|
54 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - (SKETCH OF SCENES OF THE OLDEN TIME) HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 55 CHAPTER V PIONEER SETTLERS AND SETTLEMENTS FREDERICK C. POST, FIRST OHIO WHITE SETTLER-HECKEWELDER 'S NARRATIVE-THE MISSION ABANDONED-TUSCARORATOWN 1N 1761 AND 1764-REMAINS OF MISSION AND INDIAN VILLAGE-ALL INDIAN TITLES CLEARED-PIONEER WHITE SETTLERS-WOODED TRACTS FIRST SETTLED-PHILIP SLUSSER 'S SOLID WORKS-NUMEROUS AND PROMINENT DESCENDANTS-DIGGER INDIAN OF PLAIN TOWNSHIP-ON THE SITE OF NEW BERLIN-CAPTAIN DOWNING AND RELATIVES-VILLAGES OF SANDY TOWNSHIP-FIRST LAND HOLDERS 1N OSNABURG TOWNSHIP-SILENCE DID NOT GIVE CONSENT-MESSRS. SLUSS AND KITT LOCATE-VILLAGES OF OSNABURG TOWNSHIP-RUDOLPH BAIR-A JUSTICE 'S BROAD TERRITORY-VILLAGES 1N PARIS TOWNSHIP-FIRST TO SETTLE IN NIMISHILLEN TOWNSHIP-NIMISHILLENTOWN-LOUISVILLE AND HARRISBURG- LEXINGTON TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE-FREEDOM AND ALLIANCE-MOUNT UNION AND THE COLLEGE-LIMAVILLE PERRY TOWNSHIP AND KENDAL VILLAGE- CAPTAIN DUNCAN, FOUNDER OF MASSILLON-MOST ANCIENT SECTION OF THE COUNTY-BETHLEHEM VILLAGE-BETHLEHEM, OCHESTER AND NAVARRE CONSOLIDATED - JACKSON TOWNSHIP AND MCDONALDSVILLE - LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP-MILAN AND CANAL FULTON-TUSCARAWAS TOWNSHIP- VILLAGE OF BROOKFIELD--GREENVILLE---SUGAR CREEK TOWNSHIP- BEACH CITY - BREWSTER - WILMOT - SMALLER VILLAGES - PIKE TOWNSHIP AND SPARTA-TWO WOODLAND TOWNSHIPS-WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP-MARLBORO TOWNSHIP-MARLBORO VILLAGE, AN EDUCATIONAL CENTER-NEW BALTIMORE- VARIED LAKE TOWNSHIP-ITS VILLAGES-GREENTOWN- UNIONTOWN- POSTOFFICES OF AN EARLY DATE. While Marietta, founded in 1788, was the first permanent settlement of whites in what is now the State of Ohio, Stark County can lay unimpeachable claim to the site of the pioneer settlement within the borders of the commonwealth. It resulted from the efforts of the United Brethren Church to establish missions among the Delaware Indians of the West. The headquarters of the movement, under the
56 - TORY OF STARK COUNTY supervision of the Moravian Association of Bethlehem, were at that town of Eastern Pennsylvania, and the missionaries who, for many years thereafter, labored in the valleys of the Tuscarawas and Muskingum had an experience and training among the Pennsylvania Delawares. FREDERICK C. POST, FIRST OHIO WHITE SETTLER Among these was Rev. Christian Frederick Post, a regularly ordained minister of the United Brethren Church, but who had forfeited the financial support of the Moravian Association by marrying an Indian squaw, probably about the time that he first came among the Delawares, in the year 1761. One of the Moravian missionaries of that period thus speaks of Post : "On the Ohio river, where, since the last war, some of the Ohio Indians lived who had been baptized by the Brethren, nothing could be done up to this time. However, Brother Frederick Post lived, though of his own choice, about one hundred English miles west of Pittsburg at Tuscaroratown, with a view to commence a mission among the Indians. The Brethren wished the blessings of the Almighty upon his undertaking and when he asked for an assistant to help him in his outward concerns and who might, during the same time, learn the language of the Delaware Indians, they (the Brethren) made it known to the congregation of Bethlehem, whereupon Brother John Heckewelder concluded, of his own choice, to assist him." And then, to explain the foregoing somewhat, the writer continues: "We know of Post that he was an active and zealous missionary, but had married an Indian squaw, contrary to the wishes and advice of the directory that had the oversight of the Moravian missions; and this act had forfeited so much of his standing that he would not be 'acknowledged as one of our missionaries in any other manner than under the guidance of another missionary. Whenever he went further and acted of his own accord, he was not opposed, but had the good will of the society of which he continued a member, and of its directory, and even their assistance so far as to make known his wants to the congregation ; and they threw no obstacles in the way of any person inclined of his own choice to assist him. But he was not then acknowledged as their missionary, nor entitled to any further or pecuniary assistance." Just at what season of the year 1761 Post camped on the north bank of the Tuscarawas River near the mouth of Sandy Creek is not known, but it is certain that he did not remain long after completing his cabin in what the surveyors afterward designated as section 25, Bethlehem Township. Mr. Post then returned to the Moravian head- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 57 quarters at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and applied for an assistant in his undertaking, with the result that Mr. Heckewelder, then an enthusiastic youth in his nineteenth year, offered to share his perils in the West. HECKEWELDER'S NARRATIVE John Heckewelder, who in after years became one of the most prominent of the Moravian missionaries in Ohio and who has written of the work covering a period of nearly seventy years, has this to say of his introduction to the field, and the unsuccessful attempt to establish a mission from March to October, 1762: "Frederick Post, who, the preceding year, had visited the western Indians living on the Muskingum, being in great hopes that he would be able to introduce Christianity among them, the writer of this narrative, by and with the consent of the directors of the society, went with him as an assistant, principally, however, to teach their children to read and write. They set out together early in March, travelling through a settled country of about one hundred and forty miles without seeing much waste that had been made by the Indians in the late war; but scarcely had they passed Shippenburg when the scene changed—the ravages committed by the Indians in that war were now visible in every direction. Farms lay waste, with stacks of chimneys standing in the midst of a heap of ashes where the houses had been burned down, presented a very gloomy appearance, and caused serious reflections on the fate of many of those unfortunate inhabitants whose lot had been to fall under the war hatchet and scalping knife. Having, after a tedious and fatiguing journey arrived at Fort Pitt, they were kindly received and lodged, with Messrs. Davenport and M 'Kinney, the only two gentlemen who at that time had a trading house at the fort. "The commandant of the fort, Colonel Bouquet, together with Captain Hutchins, as also the British officers generally, admiring and approving of the undertaking, were no less active in rendering us such assistance as lay in their power ; and when arriving at the mouth of Big Beaver, where the Indian war chief, Koquethagaeehlon (by the white people called White Eyes) resided, he also furnished us with meat and presented us with a few fowls. Post had already, the preceding year, built a house on the bank of the River Muskingum, at a distance of about a mile from the Indian village which lay to the south across this river ; and at which village, at that time, the greatest chiefs of the nation, both civil and military, resided, with Tamaque (or King Beaver, as he was called by the white people) at their head—all of whom now came to see and welcome us. 58 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY "Post, who had calculated on raising on the ground as much provision as should be wanted for our use, set the hired man he had engaged for the purpose at Pittsburgh to cutting down the trees where he had intended to make his corn-field, while he himself marked out three acres of ground for this purpose. The Indians, alarmed at this, sent word to him to appear at the council house the next day, and, in the meanwhile, desist from doing any further work on the premises. Appearing accordingly before them on the day following, the speaker, in the name of the council, delivered the following address : " `Brother! Last year you asked leave to come and live with us for the purpose of instructing us and our children, to which we consented ; and now being come on, we are glad to see you. " `Brother! It appears to us that you must since have changed your mind, for instead of instructing us or our children you are cutting down on our land. You have marked out a large spot of ground for a plantation, as the white people do everywhere ; and by-and-by another, and another, may comc and do the same ; and the next thing will be that a fort will be built for the protection of these intruders. Thus our country will be claimed by the white people and we be driven further back, as has been the case ever since the white people first came into this country. Say! Do we not speak the truth ?' "In answer to which address, Post delivered himself thus : 'Brothers. What you say I told you is true with regard to my coming to live with you-viz., for the purpose of instructing you ; but it is likewise true that an instructor must have something to live upon—otherwise, he cannot do his duty. Now, not wishing to be a burden to you, so as to ask of you provision for me to live upon, knowing that you have already families to provide for, I thought of raising my own bread, and believed that three acres of ground was little enough for that. You will recollect that I said to you last year that I was a messenger from God, and prompted by Him to preach and make known His will to the Indians (heathen) that they also by faith might be saved and become inheritors of His heavenly kingdom. Of your land I do not want one foot ; neither will my raising a sufficiency of corn and vegetables off your land for me and my brother to subsist on give me or any other person a claim to the land.' "Post retired for the purpose of giving the chiefs and council time to form an answer. This done, they again met, when the speaker thus addressed him (Post) : `Brother! Now as you have spoken more distinctly, we may be able to give you some advice. You say that you come at the instigation of the Great Spirit to teach and to preach to us ! So also say the priests at Detroit, whom our father, the French, HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 59 has sent against his Indian Children ! Well, this being the case, you, as a preacher, want no more land than one of those does, who is content with a garden lot for to plant vegetables and pretty flowers in, such as the French priests also have, and of which the white people are all fond. " 'Brother ! As you are in the same station and employ with those preachers we allude to, and as we never saw any one of those cut down trees and till the ground to get a livelihood, we are inclined to think—and especially as these, without labouring hard, yet look well— that they have to look to another source than that of hard labour for their maintenance. And we think that if, as you say, the Great Spirit wants you to preach to the Indians he will cause the same to be done for you as he causes to be done for those priests we have seen at Detroit. We are agreed to give you a garden spot, even a larger spot of ground than those have at Detroit. It shall measure fifty steps (paces) each way, which, if its suits you, you are at liberty to plant thereon what you please.' "Which Post agreeing to, the lot was, on the following day, stepped off by Captain Pike, stakes driven at the corners, and Post told that now he might go on with his work. "An Indian treaty being appointed to be held at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the later part of the summer, Mr. Post was again applied to by the governor of Pennsylvania to use his endeavors in bringing to this treaty many of the western Delawares, but above all King Beaver and the great war chief Shingask (generally called by the white people, King Shingask) ; the former of which, together with other heads of the nation, accordingly went on with Mr. Post, but the latter positively declared that he would not go, believing that the English only wanted to murder him for the damage he had done them during the late war." In connection with the personality of that fierce warrior, "Heckewelder's Narrative" furnishes two footnotes, from which it is gleaned that Shingask well knew the high price which had been set on his scalp by the governor of Pensylvania, and acted accordingly. Translated into English his name was Bog Meadow, and he was considered the greatest and the most cruel of the Delaware warriors. His person was small, but in point of courage and activity he had no superior. The Narrative continues: "Scarcely had six weeks elapsed from the time of the departure of those who had gone on to the treaty before it became known that the French had succeeded in persuading the Indian nations once more to try their strength against the English. And it was further added 'that a treaty at this time would be of no effect, and that even Post would not be permitted to return to this place.' 60 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY " The situation in which the writer of this was placed at that time became very precarious. I, however, found means of sending a letter to Mr. Post at Lancaster, and received an answer ; and King Beaver shortly after arriving from the treaty, learning what had been done in his absence and that a war seemed to be unavoidable, advised, as did Post in his letter, that I should leave the country while it was yet time, lest I should fall a sacrifice; which, however, on account of bad health at the time, was impossible for me to do, added to which, my horse had been stolen or lost. "Previous to the return of the Indians from the treaty at Lancaster, the wife of Captain Shingask had died and, being a woman of note, the funeral procession was performed accordingly. Although her complaint appeared to be no other than a fever, yet the Indian doctors made it out to be that she had been bewitched; when, of course, the conjurer took the place of the physician for to cure her, and under whose hands she died. THE MISSION ABANDONED "After being advised by King Beaver (whom I considered my true friend) to retire while it was yet safe, I set out with some traders in October for Pittsburg, and meeting on the way with the Indian agent, Captain Alexander M'Kee, and Mr. Post, apprised them of the times and the war which was expected. The former was going out to receive and provide for the prisoners promised to be given up at the treaty ; and the latter considered himself safe under the protection of the former, but both were disappointed in their views, M'Kee returning without prisoners and Post only saving himself by flight through the woods. Before the winter had passed, murders were committed on a number of traders in that part of the country." Thus the attempt was abandoned to establish a mission near the capital of the Delawares within the present bounds of Stark County. But that failure was forerunner of permanent missions further south in what is now Tuscarawas County, conducted by Rev. David Zeisberger, John Heckewelder and others. TUSCARORATOWN IN 1761 AND 1764 About the time that Post built his little cabin on the banks of the Tuscarawas (1761), Major Robert Rogers, who was sent on an expedition to the western country from Montreal, crossed the river at the Indian ford. In one of his reports he states that he found at that time some three thousand acres of land cleared and cultivated at the Delawares' village, but in 1764, when Colonel Bouquet conducted his mili- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 61 tary expedition through that part of the country, the place was deserted. Beaver, the noted chief or king of the Delawares who seemed so well disposed toward the missionaries, was living at the time the first permanent white settlers commenced to locate within the bounds of Stark County ; and that period was only three years before Stark County as a political and civil body was created. REMAINS OF MISSION AND INDIAN VILLAGE Before taking leave of Post's historic cabin and its interesting surroundings, the writer will quote a short description of the locality drawn (PICTURE) SITE OF OLD POST MISSION in 1846: "In 1762 an Indian village of forty wigwams was standing across the river from the Post settlement. The spot where the dwellings stood and the streets between them, as well as the place of carousal and where they used to play ball, were plainly visible. So was their burying ground easily identified, as well as the havoc which some unprincipled fellows committed about twenty years ago, in digging after some silver trinkets which the Indians used to bury with their dead. The graves were dug open, the silver taken out and the bones scattered over the ground. Just across the river is the old missionary station. It is situated on the north side of the river near its bank, about three fourths of a mile above the bridge on the road leading from Bolivar to Bethlehem, and just below a spur of the hill which approaches the river above it. The stones, which had probably formed the back wall of the 62 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY chimney, form a heap of rubbish about two feet high. This is all there is left by which the site of the house can be identified. The place where the garden was differs from the woods around it by the total want of heavy timber." Since the foregoing was written, the faint traces of Stark County's first habitation thus described have also been obliterated; but the old settlers have passed the identity of the spot down to their descendants, so that it is pictured in this history. ALL INDIAN TITLES CLEARED The Indian title to lands east of the Tuscarawas in Stark County was extinguished by the Greenville Treaty of 1795 and all west of that frontier stream was thrown open to white settlers by the Treaty of Fort Industry, concluded in 1805. The latter year marks the commencement of permanent settlement by the dominant race in Stark County. PIONEER WHITE SETTLERS The first settlers were surveyors from the Steubenville land office, who, in 1805, located various tracts near the present site of Canton. James F. Leonard was the pioneer of them all, and in March of that year, in company with James and Henry Barber, he established a station just northeast of the present city, near the old County Fair grounds on what became known as the Reed farm. About two miles northwest Butler Wells and Daniel McClure, also surveyors from Steubenville, settled upon lands located and owned by Bezaleel Wells near Large Spring, long familiar as Meyer 's Lake. These settlements were the commencement of the continuous history of Stark County. WOODED TRACTS FIRST SETTLED As was customary with the pioneers of the country immediately northwest of the Ohio River, who, for the most part, had migrated from wooded sections of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the early settlers of Stark County favored the forest tracts. The consequence was that the wooded lands northward from the Canton district were taken up at an early day, and Plain Township of the present received its first accession of inhabitants almost coincident with Canton. The town by that name was surveyed and platted by Leonard in the fall of 1805, the owner of its site being, as stated, Bezaleel Wells. PHILIP SLUSSER'S SOLID WORKS Among those who entered land at Steubenville previous to the first influx of real settlers to the neighborhood of the present City of Can- HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 63 ton was Philip Slusser, who had journeyed from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to Beaver County, Ohio, early in the following year. After entering a quarter section directly east of Canton he returned to Pennsylvania and in the autumn of 1805, leaving his wife and the younger children in the old home, returned with his three sons, Philip, Peter and John, and his daughter, Elizabeth, together with eight or ten laborers, and prepared to form a household. He built the first grist mill in the region and laid a more solid groundwork for a settlement than had previously been attempted. For years the mill played an important part in the early growth of Canton and the township. It was long known as the Rowland Mill, and was the predecessor of various grist and sawmills which made the region habitable. NUMEROUS AND PROMINENT DESCENDANTS Philip Slusser, the forerunner of that stalwart and thrifty German element which has done so much to make Stark County thrifty and substantially progressive, left numerous descendants who have been prominent in industrial, business and professional life, and held not a few public positions, Philip himself serving as one of the county's first commissioners. The sons, Philip and Peter, were pioneers of Tuscara was Township, while John built a sawmill in. 1807, which he conducted for many years in connection with a large cabinet industry. DIGGER INDIAN OF PLAIN TOWNSHIP Dr. Lewis Slusser, a son of John, became a very successful physician of Canton, was a member of the State Assembly and later superintendent of the Newburg Asylum for the Insane near Cleveland. Naturally, the doctor took a deep interest in the pioneer history of the county and contributed to its literature many valuable sketches. Among them was a sketch of Plain Township, lying immediately north of Canton, and so closely identified with it. He gives this account of its pioneer white settler : "The first white man who settled in Plain township was Henry Friday. He was a Hessian, taken prisoner at the battle of Trenton and paroled. He had a wife and three children, and in 1805 came in a rickety cart drawn by an old horse to Section 30, where he `squatted.' It being early in the summer, he cleared a small patch, which he planted in corn and potatoes, and, until the crop matured, the family lived on wild meat and berries. His special occupation was that of well digging, but until he found employment in this line he cut and cured grass on the wild meadows in the southwestern section of the 64 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY township, for which he found a ready sale to emigrants. He must have lived like a Digger Indian, for it said that in the year in which the locusts appeared he had a pie made of them, which he ate; and in speaking of it, he remarked 'Es ist der besht poy es mer macha kan.' After five or six years he moved to Jackson township, where he died." ON THE SITE OF NEW BERLIN In 1806 quite a number of settlers located in Plain Township, including Peter Willaman, who took up land which included the site of the present Village of New Berlin. The first industry was the saw and chopping mill built near the village by Abraham Van Meter on Nimishillen Creek in 1810. CAPTAIN DOWNING AND RELATIVES Sandy Township, in the southeastern corner of the county, was also one of the first sections to be settled, and the leader of its pioneers was our old scout friend, Capt. James Downing, who had survived all his encounters with Indians and wild beasts generally and, for a number of years, had been a peaceful but not contented landsman, living on a farm on the Virginia side of the Ohio opposite Yellow Creek, in sight of the rendezvous of his scouting party of 1793. As the captain was uneasy because of a complication in his title to the Virginia lands, he concluded to leave them and settle in the beautiful valley of the Big Sandy which had so pleased him as a Government ranger. In 1805 he therefore entered a quarter section immediately north of what is now the southern line of Sandy Township, and the Stark County part of Magnolia Village, or Downingville. His land and the fine log cabin which he built were on the Wells road, the first thoroughfare put through to Canton from the Ohio River. The road passed along the east line of his property. In 1806 Captain Downing's brother-in-law, James Laughlin, and his sons-in-law, Isaac Miller and Benjamin Cuppy, also located in that neighborhood. Miller settled on the west side of Sandy Creek, opened a tavern and run a ferry for the benefit of emigrants—and his own profit. In 1814 he built a toll-bridge across that stream, the first structure in the county to span it. VILLAGES OF SANDY TOWNSHIP Soon after Captain Downing and his relatives established themselves in the southern part of Sandy Township, Joseph Handlon laid out the HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 65 Town of Hamburg on the north bank of Little Sandy Creek ; but it never got beyond the dignity of a paper town. But Mr. Handlon was not discouraged. He improved his farm property, did much to encourage the building of local roads and in 1815 laid out Waynesburgh on the south side of the creek. The new town was on the main road from Steubenville to Cleveland and stood the test of time fairly well, although other centers of population in the county have far overtaken it. Magnolia was not laid out until 1834. FIRST LAND HOLDERS IN OSNABURG TOWNSHIP In the fall of 1805 five men, including a surveyor, set out on horseback from New Lisbon, the little settlement which was the county seat of Columbiana County, with a view of selecting homesteads somewhere in the wilderness between that place and the Tuscarawas River. The land office was then in Steubenville, called Steuben for short (with the accent on the last syllable). The names of those of the party with whom we are mostly concerned are Jacob Kitt, John Sluss and John Thomas. The party finally came to a halt at a spring in the southwest quarter of section 17, range 7, Osnaburg Township. Kitt was the first to say "I'll take this quarter !" Continuing their explorations, the next spring located was in the southwest quarter of section 17, which was claimed by John Sluss. SILENCE DID NOT GIVE CONSENT All the members of the party, with the exception of one unnamed man, gave their audible assent to these claims. His conduct excited the suspicion of Mr. Kitt, who was especially anxious to secure his claim. Thinking the matter over during the night, he was satisfied that the stranger intended to enter his land. Mr. Kitt therefore made an excuse in the morning and hastily returned to his home near New Lisbon. Providing himself with the necessary funds to make the first payment, he proceeded to the land office at Steubenville, and as he was about leaving town with the title to his property safely in his pocket, he met the very man whose silence did not appeal to him as giving consent. The man acknowledged the purport of his visit. MESSRS. SLUSS AND KITT LOCATE A local historian continues the story : "Mr. Sluss, on his return, secured the place he had selected. Both he and Kitt were married and Vol. 1-5 66 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY were living on land in the neighborhood of New Lisbon. They remained there during the winter of 1806 and came out together early in the following spring. Each had two horses, Mr. Kitt a wagon ; so they joined teams, and in the wagon packed all their worldly goods. Their route was by the Thomas road, then being laid out—the same that passes through Freeburg and Louisville, the first legal highway in the county. They came to the improvement of Philip Slusser, who was then building a grist and sawmill on the Nimishillen. With the help obtained here and the assistance of James F. Leonard, a surveyor who had a camp on the west side of the creek, the two emigrants cut a way to their new homes in Osnaburg township." Mr. Kitt erected a pole cabin on the southeast quarter of section 18, which was the actual beginning of settlement in the township. Mr. Sluss, who came to Osnaburg with Kitt, was somewhat above the average in intelligence and education and became quite popular throughout the county. For many years he served either as justice of the peace or county commissioner, and sometimes as both. Both these pioneers left large families, notable for the quality as well as the quantity of their representatives. After living for many years as a respected citizen of Osnaburg Township, the founder of the Kitt family in Stark County moved to Huntington County, Indiana, where he resided until he had considerably passed the century mark. VILLAGES OF OSNABURG TOWNSHIP James Leeper, a native of Washington County, Pennsylvania, laid out a town on section 8, Osnaburg Township, and started the Village of Osnaburg by erecting a log cabin on his land and opening it as a tavern. Its founder was energetic, but too fond of liquor, and after his village had obtained such a start that it was considered a rival of Canton, while under the influence of strong drink he committed suicide by drowning. Mr. Wells, on the other hand, the father of Canton, was a man of moral as well as of substantial character, and his village eventually gained a position beyond rivalry in the county. Mapleton is the name of a postoffice and a small settlement established in the '70s and located on section 27, in the southeastern part of the township, about a mile from the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. RUDOLPH BAIR Rudolph Bair, a native of York County, Pennsylvania, came to Eastern Ohio when a young man and located in what is now Columbiana HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 67 County, but what was at that time a portion of the old county of Jefferson, created in 1797. Being a man of more than ordinary ability and education, his frontier neighbors selected him as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1802 which framed the first state constitution. In the summer of 1806 Mr. Bair, with his brother Christopher, made a trip on horseback through what is now the eastern portion of Stark County, with a view of selecting land to enter at Steubenville. They confined their explorations along either side of the state road of later days, then a mere bridle path, and selected a number of quarter-sections in the present townships of Paris and Osnaburg. The tracts were all then contained in Osnaburg Township, as Paris was not separated from it until 1818. Rudolph Bair settled on the south half of section 5 in the fall of the year 1806. In that locality he built a cabin, in which he soon after installed his household goods, his wife and young babe, and after making everything as snug and comfortable as was possible in a doorless hut, he returned to Columbiana County for supplies. The young mother and child were alone, Indians encamped on the creek a short distance below, wolves howling around, no white person nearer than Osnaburg, five miles away, but such experiences were matters-ofcourse to western pioneer women, and were not considered as calling for any special bravery. Fortunately, nothing alarming happened in this instance, but we can imagine that Mr. Bair's return lifted a burden from the mind of the waiting ones in the wilderness. A JUSTICE'S BROAD TERRITORY In 1808 Mr. Bair was appointed a justice of the peace of Osnaburg Township, Columbiana County, his jurisdiction extending over all that part of Stark County east of Canton Township to the present western boundary of Columbiana County and from the Ohio River to Lake Erie. In that official capacity he is said to have tried the first law suit in what is now Stark ,County, the litigation arising over a horsetrade in which one of the parties to the deal considered himself defrauded. Mr. Bair afterward served with credit in the State Legislature and died in 1820. His remains lie in the graveyard which he donated to the Village of Paris, laid out by him in 1813. VILLAGES IN PARIS TOWNSHIP Minerva, the large village which lies partly in the southeast corner of Paris Township and partly in Brown Township, Carroll County, was 68 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY platted in 1835 by John Pool and John Whiteacre. Mr. Whiteacre built the first house and the first gristmill on the village site. A postoffice was established in 1832 at what afterward became the settlement of New Franklin in the northeastern part of the township. Robertsville, or Robardsville, was laid out in 1842 on section 19. Both spellings are given, as the original proprietor of the town was a Frenchman named Joseph Rohard. FIRST TO SETTLE IN NIMISHILLEN TOWNSHIP The first settlement in Nimishillen Township was in the south half of section 32, south of the creek by that name whose headwaters are not far away. In 1805 John Bowers, an emigrant from Maryland, entered that portion of the section and in the following spring moved upon his land, with his family, and commenced an improvement—a cabin and a few acres of broken ground on the east quarter of that half. NIMISHILLENTOWN About the time the Bowers family settled in the extreme southwestern portion of what became Nimishillen Township in 1809, a Dunkard, or German Baptist, preacher of considerable influence located on section 3, far to the northeast, and was the forerunner of quite an incursion of his fellow-religionists and others, who selected this portion of the township because it was so thickly wooded. At that time an Indian trail passed through the township from east to west and John Thomas, a resident of Columbiana County, with the assistance of the county commissioners had the trail so widened as to make it passable for teams. It was afterward known as the Thomas Road and was the first highway through the county. It was in constant use for many years, especially the sections from Lexington, in the northeastern corner of the county, to Canton, via Louisville. Soon after the Legislature created the County of Stark, in 1808, and before the three commissioners had decided upon the seat of justice, Nimishillentown was laid out by some land speculators on the southeast quarter of section 28. It was a competitor, but not a very strong one, for the county seat ; there never seemed to be any doubt as to the decision in favor of Canton, although Osnaburg, which was near the center of the new county, was believed to have more of a chance than Nimishillentown. LOUISVILLE AND HARRISBURG A portion of the site of Nimishillentown was afterward included in Louisville, which, however, was not laid out until 1834. Its proprietors HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 69 were Henry Loutzenheiser, a Pennsylvania German, who located in the northeastern part of the. township during the summer of 1807, and Frederick Faint, who seems to have been overshadowed in all respects by his partner. Before Louisville was platted Mr. Loutzenheiser kept a famous tavern in that locality, and accomplished much for the early growth of the village. It was originally named Lewisville, after one of his twenty-five children, but as there was already a village by that name in Ohio when application was made for the establishment of the post- office of Lewisville, the Government decided that Louisville would be about the proper thing. In March, 1837, the postoffice in Nimishillen Township was thus named. Harrisburg, in the northeastern part of the township, was founded several years before Louisville, having been laid out by Jacob Harsh in 1827. LEXINGTON TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGE Lexington Township, in the northeastern corner of Stark County, was among the first sections to be settled, because the pioneers were of the opinion that the Mahoning River, which loops its way through its eastern and northeastern tier of sections, was to be an important navigable stream, a leading waterway communicating with the Valley of the Ohio. Only to a limited extent were these expectations realized. In 1805-6 a colony of Quakers located on the Mahoning and called the little settlement Lexington. Among these were the families of Amos Holloway, Zacheus Stanton, Nathan Gaskill, John Grant, David Berry and Jesse Feltz. Messrs. Holloway and Gaskill were the proprietors of the site, which was platted in 1807. By legislative decree, the Mahoning was made a public highway of commerce, and provision was made in the survey for all necessary docks and wharves at Lexington. The first roads in the township were soon laid out from Deerfield, Portage County, southwest, to Canton, and the other from Salem, Columbiana County, intersecting the first at the village of Lexington. But neither the Mahoning River, nor these highways by land, were able to develop it into much of a town. FREEDOM AND ALLIANCE The story of Alliance is another matter. In 1838 its nucleus was platted as the Town of Freedom by Mathias Hester and John Miller, they being among the original owners of the land. The original plat was composed of sixty lots. Mr. Hester erected the first buildings 70 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY and gave the town its name. It was known as Freedom until 1850, or until the completion of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago railroads, when Mr. Hester platted the Town of Alliance. General Robinson, of Pittsburgh, christened the place, his idea being that the two railroads were to unite their interests at that place. As we all know, the town has become a flourishing city, the center of important industries and commercial interests, and numerous additions have been made to the original Town of Freedom. MOUNT UNION AND THE COLLEGE Mount Union, just south of Alliance, was laid out by Richard Fawcett in 1833. About a dozen years afterward Dr. O. N. Hartshorn, a clergyman, founded a private school at that place, which became so widely and favorably known that Mount Union College was established on the strength of its reputation in 1858. Doctor Hartshorn was also the founder of that institution of higher learning, and it was largely through his scholarship, practical ability and strong will in the initial years that the college has endured and steadily increased in standing and scope. It has fought a good and brave fight and is among the substantial colleges of the minor class. LIMAVILLE Limaville, a small incorporated village on the northern border line of Lexington Township was laid out by David Hollaway in 1830. PERRY TOWNSHIP AND KENDAL VILLAGE Commodore Perry fought the Battle of Put-in-Bay September 10, 1813, and three months afterward, almost to a day, the commissioners of Stark County named a new township after the American hero. The Village of Kendal had been laid out two years before by Thomas Rotch, a leading Quaker, who had named it after a large manufacturing town in the west of England, and when Perry Township was created in 1813, its voters met in Kendal, now the Fourth Ward of the City of Massillon, to elect officers. The first religious body organized west of Canton in Stark County was the Kendal Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, its monthly meeting being at Marlboro, in the northern part of the county, the quarterly meeting at Salem, Columbiana County, and the yearly meeting, at Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County. The local society was formed about the time the township was created. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 71 CAPTAIN DUNCAN, FOUNDER OF MASSILLON The War of 1812 drove many New England shipmasters from their homes, because of the disorganization of ocean commerce and the stagnation of trade. Among those who sought homes in the west during the first year of hostilities was Capt. James Duncan, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He first adventured at Wheeling, now West Virginia, where he had friends, engaged in various business enterprises, married and then set out on horseback with some friends to visit the Rotch settlement, or Village of Kendal. Captain Duncan was made so welcome by the Quakers of the village that he returned to Wheeling only long enough to collect sufficient funds to buy a quarter section, now included in the site of Massillon, and the waterpower of Sippo Creek, which became such an asset in the expansion of Duncan's Mill. He built a gristmill and a distillery, transported whiskey, flour and potatoes to New Orleans by boat, turned his flouring mill into a woolen factory, operated a large dry goods store, and in 1825, when the State Legislature passed an act authorizing the construction of the Ohio canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth commenced the fight for the route through Stark County on the east side of the Tuscarawas. This matter settled to his liking, the captain made the purchases adjoining the tracts already owned by him which enabled him to plat the Village of Massillon in the winter of 1825-26. It was named in honor of Jean Baptiste Massillon, a celebrated French divine who died in 1742. Massillon and Alliance are brisk, but generous competitors, for second place among the cities of Stark County. MOST ANCIENT SECTION OF THE COUNTY Bethlehem Township is, in a number of respects, the most ancient section of Stark County. First, it has a number of mounds which are attributed to prehistoric builders ; secondly, it was the home of a majority of the Delaware Indians and embraced their capital village, and thirdly, the Post-Heckewelder mission of 1761-2, representing the first white settlement in Ohio, temporary though it was, was planted in the soil of Bethlehem Township. The Calhoun trading house was also there, even before the mission, although it is not known that its flitting occupant considered that his abiding place. BETHLEHEM VILLAGE Bethlehem Township was also one of the first sections of the county to be settled by emigrants who represented the advance guard of the 72 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY uninterrupted procession of pioneers and home-makers who laid the foundations of the villages, the rural communities and the farms which have made the county what it is. Among the first of these villages and the fourth in the county, was the Village of Bethlehem, which was laid out on section 5 in 1806 by Jonathan W. Condy, a Philadelphia lawyer and a Swedenborgian. His plan was to establish a colony of co-religionists on the banks of the Tuscarawas similar to the old-time Moravian missions. Associated with him in that enterprise was Rev. Richard S. Goe. After building a sawmill and a store, and otherwise "starting his town," Mr. Condy returned to Philadelphia, and did not again visit PRIMITIVE SAWMILL Bethlehem until after the location of the canal in 1825. His accidental death, two years afterward, probably prevented the village from being a stronger competitor against Navarre and Rochester, which were platted at about that time—Rochester, by Nathan McGrew, and Navarre, by Capt. James Duncan, the founder of Massillon. BETHLEHEM, OCHESTER AND NAVARRE CONSOLIDATED Within a few years after the completion of the canal, the three villages became large centers for the wheat trade and general supplies. There were mills at all these places, but Captain Duncan seemed to have a faculty of making things boom and come his way, and Navarre eventually got the upper hand. In 1871 the citizens of Bethlehem and Rochester acknowledged the folly of continued competition by agreeing to a HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 73 consolidation of all interests under the village name of Navarre, and in April, 1872, the first election of the new corporation was held. Since that year there has been no other village in Bethlehem Township. JACKSON TOWNSHIP AND MCDONALDSVILLE Jackson Township in the second tier of western townships was a part of Plain Township until 1811, and is supposed to have been first settled several years before. It is a good farming section, and in 1829 a village was platted in its northern portion and named McDonaldsvine ; but that small center of population never flourished beyond a hundred souls, and persistent railroad neglect killed it entirely. LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP Lawrence, Tuscarawas and Sugar Creek, far western townships, were more fortunate, having the early benefit of being within the radius of canal transportation, but their territories were later accommodated by the railroads. Lawrence is a fine agricultural country, the Valley of the Tuscarawas cutting through it diagonally from northwest to southeast. The Indian titles to its lands were not entirely cleared until 1805, when those west of the Tuscarawas were thrown into the white man's market. The first improvement in the township was made upon Newman's Creek by Henry Clapper and Adam Lower, brothers- in-law from Pennsylvania who, in September, 1808, cultivated three acres to wheat and rye, and then returned to their homes without having erected a cabin. But in March following came Mr. Clapper with his brother Daniel and built the first structure in the township. A number of other settlers arrived about the same time, including William Critz, who is sometimes designated as the first settler. Although the lands east of the river in Lawrence Township were earlier in the market than those west of it, they were settled at a later day for the reason that the eastern tracts were surveyed by the Government in sections of two miles square, and anyone wishing to enter a less quantity had to employ a surveyor to subdivide. As the early settlers had to economize in every item, they selected tracts on the western side of the river which the surveyors had subdivided into smaller pieces. MILAN AND CANAL FULTON In 1814 a village known as Milan was platted by Matthew Rowland on section 9, west of the Tuscarawas. Within the next ten or twelve years it had grown into so much of a settlement that, in 1826, when the 74 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY Village of Fulton was platted by William Christmas and James W. Lathrop, of Canton, it was located on the canal then being constructed, opposite Milan. By 1828 the Ohio canal was opened from Cleveland to Massillon and in 1832 to Portsmouth, and Fulton shared for years in the impetus to trade and commerce given by the opening of a free waterway through the State to the Ohio Valley. In 1853 it absorbed the old Town of Milan as the incorporated Village of Fulton, now known as Canal Fulton. Canal Fulton has been and is one of the best villages in the county. The Village of Lawrence, or North Lawrence, on the Pennsylvania line, is a station in the southwestern part of Lawrence Township. It was platted by Arnold Lynch and Philip McCue in 1852. TUSCARAWAS TOWNSHIP Tuscarawas and Sugar Creek townships, as well as nearly half of Lawrence, lie west of the Tuscarawas River, and until 1805 were therefore included in the Indian country, or beyond the frontier of white settlement. In that year they were thrown open to settlement by the treaty held at Fort Industry, and in 1807 the surveys were concluded by William Henry, Joseph H. Larwill, John Larwill and John Harris. Settlers commenced to arrive at once. Among the first lands entered in Tuscarawas Township were those covering section 10, by John Barr. It is north of the central part of the present township and, although it passed into various hands, it was kept in an unbroken tract for some three-quarters of a century ; it thus became known throughout the township and even beyond as The Section. The first permanent settlement in the township, then only known as a part of the New Purchase (as the territory west of the Tuscarawas was called), was made by the brothers, John and Robert Warden, Scotch- Irish Presbyterians from Washington County, Pennsylvania. They first camped on The Section, but bought neighborhood tracts. John Warden became quite prominent in the public affairs of the township. VILLAGE OF BROOKFIELD The first village in the township was Brookfield, now on the western outskirts of Massillon. It was named after the village by that name in Clinton County, New York, and was settled by a number of families from that section of the Empire State, the first of whom located as early as 1814. Although it was never laid out as a village, most of the land covering the settlement was owned by Jonathan Winter, who HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 75 platted the tract in half and quarter-acre lots to suit the purchaser. It was first called Wintersville, but when Philip Slusser put up a large framehouse—the first in the township—and opened an inn, it became Slussertown, or simple Slusser's Tavern. When Judge William Henry, the widely known mill man, promoter and merchant of Massillon, determined to boom the village as a competitor of Massillon, it commenced to be permanently known as Brookfield, which was about 1830, when the judge moved thither with the object of intercepting the trade which was flowing in from the west toward Massillon. He built flouring, saw and woolen mills at Brookfield, but Massillon had too great a start for Judge Henry or any other man to overcome and, after passing over his interests to younger hands, he moved to Wooster, Wayne County. GREENVILLE The first postoffice in Tuscarawas Township was named Greenville, and was locatcd in the northwestern part. It was established about 1825, discontinued and afterward re-established as East Greenville. At one time quite a settlement had gathered around the postoffice, but the neighborhood has long since been accommodated by the rural free delivery. SUGAR CREEK TOWNSHIP Sugar Creek Township, in the southwestern corner of the county, has always been productive, agriculturally, and occupied by good. industrious men and women. The creek which gives the township its name was noted for the fine sugar maples which lined its banks and extended far inland, and such pioneer settlers as Jacob Grounds and Joshua Carr were attracted as much by that feature of the country as any other. BEACH CITY In 1816. about the time that Sugar Creek was separated from Canton Township, Henry Willard built a gristmill on the creek in the southeastern part of the township. In 1830, after he had enlarged and improved his plant, it was purchased by P. V. Bell, who also opened a store and so imbued the locality with his spirit, backed by his works, that it became known as Bell's Mills. Henry Croninger's distillery also added to the business of the place. Although the early stores had rather sorry experiences in the village, Col. Hiram Reed, one of its merchants, 76 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY secured a postoffice under the name of Beach City. The place, however, which is now an incorporated village, was not laid out and its plat recorded until 1872, when it became a station on the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. At that time J. M. Shelter, who owned the land where the business portion of the village now stands, had the county surveyor, Amos Woodling, lay out a plat of thirty-eight lots. The village, to which a number of additions have been made, was named in honor of an engineer on the Valley Railroad. WILMOT Wilmot, on the other hand, further west and much the smaller settlemcnt, was platted as Milton in 1836 by Jacob and Henry Wyant, and a postoffice was located there about the time the village was laid out. It is not known exactly when the change of name was made. At one time, from 1846 to 1876, Wilmot was quite an industrial town. A shop for the manufacture of agricultural implements, a woolen factory, carriage works, a foundry, a gristmill and other industries flourished, with more or less vigor, at different times during that period. BREWSTER Brewster is located in the eastern part of Sugar Creek Township. The town was laid out in 1906 by the Bimeler Land Company, of which John Bimeler, of Zoar, Ohio, was president ; J. W. Pontius, Canton, Ohio, vice president ; James D. Barry, Canton, Ohio, secretary, and Louis Loichot, Canton, Ohio, treasurer. The town has about 750 inhabitants at this time. The Wheeling & Lake Erie yards and shops are located at this place and more than 800 men are employed in these railroad shops and yards. SMALLER VILLAGES Plainsburg, near the southern township line, was of early origin. It was first known as Stambaughtown, named for a justice of the peace and pettifogger who resided in the locality with several of his grown up sons. That name was bad enough, but the second christening, Slabtown (now North Industry), was worse, and the villagers are said to have been comparatively happy when it became evident that Plainsburg would stick as long as there was anything to show for the name. Whatever promincnce it attained as a trade center was because of the productiveness of the surrounding country in berries. They were brought to HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 77 Plainsburg in large quantities and then transferred to the railroad at Beach City. Justus Station, in the northeastern part of Sugar Creek Township, dates its beginning from the completion of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad through the county in 1872. PIKE TOWNSHIP AND SPARTA Pike Township (which originally included Bethlehem ) was separated from Canton on the 6th of March, 1815, but did not acquire its present area until the formation of Sugar Creek Township in March, 1816, and of Bethlehem in December of that year. The township is rather hilly and picturesque and is drained by the Nimishillen, Sandy and Limestone creeks. There are numerous fine, productive farms with good improvements. The hilly portions are well adapted for stock raising, especially sheep. Pike Township has supplied Canton with large quantities of coal for its factories and for domestic use, and 30,000 or more tons of agricultural and commercial lime are now produced annually ; hydrate, carbonate and caustic being the principal grades. The early settlers, who came from 1806 to 1812, were chiefly Pennsylvanians, and included George Young, Jonathan Cable, John Shutt, James Eakins, Jacob. Kemery, Amos Jenney and Prier Foster. George Young, who came in 1806, is credited with the honor of being the first white settler within the bounds of the township. He settled on a portion of leased land near the center of the township in the spring of 1806 where he remained about five years. He then purchased a farm near Sparta, where the balance of his life was passed. He was the first merchant in the township having a store at his residence from which he supplied the settlers of that day with such articles as were most needed. Mr. Jenney built the first gristmill at Pike Township on the Nimishillen, in the southern part of the township, and in March, 1815, platted Sparta. Mr. Foster's main claim to celebrity was that he was the first colored person to settle in Stark County, and that he was a hard working, capable miller. Joseph Medill, for years editor of the Chicago Tribune, was a Pike Township boy and attended the district school on one of the hilltops in that township. Two WOODLAND TOWNSHIPS Both Washington and Marlboro townships, in the northeastern part of Stark County, were settled at an early period, as they lay in the belt 78 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY of rich woodland. It is believed that the pioneers came into those townships about 1810. WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP The first known settler in Washington Township was Ezekiel Marsh. Ellis N. Johnson, a Pennsylvania Quaker, came into that part of the county when a very young man, in the year 1810, and on section 14 first met Mr. Marsh in the act of making a small clearing. He had already put up a shack about fourteen feet square. He proved a good citizen and finally met death at the hands of a drunken and infuriated husband whose wife Mr. Marsh was endeavoring to protect. The Village of Mount Union, now a part of Alliance, extends over the northern boundary of Washington Township. It was platted in 1833, the first village to be laid out in the township. Freeburg, in the southern part, and Strasburg, now named Maximo, in the northwestern, were platted in 1842—the former in February and the later in August. The Fairmount Children's Home for Stark and Columbiana counties, comprising an improved farm and grounds of over 150 acres, is located in the eastern portion of Washington Township, on section 13, four miles south of Alliance and one mile west of the Columbiana County line. MARLBORO TOWNSHIP Marlboro Township, in the first tier of northern townships, received some of the earliest of the pioneers, although it was not generally settled until after the War of 1812. Previous to that period Mahlon Wileman, Timothy Gruel and a few others located in the eastern part of the present township, which was then included in old Lexington Township. Marlboro was not set off until 1821. MARLBORO VILLAGE, AN EDUCATIONAL CENTER The Village of Marlboro, northeast of the central part of the township, was laid out by the owners of the site, Moses Pennock, William Pennock, Samuel Ellison and Danny Johnson, in November, 1827. Although it became quite well known as a manufacturing town and the center of a large fruit industry, it also earned a high and broad reputation as a seat of education and even learning. The settlers of the village and locality were largely Quakers, many of them well educated, and the heads of HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 79 families all ambitious to see their children advanced toward intelligent participation in life's practical duties. The first schoolhouses in the Quaker neighborhood were established before the '20s, the pioneer structure in the village to be dedicated to the cause of education being erected about 1832. The schools of Marlboro were constantly and assiduously improved by the Friends and other good and wise villagers, until, by the '50s, Marlboro Union School drew students from beyond the limits of Ohio itself. Mount Union College was then just rising and, perhaps, would have met the fate of the Marlboro Union School had the railroad been kind to the latter locality instead of to Mount Union. But, as it was, a number of prominent men received their impulse as boys from the Marlboro institution. NEW BALTIMORE Levi Haines was the owner of the site of New Baltimore, which was platted by County Surveyor John Whitacre in August, 1831. Several stores and asheries, foundries and tanneries, not to mention other enterprises and industries, rose and fell in New Baltimore. VARIED LAKE TOWNSHIP Lake Township, which has Summit County on the west and Portage County on the north, and which originally comprised the northern half of Stark County, acquired its present form and area in 1816. But many of the early settlers located long before its civil organization in that year. The township is on the water shed which separates the waters of Nimishillen Creek, or the Ohio River basin, from those of the Little Cuyahoga, or the Lake Erie basin. Beautiful Congress Lake, in the northeastern part of the township, with the quiet streams and secluded marshes which feature that portion of the county, drew fishermen, hunters, trappers and other lovers of the out-of-doors thither, at a day far antedating the establishment of the primitive sawmills and gristmills and distilleries of the region. The township was and still is an attractive combination of the picturesque and progressive. Congress Lake and the land bordering on it is the property of the Congress Lake Club, which consists principally of Canton people. Members of the club may invite friends. It is not a place open to public excursions or picnics. A detailed sketch of the Congress Lake Club will be found elsewhere. 80 - HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY ITS VILLAGES Neither has Lake Township been a whit behind the others in the production of ambitious villages. These include Uniontown and Green- town in the western portion of the township and Hartville and Cairo in the northeastern and southeastern sections. Hartville is one of the most prosperous villages in the county and a sketch of it, somewhat in detail, is given hereafter. Cairo is a small village, containing a general store and two churches, a Lutheran and Reformed. GREEN TOWN From 1811 to 1816 Lake Township was a part of Green, and was still unborn in February of that year, when Greentown was laid out by Henry Wise and Peter Dickerhoof, its proprietors. The village also had its industries for about twenty years from 1840, and for more than a decade it was quite a center for the manufacture of agricultural implements. It was at Greentown that E. Ball commenced the manufacture of the Hussey reaper, and the small industry which was moved to Canton in 1851 was the basis of the immense plant which was founded and developed at Canton by Mr. Ball and Cornelius Aultman. Although considerable mining of coal has been done near the village, and may be accounted as one of its earlier industries, the transfer of the Ball-Aultman Works to Canton knocked away the props from beneath Greentown. UNIONTOWN The Town of Uniontown was platted by Elias Brenner and Thomas 'Albert, owners of its site, in April, 1816, and its history is not as eventful as that of Greentown, as no large industry materialized within its limits. In the heyday of its career, however, previous to the Civil war, a number of small industries transacted a fair business and several general stores supplied quite a stretch of surrounding country. At one time two tanneries were in operation, and in the late '50s a large factory was established for the manufacture of kettles, plows and cultivators, but, after a few years' trial the project was abandoned. If the foregoing pages have conveyed an etching of the human development of Stark County, a clear outline of its pioneer settlers and settlements—then the purpose of this chapter is attained. The details of county and township organization, with the development of villages and cities, are to follow. HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY - 81 POSTOFFICES OF AN EARLY DATE Up to the middle '70s, by which time the county had certainly outgrown its pioneer period, the following postoffices had been established: Canton, January 1, 1809, with Samuel Coulter as first postmaster ; Paris, August 22, 1822, Daniel Burgett ; Lake, December 12, 1823, Joseph T. Hollaway ; Waynesburg, May 19, 1824, George Beatty ; Greentown, January 27, 1827, Bradley C. Goodwill; Osnaburg, December 24, 1827, Christian Kuntze ; Massillon, January, 1828 ; Minerva, February 8, 1828, John Pool ; Bethlehem (changed to Navarre), February 8, 1828, Thomas Hurford ; Navarre, August 14, 1843, George AV. Swearingen ; Barryville, May 28, 1830, Jacob Wolfe ; Canal Fulton, October 18, 1830 ; New Franklin, February 20, 1832, Jesse Shoard ; North Industry, April 6, 1832, B. C. Goodwill ; East Greenville, December 7, 1832, Jacob Gregor; Marlboro, February 8, 1833, Abraham Brooke ; Jobville (changed to Mount Union), February 25, 1833, Job Johnson ; Mount Union, January 30, 1835, Job Johnson ; Magnolia, May 26, 1836, John W. Smith ; New Baltimore, February 18, 1837, William Haines ; Louisville, March 11, 1837, Solomon A. Gorgas ; Mapleton, May 12, 1837, William Criswell ; Hartville, November 4, 1837, John D. Willis ; Limaville, March 14, 1839, John G. Morse ; West Brookfield, May 1, 1843, Valentine Bohn ; Cairo, April 9, 1850, Abraham G. Bair ; Alliance, December 31, 1851, David G. Hester ; McDonaldsville, April 26, 1852 (discontinued October 14th following), Benjamin F. Williams ; Maximo, February 15, 1853, Jacob C. Fry; North Lawrence, June 6, 1854, Jacob John ; South Rome, June 6, 1854 (discontinued October 4, 1858), Adam Koons ; Pierce, June 8, 1854, John Croft ; Freeburg, March 29, 1855, John S. Cook ; McDonaldsville, re-established December 29, 1857, Samuel Lichtennater ; Robertsville, December 1, 1862, Peter Adolf ; Wilmot, June 7, 1866, Charles W. Keotz ; Richville, January 12, 1872, John Martin ; Justus, February 3, 1874, Henry Morgenthaler, Jr. ; Crystal Springs, August 19, 1874, James W. Reed. |