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Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. II

©1888

 

TRUMBULL COUNTY

 

Page 657

 

            TRUMBULL COUNTY was formed in 1800, and comprised within its original limits the whole of the Connecticut Western Reserve.  This is a well cultivated and wealthy county.  The surface is mostly level and the soil loamy or sandy.  In the northern part is excellent coal.  The principal products are wheat, corn, oats, grass, wool, butter, cheese and potatoes.

 

            Area about 650 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 117,169; in pasture, 150,722; woodland, 57,927; lying waste, 2,033; produced in wheat, 169,681 bushels; rye, 1,772; buckwheat, 5,950; oats, 656,908; barley, 1,017; corn, 142,617; meadow hay, 42,730 tons; clover hay, 7,693; flax, 298,046 lbs. fibre; potatoes, 147,697 bushels; tobacco, 200 lbs.; butter, 1,114,672; cheese, 1,974,098; sorghum, 349 gallons; maple sugar, 93,028 lbs.; honey, 10,501; eggs, 457, 815 dozen; grapes, 15,185 lbs.; wine, 9 gallons; apples, 264,292 bushels; peaches, 15,707; pears, 2,361; wool, 275,638 lbs.; milch cows owned, 14,554.  Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888.—Coal mined, 157,826 tons, employing 520 miners and 80 outside employees; iron ore, 11,622 tons.  School census, 1888, 12,811; teachers, 435.  Miles of railroad track, 248.

 

 

            Population of Trumbull in 1840, 25,700; 1860, 30,636; 1880, 44,880; of whom 28,459 were born in Ohio; 4,627, Pennsylvania; 1,127, New York; 158, Virginia; 88, Indiana; 46, Kentucky; 4,569, England and Wales; 1,665, Ireland; 894, German Empire; 296, British America; 182, France; and 29, Sweden and Norway.  Census, 1890, 42,373.

 

            On the 10^th of July, 1800, Governor ST. CLAIR proclaimed that all the territory included in Jefferson county, lying north of the forty-first degree, north latitude, and all that part of Wayne county included in the Connecticut Western Reserve, should constitute a new county, to be known by the name of Trumbull, and that the seat of justice should be at Warren.  It will be seen that the county thus constituted was coextensive with the Reserve or the New Connecticut of five years before.

 

THE TRUMBULL FAMILY.

 

 

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at the time distinguishing their State.  BENJAMIN TRUMBULL, a divine of reputation, had just published a history of the Connecticut colony, which has obtained a permanent place in our historical literature.  JOHN TRUMBULL was distinguished as a lawyer and judge, as well as a poet.  His poem, “McFingal,” passed through thirty editions.  It is in Hudibrastic verse.  Two or three of its couplets have passed into permanent use as proverbs, which have been wrongly credited to Samuel BUTLER, author of “Hudibras:”

 

                                                “No man e’er felt the halter draw,

                                                 With good opinion of the law;”

 

And

 

                                                “But optics sharp it needs, I ween,

                                                 To see what is not to be seen.”

 

            Another was Col. JOHN TRUMBULL, the painter, whose career was just beginning when the name was conferred upon New Connecticut.  Having served with credit as aide-de-camp to Gen. WASHINGTON, and having spent considerable time in England under the celebrated painter, WEST, he made himself known as an artist by the production of “The Battle of Bunker Hill” in 1796.  His most important works are the pictures in the rotunda of the capitol in Washington, which every visitor stops to admire.  His brother was Governor Jonathan TRUMBULL, Jr., in whose special honor the county was named.

 

            Jonathan TRUMBULL, Jr., was born at Lebanon, Conn., in 1740.  He served during the Revolution as paymaster, and afterwards as aide-de-camp to General Washington.  He was elected to the first Congress after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and in 1791 was chosen Speaker of that body.  In 1795 the Connecticut Legislature elected him to the United States Senate, where he distinguished himself as a Federalist and supporter of Washington’s administration.  In 1798 he was elected Governor of his State, an office which he held until his death in 1809.  If there is anything in a name to direct aspiration or give inspiration, it would have been difficult to find a more significant gift for a political division of territory.  There are few names in American history possessing an equal range of meaning.

 

            The first Governor TRUMBULL of Connecticut, Jonathan TRUMBULL, Sr., was the only governor under both the Crown and the Republic.  He was born in Lebanon, Conn., Oct. 12, 1710, and died there August 17, 1785.  His ancestor came from England about 1639, and settled in Rowley, Mass., having three sons.  His father, Joseph, was a merchant and farmer.  Jonathan was graduated at Harvard in 1727, studied theology, and was licensed to preach, but in 1731 resigned the ministry to take the place of an elder brother in his father’s store.  He afterward adopted the profession of law; was a member of the assembly in 1733 and its speaker in 1739; became an assistant in 1740 and was re-elected to that office twenty-two times.  He was subsequently judge of the county court, assistant judge of the superior court, and in 1766-9 chief justice of that body.  He was deputy-governor in 1767-8, and governor from 1769 till 1783, when he resigned.  When under the crown in 1765, he refused to take the oath of office that was required of all officials to support the provisions of the stamp act.

 

            BANCROFT says of him, in this period of his career (1767): “He was the model of the virtues of a rural magistrate; profoundly religious, grave in manner, discriminating in judgment, fixed in his principles.”  His opinion was formed that if “methods tending to violence should be taken to maintain the dependence of the colonies, it would hasten separation; that the connection with England could be preserved by gentle and insensible methods rather than by power and force.”  But on the declaration of war he threw his whole influence on the patriot side; co-operated with vigor in securing the independence of the colonies, and was the only colonial governor that espoused the people’s cause.

 

 

659

 

TRUMBULL convened his council of safety, and, although he had already sent out five Connecticut regiments, he called for nine more, and to those who were not enrolled in any train-band, said: “Join yourselves to one of the companies now ordered to New York, or form yourselves into distinct companies, and choose captains forthwith.  March on; this shall be your warrant.  May the God of the armies of Israel be your leader.”  At these words the farmers, although their harvests were but half gathered, rose in arms, forming nine regiments, each of 350 men, and, self-equipped, marched to New York just in time to meet the advance of the British.  In 1781, when Washington appealed to the governors of the New England States to “complete their Continental battalions,” TRUMBULL cheered him with the words, that he “should obtain all that he needed.”  He was the chosen friend and counsellor of Washington throughout the Revolution, who, says Jared SPARKS, “relied on him as one of his main pillars of support, and often consulted him in emergencies.”  The epithet, “BROTHER JONATHAN,” now applied as a personification of the United States, is supposed to owe its origin to Washington’s habit of addressing Gov. TRUMBULL, and to the phrase that he often used when perplexed, “Let us hear what Brother Jonathan says.”

 

            In 1783, he extolled Washington’s last address in a letter to him dated the tenth of June, as exhibiting the foundation principles of an indissoluble union of the States under one federal head.  In the next autumn, when he retired from public life after fifty years’ service, he set forth to the Legislature of Connecticut “that the grant to the Federal Constitution of powers clearly defined, ascertained, and understood, and sufficient for the great purposes of the Union, could alone lead from the danger of anarchy to national happiness and glory.”  Washington wrote of him as “the first of patriots, in his social duties yielding to none.”  The Marquis de Chastellux, the traveller, who saw him when he was seventy years of age, describes him as “possessing all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance, and even all the pendantry, becoming the great magistrate of a small republic.”  Yale gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1779, and the University of Edinburg the same in 1787.

 

            The TRUMBULL family illustrate its intellectuality in living characters as Hon. LYMAN TRUMBULL, the friend of LINCOLN, and senator from Illinois in the war era; JAMES HAMMOND TRUMBULL, LL.D., Hartford, philologist, historian, bibliographer, the only man living who can read Elliott’s Indian Bible in the original; his brother, HENRY CLAY TRUMBULL, D.D., editor of Sunday School Times, Philadelphia, author, traveller and lecturer, etc.; GORDON TRUMBULL, New London, artist and ornethologist, etc.

 

            Previous to the settlement of this county, and indeed before the survey of the eastern part of the Western Reserve in 1796, salt was manufactured by the whites, at what is frequently spoken of as the “old salt works,” which were situated, we are informed, in what is now the township of Wethersfield, on or near the Mahoning.  They were known to the whites as early as 1755, and are indicated on Evans’ map published that year.  Augustus PORTER, Esq., who had charge of the first surveying party of the Reserve, thus alludes to these works in the Barr MSS., in connection with the history of his survey.

 

            These works were said to have been established and occupied by Gen. PARSONS, of Connecticut, by permission of the governor of that State.  At this place we found a small piece of open ground, say two or three acres, and a plank vat of sixteen or eighteen feet square, and four or five feet deep, set in the ground, which was full of water, and kettles for boiling salt; the number we could not ascertain, but the vat seemed to be full of them.  An Indian and a squaw were boiling water for salt, but from appearances, with poor success.

 

                Amzi ATWATER, Esq., now (1846) of Portage county, who was one of the first surveying party of the Reserve, in a communication to us, says:

 

 

660     

 

claims to that tract, but I believe without success.  At an early part of the settlement, considerable exertions were made by Reuben HARMON, Esq., to establish salt works at that place, but the water was too weak to make it profitable.

 

            We annex some facts connected with the settlement of Warren and vicinity, from the narrative of Cornelius FEATHER, in the MSS. of the Ashtabula Historical Society.

 

                The plat of Warren in September, 1800, contained but two log cabins, one of which was occupied by Capt. Ephraim QUINBY, who was proprietor of the town and afterwards judge of the court.  He built his cabin in 1799.  The other was occupied by Wm. FENTON, who built his in 1798.  On the 27^th of this month, Cornelius FEATHER and Davison FENTON arrived from Washington county, Pa.  At this time, QUINBY’S cabin consisted of three apartments, a kitchen, bed-room and jail, although but one prisoner was ever confined in it, viz: Perger SHEHIGH, for threatening the life of Judge YOUNG, of Youngstown.

 

                The whole settlements of whites within and about the settlement of Warren, consisted of sixteen settlers, viz: Henry and John LANE, Benj. DAVISON, Esq., Meshack CASE, Capt. John ADGATE, Capt. John LEAVITT, William CROOKS and Phineas LEFFINGWELL, Henry LANE, Jr., Charles DAILY, Edward JONES, George LOVELESS and Wm. TUCKER who had been a spy five years under Capt. BRADY.

 

                At this time, rattlesnakes abounded in some places.  And there was one adventure with them worth recording, which took place in Braceville township.

 

                A Mr. OVIATT was informed that a considerable number of huge rattlesnakes were scattered over a certain tract of wilderness.  The old man asked whether there was a ledge of rocks in the vicinity, which way the declivity inclined, and if any spring issued out of the ledge.  Being answered in the affirmative, the old man rejoined, “we will go about the last of May and have some sport.”  Accordingly they proceeded through the woods well armed with cudgels.  Arrived at the battleground, they cautiously ascended the hill, step by step, in a solid column.  Suddenly the enemy gave the alarm, and the men found themselves completely surrounded by hosts of rattlesnakes of enourmous size, and a huge squadron of black snakes.  No time was lost.  At the signal of the rattling of the snakes, the action commenced, and hot and furious was the fight.  In short, the snakes beat a retreat up the hill, our men cudgelling with all their might.  When arrived at the top of the ledge, they found the ground and rocks in places almost covered with snakes retreating into their dens.  Afterwards the slain were collected into heaps, and found to among to 486, a good portion of which were larger than a man’s leg below the calf, and over five feet in length.

 

                The news of this den of venomous serpents being spread, it was agreed that the narrator and two more young men in Warren, and three in Braceville, should make war upon it until the snakes should be principally destroyed, which was actually accomplished.

 

                One circumstance I should relate in regard to snake-hunting.  Having procured an instrument like a very long chisel, with a handle eight or night feet long, I proceeded to the ledge alone, placed myself on the body of a butternut tree, lying slanting over a broad crevice in the rocks, seven or eight feet deep, the bottom of which was literally covered with the yellow and black serpents.  I held my weapon poised in my right hand, ready to give the deadly blow, my left hold of a small branch to keep my balance, when both my feet slipped, and I came within a hairs’ breadth of plunging headlong in to the den.  Nothing but the small limb saved me from a most terrible death, as I cold not have gotten out, had there been no snakes, the rocks on all sides being perpendicular.  It was a merciful and providential escape.

 

                In August, 1800, a serious affair occurred with the Indians, which spread a gloom over the peaceful prospects of the new and scattered settlements of the whites, the history of which we derive from the above-mentioned source.

 

                Joseph M’MAHON, who lived near the Indian settlement at the Salt Springs, and whose family had suffered considerable abuse at different times from the Indians in his absence, was at work with one Richard STORY, on an old Indian plantation, near Warren.  On Friday of this week, during his absence, the Indians coming down the creek to have a drunken folic, called in at M’MAHON’S and abused the family, and finally CAPT. GEORGE, their chief, struck one of the children a severe blow with the tomahawk, and the Indians threatened to kill the whole family.  Mrs. M’MAHON, although terribly alarmed, was unable to get word to her husband before noon the next day.

 

                M’MAHON and STORY at first resolved to go immediately to the Indian camp and kill the whole tribe, but on a little reflection, they desisted from this rash purpose, and concluded to go to Warren, and consult with Capt. Ephraim QUINBY, as he was a mild, judicious man.

 

 

661

 

and two boys, under the command of Lieut. John LANE, who proceeded towards the Indian camp, determined to make war or peace as circumstances dictated.

 

                When within half a mile of the camp, QUINBY proposed a halt, and as he was well acquainted with most of the Indians, they having dealt frequently at his tavern, it was resolved that he should proceed alone to the camp, and inquire into the cause of their outrageous conduct, and ascertain whether they were for peace or war.  QUINBY started alone, leaving the rest behind, and giving direction to LANE that if he did not return in half an hour, he might expect that the savages had killed him, and that he should then march his company and engage in battle.  QUINBY not returning at the appointed time, they marched rapidly to the camp.  On emerging from the woods they discovered QUINBY in close conversation with CAPTAIN GEORGE.  He informed his party that they had threatened to kill McMAHON and his family, and STORY and his family, for it seems the latter had inflicted chastisement on the Indians for stealing his liquor, particularly on one ugly-looking, ill-tempered fellow, named SPOTTED JOHN, from having his face spotted all over with hair moles.  CAPT. GEORGE had also declared, if the whites had come down the Indians were ready to fight them.

 

                The whites marched directly up to the camp, McMAHON first and STORY next to him.  The chief, CAPT. GEORGE, snatched his tomahawk, which was sticking in a tree, and flourishing it in the air, walked up to McMAHON, saying, “If you kill me, I will lie here—if I kill you, you shall lie there!” and then ordered his men to prime and tree!  Instantly, as the tomahawk was about to give the deadly blow, McMAHON sprang back, raised his gun already cocked, pulled the trigger, and CAPT. GEORGE fell dead.  STORY took for his mark the ugly savage, SPOTTED JOHN, who was at that moment placing his family behind a tree, and shot him dead, the same ball passing through his squaw’s neck, and the shoulders of his oldest papooes, a girl of about thirteen.

 

                Hereupon the Indians fled with horrid yells; the whites hotly pursued for some distance, firing as fast as possible, yet without effect, while the women and children screamed and screeched piteously.  The party then gave up the pursuit, returned and buried the dead Indians, and proceeded to Warren to consult for their safety.

 

                It being ascertained that the Indians had taken the route to Sandusky, on Monday morning James HILLMAN was sent through the wilderness to overtake and treat with them.  He came up with them on Wednesday, and cautiously advanced, they being at first suspicious of him.  But making known his mission, he offered them first $100, then $200, and so on, to $500, if they would treat with him on just terms, return to their homes and bury the hatchet.  But to all his overtures they answered, “No! No! No! we will go to Sandusky and hold a council with the chiefs there.”  HILLMAN replied, “You will hold a council there, light the war torch, rally all the warriors throughout the forests, and with savage barbarity, come and attempt a general massacre of all your friends, the whites, throughout the Northwest Territory.”  They rejoined, “that they would lay the case before the council, and within fourteen days four or five of their number should return with instructions, on what terms peace could be restored.”  For a more full and perfectly reliable statement of HILLMAN’S agency in this affair, see his memoir in Mahoning county.

 

                HILLMAN returned, and all the white settlers from Youngstown and the surrounding settlements, garrisoned at QUINBY’S house in Warren, constructed port-holes through the logs and kept guard night and day.

 

                On the fourth or fifth day after the people garrisoned, a circumstance struck them with terror.  John LANE went out into the woods a little distance, one cloudy day, and missing his way gave some alarm.  In the evening, a man’s voice known to be his, was heard several times, and in the same direction twelve or fourteen successive reports of a gun.  It was judged that the Indians had returned, caught LANE, confined him and compelled him to halloo, with threats of death if he did not, under the hope of enticing the whites into an ambush, and massacreeing them.

 

                In the morning, as these noises continued, Wm. CROOKS, a resolute man, went out cautiously to the spot whence they proceeded, and found that LANE had dislocated his ankle in making a misstep, and could not get into the fort without assistance.

 

                The little party continued to keep guard until the fourteenth day, when exactly, according to contract, four or five Indians returned with proposals of peace, which were, that McMAHON and STORY should be taken to Sandusky, tried by Indian laws, and, if guilty, punished by them.  This they were told could not be done, as McMAHON was already a prisoner under the laws of the whites, in the jail at Pittsburg, and STORY had fled out of the country.

 

                McMAHON was brought to Youngstown and tried with prudence, Gen. ST. CLAIR chief judge.  The only testimony that could be received of all those present at the tragedy was a boy who took no part in the affair, who stood close by CAPT. GEORGE when he said, “If you kill me, I’ll lie here; if I kill you, you will lie there.”  A young married woman, who had been a prisoner among the Indians, was brought to testify, as she understood the language.  She affirmed that the words signified, that if McMAHON should kill CAPT. GEORGE, the Indians should not seek restitution; nor should the whites, if McMAHON were killed.  In regard to the death of SPOTTED JOHN, the Indians finally claimed nothing, as he was an ugly fellow, belonging to no tribe whatever.

 

 

662     

 

river two or three miles, drove down a stake at the head of each grave, hung a new pair of buckskin breeches on each stake, saying and expecting that “at the end of thirty days they would rise, go to the North Sea, and hunt and kill the white bear.”  An old pious Indian said, “No! they will not rise at the end of thirty days.  When God comes at the last day, and calls all the world to rise and come to judgment, then they will rise.”

 

                The Indians nightly carried good supplies of cooked venison to the graves, which were evidently devoured.  A white settler’s old slut, with a litter of six or eight pups, nightly visited the savory meats, as they throve most wonderfully during the thirty days.

 

            The Hon. Joshua R. GIDDINGS, in a note to the above, says:

 

                McMAHON served afterwards in the war of 1812, and in the Northwestern army under Gen. HARRISON.  In the battle with the Indians on the Peninsula, north of Sandusky bay, on the 29^th of September of that year, he was wounded in the side.  After his recovery, he was discharged in November and started for home.  He left Camp Avery, in Huron county, and took the path to the old Portage.  Being alone and happening to meet a party of Indians, he fell a victim to their hostility.

 

            The Rev. Joseph BADGER, the first missionary on the Reserve, resided for eight years at Gustavus, in this county.  He was born at Wilbraham, Mass., in 1757.  He served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, graduated at Yale College in 1785, in 1787 was ordained as a minister over a church in Blandford, Mass., where he remained for fourteen years.

 

                In 1800 such an opportunity for usefulness offered as he had long wished for.  The missionary societies of the Eastern States had for many years been desirous of sending missionaries to the Indians which then dwelt in the northern portion of Ohio.

 

                At their instance, Mr. BADGER made a visit to this country during that year, and was so well satisfied with his residence among the Wyandots and other tribes would afford, that he returned after his family, and since that time his labors have been principally divided between the Western Reserve, and the country bordering on the Sandusky and Maumee rivers.  Among his papers the writer finds certificates of his appointment to the several missionary stations on the Reserve and at Lower Sandusky, as also commissions of the postmaster’s appointment, for the several places where he has from time to time resided.  Mr. B.’s labors among the scattered inhabitants on the Reserve and the Indians were arduous and interesting.  Many incidents common to frontier life are recorded in his journals.  His duties as a missionary were all faithfully discharged, and he saw this portion of the West grow up under his own eye and teaching.

 

                In 1812 he was appointed chaplain to the army by Gov. MEIGS.  He was at Fort Meigs during the siege of 1813, and through the war was attached to Gen. HARRISON’s command.  He removed from Trumbull county in 1835 to Plain township, Wood county.

 

                Mr. BADGER was man of energy, perseverance and fine intellectual endowments.  His naturally strong and brilliant mind retained all its power until within the last three years of his life.  He was a faithful and devoted Christian.  He ardently loved his fellow-men—his God he loved supremely.  Few men have ever lived who have given such an unequivocal proof of Christian meekness and submission—few whose labors have more highly adorned the great and responsible profession of the ministry.  Full of years and of honors, and possessing the paternal affection of a people, who have been long accustomed to regard him as a father, he has at length gone to his final account.  He died in 1846, aged 89.

 

            The following miscellaneous collection of incidents and events of pioneer life in the Mahoning valley are derived from “Historical Collections of the Mahoning Valley,” published by the Mahoning Valley Historical Society:

 

O’MICK.

 

 

663

 

for this crime that he was hanged at Cleveland.  The name O’MICK did not properly belong to him but to his father.

 

EARLY COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.

 

                The first supply of merchandise was brought to Warren in June, 1801, in which year Jas. E. CALDWELL and an assistant poled a canoe up the Mahoning about once in two weeks.  When they approached a settlement they blew a horn, and the settlers who wanted anything came down to the river to purchase.

 

                In the fall of 1801, or early in 1802, George LOVELESS opened a small shop on the east side of Main street, a few rods north of South street.  About the same time Robt. ERWIN, “who was a handsome but a sad scamp,” so says an old lady, was set up in business by his uncle, Boyle ERWIN.

 

FIRST MAIL TO THE RESERVE.

 

                The following extract from a letter of Gen. Simon PERKINS gives some interesting items concerning the first mail route to the Western Reserve:

 

                “The mail first came to Warren, October 30, 1801, via Canfield and Youngstown.  Gen. WADSWORTH was appointed postmaster at Canfield, Judge PEASE at Youngstown, and myself at Warren.  A Mr. FRITHY, of Jefferson, Ashtabula County, was contractor on the route, which came and terminated at Warren, the terminus for two or four years before it went on to Cleveland.  Eleazar GILSON, of Canfield, was the first mail carrier, and made a trip once in two weeks; but I do not recollect the compensation.  This was the first mail to the Reserve.  Two years afterward, I think it was, that the mail was extended to Detroit, and it may have been four years.  The route was from Warren, via Deerfield, Racenna, Hudson, etc., to Cleveland, and then along the old Indian trail to Sandusky, Maumee, River Raisin, to Detroit, returning from Cleveland, via Painesville, Harpersfield, and Jefferson to Warren.  The trip was performed from Pittsburg to Warren in about two days.  The distance was eight-six miles.”

 

SQUIRE BROWN AND THE SLAVE-HUNTERS.

 

                One afternoon in September, 1823, a negro and his wife with two children passed through Bloomfield on their way toward Ashtabula.  At nearly dark of the same day, three dusty, way-worn travellers rode up to the tavern and announced themselves as slave-hunters.  They were much fatigued and easily persuaded by the landlord to remain over night.  It was soon noised abroad that the slave-hunters were in town and much excitement prevailed.  Squire BROWN got out his wagon, and a party of men were sent out to warn and secrete the slaves, who were found at a house near Rome, Ashtabula County, and temporarily secreted in a barn.