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 History of Summit County

 
Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. II
Henry Howe, C. J. Krehbiel & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 1888 p 625-656
Holding Institution; Akron Public Library, Main, Special Collections

 

SUMMIT COUNTY

       SUMMIT COUNTY was erected from Portage, Medina and Stark, March 3, 1840.  It derived its name from having the highest land on the line of the Ohio canal, originally called “the Portage Summit.”  Along the Cuyahoga it is uneven and hilly; elsewhere level or undulating.  It has immense beds of bituminous coal and fine clay.  The soil is fertile and produces excellent fruit.  The principal productions are wheat, corn, hay, oats, cheese, butter, potatoes and fruit.

            Area about 420 square miles.  In 1887 the acres cultivated were 105,569; in pasture, 56,992; woodland, 23,513; lying waste, 4,343; produced in wheat, 552,269 bushels; rye, 1,121; buckwheat, 241; oats, 581,260; barley, 600; corn, 451,232; meadow hay, 26,082 tons; clover hay, 16,245; potatoes, 124,424 bushels; butter, 657,527 lbs.; cheese, 1,011,957; maple syrup, 14,944 gallons; honey, 3,903 lbs.; eggs, 345,814 dozen; grapes, 39,820 lbs.; wine, 349 gallons; sweet potatoes, 200 bushels; apples, 75,006; peaches, 8,990; pears, 2,067; wool, 86,801 lbs.; milch cows owned, 11,501.  Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888.—Coal mined, 112,024 tons, employing 231 miners and 40 outside employees; fire clay, 3,000 tons.  School census, 1888, 15,339; teachers, 379.  Miles of railroad track, 154.

[page 626]       Population of Summit in 1840, 22,469; 1860, 27,344; 1880, 43,788; of whom 29,198 were born in Ohio; 3,354, Pennsylvania; 1,644, New York; 182 Indiana; 124, Virginia; 42, Kentucky; 2,081, England and Wales; 2,275, German Empire; 1,321, Ireland; 499, British America; 207, Scotland; 200, France; and 109 Sweden and Norway.  Census, 1890, 54,089.

            Summit county is the centre of a region that for a radius of about forty miles differs from any other in the State in the existence of a number of natural lakes, such as Silver, Congress, Myers, Springfield, Long, Summit, Turkey Foot, Chippewa, etc.  The origin of these lakes was glacial, and they were formed during the same era that produced the varied natural formations peculiar to the region in the vicinity of Cuyahoga Falls.  This region is one of great interest to geologists, and furnishes opportunity for study and research as to the forces producing the external formation of the State.

            Here, at one of the highest points of the State, the dividing ridge separates, with but a few miles between them, the Cuyahoga, flowing north to Lake Erie, and the Tuscarawas, whose waters, through the Muskingum, reach the Ohio river.  During the occupation of the Indians the region had many important advantages for the red men.  It could be reached from the lake in canoes, and by carrying their birch-bark canoes seven miles, navigation was clear to the Ohio river.  Fish and game were plentiful.  OLD PORTAGE, at the head of navigation on the Cuyahoga, became a trading-post for whites and Indians.  It was a recognized landmark in the western boundary line of the United States, in the treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1798.  In the war of 1812 it was the rendezvous of the troops furnished by the Western Reserve.

            The old Indian PORTAGE PATH was part of the ancient boundary between the Six Nations and the Western Indians.  Its exact course is thus described with reference to present sites.

            It left the Cuyahoga at the village of Old Portage, about three miles north of Akron.  It went up the hill westward about half a mile to the high ground, where it turned southerly and ran about parallel with the canal to near the Summit lake; there took the low ground nearly south to the Tuscarawas, which it struck a mile or two above the New Portage.  The whole length of the path was, by the survey of Moses WARREN, in 1797, 8 miles, 4 chains and 55 links.

            The First Settlement made in this county was at Hudson, in the year 1800, by Mr. David HUDSON, the history of which we derive from a series of articles written by Rev. J. SEWARD, and published about the year 1835 in the Hudson Observer.

            In the division of the Western Reserve among the proprietors, the townships of Chester and Hudson fell to the lot of Birdsey NORTON and David HUDSON.

            Dangerous Travelling.—In the year 1799 Mr. HUDSON came out to explore his land in company with a few others.  On the way he fell in with Benj. TAPPAN, since judge, then travelling to his town of Ravenna.  They started in his boat from Gerondigut bay, on Lake Ontario, early in May, and soon overtook Elias HARMON, since judge, in a boat with his wife, bound to Mantua.  On arriving at Niagara, they found the river full of ice.  They had their boats conveyed around the falls, and proceeded on their dangerous way amidst vast bodies of floating ice, having some of the men on the shore pulling by ropes until out of danger from the current of the Niagara.  Arrived at the mouth of the lake, they found it full of floating ice as far as the eye could reach, and were compelled to wait several days ere they could proceed, which they then did along near the shore.  When off Ashtabula county, their boats were driven ashore in a storm, and that of Mr. HARMON’s stove in pieces; he proceeded from thence by land to Mantua.  Having purchased and in a manner repaired HARMON’s boat, Mr. HUDSON shipped his effects in it, and they arrived at Cleveland on the 8th of June.

[page 627]       Locating a Township.—Morse’s Geography having given them about all the knowledge of the Cuyahoga that they possessed, they supposed it capable of sloop navigation to its forks.  The season being dry, they had proceeded but a few miles when they found it in places only eight or ten inches deep, and were often obliged to get out, join hands, and drag their boats over the shallow places, and made but slow progress.  After a lapse of several days, they judged they were in the latitude of the town of which they were in search.  Mr. HUDSON went ashore and commenced hunting for a surveyor’s line much too far north, and it was not until after six days’ laborious and painful search that he discovered, towards night, a line which led to the southwest corner of his township.  The succeeding day being very rainy he lodged under an oak tree, without any covering except the clothes he wore, with the grateful pleasure of resting on his own land.  In the morning he returned highly elated to the boats and gave information of his success.

            Driving Cattle Through the Wilderness.—While in Ontario, New York, TAPPAN bought a yoke of oxen, and HUDSON two yoke and two cows.  These eight cattle they committed in the care of MEACHAM, a hired man in TAPPAN’s service, who brought them safely on the Indian trail through Buffalo, until they found near the lake the west line of the seventh range on the Reserve.  This line, it being the east line of the towns now named Painsville, Concord, Chardon, Monson, Newburg, Auburn, Mantua, Shalersville and Ravenna, they followed due south more than forty miles, crossing the Grand and Cuyahoga rivers, and striking the Salt Spring Indian trail near the southeastern corner of Ravenna.  They followed this trail westwardly until they came to the new line recently made by HUDSON and TAPPAN, which they followed to the spot where the boats were lying on the Cuyahoga, in Boston.

            The difficulties encountered by these men in driving this small drove about three hundred miles on an obscure, crooked Indian path, and in following town lines through swamps, rivers and other obstacles fifty miles farther, almost through an uninhabited wilderness, were appalling; and what rendered their circumstances truly unpleasant, and in some cases hazardous, was that they were strangers to the country and without a guide.  Their mode of travelling was to have several bags of flour and pork, together with two blankets and an axe, well secured on the backs of the oxen.  They waded fordable streams and compelled their cattle to swim those that could not be forded, passing across those streams themselves with their provisions on rafts hastily made of sticks.

            Vicious Flies.—Mr. HUDSON’s company being thus collected, his first care, after making yokes for his oxen, was to open some road to his land.  The gullies they crossed were numerous and frequent and often abrupt to an angle of forty-five degrees or more.  On this road, bad as it was, they performed all their transportrtion in the year 1799, while their oxen were tormented and rendered almost unmanageable by immense swarms of large flies, which displayed such skill in the science of phlebotomy, that, in a short time, they drew out a large share of the blood belonging to these animals; the flies actually killed one of TAPPAN’s oxen this season.

            After having conveyed their small stock of provisions on the southwest corner of this town and erected a bark hut, Mr. HUDSON’s anxiety became very great lest he and his company should suffer for want of provisions, his stock being very much reduced in consequence of the Indians having robbed his boat.  Not hearing from LACEY, a man he had left behind in Western New York to bring on stores, and dreading the consequences of waiting for him any longer, Mr. HUDSON started to meet him.  Taking a boat at Cleveland, which was providentially going down the lake, on the 2d of July he found LACEY lying at his ease near Cattaraugus.  With difficulty he there obtained some provisions, and having a prosperous voyage arrived in season, to the joy of those left in the wilderness, who must have been put upon short allowance had his arrival been delayed any longer.

            Difficulty of Obtaining Provisions.—The company being thus furnished with provisions, they built a large log-house.  Mr. HUDSON also set his men to work in clearing a piece of land for wheat, and on the 25th of July he commenced surveying.  The settlement now consisted of thirteen persons.  In August every person except Mr. HUDSON had a turn of being unwell.  Several had the fever and ague, and in the progress of surveying the town into lots, the party frequently had to wait for some one of their number to go through with a paroxysm of ague and then resume their labors.  By the middle of September they found to their surprise they had only nine days’ provision o hand; and as Mr. HUDSON had heard nothing from his agent, NORTON, at Bloomfield, New York, he was once more alarmed lest they should suffer for want of food.

            He immediately went to Cleveland and purchased of Lorenzo CARTER a small field of corn for $50, designing to pound it in mortars and live thereon in case of necessity.  He hastened back to his station and having previously heard that Ebenezer SHELDON had made a road through the wilderness to Aurora, and that there was a bridle-path thence to Cleveland, he thought it probable that he might obtain pork for present necessity from that quarter.  He accordingly set out on foot and alone, and regulated his course by the range of his shadow, making allowance for change in the time of day.  He found the Cleveland path near the centre of Aurora, then a dense forest.  Thence he proceeded about two and a half miles to Squire SHELDON’s cabin, and on inquiring found that he could obtain no provisions within a reasonable distance in that direction.  The next morning, on his return, he found that the boat had arrived with an ample supply of provisions.

[Page 629]       A Perilous Voyage.—Having completed his surveying on the 11th of October, Mr. HUDSON left on the next day for Connecticut, to bring out his family, in company with his little son and two men.  Being disappointed in not finding a good boat at Cleveland, he took the wreck of one he had purchased of HARMON, and embarked upon the dangerous enterprise of crossing the lake in it. It was so leaky that it required one hand most of the time to bail out the water, and so weak that it bent considerably in crossing the waves.  During their passage, the weather was generally cold and boisterous; three different times they narrowly escaped drowning by reason of the darkness of the night or violence of the wind.  Being under the necessity of lying five days on Chatague point, they lived comfortably during that time on boiled chestnuts, in order to lengthen out their small stock of provisions.  Arrived at Goshen, Conn., Mr. HUDSON found his family in health, and by the 1st of January, 1800, was in readiness to leave his native State with all its tender associations.  “Thus,” says he, “ends the eventful year 1799, filled with many troubles, out of all of which hath the Lord delivered me.”

            Harrowing Uncertainty.—Having taken an affecting farewell of his friends and acquaintances, whom he had left behind, Mr. HUDSON set out from Goshen in January, with his family and others.  They tarried at Bloomfield, Ontario county, New York, until spring, making preparations for their voyage through the lakes and up the Cuyahoga.  They purchased four boats, from one to two tons’ burden, and repaired thoroughly the wreck of HARMON’s boat.  Lightly loading them with supplies to the value of about two thousand dollars, they completed every necessary preparation by the 29th of April.

            “The next night,” said Mr. HUDSON, “while my dear wife and six children, with all my men, lay soundly sleeping around me, I could not close my eyes, for the reflection that those men and women, with almost all that I held dear in life, were now to embark in an expedition in which so many chances appeared against me; and should we survive the dangers in crossing the boisterous lakes, and the distressing sickness usually attendant on new settlements, it was highly probably that we must fall before the tomahawk and scalping-knife.  As I knew at that time no considerable settlement had been made but what was established in blood, and as I was about to place all those who lay around me on the extreme frontier, and as they would look to me for safety and protection, I almost sunk under the immense weight of responsibility resting on me.  Perhaps my feelings on this occasion were a little similar to those of the patriarch, when expecting to meet his hostile brother.  But after presenting my case before Israel’s God, and committing all to his care, I cheerfully launched out the next morning upon the great deep.”

            The crews of their boats consisted of Samuel BISHOP and his four sons, David, Reuben, Luman and Joseph, Joel GAYLORD, Heman OVIATT, Moses THOMPSON, Allen GAYLORD, Stephen PERKINS, Joseph and George DARROW, William M’KINLEY, and three men from Vermont by the names of DERRICK, WILLIAMS and SHEFFORD.  The women in the company were the wives of Messrs. HUDSON, BISHOP and NOBLES, with Miss Ruth GAYLORD and Miss Ruth BISHOP.  The six children of Mr. HUDSON completed the number.

            They had little trouble until they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga.  The wind on that day being rather high, Mr. HUDSON, in attempting to enter the river with his boat, missed the channel and struck on a sandbar.  In this very perilous situation the boat shipped several barrels of water, and himself and all his family must have been drowned had not a mountain wave struck the boat with such violence as to float it over the bar.  When up the river, within about two miles of their landing-place, they stopped for the night a little north of Northfield, at a locality now known as The Pinery.

            Waiting for the Fall of the Waters.—A tremendous rain in the night so raised the river by daybreak that it overflowed the bank whereon they slept, and even their beds were on the point of floating.  Everything was completely drenched, and they were compelled to wait five days ere the subsiding waters would allow them to force their boats against the current.  On the sixth day, May 28th, they reached their landing-place, from whence Mr. HUDSON, leaving his wife and children, hurried to see the people whom he had left overwinter and whom he found well.

            About the time they completed their landing, Elijah NOBLE arrived with the cattle and Mr. HUDSON’s horse, which had been driven from Ontario by nearly the same route that the cattle were the preceding year.

            Being busy in arranging for them, Mr. HUDSON did not take his horse to the river to bring up his family for several days.  When he arrived, he found his wife, who had cheerfully submitted to all the inconveniences hitherto experienced, very much discouraged.  She and the children suffered severely from the armies of gnats and mosquitoes which at this season of the year infest the woods.  After all the persons belonging to the settlement had collected, thanksgiving was rendered to the God of mercy, who had protected them in perils, preserved their lives and brought them safely to their place of destination.  Public worship on the Sabbath was resumed, it having been discontinued during the absence of Mr. Hudson.  “I felt,” said he, “in some measure the responsibility resting on first settlers, and their obligations to commence in that fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom, and to establish those moral and religious habits on which the temporal and eternal happiness of a people essentially depends.”

 [630]    Mr. David HUDSON died March 17, 1836, aged 75 years, leaving a memory revered, and an example of usefulness well worthy of imitation.

            Hudson in 1846.—Hudson is twenty-four miles from Cleveland and thirteen northeast of Akron, on the stage road from Cleveland to Pittsburg.  It contains two Congregational, one Episcopal and one Methodist church, four stores, one newspaper printing-office, two female seminaries, and about 600 inhabitants.  The village is handsomely situated and neatly built, and the tone of society elevated, which arises in a great measure from its being the seat of the Western Reserve College.

            The college buildings are of brick, and situated upon a beautiful and spacious green, in an order similar to the edifices of Yale, on which institution this is also modeled, and of which several of its professors are graduates.  The annexed view was taken near the observatory, a small structure shown on the extreme right.  The other buildings are, commencing with that nearest—south college, middle college, chapel, divinity hall, president’s house, athenæum, and a residence of one of the professors, near the roadside, nearly in front of the athenæum.

            The Medical College at Cleveland is connected with this institution.  By the catalogue of 1846-7, the whole number of professors and instructors in the college was 19; the whole number of students 320, viz., 14 in the theological department; 216 in the medical department; 71 undergraduates and 19 preparatory.—Old Edition.

            The college, while at Hudson, did a great work in the cause of education; its professors were largely graduates of Yale, some of whom attained national reputation, but it always was financially a struggling institution, and the salaries of its officers pitifully meagre.  In consequence of an offer of half a million of dollars from Amasa STONE, the college was removed to Cleveland in 1882, and its classical department then named ADELBERT COLLEGE, in memory of Mr. STONE’s “lost and lamented son.”

            The old college buildings are now occupied by the WESTERN RESERVE ACADEMY, which is for the education of both sexes.  It was established in 1882 under the charter of the old college, which now comprises “Adelbert College” and “College for Women,” at Cleveland.  It is maintained by and is under the direction of the trustees of Adelbert College, and has an annual income of $3,000.

            The academy is under the charge of Prof. Newton B. HOBART.  The site is beautiful, comprising about thirty acres of land.  It began with a higher standard than that of any other preparatory school in the State and its reputation is of the highest.  In the eight years of its existence it has had about 400 students from fifteen different States, of whom 111 have graduated and 79 entered varied colleges, as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Amherst, Adelbert, Cleveland College for Women, Ann Arbor, etc.

[631]    HUDSON is twelve miles north of Akron and twenty-six southeast of Cleveland, on the junction of the C. & P. and C. A. & C. Railroads.

            City Officers, 1888: H. B. FOSTER, Mayor; E. E. ROGERS, Clerk; S. MILLER, Treasurer; L. E. REED, Marshal.  Newspaper: Express, Independent, D. B. SHERWOOD & Son, editors and publishers.  Churches: 1 Congregational, 1 Catholic, 1 Episcopal, 1 Methodist.  School census, 1888, 263.  C. F. SEESE, superintendent of schools.

            The celebration of the ninetieth birthday anniversary of Mrs. Anna M. HUDSON BALDWIN was held in the Congregational Church at Hudson, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1890.  From the programme of the commemoration exercises we derive these items:

            Her father, David HUDSON, the founder of the town, was a direct descendant of Hendrick HUDSON, who discovered the Hudson river in 1609.  Hendrick named his youngest son David, and he was the sixth David in that line.  He was born at Branford, Connecticut, July 17, 1760.  His daughter, Anna, was the first while child born in Summit county.  This event took place in a hut of a single room, which stood at what is now the junction of Baldwin with Main street.

            First Things, wheeled, arrived in March, 1802; log school-house, 1802; first burial in old cemetery, mother of John BROWN, 1808; Congregational Church formed September 4, 1802, David BACON, pastor, 1804 to 1807; first tannery opened by Owen BROWN, father of John, 1805; college opened, 1826; removed to Cleveland 1882, and Western Reserve Academy organized; town celebrations, June 18, 1850 and 1856, and October 28, 1890.

            At this celebration the president was Geo. L. STARR; the historical address by S. A. LANE, of Akron, the county historian; and another, “First ninety years of the century,” by Hon. J. C. LEE, Toledo.

             Akron in 1846.—The large and flourishing town of Akron, the county-seat, is on the Portage summit of the Ohio canal, at the junction of the Pennsylvania canal, 36 miles from Cleveland and 110 northeast of Columbus.  The name of this town is derived from a Greek word signifying an elevation.  Akron was laid out in 1825, where south Akron now is.  In the fall of the same year, the Irish laborers on the Ohio canal put up about 100 cabins.  South Akron grew rapidly for a few years; but in 1832 some buildings were put up half a mile farther north, and business in a short time centered here.  In 1827 the Ohio canal was finished from Cleveland to this place.  In 1841 Akron was made the county-seat of the new county of Summit.  The same year the canal connecting Akron with Beaver, Pa., was opened, and a new impetus given to the town by these advantages.

            Akron contains 1 Episcopal, 1 Congregational, 1 Baptist, 1 Methodist, 1 Disciples, 1 Universalist, 1 German Lutheran, and 1 Catholic church, 20 mercantile stores, 10 grocery, 4 drug and 2 book stores, 4 woollen factories, 2 blast and 3 small furnaces, 1 carding machine manufactory, 5 flouring mills, 1 insurance company, 1 bank, 2 newspaper printing-offices, and a great variety of mechanical establishments.  The mercantile business of this town is heavy and constantly increasing, and immense quantities of wheat are purchased.  The water privileges here are good, and manufacturing will eventually be extensively carried on.  In 1827 its population was about 600; in 1840 it was 1,664, since which it is estimated to have doubled.  Two miles south of Akron is Summit lake, a beautiful sheet of water on the summit of the Ohio canal.  Part of its waters find their way to the St. Lawrence, and part to the Gulf of Mexico.—Old Edition.

            A resident of Akron has given us some facts respecting the settlement of the country, and one or two anecdotes, which we annex.

           In 1811 Paul WILLIAMS, Amos and Minor SPICER came from New London, Conn., and settled in the vicinity of Akron, at which time there was no other white settlement between here and Sandusky.  We give an anecdote of Minor SPICER, who is still living at Akron.  In the late war, one night just before retiring, he heard some one call in front of his house, and went out and saw a large Indian with two rifles in his hand, and a deer quartered and hung across his horse.  SPICER inquired what he wanted.  The Indian replied in his own dialect, when the other told him he must speak English, or he would unhorse him.  He finally gave them to understand that he wished to stay over night, a request that was reluctantly granted.  His rifles were placed in a corner, his venison hung up, and his horse put into a large pig-stye, the only stable attached to the premises.

            The Indian cut out a piece of venison for Mrs. SPICER to cook for him, which she did in the usual way, with a liberal quantity of pepper and salt.  He drew up to the table and eat but a mouthful or two.  The family being ready to retire, he placed his scalping-knife and tomakawk in the corner with his rifles, and stretched himself upon the hearth before the fire.  When he supposed the family were asleep, he raised himself slowly from his reclining position and sat upright on the hearth, looking stealthily over his shoulder to see if all was still.  He then got upon his feet and stepped lightly across the floor to his implements of death.  At this juncture the feelings of SPICER and his wife may be well imagined, for they were only feigning sleep and were intently watching.  The Indian again stood for a moment, to see if he had awakened any one, then slowly drew from its scabbard the glittering scalping-knife.  At this moment SPICER was about putting his hand upon his rifle, which stood by his bed, to shoot the Indian, but concluded to wait further demonstration, which was an entirely different one from what he had anticipated, for the Indian took hold and cut a piece of his venison, weighing about two pounds, and laying it on the live coals until it was warmed through, devoured it and went to sleep.  Mrs. SPICER’s cooking had not pleased him, being seasoned too high.  The day before he and his father lost themselves in the woods, and after covering his parent, under a log, with his blanket, he had wandered until he saw SPICER’s light. 

            James BROWN, or, as he was commonly called, “Jim BROWN,” was one of the early settlers in the north part of the county.  He was known throughout the country as the head of a notorious band of counterfeiters.  Few men have pursued the business so long without being convicted.  Aside from this he was to a certain extent respected, for he had the externals of a gentleman in his conversation and address, and had many friends.  He was a fine-looking man, over six feet in height, with a keen penetrating eye.  He even held the office of justice of the peace when last arrested.  He had often been tried before, and as often escaped.  Once he was sentenced to the penitentiary from Medina, and the sheriff had nearly reached Columbus, when he was overtaken with a writ of error and set at liberty.  It is said that large numbers of young men have been drawn into his schemes from time to time, and thereby found their way to the penitentiary.  Many anecdotes are related of him.

            He and a brother and one TAYLOR once supplied themselves with counterfeit paper and proceeded to New Orleans, where they purchased a ship with it and set sail for China, intending to make large purchases there with counterfeit notes on the United States bank.  A discovery, however, was made, and they were apprehended before they had got out of the river, and brought back for trial, but he escaped by turning State’s evidence.  He escaped so often that it was said he could not be convicted.  However, in 1846, he was taken the last time, tried at Columbus, and sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years.  When first arrested, he said, “Well, boys, now the United States have taken hold of me, I may get floored; but I could have worried out a county.”

            AKRON, county-seat of Summit, about one hundred and ten miles northeast of Columbus, about thirty miles south of Cleveland, is an important manufacturing city, sewer pipe and stoneware being noted interests.  It is the seat of BUCHTEL COLLEGE.  Its railroads are: N. Y., P. & O.; C. A. & C.; Valley; and P. & W.  It is also on the Ohio canal.

            County Officers, 1888: Auditor, Charles W. F. DICK; Clerk, Othello W. HALE; Commissioners, King J. ELLET, Washington G. JOHNSTON, Charles C. HINE; Coroner, Albert H. SARGENT; Infirmary Directors, Stephen D. MILLER, Joseph MOORE, Eli SMITH; Probate Judge, Charles R. GRANT; Prosecuting Attorney, George W. SIEBER; Recorder, Henry C. Searles; Sheriff, David R. BUNN; Surveyor, Charles E. PERKINS; Treasurer, James H. SEYMOUR.  City Officers, 1888: Louis D. SEWARD, Mayor; Dayton A. DOYLE, Solicitor; Newton FORD, Clerk; Arthur M. COLE, Treasurer; Simon M. STONE, Marshal; W. D. CHAPMAN, Civil Engineer, Henry ACKER, Street Commissioner; B. F. MANDERBACH, Chief Fire Department.  Newspapers: Beacon, Republican, Beacon Publishing Co., editors and publishers; Telegram, Independent, F. S. PIXLEY, editor; Germania, German Independent, Germania Publishing Company, editors and publishers; City Times, Democratic, F. S. PIXLEY, editor; Freie Presse, German, Freie Presse Publishing Company; American Farm News, AUTLMAN, MILLER & Co., publishers; Ohio Educational Monthly and National Teacher, educational, Samuel FINDLAY, editor.  Churches: 1 Baptist, 1 Congregational, 2 Christian, 1 Hebrew, 1 Evangelical, 2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Universalist, 1 German Lutheran, 1 German Reformed, 1 Reformed, 2 Catholic, 1 Episcopal, 1 Lutheran, 1 United Brethren, 1 African Methodist Episcopal.  Banks: Bank of Akron, George W. CROUSE, president, George T. PERKINS, cashier; Citizens’ Savings and Loan Association, E. STEINBACHER, president, W. B. RAYMOND, cashier; City National, J. B. WOODS, president, F. W. BUTLER, cashier; First National, T. W. CORNELL, president, W. McFARLIN, cashier; Second National, George D. BATES, president, A. N. SANFORD, cashier.

    Manufactures and Employees.—AULTMAN, MILLER & Co., harvesting machinery, 605 hands; J. F. SEIBERLING & Co., harvesting machinery, 256; The J. C. MCNEIL Co., steam boilers, etc., 32; Akron Twine and Cordage Co., twine an cordage, 60; TAPLIN, RICE & Co., stoves and general machine work, 16; F. SCHUMACHER Milling Co., flour, etc., 276; Citizens’ Electric Light Co., 6; D. W. THOMAS, planing mill, 24; The Hower Co., oat products, 20; ALLEN & Co., flour and feed, 17; J. Park ALEXANDER, fire-brick, 20; W. B. DOYLE & Co., planing mill, 10; BAKER, McMILLEN & Co., wood-turning, etc., 98; A. A. BARTLETT, planing mil, 13; DEMPSEY Machine Co., general machine work, 12; D. E. H. MERRILL & Co., stone-ware, 49; Enterprise Manufacturing Co., hardware specialties, 35; The Hardware Manufacturing Co., hardware specialties, 17; The Thomas PHILLIPS Co., flour sacks, 50; Christian VOGHT, carriages and wagons, 10; The B. F. GOODRICH Co., mechanical and hard rubber, 260; The Akron Cracker Co., crackers and cakes, 14; WEARY, SNYDER, WILCOX Manufacturing Co., planing mill and box factory, 25; WEBSTER, CAMP & LANE Machinery Co., hoisting machinery, etc., 135; The Akron Belting Co., leather belting, 25; WERNER Printing and Manufacturing Co., lithographing, printing, etc., 140; The Beacon Publishing Co., printing and book-binding, 36; Akron Contracting and Cabinet Co., builders’ supplies, etc., 25; SMITH Brothers, druggists’ supplies, etc., 24; The Akron Iron Co., bar iron, etc., 412; C. A. HANKEY, planing mill, 15; The Diamond Match Co., matches, 664; WHITMAN and BARNS Manufacturing Co., knives and sickles, 286; MILLER Match and Chain Co., matches and chains, 138; J. C. EWART & Co., roofing tile, etc., 70; The SELLE Gear Co., spring wagons and truck gears, 46; The Buckeye Sewer-pipe Co., sewer-pipe, 40; The HILL Sewer-pipe Co., sewer-pipe, 45; WHITMORE, ROBINSON & Co., stoneware, etc., 129; The SEIBERLING Milling Co., flour and feed, 23; The Akron Fire-brick Co., fire-brick, 8; T. C. BUDD, machine and foundry work, 7; Akron Steam Forge Co., iron and steel forging, 23; F. HORIX, lager beer, 12; ROBINSON Brothers & Co., sewer-pipe, 70; WEEKS Brothers, stoneware, 31; VIALL & MARKELL, stoneware, 25; COOK, FAIRBANKS & Co., stoneware, 23; Akron Stoneware Co., stoneware, 43; F. W. ROCKWELL & Co., stoneware, 20; The Ohio Stoneware Co., stoneware, 32.—State Report, 1888.

            Population in 1880, 16,512.  School census, 1888, 7,707; Elias FRANNFELTER, school superintendent.  Capital invested in industrial establishments, $7,202,000.  Value of annual product, $7,487,369.—Ohio Labor Statistics, 1887.   Census, 1890, 27,702.

            Akron’s Sewer-pipe Industry is famed throughout the whole country.  The sewer-pipe has been in use in many cities for years and only gains added reputation by the test of time.  It is manufactured in large quantities by skilled labor and powerful machinery.  It is thoroughly vitrified and impervious to acids, gases or steam.  The glaze being formed from the action of the vapors of salt upon the clay at a high temperature is not liable to scale or cut off by sewer gas, as is sometimes the case when a slip glaze of foreign substances is applied to the clay.

    Of the clay beds which supply the material for Akron’s sewer-pipe Dr. ORTON says: “The potters’ clays of Springfield township, Summit county, are among the best natural beds of stoneware clay in the State.  The clay deposits are from six to ten feet thick, overlain by shales and a hard sand-rock, and underlain by shales and occasionally by an inch or two of coal.  The clays are of several grades of excellence; the poorest, or ‘chuck’ clay, which is commonly rejected, is found on the top of the bed.  The beds are found close to the surface in the largest part of the territory.  They are mined by long pits or trenches by which the whole area worked is taken clean and the refuse is piled back.  In one or two instances the clays are mined by drifting, which gives a much cleaner product than the customary way.  The district in which these clays are found is small, all the workings being at one place, viz., North Springfield, Summit county, where there are twelve or fifteen banks.  They supply all the Mogadore, Tallmadge, Cuyahoga Falls and Akron stoneware potteries, which make at least twice as much stoneware as any other district in Ohio."

            Akron has another industry—the MATCH INDUSTRY—which is almost as widely known as its famous sewer-pipe.  One-fifth of the entire match product of the United States is made by one concern in Akron.  The BARBER Match Company was established in 1847 by George BARBER, and became by consolidation a branch of the Diamond Match Company in 1881.

            The Akron branch of this concern use annually in the manufacture of matches 3,000,000 feet of white pine lumber, 70 tons of brimstone, 17,000 lbs. of phosphorus, 33,6000 lbs. chlorate of potash, 30,000 lbs. of glue and 50,000 lbs. of parafine wax.  The work is largely done by improved machinery.

            On the location of the canal at Akron the town of Middlebury began to lose its prestige, and its citizens decided that it must get increased water-power to hold its own against the young rival.

            The MIDDLEBURY HYDRAULIC COMPANY was organized and authorized by the Legislature “to raise the natural surface of Springfield lake, in which the Little Cuyahoga had its rise, six feet, and lower it four feet below the natural surface.  This gave to the water-power of the village a permanency and sufficiency that could be relied on at all times.”  In 1872 Middlebury was annexed to Akron as the sixth ward of that city.

          MIDDLEBURY is now a part of Akron.  In our old edition it was thus described as in the township of Tallmadge: “Two miles east of Akron and on both sides of the Little Cuyahoga is the village of Middlebury.  As early as 1807 a grist mill was built on the site of the town by Amos NORTON and Joseph HART. The town was laid out in 1818 by them, and soon became the most thriving village in this whole region until the canal was cut through to Cleveland, when Akron took away most of its trade.  It has two churches and about 1,000 people.”—Old Edition.

            Within Akron’s beautiful and well-kept Glendale cemetery stands the AKRON SOLDIERS’ MEMORIAL CHAPEL, dedicated Decoration Day, 1876.  At the time of its erection it was the only building of the kind in the country.  Its erection is due to the BUCKLEY Post of the G. A. R., aided by outside subscriptions.  The chapel is a handsome stone structure, its cost $25,000.  Built into its interior walls are fourteen marble slabs, engraved with the names of the fallen brave of Akron and Portage township.

            A striking feature of the chapel are three beautiful windows—one by the surviving members of the 29th O. V. I., in honor of the regiment and the late Col. Lewis P. BUCKLEY, from whom the Post is named; a second, representing woman’s work in the war; and the third, commemorative of three epochs in national history—Washington, Perry and Lincoln. There are also eight small memorial windows, individual contributions.

The admirable AKRON SCHOOL SYSTEM (Vol. I., page 143) is the result of the efforts of Rev. I. JENNINGS, a young man, pastor of the Congregational church at Akron, who, in 1846, set himself to work to recognize the common schools of Akron.  Previous to this the schools of Akron were poor affairs, giving only the most rudimentary education, and even that was accorded to only about two-thirds of the children of school age.

            In May, 1846, Mr. JENNINGS called a public meeting to secure better education, at which he was appointed chairman of a committee to submit a plan for improvement.  At an adjourned meeting of citizens, held Nov. 21, 1846, the following plan received the unanimous approval and adoption of those assembled:

1.  Let the whole village be incorporated into one school district.

2.  Let there be established six primary schools in different parts of the village, so as best to accommodate the whole.

3.  Let there be one grammar-school, centrally located, where instructions may be given in the various studies and parts of studies not provided for in the primary schools, and yet requisite to a respectable English education.

4.  Let there be gratuitous admission to each school in the system for the children of residents, with the following restrictions, viz.: No pupil shall be admitted to the grammar school who fails to sustain a thorough examination in the studies of the primary school, and the teacher shall have power, with the advice and direction of the superintendent, to exclude for misconduct in extreme cases, and to classify the pupils as the best good of the schools may seem to require.

5.  The expense of establishing and sustaining this system of schools shall be thus provided for: First, by appropriating what public school money the inhabitants of the village are entitled to, and what other funds or property may be at the disposal of the board for this purpose; and secondly, a tax be levied by the Common Council upon the taxable property of this village for the balance.

6.  Let six superintendents be chosen by the Common Council, who shall be charged with perfecting the system thus generally defined, the bringing of it into operation, and the control of it when brought into operation.  Let the six superintendents be so chosen that the term of office of two of them shall expire each year.

          This plan was embodied in an act passed by the Legislature, Feb. 8, 1847, excepting that the name of officers and mode of election of the sixth paragraph were changed.

            From a historical sketch of the schools of Akron, by Judge C. BRYAN, we quote the following: “The interval between the meetings, in May and November, 1846, was improved by Mr. JENNINGS in collecting information, maturing the plan and elaborating the report.  The idea originated with Mr. JENNINGS, and the labor of visiting every home in the village, to ascertain what children went to school and who did not go, and who went to public schools and who went to private, and how much was paid for school instruction, was performed by him.  He went to Cleveland and Sandusky city in the same interest, to see the operation of graded schools there.  He procured estimates by competent mechanics of the cost of erecting a grammar-school building to accommodate 500 pupils, and omitted no detail of the plan that was necessary to show it in organic completeness; and whatever credit and distinction Akron may have enjoyed for the principle of free graded schools in Ohio is due to Mr. JENNINGS.”

            BUCHTEL COLLEGE stands on a beautiful and commanding eminence over-looking the city.  It was founded in 1870 through the action of the State Convention of Universalists, and named in honor of John R. BUCHTEL, of Akron, who contributed $25,000 for the building and $6,000 for the endowment fund.

            After the completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal, it was determined to make water connection between Cleveland and Pittsburg, and in 1841 the PENNSYLVANIA AND OHIO CANAL was completed from Akron to Beaver, Pa.  For a time the canal flourished, but the competition of and later the control acquired by the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad Company, led to its gradual disuse and dilapidation, until it became a menace to the health of those residing in its neighborhood.  One night, in the spring of 1868, the banks were cut in three places, at and near Cuyahoga Falls, and its waters flowed out until the bottom appeared.  The State threatened prosecution, but none was ever commenced and the breaks never repaired.  Again, in the spring of 1874, the canal was cut by night in Akron by disguised men, but no one was punished, although the supposed guilty parties were arrested.

            In 1838 a party of capitalists, largely Eastern men, undertook to build a great manufacturing city at a point between Cuyahoga Falls and Akron, to be called SUMMIT CITY.  A joint stock company, with a capital of $500,000, was organized.  The city was to be supplied with inexhaustible water-power, by means of a dam and canal diverting the waters of the Cuyahoga river.  Work was begun and in 1839 water turned into the canal, but at this point the money gave out, and matters were at a standstill until in 1843 Horace GREELEY, while on a visit to Akron, was so impressed by the scheme that, on his return to New York, he published in the Tribune an enthusiastic article, predicting that “Summit City” would become the “Lowell of the West.”  Nevertheless, no more money could be raised for the future “Lowell,” and it “died a’bornin’.”  The lands of the company, called the “Chuckery,” are now in the suburbs of Akron.

TALLMADGE, THE CHRISTIAN COLONY

            The history of the settlement of the township of Tallmadge is peculiar.  At a drawing among the members of the Connecticut Land Company, at Hartford, Connecticut, Jan. 30, 1798, this township was drawn by the “Brace Company” and others.  In 1803 the proprietors made a division.  The Brace Company took all west of the meridian, one-half mile west of the centre line.  The remainder of the township was taken by Ephraim STARR and Col. Benjamin TALLMADGE, of Litchfield, from whom the township was named.

            No settlement was made in Tallmadge until the summer of 1807, when Rev. David BACON, a missionary in the Western settlements, built a log-house on the south line of the township, half a mile west of the centre, and moved in with his family, the only one in the township.

           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 w