brier Hill coal began, early shipments being made to Cleveland by way of the canal. This coal soon attained such an envious reputation that experiments were begun looking toward its use as a blast furnace fuel. Previous to this iron making had been carried on largely under the charcoal process, an expensive and not altogether satisfactory method. Coke had been substituted, but about 1842 Brier Hill block coal was found to be an excellent fuel, and in 1844 Wilkes, Wilkinson & Co., of Pittsburgh, built a blast furnace at Lowellville for the manufacture of pig iron with the use of this bituminous coal. This site was selected because of its proximity to the limestone supply of the lower Mahoning Valley. In 1846 or thereabouts the "Eagle" furnace was built northwest of the Village of Youngstown and almost on the line of the corporation limits established shortly afterward. The stack was erected on land purchased from Dr. Henry Manning and remained in existence until the early '8os, when it had become obsolete and was abandoned. The furnace site was taken over by Heller Bros. Co., as a location for their lumber yard. Like the Lowellville stack, the Eagle furnace used raw block coal instead of coke. This successful and continued use of coal as blast furnace fuel is unique in the history of the iron industry, Brier Hill coal being the first fuel of this kind ever mined that answered blast furnace purposes without being coked, or mixed with charcoal or coke. About 1847 James Wood & Co. built a second furnace in the Brier Hill neighborhood, the coal from this stack coming also from the Brier Hill mines. Limestone that is yet found in plentiful quantities below Lowellville was transported to Brier Hill by canal boat and native "black band" ore was the original basis for the high grade iron produced. It was not until shortly before the Civil war that Lake Superior ores came into use in the Mahoning Valley. The Wood stack was purchased in 1861 by David Tod and later became the Tod furnace of the Brier Hill Iron & Coal Co. It was, it might be said, the nucleus of the present great plant of the Brier Hill Steel Co., a modern industrial estab- 182 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY lishment that is complete from ore mines to machinery for loading finished iron and steel. Meanwhile the mining of coal was being engaged in on a larger scale. The '5os saw the opening of numerous banks and the period after the Civil war witnessed even greater activity. Iron manufacturing, too, expanded. In 1841 James Ward erected at Niles the first finishing mill in the Mahoning Valley or, indeed, in the State of Ohio. Its equipment consisted of puddle furnaces and finishing mills, and its product, of course, was bar iron. Five years later the first plant of a similar nature was erected at Youngstown. Originally this latter works, built to manufacture bar iron and sheets from puddled iron, was the property of the Youngstown Iron Co., the stockholders of this concern at the time of its incorporation in 1846 being Henry Manning, William Rice, Henry Heasley, Hugh B. Wick, Henry Wick, Caleb B. Wick, Paul Wick, James Dangerfield, Harvey Fuller, Robert W. Tayler, Isaac Powers and James McEwen. In 1854 it became the property of Joseph H. Brown, William Bonnell, Richard Brown and Thomas Brown, New Castle men, who reorganized the company and gave it the name of Brown, Bonnell & Co. This pioneer industry of the village grew rapidly, and with the addition of the Phoenix and Falcon blast furnaces, became a complete rolling mill plant, manufacturing its own pig iron and semifinished iron as well as the finished product. The blast furnaces at this plant passed out of existence many years ago. The puddling mills too, were eventually abandoned, but under Republic Iron & Steel Co. ownership the Brown-Bonnell works has expanded into one of the large. finishing mill plants of the country. The present Bessemer plant of the same company is built partly on the site of the old Phoenix and Falcon furnaces. This transformation of Youngstown from a farming to a manufacturing center started at a time when the entire country was beginning to awaken to the possibilities of manufacturing and then, as now, political circumstances had much to do with the success of industrial ventures. Industrial projects, like the canal and railroad ventures of the Ma-honing Valley suffered from the depression of 1837 that followed the gradual reduction in the protective tariff. The tariff act of 1842 revived manufacturing and for several years there was industrial activity, but the tariff walls were again lowered, the ultimate consequence being the panic of 1857. Youngstown's young industries were hit hard by this unfavorable circumstance, but they weathered the storm and grew in importance with the demand for iron that came after the outbreak of the Civil war. The part that the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal played in laying the foundation for industrial Youngstown is one that should never be forgotten. Its years were comparatively few, for even while it was in the process of construction the building of a steam railroad was discussed and was a certainty of the near future. Yet for fifteen years it sufficed as the one medium of freight transportation in and out of Youngstown and for an equal length of time thereafter it was a humble auxiliary to YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 183 the railroads. To the Mahoning Valley people of the '40s and the '50s it was a source of pride and a marvel of enterprise. From Pennsylvania the canal followed the north bank of the Mahoning River through the villages of Lowellville and Struthers, on through Youngstown and thence to Girard, Niles, Warren and above, then digressing from the river valley to unite at Akron with the Ohio & Erie canal that gave it an outlet to Lake Erie. In its lower reaches the canal paralleled the river closely, but through Youngstown it followed a comparatively straight route, sometimes being within a short distance of this natural waterway and again a considerable distance removed, owing to the winding course followed by the river. The fall in the canal was necessarily slight so that within the present limits of the OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA CANAL SCENE AT SPRING COMMON BRIDGE city there were but two locks, one of these, being near the present site of the Haselton furnaces and the other about where the Lower Union plant of the Carnegie Steel Co. is located. The motive power, of course, was horses and mules, and the progress of the boats was slow, but this was an age of leisure. Limestone from the lower Mahoning Valley to the Youngstown furnaces, coal to Cleveland, pig iron and iron ore comprised the bulk of its traffic, although glass, wheat, merchandise and many other articles of commerce were carried. At intervals this artificial waterway broadened out into wide "basins" where the canal boats were turned and freight loaded and unloaded. These basins were hives of industry, or at least they appeared so to Youngstown people of the '40s and the '50s. One such basin was located at the lower end of the village in the neighborhood of the present Bessemer plant of the Republic Iron & Steel Co. and at the end of Basin Street, which thoroughfare takes its name from this circumstance. Here 184 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY the Jacobs' warehouse stood. Another basin was located just west of Spring Common, the warehouse here being originally conducted by Thomas H. Wells, although it changed management a number of times. A third basin was located almost in the heart of the village, or in the "flats" almost beneath the present Market Street viaduct, the site now being occupied by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks and the offices of the Republic Iron & Steel Co. The warehouse at this latter basin, which also changed ownership several times, stood until a comparatively recent date. With the abandonment of the canal it became a woolen factory and at a still later date was converted into a station for the railroad that is now the Baltimore & Ohio. This huge, barnlike structure, notable chiefly for its ability to resist fire when modern, and more valuable and ornamental buildings succumbed to flames, is easily remembered by even younger residents of Youngstown. Although built primarily for freight traffic the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal was far from being an unimportant medium of passenger transportation for residents of the Mahoning Valley and for newcomers. For human freight the canal boasted sturdy "packets" of liberal capacity and painted a pleasing white. In appearance they far outshone the plain freight boats, and the arrival of the packet was awaited as eagerly as the approach of the daily passenger train is watched in modern villages of today. To ride within or on it was a dream of magnificence. The mad rush for gold to California in 1849 and the years immediately succeeding, and the wild movement of 1859, whose motto was "Pike's Peak or Bust," did not leave Youngstown untouched. The departure of more than one packet saw passengers carried away westward to begin the trek into the almost pathless lands beyond the Mississippi. Yet the Mahoning Valley itself was a new country and from the East there still came ambitious youths who were able to discard the saddle, the canoe and the wagon of the early pioneers and make the trip in all the glory of the shining packets. More than one resident of Youngstown today can recount his experiences as he reached the metropolis of the Mahoning Valley by this route. The coming of the railroad spelled the doom of the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal. With the arrival of the steam locomotive it became only a medium for slow freight and early degenerated into a mere assistant to the railroad. Even the ownership of the canal company eventually passed to the railroad companies. Its glories gone, it remained in use but steadily dwindling in importance until eventually it became only a medium for transporting limestone to the Youngstown furnaces. The final abandonment was witnessed in 1872, and even the arid channel and the rotting hulks of the old canal boats gradually disappeared with the construction of successive railroads over the canal bed, for its route had been wisely chosen. Today the ruins alone are a memory to even the middle aged. Naturally this industrial progress bred still further ambitions on the part of the Village of Youngstown. The canal gave it undisputed supremacy in the two lower tiers of townships of Trumbull County. That the village lay directly in the Mahoning River valley while Can- YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 185 field and Poland, its chief rivals, were inland villages, had not been heretofore a great advantage in itself since the Mahoning was a navigable stream in theory only. The canal, however, gave it means of transportation to the outside world, a facility that these other villages lacked. It felt that it had surpassed them. Likewise the canal caused Youngstown to chafe under the knowledge that it was after all more or less subservient to Warren while that village remained the capital of Trumbull County. Sooner or later this meant a renewal of the fight to make Youngstown a county seat town. The opportunity came in a not unusual manner, and fate ordained that it should be almost coincident with the opening of the canal and the coal mines that were to furnish the basis for industrial Youngstown. The quarrel for county seat honors that had begun even before the proclamation was issued creating Trumbull County in 1800 had died out with the dawning of the War of 1812. A half dozen or more villages had urged their claims, with Warren and Youngstown as the chief contenders. Warren's claim had been confirmed finally with the erection of county buildings, and for almost a third of a century the question had lain dormant. But in 1840 the courthouse at Warren had become an object of disrepute. It was a frame structure, small, built inexpensively, and had outlived both its usefulness and its good looks. It was creditable in appearance neither to Warren nor to Trumbull County and had even reached a stage when repairs would no longer suffice. A new county building was needed and Warren citizens began a movement looking toward the erection of a modern courthouse. The proposal was all that was needed to renew the county seat agitation in all its fury of more than a quarter of a century before. Rival towns met Warren's plans for a new courthouse with vigorous protests against spending any more public funds for county buildings of any kind in that village. It will be pardonable here, perhaps, to digress long enough to chronicle another event that is of importance in the history of Youngstown by remarking that the activity Youngstown had begun to display at this time brought into existence the first newspaper that the village boasted. Youngstown was not a pioneer in Trumbull County in this respect, since Warren had witnessed the establishment of a weekly journal thirty years earlier. It is surprising that Youngstown had been overlooked so long, for the optimistic journalist of that day needed but slight encouragement to launch a newspaper. Now the growing importance of Youngstown and the fact that it might become the capital of a new county added whatever incentive was needed, and the Olive Branch and New County Advocate was formally introduced to the public on Friday, August 25, 1843, with John G. McLain as publisher. It was to be a weekly organ, issued each Friday. In his editorial announcement in the opening issue Mr. McLain says : "We have located ourselves in the beautiful thriving village of Youngstown, on the banks of the Mahoning on the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal. We come amongst you, fellow citizens, with our establishment, to make a home for ourselves and family, and we hope to do so 186 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY by honest industry and attention to business, while at the same time we feel that in doing so we can be useful to you, not only individually but collectively, and this in proportion to the circulation which you will aid in giving to the Olive Branch. "There are but few villages in Ohio of equal population, business and enterprise with this that have not their newspaper, and surely the people of this region will aid in sustaining us. "* * * Money! did we say? Well, we need many other things as much as money, so if you have no money let not that deter you, come ahead and patronize the Olive Branch; we will take almost anything you have for it, anything that we can eat, drink, wear or pay debts with." In his declaration of policies the editor announces that his paper stands for "Old Jeffersonian Principles," and that: "It will advocate the project of the erection of a new county, th county seat of which shall be located in this village. "It will strive to procure the reduction of the salaries of all our national and state servants, with very few exceptions." This last-mentioned declaration of principles is a rather startling one, and was more popular by far with the taxpayers who paid those salaries than with the officeholders who drew the emoluments. It so happens, however, that this policy did not originate with the editor of this pioneer Youngstown newspaper, nor was he making a valiant fight singlehanded against supposed state and national extravagance. "Retrenchment" was an active, burning issue in 1843. Paying taxes aroused ire then just as it does now, just as it had for generations before and just as it always will. There was a strong sentiment in favor of economy. Nor was the campaign ineffectual. At the next session of the Ohio Legislature after the Youngstown newspaper joined in the fray all state and county salaries and fees were slashed by legislative enactment. The governor's salary was cut to $1,000 a year, while the secretary of state had to get along with $500 per annum, with "no fees or perquisites allowed." In this respect at least the editor had gauged public sentiment correctly. The name selected, The Olive Branch and New. County Advocate, was a high sounding one, as was common in the newspaper world of that -day, yet a more meaningless title could not have been chosen. It was, as it had announced, a believer in Jeffersonian Democracy, and, far from extending the olive branch or spreading peace and good will, it saw little that was good in the Whigs and was emphatic in acquainting its readers with that fact. It was avowedly for President John Tyler for the Democratic nomination in 1844, and had little more respect for Van Buren, Cass and other Democratic presidential contenders than it had for the benighted Whigs. It was not at all favorable to David Tod for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1844, although Tod was a Trumbull County man and the leading candidate, and it was unblushingly and savagely critical of its brother Organ, the Trumbull Democrat, of Warren. Founded to advance- Youngstown's claim to county seat honors it, YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 187 would naturally be expected to lead this fight, yet it appears to have forgotten the contest almost entirely after its initial announcement. While this struggle was at its height the Olive Branch devoted itself to national politics and foreign news—although it might be said in extenuation of this that it was but following a custom common to newspapers of that day. It was equally oblivious to the importance of local news happenings, few of these being found in its columns except when a prominent citizen died, and then the published eulogy and obituary was usually the contribution of a literary-minded friend of the deceased and not a product of the editor's pencil. From its files one may learn the Washington happenings of that day and acquire a working knowledge of affairs in England, France and Ireland, but the reader is left in doubt regarding occurrences in Youngstown except occasional references to the growing canal traffic. The Olive Branch assumed a neutral course in politics after Polk had been nominated for President and Tod for governor in 1844. About this time too it appears to have given up the county seat fight, or the pretension that it was a county seat advocate, for in September, 1844, it became the Olive Branch and Literary Messenger. In the final existing copy of the Olive Branch, issued on March 7, 1845, the editor "takes great pleasure" in announcing that Texas had been annexed to the. United States and assured its readers that "President Polk was, we presume, undoubtedly inducted into office on Tuesday last. It is not known here who have been appointed his cabinet ministers." This slow transmission of news was unavoidable. The editor could not be assured that Polk had been inaugurated as required on March 4th until the Washington newspapers reached him by the slow and easy going mail of that day. However, he exercised the newspaperman's prerogative of picking a slate of cabinet officers whom he "presumes" were appointed. All in all, the Olive Branch was an average American weekly newspaper of that day. It did little to help gain a county seat for Youngstown but was a paper in which its publisher might take just pride otherwise. This little journey away from the county seat subject itself will be pardoned, we feel sure, because of the part this newspaper was presumed to play in the struggle. To return to that subject, it is rather surprising to note that the healthy growth of Warren did not have the effect of thwarting any attempt to remove the county seat from Warren altogether. Such a move would have been an injustice to Warren and yet several of the projects for county division that arose at this time actually contemplated eliminating Warren altogether from consideration. Warren had the advantage of possession, which is alleged to be nine points of the law, but with this advantage was forced to accept the disadvantage of being put on the defensive. It was her task to hold what she had against all rivals, while those rivals were actuated by a common desire to obtain what Warren had.: This community of interest was favorable to the contenders. The election of 1843 was fought out with county division as the 188 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY issue and resulted in a victory for the lower tiers of townships in Trumbull County. Eben Newton, of Canfield, represented Trumbull County in the Senate for a two-year term beginning in December, 1842, and at the election of 1843 Asahel Medbury, Democrat, and Dr. Henry Manning, Whig, both of Youngstown, were elected members of the lower house of the State Legislature. The rival political parties declared a truce and supported Youngstown men regardless of party. Legislative action on division was confidently expected at the assembly session that winter. Various plans were proposed for the erection of new counties, one of these of course being a county of which Youngstown should be the capital. Greene and Gustavus, in the most northerly tier of Trumbull County townships, were contenders for the honor of being the county seat of still another new county. Canfield was Youngstown's most serious competitor for seat of justice of the county to be created from the lower townships of the county. Newton Falls had still another proposal. At a meeting of Newton Falls residents late in 1843 resolutions were adopted providing for the creation of three counties. The first of these counties was to be formed out of the townships of Hartsgrove, Rome, Cherry Valley, New Lyme, Andover, Windsor, Orwell, Colebrook, Wayne and Williamsfield in Ashtabula County, and Mesopotamia, Bloomfield, Greene, Gustavus, Kinsman and Vernon in Trumbull County. Gustavus and Greene would be permitted to contest for the seat of justice of this county. The second county was to be formed out of Mecca, Bazetta, Howland, Weathersfield, Austintown, Canfield, Boardman, Youngstown, Liberty, Vienna, Fowler, Johnston, Hartford, Brookfield, Hubbard, Coitsville and Poland, with the county seat at Youngstown. The third county—Trumbull by name—would consist of Farmington, Bristol, Southington, Champion, Braceville, Warren, Newton, Lordstown, Milton, Jackson, Berlin and Ellsworth townships in Trumbull County and the townships of Windham, Palmyra, Nelson and Paris in Portage County, the county seat, of course, to be at Newton Falls. The Portage County townships, in fact, were added to give Newton Falls a central position. On behalf of Youngstown, Judge William Rayen and R. W. Tayler were eager contestants, along with the two members of the assembly. The Newton Falls proposal was adroitly put up to them by its proponents and they were urged to postpone action until there could be a better union of forces, instead of bringing Youngstown's proposal to a vote in the legislative session that was about to open. This proposal would leave Warren entirely out in the cold, but Youngstown people welcomed this prospect rather than hesitating at it. They had not yet forgiven Warren for its smooth work in 1800. Youngstown had gone too far, however, to consider any delay. In the words of R. W. Tayler, writing to Representative Asahel Medbury on December 14, 1843, "The proposition, if carried out, would suit us quite as well, but it is now too late to relax our efforts on account of it." With the opening of the Legislature in December, 1843, Youngstown YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 189 therefore presented its plan for dividing Trumbull County by creating a new county out of the southern townships of Trumbull, the seat of government, of course, to be located at Youngstown. Warren, under its arrangement, apparently was to retain the county seat of Trumbull County. This arrangement, it would seem, should have been agreeable enough to Warren, but Warren was still opposed to any division, or at least to any that would remove it too far from the center of Trumbull County. Being without representation in the Legislature, it used the expedient it had employed thirty-five years before of sending lobbyists to head off partition. With Canfield thus eliminated, and Newton Falls, Gustavus and Greene not taken care of, Youngstown had much opposition and not much help, and the struggle in the Legislature of 1843-44 that had promised so much for Youngstown was lost. In the Legislature of 1844-45, Warren and the northern townships of Trumbull County controlled the representation in both houses of the State Legislature and county division again went by the board. In the Legislature of 1845-46, Youngstown was similarly without representation, and Canfield came, forward with a new proposal. Much of the previous agitation for county division .appears to have been limited to Trumbull County and territory north and west of it. The southern line of Trumbull County was the southern line of the Western Reserve as well, and the old Western Reserve spirit still persisted so strongly, in spite of almost a half century of growth and immigration, that the invasion of any other new territory in carving out proposed counties was apparently as unthinkable as the annexation of Pennsylvania townships would have been. Suggestions for seizing portions of Ashtabula and Portage counties were offered freely because these were Western Reserve counties, but other territory was inviolate. It was canny Canfield residents who shattered tradition by proposing to go outside the old Connecticut Western Reserve. From that village came the proposal, late in 1845, for the creation of a new county out of the ten lower townships of Trumbull County and the five upper, or northerly, townships of Columbiana County. It was a logical proposal. It left Warren sufficiently close to the center of the remaining townships of Trumbull County that its claim to the right of retaining the county seat of that county could not be questioned. It would have been a good proposal even had Youngstown suggested it, but was especially strong from the Canfield viewpoint since it left Canfield in the exact geographical center of the new county; this being always a strong argument in adjusting county seat claims. Warren had by this time come to recognize county division as inevitable and finding that this Canfield plan would work to its advantage gave it strong support, with the result that the Legislature created the County of Mahoning on February 16, 1846, its limits being those set forth above and Canfield was named as the county seat. Youngstown for a third time had lost its fight, and, another thirty years was to elapse before its ambition was finally attained. Defeat was not accepted by Youngstown with particularly good grace. The fight was still on, and Youngstown was reinforced by Greene 190 - YOUNGSTOWN AND. THE MAHONING VALLEY and Gustavus people who were petitioning for the creation of a new county to be known as Clay, while a movement was on foot for a county to be called Gilead. Just what Youngstown's designs were at this time is not clear, but Asahel Medbury and Dr. Manning were in Columbus during the winter of 1847-48 working in Youngstown's behalf. In a letter to Mr. Medbury from Judge William Rayen, dated January 7, 1848, he refers to both these county proposals, speaks of petitions being sent from Mahoning County, and expresses the holy indignation of Youngstown people at their defeat two years before by saying:  "I suppose you will have much said this winter on the subject of vested rights by the Warren and Canfield people. The Warren people need no more sympathy than the Canfield people, for when they got the  YOUNGSTOWN. (Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.) YOUNGSTOWN IN 1846 seat of justice made at Warren they got it by every kind of villainy, fraud and deception that probably could be practiced and contrary to the, then known will of the very large majority of the citizens of what was then Trumbull County, and have retained it still, against the will of the people." This scathing arraignment refers of course to the original designatiori of Warren as the Trumbull County seat in 1800. There can be no, question of the judge's righteous wrath. Canfield had lost no time, however, in confirming her claim to being the seat of government of Mahoning County. Election of county officers was held almost immediately. The first county officials, who began their terms on March 1, 1846, were, sheriff, James Powers; auditor, Andrew Fitch; commissioners, Robert Turnbull, Isaiah Bowman and James Justice; treasurer, John H. Donald; recorder, Saxon Sykes; prosecuting attorney, William Ferguson. James Wallace of Springfield, James Brownlee, of Poland, and Lemuel Brigham, of Ellsworth, were elected by the Legislature as acting associate justices and on March YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 191 16, 1846, they convened in the office of Elisha Whittlesey, at Canfield, the oath being administered by Judge Eben Newton, the presiding judge of the district. On May 11th, the court formally organized and opened its first session in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Canfield. In the act making Canfield the county seat that village was obligated to donate a lot and $5,00x0 toward suitable county buildings. Canfield carried out by private subscriptions all the terms imposed on it, and more. Judge Newton donated a lot to be used as a courthouse site, and $10,000 was subscribed for buildings, the work being done so expeditiously that the original county buildings were completed by the summer. of 1848. In the thinly populated Mahoning County of 1846 there were fewer calls to duty on the part of officials than there are today, but the work was sometimes onerous, nevertheless. Forty years after he held the office of the first sheriff of Mahoning County, James Powers told of experiences that befell an early day officer of the law, saying: "There was no jail when I went into office, and whenever I had a prisoner the only way I could keep him safely was to drive a staple in the floor of my house in Canfield and chain him down. When court did not meet for some time the prisoners were placed in the Warren jail, and when ready for trial were brought back to my house and chained down until either sentenced to the penitentiary or released. In those days there were no railroads, and I had to drive all the prisoners sentenced to the penitentiary, and insane persons too, in carriages to Columbus, stopping at taverns along the road at night. It took three days to drive through, and it was not a pleasant business. I had a horse thief, named Eaton, once that everybody said would escape before reaching Columbus, as he was a dangerous character. I took a guard named Whittlesey along, and at night chained the two together and then to the bed and landed my man in the penitentiary all right. In those days the sheriff's office did not pay very much, in fact when I went out I was poorer than when I was elected." Except for this setback—the loss of the coveted county seat—the '40s were years of progress in Youngstown. The Mexican war in 1846-47 had no ill effect. The militia training days of early Ohio were still an institution and, with war with our southern neighbor in prospect, military activities were redoubled. Youngstown and Mahoning County gave their full complement to the Ohio forces raised, although this was necessarily a small number; since fewer American troops were engaged in this war than in any other in which the United States has ever taken part. Ohio's contribution was but 5,536 in all, yet it had a greater number ready to respond if needed, and with this apparently small number Ohio led all northern states in the number of men it sent to battle Mexico. Flushed with its success over gaining the county seat, Canfield became an incorporated village. Perhaps because Youngstown realized that it lacked dignity in remaining a mere unincorporated settlement, but more likely because of its comparatively rapid growth, Youngstown also aspired to municipal honors and applied in 1848 for a village charter. The petition was granted in December, 1848, but it was a year and a 192 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY half later that the village was formally organized, the town limits being extended by the county commissioners before this was done. At this time, 1850, Youngstown Township had a population of 2,802. The village was not enumerated separately that year, but it is probable that the population was fully 1,500, or an increase of fully 100 per cent in the decade since 1840, which fact indicates the progress that Youngstown had made industrially. The first village election was held on June 15, 1850, at the Union House, kept by W. H. Ross. The village officers elected were: Mayor, John Heiner ; recorder, Robert W. Tayler ; trustees, John Loughridge, Abraham D. Jacobs, Francis Barclay, Stephen F. Burnett and Manuel Hamilton. The village government formally organized on the evening of that day at the office of Ridgeley J. Powers. The trustees elected Benjamin H. Lake, village marshal; James Richart, treasurer, and James McEwen, street commissioner. In December, 1850, the Legislature recognized the extension of the village limits and a new form of government was' instituted. At the election on April 7, 1851, R. W. Tayler was elected mayor; John F. Hollingsworth, police justice; Joseph Montgomery, assessor; Hugh Moore, marshal; and a board of five- aldermen was elected, James M. Loughridge being named for the First Ward, Daniel Sheehy for the Second Ward, Moses C. Johnson for the Third Ward, E.W. Hollingsworth for the Fourth Ward and R. G. Garlick for the Fifth Ward. The aldermen elected Samuel C. Griffith borough superintendent; D. I. Baldwin, treasurer; E. S. Hubbard, counsellor and attorney; F. E. Hutchins, clerk. At this, time the legal title of the municipality was "borough" but shortly afterwards "village" was substituted. The high-sounding title of "alderman" gave way to "trustee," although in every way except officially the board of trustees was known as the "village council." Even before this time the growing importance of the coal and iron traffic had had its natural consequence in the revival of the plan for uniting Youngstown and other Mahoning Valley villages to the outer world by steam railroad. The canal was doing its work well, but when it was yet in its infancy the inadequacy of this means of transportation became apparent. The pioneer railroad on the valley had its inspiration largely at Warren, and on February 22, 1848, the books were opened for stock subscriptions. It was five years later before the promoters felt there was sufficient funds pledged to warrant the beginning of construction work and this was but one of the many delays encountered. A tight money market, failure of eastern capital that had been counted upon, greater expenditures than were anticipated, and similar handicaps, caused postponements but never the abandonment of the project. By 1855 the road had been built as far as Girard, and for some time Youngstown passengers had to go to this village to embark by rail. By 1856, however, the line was completed to Youngstown, terminating originally just west of Holmes Road, now Holmes Street, in an open field. Later the passenger depot for this line—the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad—was YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 193 built on the east side of Holmes Street where the Erie freight station now stands. The Cleveland & Mahoning line gradually acquired ownership of the Pennsylvania & Ohio Canal and the two transportation lines were operated in conjunction. It was some years after this road had been completed to Youngstown before there was rail communication with Pittsburg .and the canal continued to be useful. But the coal, the limestone and the merchandise westbound were hauled by the rail line, and gradually the freight to the east was carried the same way. The Cleveland & Mahoning carried its line to Hubbard by the construction of a branch road, double-tracked the line to Cleveland and, in 1863, was leased to the Atlantic & Great Western Company. Eventually it came under the control of the Erie railroad by lease. A more extended story of the construction, progress and development of this and other railroads in the Mahoning Valley will be found in a chapter on transportation. It was the era of railroad building, however, that brought to the fore a man who did more than any other one person in Youngstown to further the progress, growth and importance of this city in the last half of the nineteenth century. We refer to the late Chauncey H. Andrews, merchant, innkeeper, coal operator, iron manufacturer, the leader in railroad construction in the valley and public spirited citizen from the day of his arrival here until his death in 1893, whose activities are further detailed in a biographical sketch appearing in the second volume of this work. The decade between 1840 and 1850 may be said to have been one of the most important in the history of Youngstown. This assertion may appear to be overdrawn in view of the fact that at the end of this period Youngstown had, as we have explained, a population of not more than 1,500. Yet when one recalls that the growth in these ten years was equal to the growth in the entire life of the village prior to 1840, and that, in this decade it first branched out into manufacturing, established transportation facilities with the outer world and became the undisputed metropolis of the Mahoning Valley, this is not too much to say: It was the day when Youngstown had to decide whether it would spring ahead or remain stagnant, and Youngstown chose to advance. The next decade-1850 to 1860—was one of equally rapid growth. The railroads, as we have shown, came to supplant the canal, the coal industry flourished more and more in Youngstown and in adjoining villages, new blast furnaces were' built by the Brier Hill Iron & Coal Company in 1859 and 1860, the Phoenix furnace was built by Crawford & Howard in 1854, the Falcon furnace by Charles Howard in 1856, the Himrod furnace No. I in 1859 and the Himrod furnace No 2 in 1860. it was in the next decade or two that additional rolling mills came, but these blast furnaces gave Youngstown a decided industrial standing even before the Civil war. In 1860 Youngstown Village had attained a population of 2,759 'while the township as a whole had 5,377 inhabitants, almost three times its population of 1840. In 1857 the first banking house in the village was established by Wick Bros. & Co. This was the position of Youngstown when the struggle that has Vol. I-13 194 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY gone down in history as the American Civil war burst forth. Like the entire Western Reserve, Youngstown was destined to have a great part in this fearful conflict. Here in Northeastern Ohio the anti-slavery movement might be said to have had its birth, and nowhere was the doctrine of state rights more bitterly opposed. To the south of Mahoning County there was secession sentiment, even in Ohio, but here on the Western Reserve the New England. and Pennsylvania blood, with its accompanying strains from New York and New Jersey, imbibed little of the secession heresy. In the two decades between 1840 and 1860 a heavy foreign immigration had modified the old American strain in the villages of the Mahoning Valley, but these immigrants were largely from England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Germany—men and women THIS STRUCTURE, AT WEST FEDERAL STREET AND SPRING COMMON, WAS BUILT IN THE EARLY THIRTIES AND WAS FOR MANY YEARS THE LEADING HOTEL IN YOUNGSTOWN. The photograph was taken while the building was being razed, about 1910. who had come here to escape oppressive conditions in their native lands and who were by instinct ardent advocates of free labor and opponents of human slavery. It so happened that it was a Youngstown man—in reality a Mahoning Valley man, since his interests were such that the whole valley might claim him for a citizen—who was the leading figure in Ohio's participation in the war. This was David Tod, "war governor" of Ohio. Serving as state senator from Trumbull County from 1838 to 184o, David Tod was a leading figure in the Democratic party while still a young man, and in 1844 was his party's nominee for governor. It was a "Whig year" in Ohio, and yet Tod lost the governorship by but 141 votes in October, while the state was carried by Clay, the Whig candidate for President, a month later by 6,000. In 1846, when the Whig sentiment was even stronger, he lost by but 2,380. Fifteen years later, in 186r, the loyalists in Ohio were looking for a man who would fight secession without compromise—for events in the summer of 1861 were not favorable to the North and compromise talk was rife. The man, rather his politi- YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 195 cal faith, was considered and David Tod, a "War Democrat," was made the "Union" party's nominee. Loyalists of both old parties gave him support and he won the governorship by a majority of 56,000. The confidence placed in Governor Tod was never regretted. He threw himself heartily into the Union cause. The first company recruited in Youngstown for service was raised largely at his expense, and in the troublous days of 1862 to 1864 he led in recruiting, in fighting disloyalty even at the risk of his life, and in pressing the Union cause. The darkest times of the Civil war merely spurred him on, instead of causing him to become discouraged. A biographical sketch and portrait of David Tod will be found in Volume II. From the farms, the factories and the stores the youth of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley sprang to the Union colors. The more adventurous, or those most easily loosed, answered the call at the very outbreak of the war. As the dread conflict dragged on and it became apparent that the two sections of the country were engaged in a struggle that would last for years instead of being but a summer holiday, more and more of the youths and mature men of Mahoning County and the entire Western Reserve donned the blue uniform. At home the women were not given the opportunities that fell to their daughters and granddaughters more than fifty years later when America engaged in the world conflict, but they made opportunities nevertheless. They carried on the work that the men had laid down and, as is always the case in time of war, suffered the mental pangs of those who have given loved ones to the call of battle. Mahoning County youths served in numerous regiments, but it is denying no honor to any others to say that the infantry units that became most closely identified with this county in the Civil war were the Seventh, Nineteenth, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Sixth, One Hundred and Fifth and One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer regiments. Many soldiers from Ohio saw their service in the Western Army rather than the Army of the Potomac, but the Seventh, the "Bloody Seventh," was not one of these, its service being on the battlefields of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and at Gettysburg. It was in April, 1861, but a few days after President Lincoln answered the attack on Fort Sumter by calling for 75,000 men, that youths from Northeastern Ohio rendezvoused at Cleveland and were organized at Camp Taylor into the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Company I was from Youngst0wn and a detachment of light artillery was from Mahoning and Trumbull counties. At Camp Dennison the regiment organized by electing E. B. Tyler of Ravenna, colonel ; William R. Creighton, lieutenant-colonel; John S. Casement, major. This was a regiment of village youth, as distinguished from the regiments of farmer boys, that helped make Ohio famous in the war. It was mustered out of service on July 8. 1864. Scarcely behind the Seventh in time of enlistment and not behind it in valor came the Nineteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment of which Companies B, C and G were made up largely of Mahoning and Trumbull county youths. The Nineteenth, originally under Samuel Beatty as colonel, Elliott W. Hollingsworth as lieutenant-colonel, and 196 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY Lewis P. Buckley as major, is famed for its length of service. A three years regiment, it remained in the fight until November, 1865, or for 472 years, serving in the Western army under Generals Sherman and Thomas. In the. Twentieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company H was recruited in the Mahoning Valley in May, 1861, originally for three months' service. Later it enlisted for the full three years and actually served until June 18, 1865. Originally the Twentieth was under command of Charles Whittlesey, as colonel, and Manning F. Force, as lieutenant-colonel. In the Twenty-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry Mahoning Count men served in several companies, notably Company E. This regiment was famous for the men in its membership who later became great American figures. Its first colonel was William S. Rosecrans, afterwards a major general and prominent in Democratic party circles, and its third colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, later to become a major general also and finally governor of Ohio and President of the United States. In it also were found Stanley Matthews, later United States senator from Ohio and justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and William McKinley, who enlisted from Poland, was promoted by grades from sergeant to major and for twenty-five years served in public life as member of Congress, governor of Ohio and President of the United States. Like Matthews and Hayes, William McKinley was a Republican. The Twenty-Third Regiment served in the East and was mustered out on July 26, 1865. In the Twenty-Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company G was organized in Mahoning County. Mustered in at Camp Chase in July 1861, it enlisted almost to a man at the expiration of its three years of service in 1864. It left its toll of dead on the bloody battlefields of Stone River and Chickamauga and was mustered out on October 21, 1865. In the Twenty-Seventh Ohio, Mahoning County was represented and four Youngstown soldiers made the supreme sacrifice, two of these Vicksburg and two on these at battlefields of Virginia. The Thirty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry likewise was represented in Mahoning County, also the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In the Thirty-Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company I was partially recruited at Youngstown, the men in this regiment being largly of German birth and descent. Mahoning County names are found also in the Fifty-First 0hio Volunteer Infantry and the Fifty-Second Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The Eighty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized in response to President Lincoln's call for volunteers to head off threatened raids from the South. Company B of this regiment was recruited at Youngstown and Company C from various parts of Mahoning and Trumbull .Counties. It was a three months' regiment and was mustered out at the expiration of the time for which it had enlisted. The Eighty-Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was Originally a three YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 197 months' organization also, but subsequently a new regiment was formed for an additional six months of service. The Eighty-Sixth participated in the movement against Gen. John Morgan, the Confederate raider, and later saw service in Kentucky before being mustered out in January, 1864. Company A of this regiment came from Mahoning County, while other companies were partially recruited here. Mahoning County was represented in the Eighty-Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a three months' organization. The Eighty-Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized in June, 1863, although it had existed in part in the First Battalion, Governor's Guards, Independent Volunteer Infantry, recruited in June, 1862, and used for guard duty. Company D of this regiment was from Mahoning County. It was mustered out in July, 1863, after the Morgan raid through Ohio had failed. The One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was distinctly a Northeastern Ohio regiment and one that saw service in the bitter fight for the control of Tennessee in 1863 and 1864. Mustered in in August, 1862, it remained in the service until August, 1865, its original commanders being Albert S. Hall, as colonel; William R. Tones, as lieutenant-colonel, and George T. Perkins, as major. Companies A and H of this regiment were from Mahoning County. The One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized in the fall of 1862 under Col. Emerson Opdyke and served in the Western Army, earning the name of "Opdyke's Tigers" for its ferocity in battle. Among its staff and line officers and in the ranks in Companies A, B and C were Mahoning County men. It was mustered out in 1865 at the close of the war. The One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was recruited largely from the Ohio National Guard and included the Forty-Fourth Battalion, a Mahoning County organization of four companies. Three of these subsequently became Companies B, D and G of the One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth while the fourth was distributed among other companies of the regiment. The One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth was mustered in on May 8, 1864, for three months' service. Mahoning County was represented in the One Hundred and Eighty-Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, organized at Camp Chase in February, 1865, the One Hundred and Eighty-Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the One Hundred and Ninety-Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, mustered in on March 25, 1865, in Companies A and K of the One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, mustered in at Camp Chase on Mardi 28, 1865, and One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The Second Ohio Cavalry was recruited by B. F. Wade, of Jefferson, and John Hutchins, of Warren, and mustered into the service on October 10, 1861, under Col. Charles Doubleday. Its record was a notable one before it was mustered out on September 1, 1865, after four years of service, first in Missouri and Arkansas, later in Kentucky and Tennessee and finally in Virginia. Mahoning County was represented in this regiment, also in the Sixth Ohio Cavalry, mustered in at the same time 198 - YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY as the Second. The Sixth Ohio participated in the thickest of the fight, ing in Virginia and was mustered out in August, 1865: There were Mahoning County men in the Tenth Ohio Cavalry, and in. the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry, a unit that was recruited in October, 1863, and mustered out in November, 1865,' after seeing service in Kentucky and Tennessee. In artillery Mahoning County men were enrolled in the Fifteenth Ohio Independent Battery, organized in the fall of 1861 by Capt. J. B. Burrows and First Lieutenant Edward Spear, of the old Fourteenth Battery; in the Twenty-Second Ohio Independent Battery, and in the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Independent Battery, originally a part of the Second Ohio Cavalry. Youngstown was not brought into actual physical contact with the bloodshed of the Civil war. The border counties of the state were harassed by the enemy lurking in West Virginia and Kentucky, but Ma-honing County was far removed from the battlefields. The anxiety, the cares and the sorrows of war were felt here, but the sound of battle was absent. The single instance when Youngstown felt the dread of an armed invasion was when Gen. John H. Morgan, the Confederate raider, made his daring dash across Ohio in the summer of 1863. Actually Morgan's forces were never a great menace to Ohio or its people, but the fear of his wrath was 'exaggerated. His name was dreaded beyond reason, for Morgan was not of the type of the murderous Quantrell. His invasion was nothing more than a reckless diversion, but when his rapid movement after he crossed the Indiana line into Ohio on July 13, 1863, was unchecked, panic seized the entire state. His original route lay far south of Mahoning County, but after he had failed in his attempt to cross the Ohio River and had turned northerly it is not surprising that sudden fear was aroused in Youngstown, for this village stood directly in his path. The people gathered to discuss the threatened attack and to prepare against it, for even at this time the strength of Morgan's scattered forces was wildly exaggerated. The tension was relieved only when the capture of Morgan and the remnant of his command near Salineville, Columbiana County, on July 26, 1863, by a force under Major Ray, and after a fight in which thirty of Morgan's men were killed and fifty wounded. The toll of dead in Youngstown village and township in the Civil war was not small, considering the sparse population. A list of names, believed to be complete, appears on the soldiers' monument and shows the following who made the supreme sacrifice : "Surgeon-in-Chief Thomas J. Shannon, Lieutenant Joseph H. Ross, Lieutenant David Donovan, Captain William H. Ross,. Lieutenant David McClelland, Lieutenant Samuel Platt, Lieutenant James C. Morrow, Lieutenant Frederick Dennis, Lieutenant Henry M. Baldwin, Sergeant Andrew J. Kelley, Sergeant Robert McClelland, Sergeant John McFadden, Sergeant John A. Wood, Sergeant Joseph Fullerton, Sergeant James. Cochran, Sergeant John Jennings, Sergeant Eli Fitch, Sergeant John Dunlap, Sergeant Lafayette McCoy, Sergeant William H. Craig, Sergeant N. W. King, Sergeant Richard Elliott, Sergeant John W. YOUNGSTOWN AND THE MAHONING VALLEY - 199 Brothers, Corporal Daniel Cooper, Corporal Nicholas Krichbaum, Corporal Hiram Fifield, Corporal James E. Johnston, Joseph A. Truesdale, William Wakefield, James Bisp, Michael Campbell, George Fox, James P. Ray, William Waldorf, James L. Stevenson, Lemuel J. Cecil, Abram D. Crooks, Charles L. Cowden, Joseph B. Deeds, John D. Dicks, Jacob Muller, James C. Shoaff, John Shannon, Thomas D. Williams. David Williams, John Thomas, Isaac Davis, Charles Jacobs, Patrick Murphy, Samuel Vogan, Peter Allison, Isaac Rider, John Tagg, John Carney, Joseph Reese, Robert McAuley, Daniel Mitchell, James Evans, William Crum, James McEvey, John Llewellyn, David Williams, Luman Parmelee, Con Dacy, William Brown, Samuel Birch, John Smith, Francis P. Jones, George Ague, Elias A. Crooks, James W. Bell, David Williams, Luther Leslie, David H. Edwards, Thomas Moore, John Lamb, Ignatius Reuter, Henry Loerer, Andrew Buchannan, Benjamin Kyle, Manly Partridge, William Borts, Robert Barrett, William Schieble, Milton D. Fellows, Hezlep Powers, John Boyle, James Williams, Henry Niblock, Michael McGinty, Albert Miller, Lawrence Kelly, Isaac Morris, Reuben B. Reep, John Stewart, William B. Price, John Thomas, John W. Powers, John C. Strealy, John Heiner, John Barber, Thomas Jones, Myron I. Arms, James C. Miller, Lawrence Baker, Manuel Leppard, Joel B. McCollum, Thomas Jacobs, Benjamin C. Cunningham, Alexander K. McClelland." Industrially the Civil war had the same effect on the Village of Youngstown that the World war had more than a half century later. The unexpected seeming abandonment of sanity paralyzed industry, and dark days were added to dark days. Necessarily this feeling of panic was but temporary for the prosecution of the war demanded iron as the great war demanded steel. The industries here revived and more were built to supply the demand. Like all other wars, the Civil war was a war of supplies even as much as a war of men. The men who wore the Confederate colors were not less valiant than the Union men nor less devoted to their cause ; but their fight was hopeless without outside aid, for the North had the industries. And Youngstown's little industries were not unimportant by any means. The close of the war in 1865 found them enlarged and active. CHAPTER XII. YOUNGSTOWN FROM 1865 TO 1890 BUSINESS ACTIVITY AFTER THE CIVIL WAR-THE ABANDONMENT OF THE VILLAGE FORM OF GOVERNMENT AND THE INCORPORATION OF THE CITY-THE SUCCESSFUL FIGHT FOR THE COUNTY SEAT-CITY EXTENSION AND IMPROVEMENTS. The return of peace in the spring and summer of 1865 saw the beginning of a new era in, the United States. In the change that came about Youngstown was distinctly affected. - Prior to 1860 the movement westward had not been rapid.. It had taken a' century and a half or more for Americans in the seaboard states to see the possibilities of the region beyond the Alleghany Mountains or to respond to the call of a new country. In the six decades of the nineteenth century prior to the Civil war the land east of the Mississippi River had been fairly well settled and the prairie states west of that river were beginning to fill up with settlers. But the close of the war brought the great movement to the West. This was a logical consequence of the war. Thousands of young men returned to their homes on the farms and in the villages and towns of the East after an absence of months or years. They had been weaned away from home ties. They were restless and averse to settling down in the old routine. Life somewhere else might be more monotonous even than at home, but at least it offered a change and war and absence from home had bred in them a spirit of adventure. It was this spirit that brought about the settlement of the great territory between the Kansas frontier and California. This meant unprecedented expansion that partook of the nature of a "boom." New villages and towns were being built, the construction of the first railroad across the continent was begun and more railroad projects were born on every hand. Some of these had a sound basis and some were pure products of imagination. But enough of the expansion was, real to create an era of prosperity. Youngstown profited by reason of the nature of its industries. Iron had gone to an unparalleled price during the Civil war and its price remained up after the close of hostilities. There was not only all this new building to be done but the country found it necessary to catch up on old building. For four years there had been destruction instead of construction. Wages were high and there was a heavy demand for all manufactured products and products of the soil. At this time—the close of the Civil war—Youngstown had a popula-