PERRY TOWNSHIP- 375 there for human chattels. The home of Thomas and Charity Rotch, like that of the " village preacher's modest mansion " at " sweet Auburn," " Was known to all the vagrant train. He chid their wanderings and relieved their pain ; The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; The naked spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there and had his claims allowed." There are few now who remember Thomas and Charity Rotch. Those who, in " memory's waste," can bring up the reminiscences of the long-inurned, long-forgotten, long-gone past, will cherish their memory in great kindness. Thomas Rotch died in the prime of life. Could he have lived another decade and participated in the great changes in the Tuscarawas Valley, with his wealth and enterprise, the history of Perry Township would have borne on its pages a record of improvements beyond what is shown even now by the enterprising pioneers who succeeded him, and who gave lavishly of time and money in the development of the resources of our favored township. It is not, however, to the enterprising capitalist alone that credit should be given for the wonderful development that Perry Township exhibited in the decennial period from. 1820 to 1830. It is to the men who hewed down the forest and ran the plowshare beam deep through the, until then, unbroken sward. They came with strong arms and willing hearts, to find a new home and to found a new empire. The harvest yielded to their sickle, and their posterity and successors are their heritors. With them came also another class of men, also pioneers, who contributed their share toward developing ",the new country." They were just in advance of the permanent settlers, and stayed until the charms of forest life overcame the desire to remain where progress toward political and social organization got in the advance. Of that class was Massum Metcalf, who came in. 1810 and remained a few years, when he left, saying, " The country is too thickly settlcd ; I must go where I cannot see the smoke of my neighbor's chimney, nor hear his dog bark," and he went to parts unknown. Among the hardy pioneer settlers; and who were among the earliest to build their cabins, and whose doors were always open to the stranger, were the Castleman brothers ; their names were John, Henry, Richard and David, with their brother-in-law, Jacob Ross. Connected with them by marriage was a family by the name of Meek. Fond of the chase, not a deer or bear escaped their rifles when they started for game. The last wolf that was killed in the neighborhood north of Massillon was brought down by the unerring rifle of one of the Castleman brothers. Ross claimed that he was the first white child born west of the Ohio River. Be that as it may, a better type of manhood than Jake Ross was rarely found among the hardy pioneers of that day. Excepting John Castleman, all the families left Stark County soon after the organization of Perry Township. John was a citizen of Kendal and Massillon until his death, which was occasioned by a tree falling upon him, from which he lingered, a helpless cripple, for many years. His wife, Margaret Meek, survived him until a few years since, and lived to a good old age, a fine type of the women who sought homes with their families in the trackless forests of the Western country. At her death, she left four children—Mrs. Lyon, of Cleveland, and George and William Castleman and Mrs. Roof (since deceased), of Massilon. In 1813 and 1814, before and after the organization of the township, immigration increased beyond any former period, and continued to increase, especially when the attention of the Legislature was turned to internal improvements. Land, however, did not rise in value until 1830. and within the personal knowledge of the writer, 1,000 acres of " the plains " in the .south end of Perry Township sold for $4.25 per acre ; the sale was made in 1824 by Capt. Mayhew Folger to Mr. William R. Dickinson, of Steubenville, and paid for in cloth manufactured at the " Steubenville Factory," of which Messrs. Belzaleel Wells, one of the framers of the Constitution of Ohio, of 1802, and Mr. Dickinson were proprietors. In the same year first above mentioned. among the "new corners," were Capt. Mayhew Folger and his wife Mary, and their family, his brother-in-law, Thomas Coffin, whose wife, Anna Coffin, was a sister of Capt. Folger, and who took up by original entry and obtained by purchase the lands sold to Mr. Dickinson, above referred to. The newness of the country, and its social condition being so different from anything that Thomas Coffin and his wife, who, with Capt. Folger and his wife, were natives of 376 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. the Island of Nantucket, Mass., had ever seen, discouraged Thomas and he sold his interest in the Western lands to Capt. Folger, who remained at Kendal until February, 1828, when he removed to Massillon. During the year 1813, also came Bradford Kellogg and rented the building on Lot No. 2 in Kendal, then owned by Arvine Wales. He and his two sons opened a brick yard immediately south of, near the extreme east end of, now North street, and which was afterward known as the Free Bridge Road, until Massillon and Kendal were united, and North street was extended to its present eastern terminus. At that brick yard were made the first bricks manufactured west of Canton. Kellogg and his sons came from Hudson, in Portage County, and brought the first oxen driven under the yoke in the township, and which were used for tramping the clay out of which the bricks were made for Alexander Skinner, Esq., who erected the first brick house in the township, and which was the first west of Canton. The walls of the house were laid by Calvin Hobart and Peter Humphrey ; the building now stands on Front street in Kendal, where for sixty-five years it has stood a proud monument of the skill and integrity of the builders, and is a better piece of work, even now, than much of the brick-work built a half a century since. Messrs. Hobart and Humphrey removed to Wooster in 1817, where they remained until 1827, when Hobart returned to Massillon and built one of the first brick houses that was built there, and was finally drowned in the canal on the night of July 4, 1833. The brick house on Front street is now owned and occupied by citizen Anton Vogt, and bids fair to stand the storms of many years. Mr. Skinner removed to Loudonville, then Richland County, and died there. At the close of 1813 and commencement of 1814, and during the latter year, the population of the township increased largely, and the increase was of valuable citizens, among whom were Jonathan Winter, his wife Nancy, son Abner and family, and daughters Sarah and Catharine. Uncle Jonathan, as he was familiarly called, was a Quaker, had been a soldier in the war of the Revolu tion, and was fond of shouldering his cane and showing how fields were won." He drew a pension, but escaped a wound on the battlefield. Prominent among the arrivals that year were Dr. William Gardner, from Albany, State of New York, the first physician in the township ; from here he removed to Norwalk, Huron County, remained there a few years and then returned to Stark County and located in Canton, where he died in 1833. Dr. Gardner was prominent as a physician, and earnest in his convictions, rarely yielding when once having formed an opinion ; also, about the time of Dr. Gardner's arrival, came John C. McCoy, from the city of Baltimore, a journeyman tailor, afterward well known in the Pittsburgh Methodist Conference as Rev. J. C. McCoy, a useful and popular. preacher ; from here he removed to Loudonville, Ashland Co., Ohio, thence to Washington County, thence to Athens County, where he died a few years ago, honored and respected as a Christian gentleman. In the early part of 1814, came Thomas A. Drayton, afterward a resident of Canton, and Hosea W. Tinker, all useful mechanics, who are pleasantly remembered by the few who yet remain to furnish items for these sketches. About the time of the organization of the township, a family known as the Andrews family came into the township, consisting of the father, Richard, Eve, the mother, and five sons, Daniel, Adam, Charles, David and Richard ; the old man entered the fractional section upon which now stands the manufacturing establishment of Russell & Co., the station house of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, and the other buildings of that corporation, the respective residences of Mrs. Julia Jarvis, Herman Schreiber and all others on South Erie street below the railway, all of which went for intoxicating liquors, which were drank in the family. Richard Andrews had a son-in-law, John Wolf, who, with two sons, Richard and Samuel, are sleeping their last sleep in drunkards' graves. Among the chattels brought from Maryland by the Andrews family was a stalwart negro, known as Black Jack, John Tibbs being his real name. On the family leaving Hagerstown they were about to sell Jack, and were offered $550 for him, but upon his promising to stay by and support the old folks as long as they lived, they brought him to Ohio. Jack soon learned, however, that the old Constitution contained a clause in the Bill of Rights prohibiting slavery, and he told his old master and mistress that he would fulfill his part of the bargain, but he would not work to support the drunk- PERRY TOWNSHIP - 377 en sons, and left them and lived afterward in Jackson Township, where he married, earned a farm, sold it, moved into Lawrence, where he purchased another farm, and remained until the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, when he went to Canada and ended his days, fearing that some remote heir of the Andrews family might come from Maryland and claim him. Up to the close of 1814, few settlements had been made in the township west of the Tuscarawas River. On the fractional section west and opposite the residence of Mrs. Jarvis, now owned by the heirs of the late Peter Runser, was located a sturdy Irish pioneer, William Whitcraft ; he, however, sold out and removed to Lawrence Township. He was an energetic citizen and at his death left a worthy family. He sold to Hezekiah Bull, of Hartford, Conn., who settled on the land and remained until 1820, when he died. Mr. Bull was a Democrat of the New England Jeffersonian type, thoroughly imbued with an intense dislike to the Federal party, the Hartford Convention and New England politics in their length and breadth. He was exceedingly earnest in advocating and defending the war of 1812, and the administration of President Madison. He was a kind neighbor and genial gentleman in his social intercourse. In point of culture, he and his family were among the first in the then new and really wild region. Very soon after his arrival here, two of his daughters were married, Hetty, to Alexander Skinner, Esq., brother of the late Hon. C. K. Skinner, and Hoyland to Thomas Taylor, Esq., a son of whom, A. A. Taylor, Esq., is the owner of the extensive flouring-mill on Erie street, in Massillon. Mrs. Bull died a short time after her husband, and the family, sons and daughters, removed to Loudonville, where all excepting Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Sheldon died.. lion. John W. Bull, a grandson, a member of the present Legislature, from Ashland County, resides in Loudonville, and is always ready to extend a generous hospitality to his many friends. During the years 1812-14, the supply of provisions was not equal to the demand, and Charles K. Skinner, Edward Nelson and Charles Coffin, who was a Nantucket ship carpenter, built a boat and went to Coshocton, where corn was, plenty, the Muskingum bottoms always yielding an abundance, and brought several loads, which sold readily for $2 per bushel. Excepting Charles Coffin, none of them knew much in regard to the management of a boat, and on one occasion coming up, they struck on the Cedar Ripple, -a few miles below where Massillon now is, and came near losing boat and cargo. The first religious society organized west of Canton in Stark County was the " Kendal Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends," their Monthly i1 eeting being at Marlborough, Quarterly Meeting at Salem, and the Yearly Meeting being held at Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County. It is supposed that all these organizations existed as early as 1813. The principal members of Kendal Preparative Meeting were Isaac Bowman, Richard Williams, Zaccheus Stanton, Charles Coffin, Thomas Rotch, Mayhew Folger, Joseph Hobson, Jonathan Michener, Mathew Macy, a brother-in-law of Charles Coffin, Thomas Coffnn, Micajah Macy and others, all of whom, with a single exception, were heads of families. Thomas Coffin could hardly be called a member of that meeting, as he returned to Philadelphia ; his wife, a sister of Mayhew Folger and mother of the late Lucretia Mott, survived him thirty years. The influence of that little Quaker meeting was strongly felt in the community. So far as any religious sentiment was recognized, they were in the majority. They were first to erect a place for meeting for worship, called by them a " meeting house," which, when erected, they opened for a school, and it should be said of them, they " bore, with liberty and law, the Bible in their train." Next to them and about the same time, or shortly after, came the Methodists to Kendal, as will be seen by the following extract of a letter from the late Rev. Adam Poe, D. D. It will also be seen that the labors of the Methodists were mainly on the west side of the river until the period above referred to. Dr. Poe says : " At a session of the Western Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held at a chapel in Shelby County, Ky., November 1, 1810, Rev. James Dixon was appointed to Tuscarawas Circuit in the Muskingum District ; Rev. James Quinn, Presiding Elder. The Tuscarawas Circuit then embraced all the country along the Tuscarawas River from New Portage to Coshocton, taking in the new settlements on both sides of the river. He formed small societies, and only returned seventy-seven members in all that terri- 378 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. tory at the end of the year. At the next session of the Conference, which was held at Cincinnati, October 1, 1811, Rev. William Mitchell was appointed to the Circuit. Rev. James Quinn, Presiding Elder. Mr. Mitchell reported one hundred and forty-two members at the close of his year. I am not sure whether Dixon formed a society in Tuscarawas Township, but during the winter of 1811-12. Mitchell organized a society at the house of Peter Johnson, Esq., and preached to them regularly every two weeks, since which there has always been a Methodist society in the township. The Western Conference was divided in 1812, and the Ohio Conference formed, which held its first session in Chillicothe, October 1, 1812. At this Conference, David Young was appointed Presiding Elder of the Muskingum District, and John Somerville was appointed to Tuscarawas Circuit, and seems to have had considerable success, for he returned four hundred and ninety-one members. During this year, my first personal acquaintance with the society at Johnson's commenced, and during the ensuing summer, the meetings were removed to the house of Joseph Poyser. This was, I think, the first regularly organized religious society in the township. " At the second session of the Ohio Conference, which was held at Steubenville September 1, 1813, Rev. John Graham was appointed to Tuscarawas Circuit. At the next session, held at Cincinnati September 8, 1814, Rev. John Cord was appointed to that circuit. At the next session, which was held at Lebanon, Ohio, September 14, 1815, Rev. Curtis Goddard was appointed to the circuit. The next session of the Conference was held at Louisville, Ky., and Rev. Archibald Mcllroy was appointed to the circuit, the society meeting at Joseph Poyser's now the residence of John Christman, Esq. •At the next session of the Conference, held at Zanesville, Ohio, September 3, 1817, Rev. James McMahon was appointed to the Tuscarawas Circuit. At the close of the year, he reported 411 members. This venerable gentleman is still living and active in the ministry. His address is Chesterville, Morrow Co., Ohio. He could probably give you a more minute history of the society than I can. Peter Johnson and Joseph Poyser are both dead. As the regular preaching, during this period, was at both their houses, if living they no doubt could be more particular in the history of the society meetings there. Rev. John C. McCoy became a resident in Kendal, I think in 1813 or 1814 ; and, there being no Methodist society there, he joined in Tuscarawas Township. His address is Marietta, Ohio. Wesley Hatton, still a resident of Tuscarawas Township, was also among the early members of the society. Also Miss Catharine Thacker, now Mrs. Nathan Eldredge. Mr. Thomas Eldridge, an uncle of Nathan, was likewise an early and active member of the society. I think he is still living, but do not know his present address." The letter from which the foregoing extract was taken was written July 28, 1853. Dr. Poe was correct as to the death of Peter Johnson. He was well known to the writer, as was Poyser, who lived, until within a few years past, and died in Canton. All the other persons named by Dr. Poe, except Mrs. Eldredge, have been dead many years. She now lives with her nephew, William Moffit, Esq., about three miles southwest from Massillon, on the Millersburg road. The Ohio Conference included within its boundaries the entire State of Ohio, and much more. The Muskingum District remained in that Conference until 1824, when the General Conference erected the old Pittsburgh Conference, so affectionately remembered by all the old Methodists in the valley of the Tuscarawas, which remained as erected by the Conference of 1824 until the year 1848, when it was so changed as to put Perry Township into the North Ohio Conference, where it remained until 1856, when the Pittsburgh Conference was restored to its original boundaries. The General Conference of 1876 changed the map of the Conference so as to bound it on the east by the State Line, between the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and Ohio and Virginia. The first Methodist preaching in Perry Township, east of the Tuscarawas River, was by Josiah Foster, preacher on the circuit, and as Presiding Elder of the Muskingum District he preached at the house of Rev. J. C. McCoy, in Kendal, once in five or six weeks, and as early as 1816. During the succeeding six years, it is impossible to learn with certainty in whose charge the Muskingum District and Tuscarawas Circuit were. In 1822, before the erecting of the Pittsburgh Conference, Thomas R. Ruckle, a young Irishman, was appointed to the circuit, and came around PERRY TOWNSHIP - 379 once in five weeks, preaching in the schoolroom in Kendal, school then being in the east wing of what is called the " L " house, a building built by Ephraim Chidester, grandfather of Dr. Ephraim Chidester, of Massillon. The school was then taught by the late Dr. B. Michener, whose recent death in Iowa at the age of eighty was generally noticed in the public journals. The Doctor being then a Quaker, in unity with the society, and disposed to controversy, and Rev. Mr. Ruckle being " set in defense of the Gospel," soon got up a debate on paper, which was kept up for a long time, and finally died out by consent of the disputants themselves. The Methodists had no place for meeting at this period ; their leader in everything pertaining to the church, John C. McCoy, had married a young lady by the name of Comly and removed to Loudonville, and Methodism in Perry Township made little progress, increasing, however, a little from year to year, and always holding its gains until it acquired strength enough to unite with the Freemasons in 1840, to have a place known as the Methodist Episcopal Church of Massillon, and which is fully noticed in the sketch of that city. Among the early Presbyterians who settled in the township were John and Garrett Cruson, two brothers, and their families, their sister, Mrs. Anna Burhans, Ephraim Chidester, Daniel Myers and his family, Austin Allen, Boyd J. Mercer, and two or three other families in different parts of the township, but no organization in the way of a church was had until after the now city of Massillon was laid out, and which will be noticed in its proper place. The first thing almost that was done by Thomas Rotch on layingout and recording the plat of the village of Kendal, was to get a post office established on the great east-and-west route through the State, previous to which Canton was the post office for all the region roundabout. Thomas was appointed Postmaster, and John C. McCoy his deputy, as the Postmaster lived a mile out of town. McCoy withdrew from the office, and Matthew Macy was appointed Deputy, or, as that officer was called, Assistant Postmaster, and held the place until the death of Thomas Rotch, when he was appointed Postmaster, and held the office until it was discontinued in 1829. Matthew Macy was a man of rare integrity and rare business qualifica tions. A native of the island of Nantucket, Mass., he, as was common, indeed it was the rule, went to sea on board a whale ship bound to the Pacific Ocean, but getting crippled by a fall he left the ship he went out in and returned in a homeward bound vessel, arriving at Nantucket soon after the commencement of the war of 1812. The ship he went out in was captured by a British cruiser, so that he lost his share of the cargo. Finding no employment at home in consequence of his crippled condition (from which he never recovered), he came to Ohio and was a clerk in Thomas Rotch's store, taught school, was with Arvine Wales, an administrator who settled Rotch's estate after his death, and held various offnces of trust. His wife was a daughter of James Austin, a Vermont Quaker, who removed from Montpelier in 1817 to Kendal. The first blacksmith in the township was Jesse Otis. His shop was in Kendal, and he was ready for business as soon as a shop could be built. The first tanner in the township was Thomas Williams, whose tanyard and currying- shop were in Kendal, on the north side of State street, which was the great thoroughfare from east to west. Originally, the road from Canton west diverged in a nortwesterly direction on the top of the hill near the Russell farm, running through the farm now owned by the heirs of the late John Yingling, then occupied by Zaccheus Stanton, and intersecting the east end of State street, in Kendal, which street it followed to the west end, where it diverged to the southwest until it struck a point now known as the east end of Cherry street, in Massillon, thence west to the Tuscarawas River, where a toll bridge was built and furnished the only crossing-place on the river in the township, excepting at the " high banks " at the northern terminus of Clay street, in the city of Massillon, and at Barr's Fording, three miles south, near where are now the Wormington Coal Mines. The stock in the toll bridge was mainly owned by Judge William Henry, who had purchased the fractional section of land on the west side of the river, and erected the brick house, yet standing there, in which he " kept store " and lived with his family. As immigration into Stark and Wayne Counties was in excess of any period before or since, the location for business was the best west of Canton or perhaps in the county. The toll bridge became a most 380 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. odious monopoly, and the people everywhere determined that it should not exist. Their effort was to get a road laid out from the divergence east of the city on a straight line west, or as nearly so as practicable, to the fording place, the now northern terminus of Clay street, thence, after crossing the river at that fording place, as nearly west as possible, until it should intersect the old Wooster road. This plan, of course, would only answer when the river could be forded. It was at once determined to build a free bridge, which was done, and trade was then diverted over the new route, and the old toll bridge went to decay, and is remembered by but few of the present residents of the Tuscarawas Valley. After the free bridge was erected, it was sought to be destroyed by cutting away its principal supports at the eastern end. Tradition says that David Andrews, already referred to in these pages, did the job, for which he received a fiddle, a silver watch and a quart of whisky. The bridge was repaired and served the people for many years, until an additional straightening of the road from Canton to Wooster made Main street, in Massillon, the great thoroughfare, when the principal crossing of the river was located where it now is. The first Justice of the Peace in Perry Township was a blacksmith by the name of Francis Smith, the grandfather of citizen George W. Hathaway, of Massillon. Justice Smith moved to Brookfield, in Tuscarawas Township, where he died. He was succeeded by Capt. Nathaniel Ray, a retired shipmaster, from Nantucket, and it may be said of him that he was a " character." While it was true of him that he had been a shipmaster, his sailing had been confined to coasting from Portland, Me., to the Capes of Florida and New Orleans. He had followed that mode of life until he felt that he, too, ought to join the vast crowd that was seeking a new home, so he came to Kendal. He had an unfortunate habit of mixing whisky with his water in considerable quantities, and when under the influence of the mixture, had little control over himself. On one occasion, while driving his iron-gray mare before a " Dearborn " wagon, as they were called in those days, a wheel came off, and he, considerably under the influence of the whisky he had drank, dropped the lines and jumped out. As he struck the ground the mare started for home, and got there with what was left of the carriage. As Ray followed, he found the pieces. He had the wheel on his shoulder that dropped from the wagon while he was driving. Meeting one of the neighbors he swore he would kill the mare, but on getting home he compromised by simply cutting off her ears, a feat Ray never survived so as to remain at Kendal, so he packed up and went back to Nantucket, got a little vessel and resumed his old avocation as master of a coaster, and finally anchored there. The first store that was opened in Kendal or in the township was opened by Thomas Rotch ; next to him came William Henry and Gilbertharp Earle, and lastly in Kendal, Isaiah Brown, noticed more particularly in the sketches of Massillon. The embarrassment in all business matters, stagnation of trade, and especially the ruin of commerce upon the ocean, upon which New England subsisted, occasioned by the war of 1812, drove many shipmasters and New England people to the West, and the year 1814 was strongly marked by the increase from that quarter. Among those who came into Perry Township that year were Gilbertharp Earle and his family, Capt. James Duncan, a retired ship. master from the merchant service, his residence having been at Portsmouth, N. H., and many others. These gentlemen are mentioned particularly because of the important parts they sustained on the historic stage, as did Alexander Johnston, Esq., who came into the township a year or two earlier, and before the township was organized. Gilbertharp Earle was born June 19, 1772, at Burlington, N. J., and was married at Upper Freehold, Monmouth Co., to Sarah Cook, October 10, 1799 ; he remained at Burlington until 1813, when he removed to Canton in the autumn of that year, and remained until the spring of 1814, when he removed to Kendal. He en tered at the land office the fractional Section on the west side of the river, known as No. 6, and after merchandising at Kendal and removing to Canton again, where he remained but a year or two, returned to his farm, gave his attention to farming and the dispensing of a generous hospitality that will ever be gratefully remembered by all who shared it. The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Earle was a resort for young and old, and all were made happy by the unfailing politeness always kindly tendered. On arriving at Kendal, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Earle PERRY TOWNSHIP - 381 consisted of Sarah B., who married Dr. Gardner, by whom she was left a widow in 1833, and moved to Harmar, Washington Co., Ohio, and married Henry Fearing, Esq. ; she died on the 30th day of July, 1876 ; John, who died January 8, 1855 ; Thomas Earle, M. D., now living in Brooklyn, N. Y., at the age of seventy-six ; Hannah, now the wife of Hon. Harlow Chapin living at Harmar, at the age of seventy-four ; Frances, who married Gen. Gardner Field, a notice of whose death will be found in the sketch of the city of Massillon ; she afterward married Edward Clark, Esq., of Harmar, and died on the 26th day of February, 1879. Gilbertharp Earle, Jr., born in February, 1812, and died at his residence near this city in September, 1873. Mr. and Mrs. Earle had three children born in Ohio, but one of whom survives, Mrs. Rebecca Johnson, widow of the late Hon. Matthew Johnson, member of the Legislature of Ohio in 1837 and 1838 from this county, and Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio, during the administration of President -Buchanan. Mr. Earle died January 9, 1850, at the age of seventy-eight, and Mrs. Earle died at Harmar in 1855, aged seventy-nine ; they led useful and active lives, Mr. Earle having filled important public trusts. The organization of the township as a political and social organization fell into the hands of men who studied the public weal and carried out practically views and plans that met the entire approbation of the community. " Schools and the means of instruction," as recommended in that grand instrument, the old Constitution of Ohio, were encouraged, a refined social intercourse all over the township was established, that is affectionately remembered by the now old men who survive. the language of the great British essayist : " Then none was for a party ; Then all were for the State ; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great. Then lands were fairly portioned, Then spoils were fairly sold; The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old." When Mr. Duncan left Portsmouth, his objective point was the State of Virginia, that portion now included in West Virginia, and especially Brooke and Ohio Counties. At Wheeling, he had friends, Messrs. Jacob Atkinson and Peabody Atkinson, brothers, and a Mr. Peterson. He remained in those counties for a year or two, and married Miss Eliza T. Vilette, and with the two brothers Atkinson concluded as a sort of horseback adventure to visit the " Rotch Settlement." Accordingly the three gentlemen started on horseback in the spring and came to Kendal, and stopped at a hotel kept by John Bowman, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, which was the only one in the village, and was the first hotel opened in the township. It soon became known that there were strangers from Portsmouth, N. H., in town, and as there were several New England families already in the village and vicinity, a Quaker woman, who with her husband, had a year or two before visited Portsmouth, strangers, and received genuine New England hospitality, said to her husband, " Thee had better go and call on the strangers ; they may be connected with the families who were so polite to us, and if so, we should at least invite them to dine." The Quaker head of the family said to his wife, " I should be glad to invite them at any rate, and if thee thinks thee can make out a dinner for them, I will call on them and invite them for to-morrow." The preliminaries being thus settled, he called on the strangers, had a long talk with them in regard to the county and State of Ohio, its prospects, and invited them to dine ; the invitation was promptly accepted, and after dinner they all rode over a considerable portion of the township, examined the water-power of the Sippo Creek, rode over the ground plat of the now city of Massillon, and the strangers were favorably impressed ; they went no further west, returned to Wheeling, and Wellsburg, Va., and Mr. Duncan returned shortly afterward and purchased the Estremadura farm, now owned by the Kegler heirs, and purchased the quarter-section on which the city is, in part, laid out. The purchase was made for the water-power of Sippo Creek, and near where now stands the Masonic Lodge, and the merchant flouring-mill of Isaac N. Dexter. Mr. Duncan erected a flouring-mill and saw-mill, having first erected a dam across the creek, near where East street, Massillon, now crosses the creek. The place was known as Duncan's Mill, as it had no other way of distinguishing it from any other point in the Tuscarawas Valley. There was one member of Mr. Earle's family when he came into the township, who yet lives 382 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. in the township just outside the city limits at the age of ninety-six years, Mrs. Rebecca Stafford, her maiden name being Cook, a sister of Mrs. Earle ; she married Abel Stafford, one of the colony who settled in Tuscarawas from Essex County, N. Y., by whom she was left a widow many years since. She is in the enjoyment of excellent health and bids fair to see the one hundredth anniversary of her birthday. The name of Aunt Rebecca Cook sixty years ago, was as " familiar as household words." She has life-long been a remarkable woman, and her bright intellect makes her home a pleasant place to visit ; her recollection of the events of early times is clear. The stagnation of business, scarcity of money and almost cessation of immigration, commencing soon after the close of the war, seemed to paralyze the energies of every body ; a surplus of agricultural products was always on hand, and no outlet to market ; a general feeling of discouragment pervaded the community ; when land would sell at all, it sold for merely nominal prices, compared with its real value. To get rid of the increasing produce on his hands after the building of his mill, Mr. Duncan erected a distillery, a log building which stood near the corner of Charles and Mill streets, Massillon, the first distiller being Seth Chase, a native of Vermont, who had settled in Tuscarawas Township. As time wore on, Mr. Duncan accumulated a large quantity of whisky, and, in 1822, he determined to load a flat-boat with flour, whisky and potatoes for the New Orleans market. The idea had hardly entered his mind, until he went with all possible haste to Charles Coffin, and contracted for the building of a boat to be launched in the Tuscarawas, and loaded with flour, whisky, potatoes, bacon, and, in short, anything that would sell in Southern market. The boat was built and launched exactly where now is the eastern end of the arched stone bridge in Massillon ; the amount of her tonnage is not recollected, nor can it be ascertained. She was built bottom up and turned over into the water with entire success ; her upper works were immediately set up and finished ; a fortunate rise in the river was taken advantage of, teams were employed which worked night and day, and with the rise. the boat was loaded, and in the early-spring of the year, the " Walk in the Water," as Mrs. Duncan had named the boat, started on her voyage. Much apprehension was felt lest the dam across the river at Zoar, and Baker's dam at New Philadelphia, should be in the way, but the flood kept up and the dams were crossed in safety. The Muskingum was reached and being at flood-tide, having the waters of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding to keep it up, Capt. Duncan had company to the Ohio, Coshocton and Zanesville and other towns on the river being engaged in shipping to New Orleans. No time was lost in reaching Cincinnati. On arriving there, Capt. Duncan found the market buoyant for his entire cargo, and sold out boat and cargo at a fine advance, and walked from Cincinnati to Kendal, where he then resided. His success was followed with other and similar efforts, none of which, however, were near so successful. Mr. Duncan's success was only an additional stimulus to greater improvements in the valley, in which all his fortunes were staked, his ambition for improvement was only restrained by his means. On his return from Cincinnati, he and Mr. Skinner immediately formed the partnership of C. K. Skinner & Co., and first put up a carding-machine, picker and the other appliances, simply tor carding wool and reducing it to rolls for the spinning-wheel, Mr. Skinner having been bred to the business while in the service of Thomas Botch, and such was their success that the flouring-mill was soon turned into a woolen manufactory, and was known as the " Free Bridge Woolen Factory Fifty rods east of the Tuscarawas Free Bridge," and was continued as a woolen factory; an addition was made in which the works for manufacturing flax-seed oil were erected, and the business of .manufacturing oil was carried on for many years. Under the untiring energy of Mr. Duncan, in which he was ably seconded by Mr. Skinner, the improvements of this portion of the Tuscarawas Valley werc rapidly accelerated. Among the old-time landmarks of a pre-historic period, so far as the city of Massillon is concerned, is the building now owned by James Bayliss, Esq., and occupied by T. Clarke Miller, M. D., and which was erected in 1823, the east end being first used by Mr. Duncan for a dry goods store, the west end being occupied by Mr. Duncan as a residence for his family. The year 1824, however, was the turning-point for business in the entire length of the Tuscarawas Valley, and PERRY TOWNSHIP - 383 especially in so much of it as lies in the county of Stark. In that year, 1824, the Legislature of Ohio, which had had for several years the subject of internal improvement in one form or another before it, resolved to proceed ; and an act was passcd February 24, directing the Commissioners, who had been already appointed, to continue their labors and employ an able engineer and assistants. The reports of the Commissioners were so favorable, that, in 1825, an act was passed " to provide for the internal improvement of the State of Ohio by navigable canals," and agreeably to the provisions of which act the Ohio Canal, from Cleveland to Portsmouth, was built. Immediately upon the passage of the last-mentioned act, Mr. Duncan commenced and never ceased his labors until the canal was lo. cated in the Tuscarawas Valley, and on the east side of the Tuscarawas River. On the 18th day of January, 1826, forty-four sections, commencing at the south side of the Summit Lake in Portage, now Summit County, on the Portage Summit, and extending south to the second lock south of the city of Massillon, near the residence of Mrs. Jarvis, a distance of twenty-seven miles, south of the now city of Akron, were let to contractors, the letting taking place in Kendal at Mr. Duncan's residence, which was the only brick house in the village, and which will be remembered by the reader as the one erected by Alexander Skinner, Esq. As soon as it was settled beyond peradventure where the canal was to be located, Mr. Duncan commenced to purchase land in the valley north and south of the tracts already owned by him, and also commenced to lay out a town, which extended from North street, on the north, adjoining the residence of Dr. Joseph Watson, to South street, adjoining the " Excelsior Works," west to the Tuscarawas River (beyond that boundary the land was owned by Judge William Henry), and east to High street, which bordered on lands owned by the estate of Thomas Rotch, deceased. Excepting on the south, Mr. Duncan took in all the territory he owned. The fractional section on the east side of the river, not owned by Mr. Duncan, lying between his land and the river, was owned by Hon. P. A. Karthans, of Baltimore, having been entered by him at an early day, and on which a large portion of the village, between the canal and river, was laid out. The new 383 town was called Massillon, taking its name from Jean Baptiste Massillon, a celebrated Roman Catholic French Bishop, of the days of Louis XIV, of France. The name was suggested by Mrs. Duncan, who was a fine Frepch scholar, and of whom, it may be said in passing, she was a niece of the Hon. Charles Hammond, one of the early editors of the Cincinnati Gazette, and a woman of rare education and social qualities. The first school in the township was taught by William Mott, a young Quaker of limited education, but earnest in his efforts to do good, faithful And upright ; he realized his incapacity, and soon quit teaching, and worked in Thomas Rotch's woolen factory, and finally returned to the East. Next to him as a teacher was Cyrus Spink, a man of education and excellent habits. As a teacher for those days he was a success. But one of his pupils yet remains within the bounds of his territory as a teacher, now drawing rapidly to the seventh decennial period of life, and another now residing at Mantua Station in Portage County. Ohio, just entered upon his seventy-eighth year. Mr. Spink, on leaving Kendal, went to Wooster and remained there until his death on the 31st of May, 1859. At the time of his death he was a member of Congress elect from that district, and was sixty-seven years of age. He was Major General of the Military Division in which Wooster is situated, and life-long sustaincd the reputation of an upright man. Among the teachers of that day was Ruth Logue, a Quaker, afterward the wife of Nathan Galbraith, of New Garden, Columbiana County. She was a model woman as teacher and in every other respect. The writer can well say of her, as was written by Goldsmith of the village master of Sweet Auburn, she was a woman, "Severe and stern to view, I knew her well as every truant knew ; Full well had boding troubles learned to trace The day's disasters in her morning face ; Yet she was kind, or if severe in aught, The love she bore to learning was in fault." The children she taught loved her, and the few who yet remain to visit the old play-ground on the Green " in Kendal, cherish for her affectionate memories. The way schools were organized and conducted, the mode of teaching, indeed everything connected with education in those days, was, perhaps, the best that could be under the 384 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. circumstances ; but while that is conceded, it is a wonder that children learned anything useful, or received just impressions of anything calculated to serve them in the future. The foundations for usefulness, however, were laid, and many of the men and women educated, in part, in those schools, poor as they were, have written their names high up on the historic page, the women as teachers, and the men have taken their places in all the learned professions, and as legislators in the General Assembly of the State and in Congress. On one occasion, a teacher came to Kendal and called on Capt. Mayhew Folger, who was always among the first to interest himself in the cause of education, and made known his desire to have a school, and represented himself as well qualified. Capt. Folger gave him pen and ink and said if he would draw a subscription paper, he, Capt. Folger, would subscribe a certain number of scholars.; the teacher drew up his paper misspelling about half the words ; his attention was called to that defect in his own education, when he replied with the utmost coolness. " Spelling is not very essential." Until 1825, there was no uniform school system in Ohio. "In that year, the friends of schools and canals," says the late Chief Justice Chase, in his admirable historical sketch of Ohio, preliminary to his great work, " Chase's Statutes," " united in the Legislature, and the following systems of internal improvement and general instruction were simultaneously brought into being. The act, from that year, imposed a general tax of one-half of one mill on the dollar for the support of schools, and provided for their establishment in every township." The schools were championed by the Hon. James W. Lathrop, a member of the House from Stark County. On Mr. Lathrop,s return to his constituency at the adjournment of the Legislature, a hue and cry was raised against him, which threatened his defeat as a candidate for re-election ; he was, however, re-elected by a reduced' majority, the objection to him was the increased taxation to support common schools. " People do not want so much learning," said a prominent farmer, whose grandson, in 1840, graduated from Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, at the head of his class. Mr. Lathrop returned to the Legislature and remodeled the " act entitled the act organizing the common schools of Ohio," increasing the taxation and improving the law generally. The clamor against him was increased tenfold, but he was re-elected in 1827 ; and true to his convictions, he started again to improve, by amendments to the former acts, " The Common-School System of Ohio." While engaged on his work, he was stricken down by disease and died ; his wife, a resident of Canton, rode to Columbus on horseback, arriving in time to witness his death ; his remains were laid away in one of the cemeteries of the Capital City, and remained there until 1873, when Hon. Samuel C. Bowman, then member of the House of Representatives from this county, offered a resolution providing for their removal to Canton. The resolution was at once adopted, and the Stark County members of the House and Senate were appointed a Joint Committee to attend to the removal, Hon. Ellis N. Johnson, Jr., being the colleague of Mr. Bowman and Hon. Arvine C. Wales from the Twenty-first District, Stark and Carroll, being the Senator, the Committee and remains being attended by Frederick Blankner, Esq., Third Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms of the House. Mr. Lathrop having been an honored member of Canton Lodge, No. 60, of A., F. & A. M., the brethren of both lodges in that city met the remains at the railway station at Canton, and, under their care, the remains were deposited in the beautiful cemetery of that city. A large number of thc prominent citizens of Canton and Massillon paid their respects to the remains of the founder of the common-school system of Ohio by their presence at the interment ; remarks, suited to the occasion, were made by gentlemen from both cities, but no eulogy can ever do justice to the memory of James W. Lathrop. A monument to his memory " more durable than brass," should be at once erected, upon which should be inscribed, simply, " The Founder of Common Schools," with the name of the distinguished citizen ; and, as Daniel Webster said of Bunker Hill Monument. "there let it stand and meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play upon its summit." Still the imperfections of the common schools were such that select schools were everywhere springing up, until repeated legislation has given the township, as well as the entire State, the best school system in the West. Perry Township was never behind other portions of the county in its attention to education. PERRY TOWNSHIP - 385 The excellent school taught by Barak Michener, in kendal, before he studied medicine, brought pupils from Canton who were taught the rudiments of a common English education. The year 1817 brought many " new-comers " from New England, among whom were Thomas Reed and Richard Breed, and their families, from Lynn ; and Sylvanus Hathaway and his family, originally from New Bedford, Mass. The first two went into the then lately organized township of Jackson, and Hathaway stopped at Kendal, where he died in a few years. Miss Eliza Reed, one of the three children of Thomas Reed, was married to Mr. C. K. Skinner in 1822. They lived in Kendal and in Massillon forty-four years, she dying in 1866 at the age of sixty-nine ; her life was one of great usefulness. Before her marriage, she, too, was a teacher of a select school at Kendal. The first orchard planted in the township is on the south side of the road between Massillon and Canton, on what is. now the farm of Mr. Daum, and it is believed to have been planted by Jonathan Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, who was well known through this part of Ohio during the earliest settlement of which any account can be had, as a planter of orchards. He is well remembered as going from house to house and calling for apple seeds. The fruit then had was brought from the East in wagons, and sold at fabulous prices. A full sketch of Johnny Appleseed will be found in " Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio," in the history of Richland County. The next orchard was planted in the south end of the township by John Reamer, on a tract of land sold by him to Mayhew Folger, and subsequently owned by Mr. Coder. After Mayhew Folger purchased the land, a portion of the trees were transplanted to the orchard formerly within the now city limits of Massillon, where stands the residence of Henry Beatty, Esq. On the west side of the river and now in the Second Ward of the city, was another early orchard, planted by Alexander Johnson, Esq., already mentioned in these pages. He had served in the army of the United States with Gen. Wayne in his campaign in 1794. He came from Western Pennsylvania, and was of as hardy a race of men as ever peopled any country, and was a man of as high a sense of honor and integrity of character as ever aided in the formation of society. Earnest in his convictions and true to himself, he never was false to anybody else. He was killed in 1841 by falling from his hay mow on the sharp paling of his hay ladder in his barn on the farm where now resides his son, Jonathan Johnson, just outside the city limits of Massillon, at about the age of seventy. This township claims the distinction of having first introduced Spanish Merino sheep into this portion of Ohio. Thomas Rotch introduced them ; they were driven from Hartford, Conn., and were the product of importations from Spain made in 1803, by Col. David Humphreys. The next importations of merino sheep into the Tuscarawas Valley were by Bezaleel Wells and William R. *Dickenson, of Steubenville, Mr. Dickenson being the owner of the celebrated merino ram " Bolivar," which took the premium, a silver cup, in Baltimore. Bolivar was sent from Mr. Dickenson's farm, " Estremadura," in this township, in a covered cart in charge of a faithful shepherd, and at an exhibition of fine-wooled sheep from all parts of the United States, Perry Township bore away the prize. Among the institutions of Perry Township of which everybody should be proud, is the Charity School, of Kendal, sometimes called the Rotch School, founded on the following bequest in the will of Charity Rotch Having for many years past been very desirous of promoting the establishment of a benevolent institution for the education of destitute orphans and indigent children, more particularly those whose parents are of depraved morals, that they may be trained in habits of industry and economy ; it is my will that my executors convert the remainder of my property, both real and personal, into money as soon as practicable, and place the same in permanent funds, the interest of which to be solely app plied to said institution. Should the same be su cient to attach a farm thereto, so that a portion of the boys' time may be devoted to the laudable pursuit of agriculture, and a part of the girls' time to be devoted to the duties of housewifery, whereby they may support themselves and become useful members of society, and also that a sufficient time may be devoted to the acquiring of a common English education. It would more fully comply with my desires, should the amount not be sufficient fully to accomplish said object, and no other fund could be added to second my efforts, it is my will that the interest of said fund be solely applied to the instruction of such children in a common English education. It will be observed that, according to the terms of the foregoing bequest, the school was made a residuary legatee. The testatrix had 386 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. no idea what the amonnt would be, but greater or smaller it was to be carefully husbanded by her executors, who were Arvine Wales and Matthew Macy, who after settling the estate and paying the last farthing in the way of specific legacies, and reducing the rest and residue to money, or its equivalent, found that $20,000 would remain for the purpose of establishing a school, such as was contemplated by the Quaker woman whose act was for the race, the poor and needy whom she never forgot. The fund was carefully .managed by the executors, Arvine Wales, especially, and within twenty years after the death of the testatrix, Mr. Wales had purchased 185 acres of choice farming land just outside the city limits on the north, and on which the school buildings are erected. The following very complete history of the school, its objects and the success that has attended it, is furnished by Ira M. Allen, Esq., Superintendent : The main building was commenced in 1842, and in 1844 a school was opened with ten scholars. Philander Dawley, from Newark, N. Y., Superintendent, the Trustees and Superintendent having adopted the following plans: The school, when full, to consist of twenty boys and twenty girls were indentured to the Board of Trustees for four years, ten to be admitted and ten to graduate at the end of four years. No child to be admitted under twelve, nor over fifteen years of age. As the children were to be taught, the boys farming, and the girls to do all kinds of housework and plain sewing, which was one of the requirements of the will, and the school has been managed substantially upon that plan since its organization, except that when the prices of clothing and supplies for the school advanced during the war, it was found that the income was not sufficient to maintain so many, when the number of pupils was reduced to thirty. The school has been conducted on the plan of a family, as far as possible. All eat at the same table and mingle together as brothers and sisters, and there is very little more restraint than would be found necessary in a well-regulated family, they are, in fact, a family of brothers and sisters. The cultivating of the idea that we are a family, works well. All that is required for an applicant, when there is a vacancy in the school, is that he or she shall be of sound mind and body, of fair moral character, and so poor as to be unable to procure decent educational advantages. Mr. Dawley resigned his position as Superintendent, April 1? 1854, and was succeeded by Ira M. Allen, who resigned in 1864, and was succeeded by Adam W. Heldenbrand, a former pupil, who was elected Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in 1865, and is now Probate Judge of Stark County, holding the latter place for three terms. Judge Heldenbrand's successor was Abraham C. Duley, who managed the school successfully for seven years, when he resigned and Mr. J. W. Geseman took his place, who was again succeeded by Ira M. Allen, April 1, 1879, and who has charge of the school at this time. There have been graduated at the Kendal Charity School, which is the corporate name of the institution, about one hundred and fifty scholars since its organization, most of whom have become honorable members of society, and many have arisen to eminence in the learned professions. The farm is nearly all under cultivation, the entire labor of the farm and in the house is performed by the pupils, notwithstanding which, the division of labor and study is such that the children have about as many hours of study during the year, as is devoted to teaching in the best Union schools of the State. Many complete the entire course of study, which consists of reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, grammar, natural philosophy, History of the United States, elements of physiology, algebra and geometry. Whatever may be due to Charity Rotch for her gift for the education of the poor and needy, all of which will ever be gratefully acknowledged, the name and memory of Arvine Wales will ever be kindly and affectionately remembered in connection with the cause of education, not only for his guarding the fund upon which the Charity School is based, but for his devotion to the cause of popular education during his long and useful life. The Charity School of Kendal, and the Union School of Massillon, are monuments which bear the impress of his care and watchfulness. While great credit is due to the Superintendents of the Charity School, their wives, who have had the responsibility, in addition to their own families, of looking after the pupils, must not be overlooked nor forgotten ; they, too, have borne burthens that entitle them to mention everywhere in connection with the school, and nobly and well have they discharged every duty and every responsibility connected with their position, they will be ever gratefully remembered by the poor for whom they so faithfully labored. On the 6th of the eighth month, 1824, Charity Rotch died at the Spring Hill farm, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground in Kendal, where rest the remains of many of the " rude forefathers of the hamlet." The property belonging to Kendal Charity School, at a low estimate is valued at $60,000. The interest on the fund, now about $30,000, with the labor of the pupils, pays the entire cost of the school, and under the management PERRY TOWNSHIP - 387 of the present careful Board of Trustees and Superintendent, the school is fulfilling the anxious wishes of its founder, as expressed in her last will and testament near sixty years since. The present Board of Trustees consist of Thomas McCullough, President ; Charles F. Ricks, Frank L. Baldwin, Horace Richards and Hon. A. C. Wales, Secretary and Treasurer. The grave of Charity Rotch may possibly be found in the old Quaker burying ground. If there be anything to enable the stranger to find it, it is a plain sandstone just above the surface of the earth with the initials C. R. " The foe and the stranger might tread o'er her head," unconscious that he is standing on the grave of the noble woman who divided her estate with the poor. The writer of these sketches attended her funeral, and as no epitaph graces her tombstone, he desires to say of her, " she loved mankind." While each year's history discloses some event that was regarded worth remembering, the year 1824 has its event, and that was the running of a four-horse post coach from Pittsburgh to Mansfield once a week, and carrying the mail ; then the post office department increased the mail service to twice a week in coaches, then tri-weekly, which soon became a daily ; before the running of coaches, the mails were received weekly ; their coming was announced by the "Twanging horn of the postman that With its wearisome, but needful length, Bestrode the wintry flood." The four-horse post coach was an incident in those days, but few yet remain who remember its coming. The proprietor of the stage line, as it was called, was Daniel Burgert, of Paris, the driver a man by the name of Estep, afterward a merchant in New Alexandria, Columbiana Co. Proprietor and driver have long since closed their accounts. The year 1826, was marked by many important events in the history of this township ; the laying-out of the new city of Massillon, the letting of the work on the Ohio Canal to contractors and the commencement of the work, were regarded as works of great importance in the effect they were destined to have on the future history of the county, and especially on the western townships, but to those who can say in reference to those events- " All of which I saw—" no circumstance in history is remembered with more interest than the formation of the Kendal Community, its rise and progress and decline and fall. In the year 1825, it will be remembered that much was written on the subject of socialism and social reform, and that among the writers and advocates of such a reformation was Robert Owen, father of the late Robert Dale Owen, and who will ever be remembered as a humanitarian of the most noble type, unbounded benevolence, and stainless purity of character and reputation, of New Lanack, Scotland. Paul Brown, one of the clearest writers and thinkers on that subject ; Josiah Warren, a man somewhat Utopian in his ideas, but, nevertheless, upright and honest in his convictions, and many others, were prominent in their efforts to awaken the public mind to a consideration of the subject. Paul Brown and Josiah Warren being in the West and visitors at the Kendal Community, were known to the writer. Men and women of liberal and enlarged views, and who might well be classed among the most advanced thinkers, gave the subject attention, and the result was, that, in the summer of 1826, many of the residents of Perry and Tuscarawas Townships and also from Portage County, after various meetings and discussions of the subject, determined to organize a community based generally upon the views of Robert Owen ; the name adopted by the association was the Kendal Community. The name given it by the public was the " Owenites." They purchased of the estate of Thomas Rotch, 2,113 acres of land in the neighborhood of Kendal and Massillon, together with some town lots, improved and unimproved, in Kendal, for $20,000. Of the officers, or mode of government of the community, little can now be ascertained. In November, 1827, the community was re-enforced by a considerable accession from the State of New York. Edward Dunn and James Bayliss, of the city of New York.; Dr. Samuel Underhill, wife and children, a total of five ; Nathaniel Underhill, wife and children, a total of five ; Jethro Macy, wife and five children, a total of seven ; Henry C. Fosdick, wife and children, a total of seven ; William G. Macy and Edward 388 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. Hussey, making a total of twenty-eight. They started from Coxsackie, Greene Co., N.Y., so near the close of navigation as to be subjected to almost untold trials before reaching Kendal. On reaching Buffalo, all the steamboats on the lake were laid up, and it was with great difficulty that a small and inferior schooner could be had to bring them to Cleveland, where they arrived after " hair-breadth 'stapes." The Ohio Canal was only navigable to Akron, in its best condition, and, at that season of the year, could hardly be called navigable at all ; some of the men walked to Akron on the towing-path of the canal, which, much of the way, was through an almost uninhabited portion of the country ; those who managed to get to Akron were met with teams from the community, and, after much suffering, all got through safely, and all united with the Kendal Community to which they had been invited, and which they intended to do before leaving home. For the rest, in regard to this social enterprise, one of the surviving members of the community furnishes the following, and from whose manuscript the foregoing, much condensed account in reference to the New York accession to the community is taken. It is much to be regretted that the full account of the journey from Albany to Kendal could not be inserted, as it is full of points of exceeding interest. " On our arrival," says the gentleman from whose manuscript the following is copied, " we went to work with a will, and were very anxious to make a success of the undertaking, and willing and ready to make any sacrifice to that end. We had listened to that eloquent philanthropist, Robert Owen, had read much that he had written, and were thoroughly convinced—as he taught—that man is the creature of circumstances, over which he has no control whatever. That he cannot say who his parents shall be, what shall be their country, politics or religious creed ; therefore his character is formed for him and not by him. That property was very unequally divided ; that all things were tending to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. That those who produced the wealth enjoyed only a small portion of it, and that those who produced nothing had too much wealth for their own good. That the producing classes, if properly educated and surrounded by proper circumstances, could easily arrange society so as to secure to each the product of his or her own labor, and all the best advantages of securing to all the children equally the very best education attainable. " The Kendall Community, at the time of the arrival of the friends from New York, was composed of the following persons : " Amasa Bailey, Asa K. Burroughs, Matthew Macy, Frederick Oberlin, Philip Waggoner, John Waggoner, John Newcomb, W ill iamHarding, Zeno Culver, Hezekiah Culver, John H. Blackman, John Harmon, John Sprague, William Widgeon, Jehiel Fox, Jonathan Winter, Joseph Tinkler, Dr. Luther Hanchett, William Hanchett and Elijah Bigelow ; all these had families. Of those who had not families were Luther Pond, David Kennedy and John Kennedy, and doubtless others that I cannot remember. Most of the families were large, and seemed to keep all busy 'to make a living, and no remunerative labor offering to enable them to earn money to pay the annual amount coming due on the large tract of land purchased of the Rotch estate, many of the aoove-named individuals had sold good farms or homes to raise money for the first payment. Some began to feel discouraged, and, unable to accomplish the object and purpose for which they came together, they gave it up, and the property was sold to Messrs. Duncan, Wales and Skinner, who divided it into farms and town lots, and sold much of it at a good profit, and divided the rest. " The members of the community scattered in various directions, each pursuing those objects in life most likely to lead him and his to enjoy health, wealth and happiness. Some of the above-named persons still remain in this neighborhood, notwithstanding the wonderful changes that have occurred in the last fifty-four years." South of the center of the township is the village of Richville, laid out by John Houk, in 1836. Mr. Houk was proud of the title, " the proprietor of Richville," and did what he could to give the village celebrity. It is on the State road running from Canton, southwest to Navarre, in Bethlehem Township, Wilmot, in.Sugar Creek and Holmes County. For sixty-seven years, Perry Township has been an organized political community, occupying a most important position in the fertile valley of the Tuscarawas. East and west of the river, it produces everything that any township CITY OF MASSILLON - 389 produces in an agricultural sense, and its mineral wealth is unequaled by any other township in the Congressional District. Under the great and enlightened policy that marks Ohio's history, Perry Township must always be in the front rank of the townships of the county, whose boast shall soon be, that she contains within her borders three cities. CHAPTER XIII.* THE CITY OF MASSILLON—ITS BIRTH AND GROWTH —A DESTRUCTIVE FIRE— THE BUILDING OF THE CANAL—THE POST OFFICE— EDUCATIONAL —THE UNION SCHOOLS OF MASSILLON— INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN—ITS MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. AS noticed elsewhere, the city of Massillon was laid out as a village in the winter of 1825-26. One of the first lots purchased after the village had " a local habitation and a name " was purchased by Capt. Mayhew Folger and was Lot No. 45, on which now stands the three-story building occupied by Clarence L. McLain, Esq., as a store ; this lot was purchased for the purpose of erecting upon it a hotel, and which was built and opened as such on the 4th of February, 1828, by Capt. Folger. Almost cotemporaneous with that purchase was the purchase of the lot on the southwest corner of Main and Mill, by Jacob Miller, Esq., and the two lots west of it extending, to the alley. On the corner lot purchased by Jacob Miller, a building for a hotel was also erected and opened in the autumn of 1827, and occupied by Mr. Miller for many years, when he retired from the business and engaged in merchandising, and was elected one of the Associate Judges of the county, a position he filled until his death in February, 1843. In all the relations of life, Judge Miller commanded the respect of his neighbors ; his father, George Miller, is believed to have been the first settler in the Township of Jackson, having erected a cabin on the west side of the Tuscarawas River opposite Millport as early as 1806. Judge Miller lost no time in filling his front, on Main street, with buildings which stood until July, 1853, when ...a fire swept out the whole square, since which, the lots have been divided and subdivided, until they have gotten into their present shape, forming an important business block. On the 27th of August, 1851, the entire square, from the northeast corner of Main and *Contributed by Robert H. Folger. Erie streets to the northwest corner of Main and Mill streets, extending north to Plum street, was swept away by the first really destructive fire that occurred in the city. In this fire but a single building escaped on the entire square, and that was the building adjoining the one now occupied by F. Lehman as a book-bindery. The American House, then standing on the corner now occupied by C. L. McLain as an extensive dry goods establishment, and which was kept by Samuel Hawk, late of the St. Nicholas and Windsor Hotels in New York. The store of Messrs. L. & S. Ranson, the dwelling and grocery establishment of N. Sibila, the building on the northwest corner of Main and Mill, where now stands the Park Hotel, as well as all others, went down in the general conflagration, thus removing many of the original landmarks of the village of Massillon. The first dwelling erected within the village limits, and the first occupied after Massillon was known as a village, was the building on the southeast corner of Erie and Oak streets. It was erected by Julius Heydon, out of lumber gotten for a building in Kendal intended to be a home for the family. The rapid indications of growth in Massillon induced the young man to consider whether the new village did not offer inducements to go there and build a home. Accordingly, after considering the possibilities and probabilities, he determined to purchase the above described lot, and did so and paid Mr. Duncan $40 for it, and erected a portion of the building now standing thereon, and known as the Farmers, Hotel. The first marriage in the village was Julia A., a sister of the proprietor of the building just described, and William M. Folger, now residing at Mantua Station, Portage County. 390 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. This marriage took place on the 18th clay of May, 1826, Hon. Gilbertharp Earle, then a Justice of the Peace of Perry Township, officiating. Mrs. Folger died in the city of Akron, on the 5th of October, 1870. The first marriage in Massillon, according to the ceremony of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was that of Her man B. Harris and Louisa M. McClary, the Rev. Mr. Morse, Rector of an Episcopal Church in Steubenville, being the officiating minister. This marriage took place in 1832, in the dwelling now occupied by T. Clark Miller, M. D. Miss McClary was a niece of Mr. Duncan, the daughter of a widowed sister, Mrs. M. H. McClary, one of the pioneer women of Kendal, and of rare accomplishments. She brought a small but well-selected library, which left its impress on the society she aided in building up. Mr. Harris died at sea on his way to California, and Mrs. Harris in this city many years since. The next building erected in the village as a dwelling-house was the present residence of Hon. S. A. Conrad, now a member of the House of Representatives, in the General Assembly of the State of Ohio. This building was erected by Dr. Beriah Brooks, who was the first physician in the county west of Kendal, and the second west of Canton. Dr. Brooks was from South Hadley, Mass., and a thorough type of the New England Presbyterian. He first settled in Kendal, and as a physician was successful. When Massillon " From dirt and seaweed like proud Venice rose," and began to assume the proportions of a village, Dr. Brooks was one of the first to recognize its importance, and at once purchased one of the most eligible lots on Main street. On getting his house habitable, he moved into it, buried his wife from there, and died there himself in 1831. On the locating of the canal in 1825, and the letting of the building of it in January, 1826, an entirely new and different class of people came into the village. Before these events, Kendal had a little store kept by Ambrose Chapman, and a still smaller one by his brother Aaron, who was a sound, orthodox Quaker, and who had the gift of making money out of his little business. He moved to Morrow County and died. Ambrose died before Massillon sprang into existence. In January, 1826, be- fore the letting of the contracts for the building of the canal, the brothers H. and H. A. Howard, merchants, who had settled the year before in Middlebury, Portage County, furnished a stock of goods to Isaiah Brown, a most enterprising young man from Berkshire County, Mass., which stock he opened as a dry goods store in Kendal, and was successful. He determined at once to go into business in the new village, and made arrangements for a storeroom, which was erected by Isaac Austin, about where now stands the drug store of Ph. Morgenthaler, and there commenced business under the firm of I. Brown & Co., but did not get into their new building until near the close of the year. The letting of the contracts on the canal took place at Kendal, at the residence of James Duncan, Esq., on the 18th of January, almost cotemporaneous with the laying-out of the village of Massillon. Work progressed on the canal rapidly, that portion through the village being done by Jesse Rhodes and Horace E. Spencer ; they had two or three more sections of half a mile each, which they completed. Mr. Duncan and George Wallace, of Brandywine, Portage, now Summit County, built the canal through the stone quarry, on the east side of the canal, between whose work and the village Aaron Chapman had a half mile to build, who, when advised that he had succeeded in getting a " job," advertised for laborers and added at the foot of his advertisement, "-Those who cannot work without whisky need not apply." The result was that Aaron employed no whisky drinkers, his half-mile of canal was first finished in 1828, his work was better done, and while the history of the canal lasts, his section will be remembered as one built without whisky. Aaron gave his men hot coffee as a beverage, paid them promptly, and his work tells its own story. Just here the writer desires to say that the aqueduct just this side, north, of Bolivar, was built by the contractor, John Laughery, Esq., in the same way ; no intoxicating liquor was allowed on the contract, wet or dry, and there was a preponderance of wet in the construction of an aqueduct to take the canal across the river. No whisky or other intoxicating liquor was used as a beverage in the building of that work. Mr. Laughrey, the contractor, was a most worthy man. After finishing his work on the canal in the neighborhood of Massillon, CITY OF MASSILLON - 391 he was largely engaged on the aqueduct across the Scioto River, at Circleville, Pickaway County; from there he went to Adams County, and engaged in fruit culture, and ended a long and useful life. As the work of building the canal south of the Portage summit progressed, business centered at Massillon, the only important point in the Tuscarawas Valley, north of New Philadelphia, and south of Akron, which is in the Cuyahoga Valley, and as fast as a room could be had it was filled. The first stock of goods opened in the village as a store was that of A. McCulley & Co., who erected a small building, where now stands the establishment of Messrs. P. Dielhenn & Son. This establishment was backed up by Judge William Henry, and did a wonderful business. The Hon. Bezaleel Wells, almost as soon as lots were in market, purchased the block of lots on which now stand the stores of S. Oberlin, G. L. Albrecht, Joseph Coleman, watches and jewelry, the Union National Bank, Joseph Oppenheimer's Star Clothing Store and the First National Bank, and erected a small frame and put in a stock of goods, previous to which they had kept as a store in the east end of the building now occupied by T. Clarke Miller, M. D., the style of the firm being S. O. Wells & Co., Samuel O. Wells being a son of the senior partner. Thus it will be seen that I. Brown & Co., S. O. Wells & Co. and A. McCulley & Co. were first to engage in the business of merchandising in the new village, all of whom had good backing, Messrs. Wells & Dickinson being in the firm of S. O. Wells & Co., Judge Henry in that of A. McCulley & Co. and the brothers H. & H. A. Howard in the firm of I. Brown & Co. Immediately following them came Hiram Johnson, from Middlebury, and business took a start—the town began to grow. In 1828, a malignant fever swept over the Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga Valleys, which baffled the best medical skill that could be had. The Howard brothers fell before it, as did almost all who were attacked. The population along the line of the canal especially was almost decimated ; it swept over the country, scarcely missing a house. The necrology of that year records the death of many of the most enterprising citizens. As cold weather came on and the ravages of the disease were stayed, business resumed its wonted character and all kinds of labor found employment. Still progress was not rapid ; there was a full supply for every demand. Within the knowledge of the writer, Capt. Mayhew Folger sold, in 1826, 100 barrels of flour at $2 per barrel. The great change in the entire business relations of the county came, but too late in the season to be felt to any great extent. On the 25th of August, 1828, the Ohio Canal was opened from Akron to Massillon. The first boats that arrived here were the Allen Trimble of the Ohio, Troy & Erie Line, Capt. Z. Mather, and the State of Ohio, of the Farmers' Line, Capt. H. Wheeler. They brought the Acting Commissioners and Engineers and the event was celebrated with bonfires and illuminations at night as it had been by the roaring of cannon during the day. A poem was written for the occasion, a single stanza only of which is remembered, and is in this wise : " Come give us a bumper and let it run full While we drink to the health of our friend Johnny Bull, And long may prosperity follow us all, While water shall run in the Ohio Canawl." Navigation was thenceforth open between Massillon and the outside world. Warehouses for the storing of produce had already been erected ; a system of warehousing, in the nature of a forwarding and commission business was inaugurated, and a new impulse was given to. all sorts of enterprises. With the closing of the canal, business closed, and it was not until 1829, that a regular and systematic mode of business could be said to exercise control of the commercial relations of the country just opened to the rest of the world. Massillon was put in communication, by means of canal navigation, with Cleveland, and the world was open to-her enterprise ; boats continued to arrive and depart during the season of the open canal. In 1829, near the close of navigation, a mercantile firm composed of Hiram B. Wellman and Marshall D. Wellman, by the firm of H. B. & M. D. Wellman, brought a large stock of goods into Massillon. H. B. Wellman had a year or two before opened a law office in Wooster, and M. D. Wellman, who had been a cooper and settled in Wooster, left there and went into the State of Pennsylvania, and went to building canals under State contracts, and succeeded in money-making. These brothers started the firm under the above name. On opening their store in Massillon, they offered " cash for wheat," 392 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. and advertised the public that they would take all the wheat they could get, and would pay cash ; and that was the commencement of the prosperity of Massillon. To the firm of H. B. & M. D. Wellman may be accredited the beginning of the great name that Massillon acquired as the " Wheat City," and which it proudly held until the railroad era noticed hereafter. For twenty-five years Massillon knew no competition nor allowed any competition to cross her path. She purchased and stored wheat, paid the largest prices, and grew more rapidly than any commercial point on the navigable waters of the interior of the State. She never knew what it was to call a halt until the building of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railway and the numerous other railways which offered transportation to markets with which she cannot nor does compete by means of the canal, so far as the grain traffic is regarded as an important factor in the business of the country. During the year 1827, a movement was made for the establishing of a post office in the new village ; a petition was forwarded to Hon. John McLean, then Postmaster General under President Adams, and to appoint Capt. Folger Postmaster, Kendal then being the post office at which all mail matter was delivered for the county west of Canton—Jackson, Lawrence, Tuscarawas, Sugar Creek and Bethlehem being without any mail facilities. Of course there were rival candidates for the office, but Capt. Folger received the appointment and opened the office in January, 1828 ; before he moved into the village, his first Assistant Postmaster was Orlando Keyes, a clerk in the store of Hiram Johnson, and where the office was kept until Capt. Folger removed into the village, which—as already noticed— was on the 4th of February, 1828 ; he then opened the Commercial Inn, and kept it as a hotel until his death on the 1st of September of that year. The first quarterly report from Massillon Post Office, as rendered by Capt. Folger, showed h balance due the Government of 80 cents. On the death of Capt. Folger, his son, William M. Folger, was appointed and held the offnce until the administration of Gen. Jackson got fairly at work, when Alexander McCulley was appointed, who held the office until 1839, when the late Hon. Mathew Johnson, Jr., was appointed. McCulley's accounts had got into a bad shape, the drafts upon the office were not paid, and McCulley had to surrender at discretion. Mr. Johnson held the office until after the election of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," when, under the Postmaster Generalship of Hon. Francis Granger, of New York, he surrendered to Dr. Abel Underhill. The Doctor held the office until a few months after the death of Gen. Harrison, President, when the Government became Tylerized, and he was removed to make room for G. W. Williams, a Tyler man. A change of administration put him out and Samuel McCaughey was appointed ; he held until another change of the appointing power, when Samuel F. Jones took charge ; he held until John Shepley, under another administration, took the office, who was removed to make room for John J. Hofman, who held the place until the late respected Dr. John Schertzer took the office and held it two terms, when Isaac H. Brown, Esq., was appointed and held it to the satisfaction of all who got their matter at the office, when he gave way for the present incumbent, Charles F. Ricks, Esq., whose second term expires early in 1882, and who has rendered entire satisfaction in all respects. The writer of these sketches has witnessed all of the above appointments and changes from 1828 to the present time. From the appointment. of Capt. Folger to the latest appointment, he has had an opportunity to express his preference between the applicants. Capt. Folger was also the first Collector of Canal Tolls for the port of Massillon ; at his death, Hon. James Duncan received the appointment for the succession, and held the office many years ; after whom, John Everhard, Mathew Macy, John S. Johnson, Judge Thomas Blackburn and others successively held the office ; it is now held by David Atwater, Esq. Prominent among the early business men of the village was the late Hon. John Everhard. He erected the first brick building on the west side of the canal, and opened a store, his firm being J. Everhard & Co. Dr. Thomas Hartford, of Canton, being his partner. Mr. Ever-hard erected one of the first warehouses for storing wheat that was erected in the city, and which was built on the lot where now stands Beatty's Block. The last mentioned building was built by the Johnson Brothers in 1837, who from 1832 to 1845, were prominent in business circles. Their business was dry good and commission merchants, produce dealers.   CITY OF MASSILLON - 393 and shippers on the canal. The old landmarks in the way of business houses that have stood more than forty years, are the building erected by Gen. Gardner Field, the Farmers, and Mechanics' Block, erected by Hogan & Harris, now owned by Hon. George Harsh, Coleman,s Block, northeast corner of Main and Mill streets, and the building at the east end of the canal bridge, south side of Main street. Older, however, than any other building in the city erected after the city was laid out, except the Farmers' Hotel, is the brick building on the west side of the canal, south side of Main street, erected by Judge Everhard. In this connection, it should be remarked that few men among the early settlers of Massillon have left as good a name, or one that will be remembered in greater kindness. Although long years have passed since his death, his name is inseparably connected with Massillon's early history. The first saddler and harness-maker who opened a shop in the village was Thomas S. Webb, now a resident of the city, and better known as Col. T. S. Webb. Since Col. Webb came to Massillon, fifty-two years have flown, during which period Col. Webb will be remembered as the host of the Franklin House in this city, the Eagle and Union in Philadelphia, the National in New York, and during the Centennial year, two in Philadelphia, after having years before retired. As a hotel keeper, he has achieved a world-wide reputation. In 1831, 1832 and 1833, the business talent and enterprise of the village was largely augmented by the new firms of Hogan & Harris, Hull & Shepard, A. & P. Vinton, and J. D. & D. R. Atwater. Messrs. Hogan & Harris were agents for the Ohio, Troy & Erie line of canal boats, and did a large forwarding, commission and produce business, going out of business with the changes brought about by the panic of 1837. Messrs. Vinton, as general dry goods merchants and produce dealers, did business in the village for several years, when they removed to Port Washington, Tuscarawas County, where Mr. P. Vinton died, after many years of successful business. Messrs. Heill & Shepard commenced and continued in the produce business also for many years, and erected the first steam flouring mill in the village. The Atwater Brothers continued in the grocery and provision business until 1840, when their firm was dissolved by the death of Mr. J. D. Atwater ; the survivor, D. R. Atwater, Esq., continued business until his death, on the 31st of July, 1875, at the age of sixty-eight years. In 1833 also came Dr. Joseph Watson and family, from Dalton, Wayne County. The Doctor at once opened a large drug store, and continued in business until within a few years past, when he disposed of his stock of goods and retired from business and is now quietly enjoying the luxury of "Blest retirement, friend of life's decline." The first school opened in Massillon was in 1827, in a building standing on the present corner of Mill and Charles streets, which had been erected by James Duncan, the proprietor, for some other purpose. " There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school." The village master was a young gentleman who, in the autumn of that year, had left his native home, Berkshire County, Mass., and came west to find employment as a teacher. That young gentleman is now known in Ohio as Hon. Harlow Chapin, of Harmar, Washington Co., Ohio. Perry Township was all included in one district under the law, as prepared by Hon. James W. Lathrop. The Directors were James Duncan, Alexander Johnson and Gilbertharp Earle. Mr. Duncan was a resident of the village, and Mr. Johnson resided on his farm southwest of the village, and Mr. Earle on his farm northwest. The amount of money which was raised by taxation was not half enough to pay the teacher, and the deficit was made up by voluntary subscriptions by the parents or guardians of the scholars. The School Districts of Perry Township now number ten, each having a good schoolhouse, independent of Massillon Union School, which enumerates 2,461 children entitled to the benefits of the common school fund. Mr. Chapin had tried in Medina County to obtain a school, but the ground was occupied ; he came into Stark County, James F. Leonard being then a School Examiner ; under the provisions of the law, although Mr. Chapin was provided with a certificate from Medina, he was not authorized to teach in Stark County until he could produce a certificate from a Stark County Examiner. On making the acquaintance of Mr. Leonard, whom Mr. Chapin found to 394 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. be a "very kind-hearted man," he obtained the necessary authority to teach in Stark. Armed with the proper authority and encouraged, with but 181 cents, as money was then counted, in his pocket, he arrived at Massillon and at once took lodgings with Jacob Miller, and made known his business. Mr. Miller said a school was needed, and tendered his aid at once, but there was no building suitable—in fact, no building at all. It would be interesting to narrate the trials and tribulations through which Mr. Chapin passed in order to open a school. Mr. Duncan treated him with habitual kindness, but was " very busy," and referred him to die other Directors, Messrs. Johnson and Earle, who gave little encouragement. The truth was everybody was poor in this world's goods ; they were rich in hopes of the developments of the " shadowy future," but they had not learned to wisely improve the present so far as education was concerned ; they were men of limited education themselves, consequently had not that appreciation of the necessity to " Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." While despair seemed almost to hold Mr. Chapin within its dreaded grasp, he fell in with John Everhard, one of the pioneers of Massillon, a School Examiner, a gentleman of education and refinement—a son of Henry Everhard, a pioneer settler of Plain Township—and who at once interested himself for the young, friendless and penniless teacher. Mr. Everhard, afterward Associate Judge of the Common Pleas Court,. went to the Directors and obtained their consent to the opening of a school in the building described, and which is well remembered by the writer as being about twenty feet square. A contract was made, and Mr. Chapin opened the first school in what is now the city of Massillon, the teacher to receive $12 per month and board, which was to be with Mr. Miller, necessarily often referred to in these sketches, and who gave his full influence to the enterprise. All arrangements being made, no time was lost in obtaining and placing the meager stock of furniture for Mr. Chapin's school, which consisted of four long slab benches or seats, without backs, and a sort of sloping shelf on one side of the room for practicing writing, with a large open fire-place on another side capable of receiving cord-wood from which to warm the room, " and all was ready," as Mr. Chapin says, for the first school in Massillon. Mr. Chapin's first term was such a success that he was immediately employed for a second, at the end of which his school closed with a theatrical exhibition in the ball-room of Judge Miller,s Hotel. Mr. Chapin was assisted in his histrionic effort to close his school with eclat, by outside parties, " who with the school acquitted themselves with credit, and elicited praise from a full 'house." Mr. Chapin furnishes a most graphic account of his labors in thus starting and closing the first school, and which, did room permit, would cheerfully be given at length ; those who recollect the early means of education may make a large draft on their imagination for what he has 'So kindly written, in aid of Massillon's early history. In naming the early pupils whom he taught in the little building, he gives those of Amelia and Fanny Heydon, the former of whom is now Mrs. Folger of this city, and the latter, Mrs. Finton, wife of Alvin Finton, Esq., an eminent banker and capitalist at New Philadelphia and Dover in Tuscarawas Co., Ohio ; James Henry, son of Hon. James Duncan, who died in 1828, an unusually bright young man, whose death was long mourned by his parents and friends ; Mary G., daughter of Mr. Duncan, afterward wife of the late Hon. J. L. Reynolds, of Chicago, now residing at Grand Rapids, Mich.; Caroline, also a daughter of Mr. Duncan, afterward Mrs. Wheeler, wife of Hon. H. Wheeler, Jr., Superintendent of the Massillon Rolling Mill Co., by whom she was left a widow in 1841, she subsequently married David J. Ely, Esq., a prominent merchant in New York, and is now a widow enjoying a competence, and residing in the city of her husband’s business and residence. Mr. Chapin also mentions George, a son, whose death is noticed elsewhere in these sketches, and Mary and Clarissa Miller, daughters of his patron and friend, Judge Miller; Mary became the wife of Henry Waggoner, and died in Cincinnati, and Clarissa, by her second marriage, is the widow of the late Dr. J. P. Bar-rick, her first husband being Pomroy Baldwin, Esq. Mrs. Folger and Mrs. Barrick are the last of Mr. Chapin's scholars now residing in this city. After Mr. Chapin concluded his teaching, he went into the service of the State as engineer on the Ohio Canal ; thence as contractor on the CITY OF MASSILLON - 395 Muskingum improvements. He married Hannah, daughter of Gilbertharp Earle, Esq., and has lived in Harmar many years. He represented Washington County in the Constitutional Convention of 1873, and life-long has sustained a position commanding the respect and esteem of the people of the State. Mr. Chapin's school was followed by many teachers, men and women, and among those ever ready to aid in the cause of education were Judge Miller, Hon. Arvine Wales and the late Dr. William Bowen. Dr. Bowen became a resident of this city before the organization of the Union School, and remained here until it was in successful operation, when he removed to Akron, where his useful life closed a few years ago, at the age of seventy years. Since Mr. Chapin closed his school at Massillon, he seems to have abandoned the profession of a teacher; educated as a civil engineer, and succeeding in getting positions more to his taste than teaching ; he has not, since leaving Massillon, accepted any of the numerous positions as an educator that have been within his reach. His failure to follow a business for which he was so well qualified by nature and education is to be regretted, as his labors as a teacher in this city will ever be kindly remembered. To attempt to enumerate those who have followed him in this city, between the time of his teaching until the organization of the Union School, now the pride of the city, would be a hopeless task. It cannot, however, be said of him, as of him of Sweet Auburn- " But past is all his fame ; the very spot, Where many a time he triumphed is forgot." On the contrary, he will be ever gratefully remembered by his surviving pupils, and the spot where stood the old schoolhouse will not be permitted to be lost " in memory's waste." The influence left by Mr. Chapin's school continued to live and thrive. The people of Massillon, young as was their village, felt the importance of education. They realized that England's Lord Chancellor, who defended Queen Caroline, uttered a great truth whin he said, " The schoolmaster is abroad," and that " the schoolmaster is greater than the soldier." Mr. Chapin was succeeded by many teachers ; the names of but few are remembered. John Mark, Brice S. Hunter, Wallace and Miss Grosvenor are, *however, among those whose names as teachers deserve mention. When Messrs. Duncan, Wales and Skinner purchased the real estate of the " Kendal Community," they laid out a portion of it into lots as an addition to the village, and named it Duncan, Wales & Skinner's Addition. This was in 1832. They donated a square containing near two acres for " literary purposes." The first use to which this donation was put, was by a Mr. Wallace, whose Christian name is not remembered ; he taught for some time successfully, but it was not until 1848 that Massillon Union Schools were organized and in successful operation. In 1847, a plan of a union school was gotten up by William Bowen, M. D., who with Arvine Wales and Charles London, were elected Directors. The plan of a building was fixed upon, and on the 21st of February, 1848, the General Assembly of the State of Ohio passed " An act entitled, an act to incorporate School District Number One, in Perry Township, Stark County, Ohio." Under that act, the Board of Directors organized by electing Charles London, President ; Arvine Wales, Treasurer ; and William Bowen, Secretary. Of that first Board of Directors of Massillon Union School, Charles London is the sole survivor, a firm friend of education, honored and respected wherever he is known. On perfecting their organization, the Board appointed Philander Dawley (who at that time was Superintendent of the Charity School of Kendal) George Miller and Kent Jarvis, Esqs., examiners for the district, to serve three years, two years and one year in the order named. The teachers employed for the year were Lorin Andrews, Superintendent and Principal, salary $800 ; Miss Betsey M. Cowles, $300 and board paid ; Miss Jane M. Becket, $300 ; Charles R. Shreve, $200; Mary Ann Russell, $225 ; and Sarah J. Hoxworth, $140. In 1849, the corps of teachers was increased by the addition of Miss Sarah C. Pearce and Mr. Frederick Loeffler, teacher of German and Music. This year the first catalogue was published and among the pupils in the high school is found the name of W. B. Hazen, Hiram, Portage County, now Gen. W. B. Hazen, U. S. Army and Chief of the Signal Service. He left Massillon in 1850, and was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy that year or the next, graduated after the usual course of study, and has served in the U. S. Army with distinction ever since. Mr. Andrews resigned in 1852 to accept the 396 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. Presidency of Kenyon College, at Gambier, Knox County, Ohio, where he remained until the breaking-out of the war of the rebellion, when he resigned and entered the army ; was appointed Colonel of the Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and died in the service. The Union School of Massillon, was opened in a plain substantial brick building, erected on the lot donated by Messrs. Duncan, Wales & Skinner, by the board already named, and it must be said of the board, they builded as well as they knew. They had no experience in building or furnishing such houses as are now required by the Union Schools of Ohio. The building stood for thirty years, when it yielded to the unchangeable law of change which always enforces obedience, and in its place stands the grandest structure in Ohio, finished in 1879 at a cost, including heating apparatus, seats, an additional square of land purchased on the north of the school building, outbuildings, well and cistern and grading of the new lot, of $48,000, imposing a tax cheerfully borne by the district. The board who erected the building and watched its progress with characteristic fidelity were Henry Beatty. John R. Dangler, J. E. Brown, J. G.Warwick, James H. Justus, W. B. Humberger, S. A. Conrad and Dr. J. P. Barrick. Messrs. Conrad and Humberger have served as members of the board nine and eight years respectively. Dr. Barrick did not live to witness the completion of a work to which he faithfully devoted his careful attention. Of the many Boards of Education that have been elected for the Union Schools of Massillon, the following gentlemen are conspicuous. The first Board entire, Arvine Wales served until his death, January 1, 1854. Dr. Bowen, for his devotion to the cause of education, as does citizen Charles London, deserves especial mention. Hon. Arvine C. Wales has served thirteen years. Hon. George Harsh was elected in 1851 and served until 1869, the full period of eighteen years, when in consequence of failing health, he declined a seventh election. No village or city in Ohio has been more favored in its selection of wise and prudent men for its school boards, than has the city of Massillon. By a vote of the citizens, and according to the provisions of the amended school law, the number of members of the Board was increased from three to six and the following gentlemen were elected. Hon. Kent Jarvis, S. A. Conrad, James H. Justus, Warren C. Richards, Frank L. Baldwin and William B. Humberger. Messrs. Jarvis and Richards, both of whom were for many years identified with the public service, holding offices of trust, the duties of which they always faithfully discharged, are dead. After the resignation of Mr. Andrews, Hon. Thomas W. Harvey, late State School Commissioner, was appointed Superintendent and held the place fourteen years, his term of service closing in July, 1865. He was succeeded by Professor Joseph Kimball, who remained until 1869, when Prof. E. A. Jones served for four years, until 1873. Mr. Jones then declining a re-election, D. P. Pratt was called to the superintendency and remained from 1873 to 1875, when Mr. Jones was again tendered the position and accepted and remains at the head of the schools. Among the teachers who have served long and faithfully should be named Miss Jane M. Becket, ten years in the high school, Miss Nancy Stone, in the different departments, including the high school, fourteen years, both of whom are well known in Ohio as teachers and as having occupied important positions as educators. Miss Sarah J. Hoxworth began as a teacher in the primary when the school was first organized, and served in the different departments until 1872, when she resigned her position in the high school, having taught more than twenty-three years in the same building. Miss Sallie Brannan was connected with the schools as teacher thirteen years, and is now teaching in the same building. Miss Temperance Dunn and Miss Sarah R. Folger, ten years each. Miss Dunn is not now living and Miss Folger holds a prominent position in the " Mann " High School, at Toledo, where she has taught many years since leaving the high school here. For nine years last past Mrs. L. D. Pinney has been Principal in the high school, where her labors have been distinguished by marked success. The Union Schools of Massillon, whether considered in the past or present, need no praise from the historian. For the third of a century, they have been making their own history, and have written it ineffaceably upon the character of the scholars. Young men and women who have graduated there and become teachers, entered the learned professions, graduated at the U. S. Military and Naval Academies, and CITY OF MASSILLON - 397 have arisen to honorable distinction, and some are achieving honorable distinction in the service of the State and United States. During:, that long period the school has taken no steps backward. Under the present as well as the past management of the Board of Education and teachers its march will be as it has been onward to greater improvement and greater excellence. Its present Board of Education is composed of the following gentlemen : John G. Warwick, Silas A. Conrad, Henry Beatty, William B. Humberger, William H. Justus and John R. Dangler. The following is the corps of teachers : Superintendent, Prof. E. A. Jones ; Principal High School, Mrs. L. D. Pinney ; Assistant, Miss Cassie Reamer; Grammer School, Mr. John Ellis, Miss Emily Brainard, Miss Mary Dieter, Mr. Jacob Graybill and Mrs. Laura Taylor ; Secondary, Miss Susie Graybill, Miss Mary Merwin, Miss Ella Hershey, Miss Laura Ware, Miss Viola Pepper ; Primary, Miss Rachel Elsass, Miss Sallie Brannan, Miss Bell Willi-son, Miss Lillian Ulman, Miss Reilly, Miss Ada Hollinger, Miss Louisa Strobel and Mrs. C. Moore; German, Mr. Philip Wilhelm ; .Music, Prof. W helpton. In 1838, when Hon. Matthew Johnson was a member of the House of Representatives in the State Legislature, an act of incorporation for the town of Massillon was obtained, and an organization was had which lasted until 1845, when in a nswer to numerous petitions the act was repealed, and Massillon was not known as a municipal incorporation until 1853, when under the provisions of the general act regulating towns and cities, it was again incorporated, and at the first election, held on the 28th day of May, 1853, being the first election under the proceedings to incorporate the village, Samuel Pease was elected Mayor, G. W. Williams, Recorder and Hiram B. Wellman, Isaac H. Brown, Thomas McCullough, Valentine S. Buckius and Warren C. Richards, Trustees, and they constituted the Council of the incorporated village of Massillon. On the 31st of May next succeed- ing the election, the persons above named met at the office of H. B. Wellman, and were duly sworn according to law by Robert H. Folger, Justice of the Peace, and the Council of the incorporated village was organized in due form of law, which organization continued until the 17th of March, 1868, when by act of R. B. Hayes, Governor, J. H. Goodman, Auditor and John Russell, Secretary, of the State of Ohio, it was advanced to a city of the second class, the preliminary steps to effect the change from a village to a city having been commenced on the 12th of February of that year, in accordance with a numerous petition of the citizens, which petition was referred to Robert H. Folger, attorney at law, with instructions to take the necessary steps to procure the advancement. Upon the advancement being effected, the city was divided into four wards, and at the election in April, 1868, the following persons were elected to the several city offices : Mayor, Bennet B. Warner ; Marshal, Milo Alden ; Solicitor, Louis K. Campbell. Council— George L. Russell, Charles London, First Ward ; Jacob Herring, Francis Willenburg, Second Ward ; Adam Mong, Otis G. Madison, Third Ward ; Louis Gies, George Bollinger, Fourth Ward. David W. Huntsman was elected Clerk by the Council. The following gentlemen are charged with the business matters of the city : Mayor, L. C. Cole ; Marshal, Frederick Paul ; Street Commissioner, Louis Limbach ; Treasurer, Hermann Shaidnagle ; Solicitor, Otto E. Young. Council—James H. McLain, George Snyder, First Ward ; Thomas Lavier, Jonas Sutz, Second Ward ; Conrad N. Oberlin, Francis Willenburg, Third Ward ; Anton Bamberger, Joseph Dressler, Fourth Ward. The disasters connected with the old corporation of Massillon—that of 1838—have been carefully avoided by the late ones. The city owes no debts, and while it is constantly progressing, and is the soundest municipal incorporation in the State, its maxim is " hasten gently." It is able to borrow money on long loans at five per center. It has never adopted the plan of running into debt for the purpose of making improvements, preferring to see its growth forced by the natural course of events. For beauty of natural surroundings it is unsurpassed. "I would not have the hills surrounding Massillon leveled if I could," said Mr. Duncan, the proprietor of the village, in reply to a friend who objected to the location because of its hilly surroundings. " The day will come," said he, " when those hills will be covered with residences overlooking the city, to which the hills will but add beauty, and Massillon will be celebrated for its beauty." 398 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY. What was then regarded as a wild creation of Mr. Duncan,s fancy has grown into a beautiful reality, and vindicates his judgment as to what the future would develop. In 1831, Judge Henry laid out an addition to the original plat, and called it West Massillon. That portion of the city is now included in the Second and Third Wards, and is a most important part of the city. On that tract, the south end of fractional Section 6, and formerly in Tuscarawas Township, is located that portion of the Cleveland, Tuscarawas Valley & Wheeling Railway, the buildings of which corporation stand on the ground where stood the cabin of Judge Henry, and where he first had his home. It was in that cabin that his daughter, afterward Mrs. Cummins, was born, and who was the first white female child born on the territory known as the New Purchase, the first male child being a son of Peter Slusser ; he was born on the territory now included within the limits of Tuscarawas. The only item of a pre-historic character that has been developed in Massillon occurred in 1832, when Christian Witt, from Lower Alsace, and some fellow-laborers by the name of Miller and Simmons, while ditching what was then the swamp south of the village, and near where now stands the paper mill, found two tusks of a mammoth, each eleven feet in length and twenty-seven inches in circumference at the larger end. They were justly regarded as a great affair. The finders concluded that there was money, if not millions in it, and arranged for traveling and exhibiting them. They employed an agent to manage the business, and Witt went to Pittsburgh with the party, when he became satisfied that there was not so much in it as he had supposed, and came home, leaving Miller, Simmons and the agent to make the most of the " show business." They went to Philadelphia where they left the tusks and came home. Similar discoveries have been made in the Tuscarawas Valley, but with the finding all information in regard to them ceased. Indian relics have been found in various parts of the township, but nothing of an uncommon character. On the obtaining by the Government of the United States the title to the New Purchase, by the treaty of Fort Industry the tribes named in the treaty departed toward the setting sun, and few remained on the coming of the pale faces. In the language of Ossian " The chiefs of other times are departed. They have gone without their fame. Another race has arisen. The people are like the waves of the ocean ; like the leaves of woody Morven, they pass away in the whistling blast, and other leaves lift their green heads on high." CHAPTER XIV.* THE CITY OF MASSILLON—MANUFACTURING INTERESTS — RUSSELL & COMPANY'S WORKS—THE MASSILLON IRON COMPANY—OTHER INDUSTRIES —COAL INTERESTS—RAILROADS OF MASSILLON—THE BANKING BUSINESS, ETC. " Harness me down with your iron bands." —Cutter. IN 1832, in the presence of the writer, a casual conversation on the subject of manufact- uring pig iron sprang up between Jesse Rhodes and James Duncan, the result of which was the taking of immediate measures to erect a blast furnace at or near the village of Massillon. Mr. Rhodes had been in the employ of Laird, Norton & Co., proprietors of Congress furnace, and had acquired a considerable knowledge on the subject of manufacturing pig and iron castings. * Contributed by Robert H. Folger. The Massillon Iron Company was formed, consisting of James Duncan, Joseph G. Hogan, Herman B. Harris and Jesse Rhodes. The business was not, however, confined to the making of pig iron. Castings of all kinds were made—the old-fashioned ten plate stove—specimens of which can be found in the county, and all other kinds of ironware, now only made at foundries, including tea kettles, sugar kettles, and, in short, everything under the general nomenclature of " castings." The furnace was erected and put in operation in 1833, on the west bank of Sippo Creek, south of Main street, near the present CITY OF MASSILLON - 399 eastern limits of the city, where some marks of its having stood can yet be found. The Massillon Iron Company stopped business in 1838, when Messrs. Hart & Brown bought out the company, the furnace was abandoned. Messrs. Hart & Brown purchased the patterns and other stock requisite for a foundry and machine-shop, and started the first foundry in the county, in January, 1839, in a three-story stone building, which stood where now stands the main building of the Excelsior Works. That building was burned in 1840, and was the first fire of any magnitude in the village. When burned, it was occupied by Hart & Brown as a machine-shop ; McMillan, Partridge & Co. ; as a manufactory of all sorts of machinery for woolen mills ; John H. Wheeler, carpets, and John Hartness, window sashes, blinds and doors. The brick building, lately occupied by the Excelsior Works, was built in 1843. Messrs. Hart & Brown went out of business in 1858. Of all the persons named in the foregoing article, Mr. Brown alone remains in this city. Mr. Hartness resides in Cleveland, and the rest are, some of them dead, and some scattered over the Western States. The first of the followers of St. Crispin, who was, and still is, at the head of his profession as in Massillon's early days, was Col. Benjamin Raser. He is one of Massillon's earliest citizens, having come into the county in 1825, and to the little village as soon as it obtained a place in history. In the earlier and better days of this city's history, when some attention was paid to the organizing and disciplining of the militia, Mr. Raser was elected Colonel of a regiment in the Third Brigade and Sixth Division of Ohio Militia, and came near being called into active service in the long-time-ago unpleasantness between Ohio and her loving sister Michigan. Col. Raser and his excellent wife, a daughter Griffnthith Cooper, one of Perry Township's pioneers, celebrated their golden wedding a few months since. The first carpenter in the village, and who became a property holder immediately on the lots coming into market, was Hamilton Sherer. The property he purchased is now held by his heirs, and is valuable. The great and crowning glory of Massillon industries is the mammoth establishment of Russell & Co., manufacturers of the celebrated Massillon threshers, horse-powers, etc. It was started on the 1st of January, 1842, consequently antedates all other manufacturing establishments of a similar kind now in Stark County. At the date above given, three brothers—Charles M., Nahum S. and Clement—carpenters by trade, formed a partnership in Massillon, under the style of C. M. Russell & Co., for the manufacture of threshers and horse-powers, connectionion with their business as architects and builders. Their capital stock was $1,500, with which they began work forty years ago. The senior partner had seen and carefully examined the Pitts Buffalo Separator, which had already been constructed and in use, and on that examination Mr. Russell believed that he saw where improvements might be made, and wicharacteristictic energy set about trying to make it better, and so succeeded that the improved machine took the premium at the Ohio State Fair at Columbus in 1845. Thus encouraged, the new firm pushed ahead, sparing no effort, and met with continued encouragement in their progress. They continued to improve all their machinery, and led all competitors in the race for popularity. When the far-reaching influence of what is now the great railway system of the Western Continent reached Massillon in 1847, the firm of C. M. Russell & Co. at once gave it their influence. As the history of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad attests, they took stock, the elder Mr. Russell was a contractor who built large portions of the road, and with all their other business, built cars for freight and passengers. After the road was opened to Massillon, Mr. C. M. Russell was elected a director, which place he held by successive re-elections until his death in February, 1860, which made a break in the business of the firm, which had gone on uninterruptedly for eighteen years. The death of the senior partner dissolved the firm of C. M. Russell & Co., and the survivors immediately re-organized by the name and style of N. S. & C. Russell, which continued until January 1, 1864, when the brothers Joseph K., Thomas H. and George L. Russell purchased an interest and were admitted as partners, and the firm name changed to Russell & Co., which it still bears. One year later, W. K. Miller and Thomas H. Williams, Esqs., were admitted to membership in the firm. In 1857, Mr. Miller .perfected and patented the Peerless, originally called tRussellRll Mower and Reaper, and this successful ma-