Mr. BACON had conceived the idea of a religious colony, and made a contract with the owners for nearly the entire township; in all about 12,000 acres at $1.50 per acre.  Payments were to be made upon time, but when payments were made for any part in full a deed was to be given.

            In the preceding year he had a new survey made of the township upon his own plan.  He divided it into sixteen squares of 1,000 acres each, called Great Lots, a mile and a quarter on each side.  A road or highway was established sixty-six feet wide on each line of the Great Lots, except the exterior or township line.  These roads all run north and south or east and west.  A public square of seven and a half acres was laid out as a common centre for churches, schools, stores, etc.  From this square roads ran to each of the four corners of the township.  The plan is shown in the annexed diagram, as given in 1842, by Col. Charles WHITTLESEY (see page 521), in his sketch of Tallmadge.  Here he passed his youthful days and from his sketch these facts are derived.

            “At the common intersection of roads on the public square stands (1842) a guide-post, having eight fingers or hands, pointing in as many directions, with the names of two to four adjacent places painted upon each.  On each of these avenues there are now planted double rows of elms from the adjoining forests.  The northwest diagonal intersects the town line about half a mile east of the corner, in order to avoid the Cuyahoga river, and the southwest diagonal has a deviation in a straight course in the village of Middlebury; otherwise all these roads, amounting to forty-five miles in length, are now travelled in right lines through the town as laid out by Mr. BACON.

            It was the intention of the contractor, Mr. BACON, to introduce a community of property to some extent, and among other things to have a large tract appropriated as a common pasture for all the sheep of the settlement, the proceeds to be drawn in proportion to the stock put in.

            No immigrants were to receive land who were not professors of the Congregational or Presbyterian Church, and two dollars for each 100 acres was to be paid for the support of the gospel.  The latter provision was inserted in some of the early contracts and deeds, but, in fact, never went into effect.

            During the spring and summer of the year following Mr. BACON’s establishing here, families came in rapidly, nearly all originally from Connecticut, especially from Litchfield county; many came direct from other settlements in Ohio, as those from Ravenna who “were driven out,” writes WHITTLESEY, “by the systematic oppression of a large proprietor and agent, Benjamin TAPPAN.”

            The first settlers prior to 1812 were: In 1808, Dr. A. C. WRIGHT, Joseph HART, Adam NORTON, Charles CHITTENDEN, Jonathan SPRAGUE, Nathaniel CHAPMAN, Titus, his father, Titus and Porter, and others of his sons, William NIEL, Joseph BRADFORD, Ephraim CLARK, Jr., George KILBOURNE, Capt. John WRIGHT, Alpha WRIGHT, Eli HILL.

            In 1809, Jotham BLAKELEY, Jotham BLAKELEE, Conrad BOOSINGER, Edmund STRONG, John WRIGHT, Jr., Stephen UPSON, Theron BRADLEY, Peter NORTON.

            In 1810, Elizur WRIGHT, Justus BARNES, Shubel H. LOWREY, David, John Samuel, David, Jr., and Lot PRESTON, Drake FELLOWS, Samuel M’COY, Luther CHAMBERLIN, Rial M’ARTHUR, Justin BRADLEY.

[page 640]       In 1811, Deacon S., Norman, Harvey, Leander, Cassander, Eleazar and Salmon SACKETT, Daniel BEACH, John CARRUTHERS, Reuben UPSON, and Asa GILLETT.

            On the 21st of January, 1809, Geo. KILBOURNE and his wife Almira, Justin E. FRINK, Alice BACON, wife of David BACON, Hepsibah CHAPMAN, Amos C. WRIGHT, and Lydia, his wife, and Ephraim CLARK, Jr., with his wife Alva A. CLARK, associated themselves together as a church, named the Church of Christ in Tallmadge.  Thus in the second year of its existence were the principles of the Bible adopted as the rule of moral government in this settlement.  In 1813 the church had twenty-seven members, mostly heads of families within the township.

            The stern purity of those New Englanders relaxed none of its rigor in consequence of a removal from the regular administration of the gospel in the East to the depths of a Western wilderness.  The usual depreciation of morals in new countries was not experienced here.  To this day the good effects of this primitive establishment of religion and order are plainly visible among this people and their posterity, who will no doubt exhibit them through all time.

            Individuals not professors of religion considered it a paramount duty to provide for religious services on the Sabbath.  Elizur WRIGHT, who became an extensive proprietor in the Brace Company’s tract, readily adopted the plan of Mr. BACON, and inserted it in his first conveyance.  But this scheme was considered by most of the inhabitants as an encroachment upon their personal independence, and was generally resisted.  Very early, however, a regular mode of contribution was established for the support of the gospel.

            The materials of society which Mr. BACON had introduced were not of the proper kind to carry out his project.  There was too much enterprise and independence of feeling among the early settlers to form a community of the character contemplated by him.  Differences of a personal nature rose between him and many of the inhabitants, both upon pecuniary and religious matters.  His purchases being made on time, without means and at high prices, and the sales not being sufficient, payments were not made to the original proprietors; the expenses of survey had been considerable, interest accumulated and the contract was finally abandoned.  He left this region in the spring of 1812.  The lands not sold came back to the proprietors; and some that had been sold and the payments not made to them were in the same situation.  The large owners at this time were TALLMADGE and STARR in the central and eastern part; Elizur WRIGHT and Roger NEWBERRY in the west.

            In the summer of 1875 two of the grandsons of Mr. BACON, both Congregational clergymen, Theodore Woolsey BACON and David BACON, came from the East, and selecting a boulder had engraved upon it an historical statement, as a memorial to him and the founding of the church.  A picture of it on another page is engraved from the photograph.  A large concourse of people attended the memorial services, which consisted of addresses by the grandsons and others, with prayer and songs.  The site is about two miles south of the centre and half a mile north of the Cuyahoga, on the spot where stood the BACON cabin, the ground having been purchased for the purpose.

HISTORICAL MISCELLANY

DRIVING AWAY THE EVIL SPIRIT

            On June 17, 1806, an eclipse of the sun occurred.  It occasioned much consternation among ignorant whites throughout Ohio, and great terror among the Indians.  Those in Summit county were greatly frightened, notwithstanding its having been foretold by some of their squaws, who were not believed and put to death for witchcraft.  (The squaws probably got their information from some of the whites.)

            When the sun was obscured, the terrified savages gathered together, and forming a circle, commenced marching around in regular order, each one firing his gun and making all the noise possible, so as to frighten away the evil spirit menacing the destruction of the world.

            One “brave,” who had fired off his rifle just as the shadow began to pass from the sun, claimed the distinction of having driven away the evil spirit—a claim which his fellow-barbarians recognized, and for this valorous deed and invaluable service, at once raised him to the dignity of chieftainship.

STIGWANISH AND HIS TOTEM

      STIGWANISH, or SENECA, as he was sometimes called by the whites, although that was the name of his tribe, had many noble traits of character, was friendly to the whites and much respected by them.  (See Lake County).

            His people for years cultivated corn fields near where the village of Cuyahoga Falls now stands.  In Boston township they erected a wooden god or totem, around which they held feasts and dances, before starting on hunting and possibly marauding expeditions.

            They would make offerings and hang tobacco round the neck of the totem, which the white settlers would steal as soon as the Indians had left.  The tobacco was said to have been of a superior quality.

            When the Indians went farther west in 1812, this god was taken with them.

DEATH OF NICKSHAW

            STIGWANISH had a son, “GEORGE WILSON,” and a son-in-law, NICKSHAW, each of whom was killed by a white hunter named WILLIAMS at different times, but in both cases under circumstances hardly creditable to the white hunter.  The death of NICKSHAW occurred in December, 1806; he had traded a pony with one of the settlers, and being worsted in the bargain wanted to trade back, which John DIVER, the settler, refused to do.  NICKSHAW threatened vengeance; he told the settlers he had been cheated, and intended to shoot DIVER.  Later, while at the cabin of his brother, NICKSHAW and another Indian called and tried to get DIVER to come out, but he would not, and his brother Daniel went out to placate the Indians when he was fired upon, and though not mortally wounded was blinded for life.

            The Indians fled, and a party of settlers, under Maj. H. ROGERS, started in pursuit.  They came upon the camp of the Senecas about midnight on a cold, clear night, at a point near the northwestern boundary of the county.  Surrounding the camp they closed in upon the Indians, but NICKSHAW escaped them and fled to the woods.  He was followed by George DARROW and Jonathan WILLIAMS, who, after a three mile chase, overtook NICKSHAW and called upon him to yield; this he refused to do, although without means of defense.  WILLIAMS then shot over his head to frighten him into subjection, but without the desired effect; whereupon he fired again, killing the Indian.  The body was placed under a log and covered with brush.  Afterward it was decently buried by the whites.

            Some of the settlers, deeming the death of NICKSHAW unwarrantable and likely to occasion trouble with the Indians, demanded an investigation.  The investigation, however, ended in a “hoe-down,” with plenty of whiskey and a $5 collection for WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, THE HUNTER

            Johathan WILLIAMS belonged to that class of old pioneer hunters who knew no fear, were fully equal to the Indians in woodcraft, and bore them an inveterate hatred.  He lost no opportunity to kill an Indian.  He was six feet in height, with strong physique, swarthy complexion, lithe and noiseless in his movements.  He supported a family.  With his two dogs and rifle he was feared and shunned by the Indians, and was continually on his guard against them, as his life was threatened many times.

DEATH OF “GEORGE WILSON”

            On one occasion, stopping at the house of one of the settlers, WILLIAMS was told that “GEORGE WILSON,” a good-for-nothing son of STIGWANISH, had been there, drunk and ugly, and had made an old woman, whom he found alone, dance for his amusement until she sank to the floor from exhaustion.  WILLIAMS at once started after the Indian, and overtook him in the vicinity of a piece of “Honeycomb swamp.”  Taking advantage of the Indian while off his guard, he shot and killed him.  Then depositing the body in the swamp, he pushed it down into the mud until it sunk out of sight.

            The disappearance of “GEORGE WILSON” created a great sensation among the Senecas, but it was not known until years afterward what had become of him, although the Indians and settlers suspected WILLIAMS as the cause of it.

“BLUE LAW” IN OHIO

            Some years after the organization of Copley township in 1819, one of its citizens, early one Sunday morning, was aroused from his slumbers by the noise of a great commotion in his pig pen.  Hastily donning his clothes, he seized a rifle and rushed out of his cabin just in time to see a bear disappear in the forest with one of his pigs.  He pursued the bear and shot it; whereupon he was brought before the Squire for violating the Sabbath, and fined $1.  Shortly afterward the citizen left that community and joined the Mormons.  The historian does not so state, but if he was prompted to this as a result of the fine imposed for violating the Sabbath, he was so far, perhaps, justified in joining the Mormons, who had no laws against shooting marauding bears on the “Lord’s day.”

A LOTTERY SCHEME

            In 1807 the improvement of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers was the great idea of Northwestern Ohio.  Col. Charles WHITTLESEY gives the following interesting description of a scheme to this end:

            “It was thought that if $12,000 could by some means be raised the channels of those streams could be cleared of logs and trees and the portage path made passable for loaded wagons.  Thus, goods might ascend the Cuyahoga in boats to Old Portage, be hauled seven miles to the Tuscarawas, near New Portage, and thence descend that stream in bateaux.  This great object excited so much attention that the Legislature authorized a lottery to raise the money.”

        The tickets were headed “Cuyahoga and Muskingum Navigation Lottery.”  They were issued in May, 1807, the drawing to take place at Cleveland, the first Monday in January, 1808, or as soon as three-fourths of the tickets were sold.  There were 12,800 tickets at $5 each.  There were to be 3568 prizes, ranging from one capital prize of $5000; two second prizes of $2500 each, down to 3400 at $10.  The drawing never came off.  Many years after, those who had purchased tickets received their money back, without interest.

A DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO

            On the 20th of October, 1837, there passed through Stow township a tornado of great destructive power.  It occurred about three o’clock in the morning, struck the western part of the township, passed north of east, and exhausted itself near the center of the township.  Its roar was terrific, its force tremendous; in its course through heavy timber, every tree within a path forty rods wide was snapped like a pipe-stem.  It was accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning, roaring thunder, and down pouring rain.  It passed over Cochran pond.  The residence of Frederick SANDFORD was torn to fragments, killing his two sons and mother-in-law outright, injuring Mr. SANDFORD so that he died within a few hours, while Mrs. SANDFORD and her daughter escaped severe injury.  Other houses were struck and felled or damaged, but no other deaths resulted.  Farm utensils were twisted and torn to pieces.  Domestic animals killed, as well as fowls and birds; the latter being plucked clean of feathers.

REMARKABLE CASE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

            One of the most remarkable cases of circumstantial evidence occurred in Northfield township.  It came near resulting in the conviction for murder of an innocent man.  The circumstances are quoted from Gen. L. V. BIERCE’s “History of Summit County,” a work valuable for its preservation of pioneer history:

            “An Englishman, named Rupert CHARLESWORTH, who was boarding with Dorsey VIERS in 1826, suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.  He was traced to the cabin of VIERS on the night of the 23d of July, but on the following morning when a constable went there to arrest him, he was gone and no trace of him could be found.  On the arrival of the constable, Mrs. VIERS was found mopping up the floor.  Questions were asked, but Mrs. VIERS told contradictory stories as to the disappearance of the man, alleging in one instance that he jumped out of the window and ran off and could not be caught; and in another, that he left when VIERS was asleep, and the latter knew nothing of his whereabouts.  A few days later some one announced having heard the report of a rifle at VIERS’ cabin the night of the man’s disappearance, and of having seen blood on a pair of bars which led from the cabin to the woods.  Years rolled on, and the excitement grew stronger with age, until, on the 8th of January, 1831, complaint was entered before George Y. WALLACE, Justice of the Peace, that VIERS had murdered CHARLESWORTH.  VIERS was arrested, and a trial of eight days followed.  Not only were the circumstances above narrated proved, but a hired girl who was working for VIERS at the time of the man’s disappearance, swore that a bed blanket used by CHARLESWORTH was missing from the cabin on the day of his departure, and that it was afterward found concealed under a haystack, with large, black spots on it, resembling dried and clotted blood.  It was also proved that CHARLESWORTH had a large amount of money, and that VIERS was, previous to the disappearance of the man, comparatively poor, but immediately afterward was flush with money.  To complete the chain of circumstantial evidence, a human skeleton had been found under a log in the woods, beyond the bars already mentioned.  Matters were in this shape when two men from Sandusky unexpectedly appeared and swore that they had seen CHARLESWORTH alive and well after the time of the supposed murder, though when seen he was passing under an assumed name.  On this testimony VIERS was acquitted; but his acquittal did not change public sentiment as to his guilt.  It was generally believed that the witnesses had been induced to perjure themselves.  VIERS, however, did not let the matter rest at this stage.  He began a vigorous and protracted search for the missing man, and continued it with unwavering perseverance.

            He visited all parts of the Union, and, after a search of years, he one day went into a tavern at Detroit, and in the presence of a large assemblage of men, inquired if any one knew of a man named CHARLESWORTH.  All replied no.  Just as he was about to leave a man stepped up to him, and taking him to one side, inquired if his name was VIERS, from Northfield.  VIERS replied that he was.  The stranger then said, “I am Rupert CHARLESWORTH, but I pass here under an assumed name.”  CHARLESWORTH was informed of all that had taken place, and he immediately volunteered to go to Northfield and have the matter cleared up.  On their arrival a meeting of the township was called, and after a thorough investigation it was the unanimous vote, with one exception, that the man alleged to have been murdered now stood alive before them.  It appears that he had passed a counterfeit ten-dollar bill on Deacon HUDSON, and fearing an arrest, he left the cabin of VIERS suddenly, and soon afterward went to England, where here remained two years, at the end of which time he returned to the United States under an assumed name, and went into the backwoods of Michigan, where his real name, former residence and history were unknown.  The name of the family was thus, almost by accident, cleared of infamy and shame.  This remarkable case is rivaled only by the celebrated case of the BOURNES in Vermont.”

EXPERIENCES OF DAVID BACON, MISSIONARY AND COLONIZER

        Rev. David BACON, the founder of Tallmadge, was born in Woodstock, Conn., in 1771, and died in Hartford, in 1817, at the early age of forty-six years, worn out by excessive labors, privations and mental sufferings, largely consequent upon his financial failure with his colony.  He was the first missionary sent to the Western Indians from Connecticut.  His means were pitifully inadequate; but with a stout heart reliant upon God he started, August 8, 1800, from Hartford, afoot and alone through the wilderness, with no outfit but what he could carry on his back.  At Buffalo creek, now the site of the city of Buffalo, took vessel for Detroit, which he reached September 11, thirty-four days after leaving Hartford, where he was hospitably received by Major HUNT, commandant of the United States garrison there.  After a preliminary survey he returned to Connecticut, and on the 24th of December was married at Lebanon to Alice PARKS, then under eighteen years of age; a week later, on the last day of the last year of the last century, December 31, 1800, he was ordained regularly to the specific work of a missionary to the heathen, the first ever sent out from Connecticut.

            On the 11th of February, 1801, with his young wife, he started for Detroit, going through the wilderness of New York and Canada by sleigh, and arrived there Saturday, May 9.  The bride, before she got out of Connecticut, had a new and painful experience.  They stopped at a noisy country tavern at Canaan.  They were a large company altogether; some drinking, some talking, and some swearing; and this they found was common at all the public-houses.

            Detroit at this time was the great emporium of the fur trade.  The Indian traders were men of great wealth and highly cultivated minds.  Many of them were educated in England and Scotland at the universities, a class to-day in Britain termed “university men.”  They generally spent the winter there, and in the spring returned with new goods brought by vessels through the lakes.  The only Americans in the place were the officers and soldiers of the garrison, consisting of an infantry regiment and an artillery company, the officers of which treated Mr. BACON and family with kindness and respect.  The inhabitants were English, Scotch, Irish and French, all of whom hated the Yankees.  The town was enclosed by cedar pickets about twelve feet high and six inches in diameter, and so close together one could not see through.  At each side were strong gates which were closed and guarded, and no Indians were allowed to come in after sundown or to remain overnight.

            Upon his arrival in Detroit the Missionary Society paid him in all $400; then, until September, 1803, he did not get a cent.  He began his support teaching school, at first with some success; but he was a Yankee, and the four Catholic priests used their influence in opposition.  His young wife assisted him.  They studied the Indian language, but made slow progress, and their prospect for usefulness in Detroit seemed waning.

            On the 19th of February, 1802, his first child was born at Detroit—the afterwards eminent Dr. Leonard BACON.  In the May following he went down into the Maumee country, with a view to establish a mission among the Indians.  The Indians were largely drunk, and he was an unwilling witness to their drunken orgies.  LITTLE OTTER, their chief, received him courteously, called a council of the tribe, and then, to his talk through an interpreter, gave him their decision that they wouldn’t have him.  It was to this effect:

            Your religion is very good, but only for white people; it will not do for Indians.  When the Great Spirit made white people, he put them on another island, gave them farms, tools to work with, horses, horned cattle, and sheep and hogs for them, that they might get their living in that way, and he taught them to read, and gave them their religion in a book.  But when he made Indians he made them wild, and put them on this island in the woods, and gave them the wild game that they may live by hunting.  We formerly had a religion very much like yours, but we found it would not do for us, and we have discovered a much better way.

            Seeing he could not succeed he returned to Detroit.  He had been with them several days, and twice narrowly escaped assassination from the intoxicated ones.  His son, Leonard, in his memoirs of his father, published in the Congregational Quarterly for 1876, and from which this article is derived, wrote:

      Something more than ordinary courage was necessary in the presence of so many drunken and half-drunken Indians, any one of whom might suddenly shoot or tomahawk the missionary at the slightest provocation or at none.  The two instances mentioned by him, in which he was enabled to baffle the malice of savages ready to murder him, remind me of another incident.

            It was while my parents were living at Detroit, and when I was an infant of less than four months, two Indians came as if for a friendly visit; one of them a tall and stalwart young man, the other shorter and older.  As they entered my father met them, gave his hand to the old man, and was just extending it to the other, when my mother, quick to discern the danger, exclaimed, “See! he has a knife.”  At the word my father saw that, while the Indian’s right hand was ready for the salute, a gleaming knife in his left hand was partly concealed under his blanket.

            An Indian, intending to assassinate, waits until his intended victim is looking away from him and then strikes.  My father’s keen eye was fixed upon the murderer, and watched him eye to eye.  The Indian found himself strangely disconcerted.  In vain did the old man talk to my father in angry and chiding tones—that keen black eye was watching the would-be assassin.  The time seemed long.  My mother took the baby [himself] from the birch-bark cradle, and was going to call for help, but when she reached the door she dared not leave her husband.  At last the old man became weary of chiding: the young man had given up his purpose for a time and they retired.

            Failing on the Maumee, Mr. BACON soon after sailed with his little family to Mackinaw.  This was at the beginning of the summer, 1802.  Mackinaw was then one of the remotest outposts of the fur trade and garrisoned by a company of United States troops.  His object was to establish a mission at Abrecroche, about twenty miles distant, a large settlement of Chippewa Indians, but they were no less determined than those on the Maumee that no missionary should live in their villages.  Like those, also, they were a large part of the time drunk from whiskey supplied in abundance by the fur traders in exchange for the proceeds of their hunting excursions.  They had at one time no less than 900 gallon kegs on hand.

            His work was obstructed from the impossibility of finding an interpreter, so he took into his family an Indian lad, through whom to learn the language — his name SINGENOG.  He remained at Mackinaw about two years, but the Indians would never allow him to go among them.  Like the Indians generally they regarded ministers as another sort of conjurors, with power to bring sickness and disease upon them.

            At one time early in October, the second year, 1803, SINGENOG, the young Indian, persuaded his uncle, PONDEGA KAUWAN, a head chief, and two other Chippewa dignitaries, to visit the missionary, and presenting to him a string of wampum, PONDEGA KAUWAN made a very non-committal, dignified speech, to the effect that there was no use of his going among them; that the Great Spirit did not put them on the ground to learn such things as the white people.  If it was not for rum they might listen, “but,” concluded he, “Rum is our Master.”  And later he said to SINGENOG, “Our father is a great man and knows a great deal; and if we were to know so much, perhaps, the Great Spirit would not let us live.”

            After a residence at Mackinaw of about two years and all prospects of success hopeless, the Missionary Society ordered him to New Connecticut, there to itinerate as a missionary and to improve himself in the Indian language, etc.  About the 1st of August, 1804, with his wife and two children, the youngest an infant, he sailed for Detroit.  From thence they proceeded in an open canoe, following the windings of the shore, rowing by day and sleeping on land by night, till having performed a journey of near 200 miles, they reached, about the middle of October, Cleveland, then a mere hamlet on the lake shore.

            Leaving his family at Hudson, he went on to Hartford to report to the Society.  He went almost entirely on foot a distance of about 600 miles, which he wearily trudged much of the way through the mud, slush and snow of winter.  An arrangement was made by which he could act half the time as pastor at Hudson, and the other half travel as a missionary to the various settlements on the Reserve.  On his return, a little experience satisfied him that more could be done than in any other way for the establishment of Christian institutions on the Reserve, by the old Puritan mode of colonizing, by founding a religious colony strong enough and compact enough to maintain schools and public worship.

            An ordinary township, with its scattered settlements and roads at option, with no common central point, cannot well grow into a town.  The unity of a town as a body politic depends very much on fixing a common centre to which every homestead shall be obviously related.  In no other rural town, perhaps, is that so well provided as in Tallmadge.  “Public spirit, local pride,” writes Dr. BACON, “friendly intercourse, general culture and good taste, and a certain moral and religious steadfastness, are among the characteristics by which Tallmadge is almost proverbially distinguished throughout the Reserve.  No observing stranger can pass through the town without seeing it was planned by a sagacious and far-seeing mind.”

            It was fit that he who had planned the settlement, and who had identified with it all his hopes for usefulness for the remainder of his life, and all his hopes of a competence for his family, should be the first settler in the township.  He did not wait for hardier adventurers to encounter the first hardships and to break the loneliness of the woods.  Selecting a temporary location near an old Indian trail, a few rods from the southern boundary of the township, he built the first log cabin, and there placed his family.

       I well remember the pleasant day in July, 1807, when that family made its removal from the centre of Hudson to a new log-house, in a township that had no name and no other human habitation.  The father and mother, poor in this world’s goods, but rich in faith and in the treasure of God’s promises; rich in their well-tried mutual affection; rich in their expectation of usefulness and of the comfort and competence which they hoped to achieve by their enterprise; rich in the parental joy with which they looked upon the three little ones that were carried in their arms or nestled among their scanty household goods in the slow-moving wagon—were familiar with whatever there is in hardship and peril or disappointment, to try the courage of the noblest manhood or the immortal strength of a true woman’s love.  The little ones were natives of the wilderness—the youngest a delicate nursling of six months, the others born in a remoter and more savage West.  These five, with a hired man, were the family.

            I remember the setting out, the halt before the door of an aged friend to say farewell, the fording of the Cuyahoga, the day’s journey of somewhat less than thirteen miles along a road that had been cut (not made) through the dense forest, the little cleared spot where the journey ended, the new log-house, with what seemed to me a stately hill behind it, and with a limpid rivulet winding near the door.  That night, when the first family worship was offered in that cabin, the prayer of the two worshippers, for themselves and their children, and for the work which they had that day begun, was like the prayer that went up of old from the deck of the Mayflower or from beneath the wintry sky of Plymouth.

            One month later a German family came within the limits of the town; but it was not till the next February that a second family came, a New England family, whose mother tongue was English.  Well do I remember the solitude of that first winter, and how beautiful the change was when spring at last began to hang its garlands on the trees.

            The next thing in carrying out the plan to which Mr. BACON had devoted himself was to bring in, from whatever quarter, such families as would enter into his views and would co-operate with him for the early and permanent establishment of Christian order.  It was at the expense of many a slow and weary journey to older settlements that he succeeded in bringing together the families who, in the spring and summer of 1808, began to call the new town their home.  His repeated absences from home are fresh in my memory, and so is the joy with which we greeted the arrival of one family after another coming to relieve our loneliness; nor least among the memories of that time is the remembrance of my mother’s fear when left alone with her three little children.  She had not ceased to fear the Indians, and sometimes a straggling savage, or a little company of them, came by our door on the old portage path, calling, perhaps, to try our hospitality, and with signs or broken English phrases asking for whiskey.  She could not feel that to “pull in the latch-string” was a sufficient exclusion of such visitors; and in my mind’s eye I seem now to see her frail form tugging at a heavy chest, with which to barricade the door before she dared to sleep.  It was, indeed, a relief and joy to feel at last that we had neighbors, and that our town was beginning to be inhabited.  At the end of the second year from the commencement of the survey, there were, perhaps, twelve families, and the town had received its name, “Tallmadge.”

            Slowly the settlement of the town proceeded, from 1807 to 1810.  Emigration from Connecticut had about ceased, owing to the stagnation of business from the European wars, and the embargo and other non-intercourse acts of JEFFERSON’s administration.  Mr. BACON could not pay for the land he had purchased.  He went East to try to make new satisfactory arrangements with the proprietors, leaving behind his wife and five little children.  The proprietors were immovable.  Some of his parishioners felt hard towards him because, having made payments, he could not perfect their titles.  With difficulty he obtained the means to return for his family.  In May, 1812, he left Tallmadge, and all “that was realized after five years of arduous labor was poverty, the alienation of some old friends, the depression that follows a fatal defeat, and the dishonor that falls on one who cannot pay his debts.”  He lingered on a few years, supporting his family by travelling and selling “Scott’s Family Bible” and other religious works, from house to house, and occasional preaching.  He bore his misfortunes with Christian resignation, struggled on a few years with broken spirits and broken constitution, and died at Hartford, August 17, 1817.  “My mother,” said Dr. BACON, “standing over him with her youngest, an infant, in her arms, said to him, ‘Look on your babe before you die.’  He looked up and said, with distinct and audible utterance, ‘The blessing of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, rest upon thee.’  Just before dawn he breathed his last.  ‘Now he knows more than all of us,’ said the doctor; while my mother, bathing the dead face with her tears, and warming it with kisses, exclaimed, ‘Let my last end be like his.’”

            The village of Cuyahoga Falls is four miles northeast of Akron, on the line of the Pennsylvania canal and on the Cuyahoga river.  Manufacturing is already carried on here to a large extent, and the place is perhaps destined to be to the West what Lowell is to the East.  The Cuyahoga has a fall here of more than 200 feet in the distance of two and one half miles, across stratified rocks, which are worn away to nearly this depth in the course of this descent.  In the ravine thus formed are a series of wild and picturesque views, one of which is represented in an engraving on an adjoining page.

     The Indians called Cuyahoga Falls “Coppacaw,” which signifies “shedding tears.”  A Mr. O., an early settler in this region, was once so much cheated in a trade with them that he shed tears, and the Indians ever afterwards called him Coppacaw.

            The village was laid out, in 1837, by Birdseye BOOTH, grew rapidly, and in 1840 was the rival of Akron for the county-seat.  It contains 1 Episcopal, 1 Wesleyan Methodist and 1 Presbyterian church, 1 academy, 7 mercantile stores, 1 bank, 1 insurance office, 4 paper, 2 flouring and 1 saw mill, 2 furnaces, 2 tanneries, 1 fork and scythe, and 1 starch factory, 4 warehouses, and about 1,200 inhabitants.

           

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The view was taken from near the Cleveland road, above the village, at Stow’s quarry.  On the right are seen the Methodist and Episcopal churches, in the centre the American House, and on the left the Cuyahoga river, the lyceum and Presbyterian church.—Old Edition.

            CUYAHOGA FALLS if four and a half miles north of Akron, on the C. A. & C. and P. & W. Railroads.  The Cuyahoga river furnishes abundant water-power for manufacturing purposes.

            City Officers, 1888: John T. JONES, Mayor; Frank T. HEATH, Clerk; George SACKETT, Treasurer; Orlando WILCOX, Solicitor; George W. HART, Street Commissioner; Harry WESTOVER, Marshal.  Newspapers: Home Guest, Home Guest Publishing Company, editors and publishers; Reporter and Western Reserve Farmer, Independent, E. O. KNOX, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Disciples, 1 Episcopal, 1 Congregational, 1 Methodist.

            Manufacturers and Employees.—THOMAS Brothers, stoneware, 21 hands; CAMP & THOMPSON, sewer-pipe, etc., 50; Empire Paper Mill, 24; Phœnix Paper Mills, 14; REEVE & CHESTER, wire, 63; Glen Wire; Manufacturing Co., 16; Sterling Chain and Manufacturing Co., 72; John CLAYTON, carriages; William BARKER, blacksmithing; William BLONG, carriages; C. KITTLEBERGER, tannery, 9; HOOVER & Co., flour, etc.; David HAHN, cooperage; George W. SMITH, planing mill; TURNER, VAUGHN & TAYLOR, machinery, 40; The Falls Rivet Co., 133; American Foundry and Machine Works, 9.—State Report, 1887.

            Population, 1890, 2,614.  School census, 1888, 691; Frederick SCHNEE, superintendent of schools.  Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $150,000.  Value of annual product, $175,000.—Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.

            Cuyahoga Falls has become a great place of resort for summer excursionists, and improved approaches, stairways, etc., have been constructed to make the romantic glens and nooks more accessible to the visiting multitudes.  The High Bridge, Lover’s Retreat, Fern Cave, Observation Rock, Grand Promenade and Old Maid’s Kitchen are some of the features that go to make up the romantic interest of this rock-bound gorge.

            The beautiful Silver Lake is a short distance above Cuyahoga Falls.  It is nearly a mile long and a third of a mile wide.  Steamers ply on the lake.  It is surrounded by woods with picnic grounds, and near it is a railroad station for the accommodation of visiting parties.

 

BIOGRAPHY

            JOHN BROWN, of Osawatomie, was born in Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800.  For three generations his family were devoted to anti-slavery principles.  His father, Owen BROWN, in 1798, took part in the forcible rescue of some slaves claimed by a Virginia clergyman in Connecticut.  At the age of five, John BROWN removed with his parents to Hudson, Ohio.  Until twenty years of age he worked at farming and in his father’s tannery.  He then learned surveying.  Later he removed to Pennsylvania, and was postmaster at Randolph, Pa., under President Jackson.  In 1836 he returned to Ohio; removed to Massachusetts in 1844; in 1849 purchased a farm and removed to Northern New York.

       In 1854 five of his sons removed from Ohio to Kansas, settling near Osawatomie, and their father joined them the following year, for the purpose of aiding the “Free-State Party.”

            The BROWN family was mustered in as Kansas militia by the Free-State Party: their active participation in the Kansas troubles is a part of the history of the Union.

            On the night of Sunday, Oct. 16, 1859, Captain BROWN, with his sixteen men, captured Harper’s Ferry and the United States Arsenal.  The citizens of the town had armed themselves, and penned BROWN and his six remaining men in the engine-house, when, on the evening of the next day, Col. Robert E. LEE arrived with a company of United States Marines.  When BROWN was finally captured, two of his sons were dead, and he was supposed to be mortally wounded.  BROWN was tried in a Virginia court, and sentenced to death by hanging.  One the day of his execution, he handed one of his guards a paper, on which was written the following:

“CHARLESTOWN, VA., Dec. 2, 1859.  I, John BROWN, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.  I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without much blood-shed it might be done.”

            Rev. S. D. PEET, in the “Ashtabula County History,” gives some interesting items.  The means were so out of proportion to the magnitude of the enterprise that most men not acquainted with John Brown believed him to be insane; but to those who knew him; who knew the depth and fervor of his religious sentiments; his unwavering trust in the Infinite; his strong conviction that he had been selected by God as an instrument in his hands to hasten the overthrow of American slavery; to such he seemed inspired rather than insane.  In a conversation I had with him the day he started for Harper’s Ferry, I tried to convince him that his enterprise was hopeless, and that he would only rashly throw away his life.  Among other things, he said, “I believe I have been raised up to work for the liberation of the slave; and while the cause will be best advanced by my life, I shall be preserved; but when that cause will be best served by my death, I shall be removed.”  The result proved that his sublime faith and trust in God enabled him to see what others could not see.  He had so lived that, though dead, “his soul went marching on.”

            SANBORN’s “Life of John BROWN,” published by ROBERTS Brothers, Boston, is the most complete biography of him extant.  We here give, in an original contribution from high authority in this county, some facts in his history not before published.

            John BROWN, of Osawatomie and Harper’s Ferry, spent a large part of his youth in Hudson, and the incidents of his life there throw much light upon his subsequent career.

       Space will permit the record of only a few of the “memorabilia” which might be gathered up.  He was the son of Owen BROWN, a tanner, one of the pioneers of the township; a man of strong character, of many peculiarities, and of the most unquestioned integrity.

            Owen BROWN was an inveterate stammerer and a noted wit.  He could not endure placidly any reference to his infirmity of speech, and was never more witty and caustic in his retorts than when some well-intentioned party sought to help him to the word he was stammering for.  On one occasion when, in answering the question of a stranger, his effort to give a desired word had become painful, the stranger kindly helped him to it; when his answer was, “Ba-Ba-Balaam ha-ha-had an a-a-ss to speak for him too.”

            The stranger rode on without an answer to his question.

            Owen BROWN’s first wife was a Miss Dianthe Lusk, of a large family in Hudson and the neighborhood, in which there was a strong hereditary tendency to insanity.  All the members were peculiar, eccentric, and many of them insane.  John was a son of this first wife, and in early life disclosed the influence of this insane tendency.  He was noted for his pranks and peculiarities, which reverence for the stern government of his father could not suppress.  This government was based upon the rule laid down by Solomon, not to spare the rod; and the old man was as faithful in tanning the hides of his boys as he was in tanning the hides pickled in his vats; and this practice gave John an early opportunity to disclose hs penchant for military tactics.

            When a mere lad, having committed an offence which by sad experience he knew would bring the accustomed chastisement, he repaired to the barn, the well-known place of discipline, and prepared for it by so arranging a plank that one stepping upon it would be precipitated through the floor and upon the pile of agricultural implements stored beneath it; and then, with apparent childish innocence, returned to the house.  Soon the pater familias accused him of the offence, and invited him to an interview in the barn.  After a paternal lecture, responded to by supplications for mercy, and promises “never to do so again,” in obedience to orders he meekly stripped off coat and vest, and, with apparent resignation, submitted himself to the inevitable.  As the first blow was about to fall, he dexterously retreated across the concealed chasm, and the good father was found to be as one “beating the air.”

            The ancient Adam in him was aroused, and leaping forward, with more than usual vigor in his arm, as the cutting blow was about to descend, he stepped upon the treacherous plank and landed upon the plows and harrows below.  John retired from the scene.  With difficulty the father rescued himself from his position, and with bruised and chafed limbs repaired to the house.  John escaped further interviewing for this offence, but tradition is silent as to the cause, whether, before the father’s recovery, the offence was deemed outlawed, or whether his own experience had given him some new ideas as to the effect of the abrasion of a boy’s cuticle.

            Passing over many similar events of his boyhood, his first military campaign should not be omitted.  After reaching his majority and becoming the head of a family, he was the owner of a farm in Northeastern Hudson, upon which there was a mortgage that he was finally unable to raise, and proceedings in court were had for its foreclosure.  BROWN repaired to his neighbor, CHAMBERLAIN; told him he could not keep the farm, and asked him to bid it in.  This he agreed to do and did.  But after the sale was made and deed given, BROWN asked for the privilege of remaining on the premises for a little time as tenant.  The request was granted.  When this time had elapsed he refused to vacate.  Proceedings in ejectment were had, and the officers of the court turned him out of the house.  Upon the withdrawal of the officers he again took possession, barricaded the house, armed his family with shot-guns and rifles, and prepared to hold the fort.  Repeatedly arrested and sued, he responded to the warrant or summons, but left his garrison in possession of the stronghold.  The contest was protracted into the winter, when an heroic scheme, like that of the Russians in burning Moscow, compelled the retreat of our general.  On some real or fictitious charge, warrants were obtained in another township for the arrest of the eccentric garrison.  While the warrants were served some half hundred of CHAMBERLAIN’s friends were ambushed in the immediate neighborhood, and as the officer and his prisoners passed out of sight they took possession of the premises; and as the building was of little value they quickly razed it to the foundations, carried off all material which would suffice even for building a hut, and rendered the place untenable.  When BROWN and his garrison returned, he found a hasty retreat the only alternative.  It was not as disastrous as NAPOLEON’s retreat from Moscow, but it ended the campaign.

            His subsequent experience in wool-growing was not more successful.  Simon PERKINS, then a well-known capitalist of Akron, furnished the capital for the enterprise, and BROWN furnished the brains.  He soon became as enthusiastic over fine-wooled sheep as he afterwards became over the woolly-headed slave and brother, but when the business was closed out, the share contributed to the capital by BROWN was all that remained.

            His experiences in Kansas and at Harper’s Ferry are too well known to need repetition here; but some account of his last visit to Hudson and the neighborhood, just before his invasion of Virginia, is important to a right understanding of his character.  After his trial and conviction in the Virginia court, M. C. READ, an attorney of Hudson, was employed by a brother of John BROWN to take affidavits of parties whom he interviewed just before leaving for Harper’s Ferry, to be laid before Governor WISE, with the hope of obtaining a commutation of his sentence. 

[page 650] It was found that he had approached many persons with solicitations of personal and pecuniary aid, but these approaches were made with great shrewdness and caution.  His real design was masked under a pretended scheme of organizing a western colony.  In discussing this, he adroitly turned the conversation to the subject of slavery; to his work in Kansas; and finally to his divine commission to overthrow the institution of slavery.  His commission was from Jehovah; his success was certain, because it was divinely promised, and divine direction to the employment of the proper means was assured.  Affidavits of these parties were taken, showing the details of the conversation, and giving the opinion of the affiants that BROWN was insane.  They were laid before Governor WISE by C. P. WOLCOTT, then an attorney of Akron, and afterwards Assistant Secretary of War under President LINCOLN.  They produced no effect upon the Governor.

            This unquestioning faith of BROWN in his divine commission and in his promised success, accounts for his undertaking so gigantic a work with such inadequate means.  He had read and believed that the blowing of ram’s horns by the priests, and the shouting of the people with a great shout, had caused the walls of Jericho to fall down, because Jehovah had so ordered it.  He believed that, with a score of men poorly armed, he could conquer the South and overturn its cherished institution, because Jehovah had so ordered it, and had commissioned him for the work.  His faith was equal to that of any of the old Hebrew prophets, but his belief in his divine commission was a delusion, resulting from pre-natal influence and the mental wrench and exhaustion of his Kansas experience.

            The Rev. CHARLES B. STORRS, the first president of the Western Reserve College, was the son of the Rev. Richard S. STORRS, of Long Meadow, Mass., and was born in May, 1794.  He pursued his literary studies at Princeton, and his theological at Andover, after which he journeyed at the South, with the double object of restoring his health and preaching the gospel in its destitute regions.  In 1822 he located himself as a preacher of the gospel at Ravenna.  In his situation he remained, rapidly advancing in the confidence and esteem of the public, until March 2, 1828, when he was unanimously elected professor of Christian theology in the Western Reserve College, and was inducted into his office the 3d of December following.  The institution then was in its infancy.  Some fifteen or twenty students had been collected under the care and instruction of a tutor, but no permanent officers had been appointed.  The government and much of the instruction of the college devolved on him.  On the 25th of August, 1830, he was unanimously elected president, and inaugurated on the 9th of February, 1831.

            In this situation he showed himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him.  Under his mild and paternal, yet firm and decisive administration of government, the most perfect discipline prevailed, while all the students loved and venerated him as a father.  Under his auspices, together with the aid of competent and faithful professors, the institution arose in public estimation, and increased from a mere handful to nearly one hundred students.  For many years he had been laboring under a bad state of health, and on the 26th of June, 1833, he left the institution to travel for a few months for his health.  He died on the 15th of September ensuing, at his brother’s house in Braintree, Mass.  President STORRS was naturally modest and retiring.  He possessed a strong and independent mind, and took an expansive view of every subject that occupied his attention.  He was a thorough student, and in his method of communicating his thoughts to others peculiarly happy.  Though destitute in the pulpit of the tinsel of rhetoric, few men could chain an intelligent audience in breathless silence, by pure intellectual vigor and forcible illustration of truth, more perfectly than he.  Some of his appeals were almost resistless.  He exerted a powerful and salutary influence over the church and community in this part of the country, and his death was deeply felt.—Old Edition.

            REV. DR. HENRY M. STORRS, the eminent Congregational divine, is a son of this the first President of the Western Reserve College.  The father was one of the earliest and strongest to uplift his voice in behalf of the slave; and when he died, the then young but now venerable and deeply-revered WHITTIER paid to his memory the tribute of his humanizing verses: two of these are annexed:

Joy to thy spirit, brother !

  A thousand hearts are warm,—

A thousand kindred bosoms

  Are baring to the storm.

What though red-handed Violence

  With secret Fraud combine !

The wall of fire is round us,

  Our Present Help with thine.

Lo,—the waking up of nations,

  From Slavery’s fatal sleep.—

The murmur of a Universe,—

   Deep calling unto Deep !

  Joy to the spirit, brother !

  On every wind of heaven

The onward cheer and summons

  Of FREEDOM’S VOICE is given.

       DR. LEONARD BACON, whose sketch of his father we have so largely drawn upon, was literally a child of the wilderness.  His long life of usefulness closed at New Haven, Dec. 24, 1881, in his eightieth year.  It had been incessantly devoted to the discussion of questions bearing upon the highest interests of man.  He was a strong, independent thinker, and his writings upon vital topics so largely judicial as to carry conviction to the leading minds of the nation.  Abraham LINCOLN ascribed to a volume of Dr. BACON on slavery his own clear and comprehensive convictions on that subject.  Leonard BACON did more than any man who has lived in making clear to the popular apprehension, and in perpetuating to the knowledge of the coming generations the simple domestic virtues of the fathers; the religious and political principles which governed them, and gave to the American people their strongest, all-conquering element.  In his Half-century sermon, preached in New Haven, March 9, 1875, Dr. BACON gave an eloquent description of his boy-life here in Summit county, when all around was in the wilderness of untamed nature:

            “I think to-day of what God’s providence has been for three and seventy years.  I recall the first dawning of memory and the days of my early childhood in the grand old woods of New Connecticut, the saintly and self-sacrificing father, the gentle yet heroic mother, the log-cabin from whose window we sometimes saw the wild deer bounding through the forest-glades, the four dear sisters whom I helped to tend, and whom it was my joy to lead in their tottering infancy—yes, God’s providence was then ever teaching me.

            “Our home life, the snowy winter, the blossoming spring, the earth never ploughed before and yielding the first crop to human labor, the giant trees, the wild birds, the wild flowers, the blithesome squirrels, the wolves which we heard howling through the woods at night but never saw, the red-skin savage sometimes coming to the door—by these things God was making impressions on my soul that must remain forever, and without which I should not have been what I am.”

            A daughter of David BACON, DELIA, was born at Tallmadge, February 2, 1811, and the next year she was taken with the family to Connecticut.  Her early life was a bitter struggle with poverty, but she became a highly-educated and brilliant woman in the realms of ideality; was a teacher and lecturer, and published “Tales of the Puritans” and “The Bride of Fort Edward,” a drama.

            A published account of her states that her chief delight was to read SHAKESPEARE’s plays and his biographies.  The idea at length grew upon her that the plays were the work of the brilliant Elizabethan coterie and not of the actor and manager, SHAKESPEARE.  In opposition to the wishes of her family, she went to London in 1853 to publish her work on the subject.  This she at last accomplished, chiefly through the marked kindness of HAWTHORNE, then Consul at Liverpool, who was willing to listen to her argument, but never accepted it.  HAWTHORNE’s letters to her have a beautiful delicacy, though she must have tried his patience frequently, and sometimes repaid his generosity with reproaches.  Her book, a large octavo, never sold.  The edition is piled up in London today.  CARLYLE took some interest in Miss BACON, who came to him with a letter from EMERSON.  CARLYLE’s account of her EMERSON is as follows:

            “As for Miss BACON, we find her, with her modest, shy dignity, with her solid character and strange enterprise, a real acquisition, and hope we shall see more of her now that she has come nearer to us to lodge.  I have not in my life seen anything so tragically quixotic as her SHAKESPEARE enterprise.  Alas!  alas!  there can be nothing but sorrow, toil and utter disappointment in it for her!  I do cheerfully what I can, which is far more than she asks of me (for I have not seen a prouder silent soul); but there is not the least possibility of truth in the notion she has taken up, and the hope of ever proving it or finding the least document that countenances it is equal to that of vanquishing the windmills by stroke of lance.  I am often truly sorry about the poor lady; but she troubles nobody with her difficulties, with her theories; she must try the matter to the end, and charitable souls must further her so far.”