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Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. II

©1888

 

HURON COUNTY.

 

Huron County was formed February 7, 1809, and organized 1815.  It originally constituted the whole of the "fire-lands."  The name, Huron, was given by the French to the Wyandot tribe: its signification probably unknown.  The surface is mostly level, some parts slightly undulating; soil mostly sandy mixed with clay, forming a loam.  In the northwest part are some prairies, and in the northern part are the sand ridges which run on the southern side of Lake Erie, and vary in width from a few rods to more than a mile.  Huron was much reduced in 1838, in population and area, by the formation of Erie county.  Area about 450 square miles.  In 1887 the acres cultivated were 139,956; in pasture, 79,944; woodland, 36,032; lying waste, 2,697; produced in wheat, 495,057 bushels; rye, 5,123; buckwheat, 929; oats, 1,035,918; barley, 5,167; corn, 698,536; broom corn, 200 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 34,880 tons; clover hay, 6,837; flax, 20,300 lbs. fibre; potatoes, 108,166 bushels; butter, 982,978 lbs.; cheese, 347,037; sorghum, 2,218 gallons; maple sugar, 23,087 lbs.; honey, 11,672; eggs, 493,179 dozen; grapes, 3,579 lbs.; sweet potatoes, 89 bushels; apples, 35,552; peaches, 4,052; pears, 923; wool, 539,534 lbs.; milch cows owned, 7,756.  School census, 1888, 9,929; teachers, 353.  Miles of railroad track, 138. 

 

Page 942

103 France; 69 Scotland, and 3 Sweden and Norway.  Census of 1890 was 31,949. 

Norwalk in 1846. - Norwalk, the county-seat, named for Norwalk, Conn., is 110 miles north of Columbus and 16 from Sandusky City.  It lies principally on a single street, extending nearly two miles and beautifully shaded by maple trees.  Much taste is evinced in the private dwellings and churches, and in adorning the grounds around them with shrubbery.  As a whole, the town is one of the most neat and pleasant in Ohio.  The view given represents a small portion of the principal street; on the right is shown the courthouse and jail, with a part of the public square, and in the distance is seen the tower of the Norwalk institute.  Norwalk contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopal, 1 Methodist and 1 Catholic church, 9 dry goods, 1 book and 4 grocery stores, 1 bank, 2 newspaper printing offices, 1 flouring mill, 2 foundries, and about 1,800 inhabitants.  The Norwalk institute is an incorporated academy, under the patronage of the Baptists: a large and substantial brick building, three stories in height, is devoted to its purposes; the institution is flourishing, and numbers over 100 pupils, including both sexes.  A female seminary has recently been commenced under auspicious circumstances, and a handsome building erected in the form of a Grecian temple.  About a mile west of the village are some ancient fortifications. 

The site of Norwalk was first visited with a view to the founding of a town, by the Hon. Elisha WHITTLESEY, Platt BENEDICT, and one or two others, in October, 1815.  The place was then in the wilderness, and there were but a few settlers in the county.  The examination being satisfactory, the town plat was laid out in the spring following, by Almon RUGGLES [see page 583], and lots offered for sale at from $60 to $100 each.  In the fall of 1817 Platt BENEDICT built a log house with the intention of removing his family, but in his absence it was destroyed by fire.  He reconstructed his dwelling shortly after, and thus commenced the foundation of the village.  In the May after, Norwalk was made the county seat, and the public buildings subsequently erected.  The year after, a census was taken, and the population had reached 109.  In the first few years of the settlement, the different denominations appearing to have forgotten their peculiar doctrines, were accustomed to meet at the old court-house for sacred worship, at the second blowing of the horn.  In 1820 the Methodists organized a class, and in 1821 the Episcopal society was constituted.  From that time to the present the village has grown with the progressive increase of the county. 

In 1819 two Indians were tried and executed at Norwalk for murder.  Their names were NE-GO-SHECK and NE-GON-A-BA, the last of which is said to signify "one who walks far."  The circumstances of their crime and execution we take from the MSS. history of the "fire-lands," by the late C. B. Squire, Esq. 

In the spring of 1816 John WOOD, of Venice, and George BISHOP, of Danbury, where trapping for muskrats on the west side of Danbury, in the vicinity of the "two harbors," so-called; and having collected a few skins had lain down for the night in their temporary hut.  Three straggling Ottawa Indians came, in the course of the night, upon their camp and discovered them sleeping.  To obtain their little pittance of furs, etc. they were induced to plan their destruction.  After completing their arrangements the two eldest armed themselves with clubs, singled out their victims, and each, with a well directed blow upon their heads, dispatched them in an instant.  They then forced their youngest companion, NEGASOW, who had been until then merely a spectator, to beat the bodies with a club, that he might be made to feel that he was a participator in the murder and so refrain from exposing their crime.  After securing whatever was then in the camp that they desired, they took up their line of march for the Maumee, avoiding, as far as possible, the Indian settlements on their course. 

Page 943

Top Picture

Drawn by Henry Howe, in 1846.

VIEW IN MAIN STREET, NORWALK.

In front in shown the Court-House, and in the far distance the town of the Academy.

 

Bottom Picture

Geo. W. Edmondson, Photo., Norwalk, 1886.

MAIN STREET, NORWALK.