RICHLAND COUNTY

 

Page 474

 

RICHLAND COUNTY was organized March 1, 1813, and named from the character of its soil.  About one-half of the county is level, inclining to clay, and adapted to grass.  The remainder is rolling, adapted to wheat, and some parts to corn, and well watered.  Area, about 490 square miles.  In 1887 the acres cultivated were 165,970; in pasture 71,752; woodland, 63,143; laying waste, 4,986; produced in wheat, 520,776 bushels; rye, 6,699; buckwheat, 905; oats, 783,314; barley, 8,100; corn, 712, 143; meadow hay, 30,636 tons; clover hay, 13,470;  flax 6,600 lbs. fibre; potatoes, 93,054 bushels; butter, 682,564 lbs.; cheese, 11,240; sorghum, 902 gallons; maple syrup, 27,577; honey, 6,332 lbs.; eggs, 503,168 dozen; grapes, 12,295 lbs.; apples, 14,257 bushels; peaches, 7,953; pears, 1,709; wool, 251,873 lbs.; milch cows owned, 7,289. 

 

School census, 1888, 11,189; teachers, 343.  Miles of railroad track, 155.

 

Townships

And Census

1840.

1880.

 

Townships

And Census

1840.

1880.

Auburn,

1,020

 

 

Monroe,

1,627

1,888

Bloomfield,

1,294

  1,181

 

Montgomery,

2,445

 

Blooming Grove,

1,495

 

 

Orange,

1,840

 

Butler,

 

     789

 

Perry,

1,852

   656

Cass,

 

  1,614

 

Plymouth,

1,934

1,700

Clear Creek,

1,653

 

 

Sandusky,

1,465

   723

Congress,

1,248

 

 

Sharon,

1,675

2,981

Franklin,

1,668

     967

 

Springfield,

1,685

1,617

Green,

2,007

 

 

Troy,

1,939

1,424

Hanover,

1,485

 

 

Vermilion

2,402

 

Jackson,

 

     977

 

Vernon,

1,040

 

Jefferson,

2,325

  2,449

 

Washington,

1,915

1,599

Madison,

3,206

11,675

 

Weller,

 

1,076

Mifflin,

1,800

     930

 

Worthington,

1,942

2,060

Milton,

1,861

 

 

 

 

 

 

Population of Richland in 1820 was 9,186; 1830, 24,007; 1840, 44,823; 1860, 31,158; 1880, 36,306; of whom 27,251 were born in Ohio; 3,931, Pennsylvania; 602, New York; 254, Virginia; 228, Indiana; 28, Kentucky; 1,563, German Empire; 446, Ireland; 387, England and Wales; 81, British America; 60, Scotland; 51, France, and 10, Sweden and Norway.  Census, 1890, 38,072.

 

A large proportion of the early settlers of Richland emigrated from Pennsylvania, many of whom were of German origin, and many Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.  It was first settled, about the year 1809, on branches of the Mohiccan.  The names of the first settlers, as far as recollected, are Henry M’CART, Andrew CRAIG, James CUNNINGHAM, Abm. BAUGHMAN, Henry NAIL, Samuel LEWIS, Peter

 

Page 475

 

KINNEY, Calvin HILL, John MURPHY, Thomas COULTER, Melzer TANNEHILL, Isaac MARTIN, Stephen VAN SCHOICK, Archibald GARDNER and James M’CLURE.

 

In September, 1812, shortly after the breaking out of the war with Great Britain, two block-houses were built in Mansfield.  One stood about six rods west of the site of the court-house, and the other a rod or two north.  The first was built by a company commanded by Capt. SHAEFFER, from Fairfield county, and the other by the company of Col. Chas. WILLIAMS, of Coshocton.  A garrison was stationed at the place, until after the battle of the Thames.

 

At the commencement of hostilities, there was a settlement of friendly Indians, of the Delaware tribe, at a place called Greentown, about 12 miles southeast of Mansfield, within the present township of Green, now in Ashland county.  It was a village consisting of some 60 cabins, with a council-house about 60 feet long, 25 wide, one-story in height, and built of posts and clapboarded.  The village contained several hundred persons.  As a measure of safety, they were collected, in August, 1812, and sent to some place in the western part of the State, under protection of the government.  They were first brought to Mansfield, and placed under guard, near where the tan-yard now is, on the run.  While there, a young Indian and squaw came up to the block-house, with a request to the chaplain, Rev. James SMITH, of Mount Vernon, to marry them after the manner of the whites.  In the absence of the guard, who had come up to witness the ceremony, an old Indian and his daughter, aged about 12 years, who were from Indiana, took advantage of the circumstance and escaped.  Two spies from Coshocton, named MORRISON and M’CULLOCH, met them near the run, about a mile northwest of Mansfield, on what is now the farm of E. P. STURGES.  As the commanding officer, Col. KRATZER, had given orders to shoot all Indians found out of the bounds of the place, under an impression that all such must be hostile, MORRISON, on discovering them, shot the father through the breast.  He fell mortally wounded, then springing up, ran about 200 yards, and fell to rise no more.  The girl escaped.  The men returned and gave the information.  A party of 12 men were ordered out, half of whom were under Serjeant John C. GILKISON, now (1846) of Mansfield.  The men flanked on each side of the run.  As GILKISON came up, he found the fallen Indian on the north side of the run, and at every breath he drew, blood flowed through the bullet-hole in his chest.  MORRISON next came up, and called to M’CULLOCH to come and take revenge.  GILKISON then asked the Indian who he was: he replied, “A friend.”  M’CULLOCH, who had by this time joined them, exclaimed as he drew his tomahawk, “D–n you!  I’ll make a friend of you!” and aimed a blow at his head; but it glanced, and was not mortal.  At this he placed one foot on the neck of the prostrate Indian, and drawing out his tomahawk, with another blow buried it in his brains.  The poor fellow gave one quiver, and then all was over. 

 

GILKISON had in vain endeavored to prevent this inhuman deed, and now requested M’CULLOCH to bury the Indian.  “D–n him! No!”  Was the answer; “they killed two or three brothers of mine, and never buried them.”  The second day following, the Indian was buried, but it was so slightly done that his ribs were seen projecting above ground for two or three years after.

 

This M’CULLOCH continued an Indian fighter until his death.  He made it a rule to kill every Indian he met, whether friend or foe.  Mr. GILKISON saw him some time after, on his way to Sandusky, dressed as an Indian.  To his question, “Where are you going?” he replied, “To get more revenge!”

 

Mr. Levi JONES was shot by some Greentown Indians in the northern part of Mansfield, early in the war, somewhere near the site of Riley’s Mill.  He kept a store in Mansfield, and when the Greentown Indians left, refused to give up some rifles they had left as security for debt.  He was waylaid, and shot and scalped.  The report of the rifles being heard in town, a party went out and found his body much mutilated, and buried him in the old graveyard.

 

After the war, some of the Greentown Indians returned to the county to hunt, but their town having been destroyed, they had no fixed residence.  Two of them, young men by the names of SENECA JOHN and QUILIPETOXE, came to Mansfield one noon, had a frolic in WILLIAMS’ tavern, on the site of the North American, hotel, and quarrelled with some whites.  About four o’clock in the afternoon they left, partially intoxicated.  The others, five in number, went in pursuit, vowing revenge.  They overtook them about a mile east of town, shot them down, and buried them at the foot of a large maple on the edge of the swamp, by thrusting their bodies down deep in the mud.  The place is known as “Spook Hollow.”–Old Edition.

 

In the war of 1812 occurred two tragic events near the county line of Ashland.  These were, the murder by the Indians of Martin RUFFNER, Frederick ZIMMER and family, on the Black Fork of the Mohiccan; and the tragedy at the cabin of James COPUS.  For details see Ashland County.

 

Page 476

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

 

The name MANSFIELD is with me a very old memory, that of a personal acquaintance with the eminent character, COL. JARED MANSFIELD, in whose honor the place was named.  One incident is indelibly impressed in connection with his death, which occurred in his native place, New Haven, Connecticut, February 3, 1830, now more than sixty years since.  On that occasion my father had involved upon him a delicate duty, to write to Mrs. Mansfield, then in Cincinnati, of the event.  And as he walked the floor to and fro pondering, he turned to me and said he was troubled to think how he could the most appropriately and gently impart the sad tidings. 

 

The MANSFIELDS have been eminent people.  The late Edward Deering MANSFIELD, “the Sage of Yamoyden,” Ohio’s statistician and journalist, was his only son: while General Joseph K. F. MANSFIELD, the old army officer, who fell at Antietam, was his nephew.

 

COL. JARED MANSFIELD was rising of 70 years of age, a tall venerable silver-haired old gentleman, and one of the great, useful characters of his day.  It was under his teachings that our famed military school at West Point got its start, in the beginning years of this century.

 

In giving him the position of Surveyor-General of the Northwest Territory the good judgment of Thomas JEFFERSON was illustrated.  In person and qualities he resembled his own son, Edward DEERING; had the same strongly pronounced Roman nose, the same childlike simplicity of speech, and the same loud, guileless laugh.  This last was one of the life troubles of Mrs. MANSFIELD; a somewhat proud, punctilious old lady, ever mindful of the proprieties.  She “wished the Colonel”–she was always thus careful to give his title–she” wished the Colonel would not laugh so loud; it was so undignified.”

 

Mrs. Mansfield herself was one of the strong-minded and most elegant of the pioneer women of Ohio and deserves a notice.  She was a girl-mate and life-long friend of my mother, and so I have the facts.  The family came out to Ohio in 1803, and settled in Cincinnati in 1805, when, as her son wrote, it was “a dirty little village.”  She was a society-leader, and introduced the custom of New Year calls; a queenly woman withal, of high Christian principles; a close thinker and great reader; suave and gracious in manner, but imperious in will.  True to her sex, she looked for admiration and respect, and, as was her due, received them.

 

She had come from a commanding stock and inherited the qualities for leadership.  Her father and family–the PHIPPS–had largely been shipmasters.  Among them was Sir William PHIPPS, a shipmaster, an early governor of Massachusetts; a generous man, but imperious, “quick to go on his muscle.”  Another is remembered, not by his name, but for the usual manner of his “taking off.”  He was in command of a frigate.  It had just arrived, and anchored in the harbor of Halifax.  Date 1740, or thereabouts.  He personally landed in a small boat, having left orders for his ship to fire the usual salute for such an event, and was walking on the dock, leading a boy by the hand.  By an oversight in loading the guns for the salute, a previous load that was in one of them had not been withdrawn.  It had been loaded with ball while at sea.  That ball went ashore and cut him in two; the lad was unharmed.

 

MANSFIELD, in his “Personal Memories,” gives a handsome tribute to his father, in some very interesting and instructive paragraphs.  He says: My father’s family came from Exeter, in England, and were among the first settlers in New Haven, in 1639.  My father, Jared MANSFIELD, was, all his life, a teacher, a professor, and a man of science.  He began his life as a teacher in New Haven, where he taught a mathematical school, and afterward taught at the “Friends’ Academy,” in Philadelphia, where he was during the great yellow-feaver season, and went from there to West Point, where he taught in the Military Academy, in 1802-3 and in 1814-28.  In the meantime, however, he was nine years in the State of Ohio, holding the position of Surveyor-General of the United States.  The manner of his appointment and the work he performed will illustrate his character, and introduce a small but interesting chapter of events.

 

While teaching at New Haven, he had several pupils who afterward became famous or rather distinguished men.  Two of these were Abraham and Henry BALDWIN.  The first was afterward United States Senator from Georgia, and the second, Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States.  These boys, as may be inferred, had decided talents, but were full of mischief.  One day they played a bad trick upon my father, their

 

Page 477

 

teacher, and he whipped them very severely.  Their father complained, and the case came before a magistrate; but my father was acquitted.  It may be thought that the boys would have become my father’s enemies.  Not so; they were of a generous temperament, and knew their conduct had been wrong; this they acknowledged, and they became my father’s fast friends.  Judge Henry BALDWIN told me that nothing had ever done him so much good as that whipping; and the brothers were warm in their friendship to my father, both in word and act.

 

While teaching in New Haven he published a book entitled “Essays on Mathematics.”  It was an original work, and but a few copies were sold; for there were but few men in the country who could understand it.  The book, however, established his reputation as a man of science, and greatly influenced his after life.  Abraham BALDWIN was at that time senator from Georgia, and brought this book to the notice of Mr. JEFFERSON, who was fond of science and scientific men.  The consequence was that my father became a captain of engineers, appointed by Mr. JEFFERSON, with a view to his becoming one of the professors at the West Point Military Academy, then established by law.  Accordingly, he and Captain BARRON, also of the engineers, were ordered to West Point, and became the first teachers of the West Point cadets in 1802.  He was there about a year, when he received a new appointment to a new and more arduous field in the West.

 

Mr. JEFFERSON had been but a short time in office, when he became annoyed by the fact that the public surveys were going wrong, for the want of establishing meridian lines, with base lines at right angles to them.  The surveyors at that time, including Gen. Rufus PUTNAM, then surveyor-general, could not do this.  Mr. JEFFERSON wanted a man who could perform this work well; necessarily, there-fore, a scientific man.  This came to the ears of Mr. BALDWIN, who strongly recommended my father as being, in fact, the most scientific man of the country.  My father did not quite like the idea of such a work; for he was a scholar and mathematician, fond of a quiet and retired life.

 

He foresaw, clearly, that going to Ohio, then a frontier State, largely inhabited by Indians and wolves, to engage in public business involving large responsibilities, would necessarily give him more or less of trouble and vexation.  He was, however, induced to go, under conditions which, I think, were never granted to any other officer.  It was agreed that, while he was engaged in the public service in the West, his commission in the engineer corps should go on, and he be entitled to promotion, although he received but one salary, that of surveyor-general.  In accordance with this agreement, he received two promotions while in Ohio; and his professorship at West Point was (on the recommendation of President MADISON) subsequently, by law, conformed to the agreement, with the rank and emoluments of lieutenant-colonel.

 

My father, so far as I know, was the only man appointed to an important public office solely on the ground of his scientific attainments.  This was due to Mr. JEFFERSON, who, if not himself a man of science, was really a friend of science.

 

Mansfield in 1846.–Mansfield, the county-seat, is sixty-eight miles northerly from Columbus, twenty-five from Mount Vernon, and about forty-five from Sandusky City.  Its situation is beautiful, upon a commanding elevation, overlooking a country handsomely disposed in hills and valleys.  The streets are narrow, and the town is compactly built, giving it a city-like appearance.  The completion of the railroad through here to Sandusky City has added much to its business facilities, and it is now thriving and increasing rapidly

 

It was laid out in 1808 by James HEDGES, Jacob NEWMAN, and Joseph H. LARWILL.  The last-named gentleman pitched his tent on the rise of ground above the Big Spring, and opened the first sale of lots on the 8th of October.  The country all around was then a wilderness, with no roads through it.  The first purchasers came in from the counties of Knox, Columbiana, Stark, etc.  Among the first settlers were George COFFINBERRY, William WINSHIP, Rollin WELDON, J. C. GILKISON, John WALLACE, and Joseph MIDDLETON.  In 1817 about twenty dwellings were in the place–all cabins, except the frame tavern of Samuel WILLIAMS, which stood on the site of the North American, and is now the private residence of Joseph HILDRETH, Esq.  The only store at that time was that of E. P. STURGES, a small frame which stood on the northwest corner of the public square, on the spot where the annexed view was taken.  The Methodists erected the first church.

 

Mansfield contains one Baptist, one Union, one Seceder, one Disciples’, one Methodist, one Presbyterian, and one Congregational church–the last of which is one of the most substantial and elegant churches in Ohio; two newspaper printing-offices, two hardware, one book and twenty dry-goods stores, and had, in 1840, 1,328 inhabitants, and in 1846, 2,330.–Old Edition.

 

Page 478

 

JOHN SHERMAN, U. S. SENATE.                              HENRY B. PAYNE, U. S. SENTE.

 

 

 

Page 479

 

Top Picture

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

PUBLIC SQURE, MANSFIELD.

 

Bottom Picture

W. B. Kimball, Photo, Columbus, 1890.

PUBLIC SQUARE, MANSFIELD.

 

 

Page 480

 

MANSFIELD, county-seat of Richland, is about midway between Columbus and Cleveland, about sixty-three miles from each.  It is a prosperous manufacturing and railroad centre; is on the P., Ft. W. & C., B. & O., L. E. & W., and N. W. O. Railroads.  The Intermediate Penitentiary is now in course of erection there.  County officers, 1888: Auditor, John U. NUNMAKER; Clerk, John C. BURNS; Commissioners, Christian BAER, David BOALS, John ILER; Coroner, Eli STOFER; Infirmary Directors, George BECKER, Edwin PAYNE, Joseph FISHER; Probate Judge, Andrew J. MACK; Prosecuting Attorney, Hubbert E. BELL; Recorder, William F. VOEGELE; Sheriff, Bartholomew FLANNERY; Surveyor, Orlando F. STEWART; Treasurer, Edward REMY.  City officers, 1888: Mayor, R. B. McCRORY; Clerk, John Y. GESSNER; Marshal, H. W. LEMON; Civil Engineer, Jacob LAIRD; Chief of Fire Department, George KNOFFLOCK; Street Commissioner, A. C. LEWIS; Solicitor, Marion DOUGLASS.  Newspapers: Herald, Republican, George U. and W. F. HARN, editors; News, Republican, CAPPELLER and HIESTAND, editors; Shield and Banner, Democratic, GAUMER and JOHNSTON, editors; Courier, German, L. S. KUEBLER, editor and publisher; Democrat, Democratic, A. J. BAUGHMAN, editor and publisher; Buckeye Farmer, agricultural, W. N. MASON, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Baptist, 1 Believers in Christ, 1 Catholic, 1 Christian, 1 Congregational, 1 Evangelical German, 3 Lutheran, 1 Episcopal Methodist, 1 African Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Reformed Presbyterian, 1 United Brethren, 1 Protestant Episcopal.  Banks: Citizens’ National, George F. CARPENTER, president, S. A. JENNINGS, cashier; Farmers’ National, J. S. HEDGES, president; Mansfield Savings, M. D. HARTER, president, R. BRINKERHOFF, cashier; Sturges’, W. M. STURGES, president, John WOOD, cashier.

 

Manufactures and Employees.Larabee Manufacturing Co., vehicle chafe irons, 12 hands; BODINE Roofing Co., 7; E. J. FORNEY & Co., linseed oil, 9; Jacob CLINE, cooperage, 18; BISSMAN & Co., coffee, spices, etc., 16; Union Foundry and Machine Co., 12; GILBERT, WAUGH & Co., flour, etc., 15; HICKS-BROWN Co., flour, etc., 15; Mansfield Barrel Co., cooperage, 14; BARNETT Brass Co., bras goods, 42; AULTMAN & TAYLOR Co., engines, etc., 330; NAIL & FORD, planing mill, 25; Mansfield Plating Co., nickel-plating, 11; Buckeye Suspender Co., 84; Mansfield Steam Boiler Works, 42; Mansfield Carriage Hardware Co., 57; HUMPHREY Manufacturing Co., pumps, etc., 182; Mansfield Machine Works, 100; Mansfield Buggy Co., 97; FAUST & WAPPNER, furniture, 4; S. N. FORD & Co., sash, doors and blinds, 70; BAXTER Stove Co., 96; MILLS, ELLSWORTH & Co., bending works, 25; R. LEAN & Son, harrows, 12; Western Suspender Co., suspenders, 85; CRAWFORD & TAYLOR, crackers, etc., 80; Herald Co., printing, 21; HAUTZENROEDER & Co., cigars, 285; DANFORTH & PROCTOR, sash, doors and blinds, 25; Ohio Suspender Co., 33; Mansfield Box Manufacturing Co., paper boxes, 15; Shield and Banner Co., printing, 19; News Printing Co., printing and binding, 22.–State Report, 1888.

 

Mansfield is a rich agricultural centre and heavy wood market.  Great attention is given to the improvement of farm stock, as horses, cattle, swine, etc.  Population, 1880, 9,859.  School census, 1888, 3,589; John SIMPSON, school superintendent.  Capital invested in industrial establishments, $1,036,500.  Value of annual product, $2,592,000.–Ohio Labor Statistics, 1887.

 

Census, 1890, 13,473.

 

Mansfield, in 1846, was reached by a railroad from Sandusky, and I came here by it, though they were not then running regular trains.  Everything about it was rough and crude.  The track had thin, flat bars of iron spiked on wood, and our train consisted of a locomotive, tender, and a single car with a few rough seats, what they called in those days a “Jim Crow” car.  In this car was a young man of great height; slender, pale, and then just 23 years of age.  He was attired with studied neatness, and looked to me like a college student, pale and thoughtful.  He sat in statue-like silence; not a word escaped his lips.  But I noticed he had his eyes well open; nothing seemed to fail his observation.  My saddle-

 

Page 481

 

bags, containing valuable drawings and notes, had been taken in charge by the railroad man, and I knew not its whereabouts.  In talking with him about it, I showed, as I felt, a nervous anxiety.  The young man heard my every word, and the thought came over me, “You must think I am very fussy.”  He could not realize how important to me were those saddle-bags.  Since that day our country has gone through much.  We, of advanced years, who have lived through its periods of deadly peril, and suffered the agonies of its sore adversities, alone can realize how much.  But I know not a living man who has done such a prolonged, united to such a great, service to the United States, as the silent, reflecting youth who sat by me on that day–JOHN SHERMAN.

 

Sunday morning, the first day of November, 1886, arrived, and I was again in Mansfield.  The town is on a hill; on its summit is the public square, containing about three acres; around it are grouped the public buildings.  On it is the soldiers’ monument, a band-stand, a pyramid of cannon and a fountain, and these things appear under a canopy of overhanging trees.

 

After breakfast I walked thither and looked around.  The day was one of the autumnal show-days; the sun bright, the air balmy, the foliage gay in softly blending hues.  Standing there, enjoying the scene, a large, portly gentleman of about 60 years of age approached me.  He had in his hand a book–was on his way to open Sunday-school.  He was a stranger, and I stopped him to make inquiries about the surroundings.  He seemed pleased, it being complimentary to his superior knowledge.  A moment later I made myself known.  I could not have met a better man for my queries.  It was Mr. Henry C. HEDGES; he was town-born and loved the spot; and when I remarked, “It is an honor to this town to possess such a citizen as John SHERMAN,” it hit like a centre-shot.  The remark was in innocence of the fact that he was the old law partner of Mr. SHERMAN, and his most intimate friend.  “You had better go and see him?” said he.  “Oh, no, it is Sunday, and it will be an intrusion.”  “The better the day, the better the deed.  He has just ended a speaking campaign, and now is the very time.  He will be glad to welcome you.”

 

Mr. Sherman’s was near the end of a fine avenue of homes, on the high ground, about a mile distant.  I walked thither.  The bells were ringing for church, and I met the people in loving family groups on their way to worship.  The autumnal sun filled the air with balm and gladness, and the leaves glinted in its rays their hues of dying beauty.  The home I found an ample brick mansion, with a mansard roof, on a summit, with a grand outlook to the north, east and west.  It is on a lawn, about 200 feet from the avenue, in the midst of evergreens and other trees.  The home place has about eight acres, with a large farm attached, on which are orchards abounding in choicest fruits.

 

The last distant tones of the bells had died on the air, and the leaves ceased rustling under my feet as I reached the door of the mansion.  I found Mr. SHERMAN alone in his library; the ladies had gone to church.  His greeting was with his characteristic calm cordiality.  There is no gush about John SHERMAN.  Simplicity, directness and integrity mark alike his intercourse and thought.  These qualities are illustrated in those paragraphs forming the conclusion of a speech made in Congress, January 28, 1858:

 

“In conclusion, allow me to impress the South with two important warnings she has received in her struggle for Kansas.  One is, that though her able and disciplined leaders on this floor, aided by executive patronage, may give her the power to overthrow legislative compacts, yet, while the sturdy integrity of the Northern masses stands in her way, she can gain no practical advantage by her well-laid schemes.  The other is, that while she may indulge with impunity the spirit of filibusterism, or lawless and violent adventure upon a feeble and distracted people in Mexico and Central America, she must not come in contact with that cool, determined courage and resolution which forms the striking characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race.  In such a contest, her hasty and impetuous violence may succeed for a time, but the victory will be short-lived and leave nothing but bitterness behind.

 

Let us not war with each other; but, with the grasp of fellowship and friendship, regard to the full each other’s rights, and let us be kind to each other’s faults; let us go hand-in-hand in securing to every portion of our people their constitutional rights.”

 

I had never met Mr. SHERMAN to speak with him until ten days before, and then, but for a moment, and now I had called upon his then-given invitation.  He was at leisure for conversation, and passing me a cigar we talked for a while and then he took me on a short walk around the place.  The outlook

 

Page 482

 

 MICHAEL D. HARTER                  COL. JARED MANSFIELD           GEN ROELIFF BRINKERHOFF.

 

 

Page 483

 

was magnificent–the town in the distance; the valley through which runs the Mohiccan, and the distant gently sloping hills.  The place is 700 feet above Lake Erie, distant in a direct line about 40 miles.

 

Everything about it and the mansion within is on the expansive, generous scale, substantial and comfortable.  CHESTERFIELD once took Dr. JOHNSON over his place, and as the doctor concluded his rounds, he turned to CHESTERFIELD and said, with a sigh, “Ah! My lord, it is the possession of such things that must make it so hard to die.”

 

The mansion is spacious in its varied apartments, and the walls are filled with books, and by the thousands, and they are there in great variety, and in many lines of human interest.  The history of our country is all told, the utterances of her most eloquent sons; the deeds of her heroes; the acts of her statesmen.  Many of the works are of elegance, many out of print, and of priceless value.  He took me to the large rooms under the roof, where is his working library, consisting largely of books appertaining to American legislation and to law.  In this great collection it is said, there is not one official act of Government since its foundation that is not recorded, nor a report or utterance by an official, Congressman or Senator of any moment, that is not given.

 

Such are the equipments of a Statesman who has made a life-study of, and had a life-experience in behalf of a righteous government for this American people.  I don’t say great American people: every reader feels the adjective.

 

In Mr. SHERMAN’s safe are over 40,000 letters: largely from noted characters, but so carefully classified, that any one can be found in a twinkling.  Among them is the famous letter from his brother, the General, giving the first authentic intelligence of the discovery of gold in California.

 

The greatest curiosity he produced were two large volumes containing perhaps a thousand letters, written by the General to him, from the year 1862 to 1867, embracing the period of the civil war.

 

From youth they had begun a correspondence.  The General, during his most arduous military duties–in the midst of his famous march to the sea–took time to write long letters to his brother, and he in like manner to him.  What a mine they will be to the future historian, as revealing the workings of the minds of the famous brothers, in the light of the events in the passing panorama of that stupendous era.  The lifelong affection between them has no other, nor to our knowledge a like example in the history of our eminent public men.

 

On the opposite side of the avenue from Mr. Sherman’s are the homes of two other gentlemen, bright lights in Ohio, upon whom he thought I ought to call.  GENERAL ROELIFF BRINKERHOFF and M. D. HARTER.  I took his advice.  The first I had met, the other I had not, but, when I did, he pleased me by saying that he remembered “when a very little boy, lying on the floor looking at the pictures in Mr. HOWE’s Historical Collections of Ohio.”  It seems to be the custom now-a-days to write of lights while yet shining, and call it “contemporaneous biography.”  Our ancestors waited until their lights were glimmed and then on their tombstones told how bright had been their scintillations.

 

GENERAL ROELIFF BRINKERHOFF had for his remote ancestor Joris DERICKSON BRINKERHOFF, who cam in 1638, from Holland to Brooklyn, N. Y., and “bringing with him his wife, Susannah:” certainly pleasing in name and we opine pleasing in person.  Providence seems to have blessed the twain, inasmuch as they were the originals of all the BRINKERHOFFS in America.  Roeliff is of the seventh generation, and had among his ancestors some French Huguenots.  He was born in Owasco, N. Y., in 1828.  At 16 he began teaching school in his native town; at 19, was private tutor in the family of Andrew JACKSON, Jr., at the Hermitage, Tennessee: this was two years after the death of the General.  At the age of 22, he came north and acquired the profession of the law, in the office of his kinsman, Hon. Jacob BRINKERHOFF, in Mansfield: and when the war broke out, was one of the proprietors and editors of the Mansfield Herald.  Going into the Union army in 1861, he was soon assigned to the position of Regimental Quartermaster of the 64th Ohio, and rose very high in that department, first in the west and then in the east.  At one time was Post Quartermaster at Washington City; in 1865, Colonel and Inspector of the Quartermaster’s Department; he was then retained on duty at the War Office, with Secretary STANTON; later was Chief Quartermaster at Cincinnati, and in 1866, after five years’ continuous service, retired with the commission of Brigadier-General.

 

General BRINKERHOFF is the author of “The Volunteer Quartermaster,” which is still the standard guide for the Quartermaster’s Department.  As a member of the Board of State Charities, and as President of the National Board of Charities, he has won by his executive capacity high honor and wide recognition.

 

He has given for years much study on the subject of prison reform.  Largely through his efforts, Mansfield was selected as the site for the State Intermediate Penitentiary.  The site is about a mile north of the town, and the corner-stone was laid November 5, 1886.

 

MICHAEL D. HARTER is the head in Mansfield of that great manufacturing concern,

 

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“The Aultman & Taylor Co.”  He was born in Canton, in 1846; the son of a merchant and banker.  He is a highly respected and genial gentleman, patriotic and public-spirited; the gift of the handsome soldiers’ monument in the public square at Mansfield is one of the many illustrations of these qualities.  His religious attachment is Lutheran and his politics Democratic, believing in the axiom, “That government is best, which governs the least.”  He is prominent as the champion in Ohio of the policy of FREE TRADE and Civil Service Reform.

 

One of the most hale and vigorous old gentlemen I met on my tour was DR. WILLIAM BUSHNELL, of Mansfield.  He was born about the year 1800.  After the surrender of Hull, he, being then in his twelfth year, went with his father with the troops from Trumbull County, to the camp near Cleveland.  A battle being imminent with the Indians, his father told him he must go back home.  He obeyed reluctantly, for he so wanted to take part in a fight and pop over an Indian or two.  He retraced his steps alone through the dense wilderness, guided only by the trail left by the regiment.  He said to me, “When I got into Wayne township, Ashtabula county, I came to a cabin, was worn out and half starved, and there I found the biggest people I had ever seen; and it appears to me now, as I think of it, I have scarcely seen any since so big.  They took me in and almost overwhelmed me with kindness.  They were the parents of Joshua R GIDDINGS, who was then a seventeen-year-old boy about the place, swinging his axe into the tall timber.  In 1878, Dr. BUSHNELL was the delegate from Ohio to the International Prison Reform Congress, called by the Swedish Government, and held at Stockholm.  The portrait of a solid strong white-bearded patriarch forms the frontispiece to GRAHAM’s History of Richland Co., and in fac-simile under it is the signature of Wm. BUSHNELL, M. D.

 

JOHNNY APPLESEED.

 

Johnny Appleseed.At an early day, there was a very eccentric character who frequently was in this region, well remembered by the early settlers.  His name was John CHAPMAN, but he was usually known as Johnny Appleseed.  He came originally from New England.

 

He had imbibed a remarkable passion for the rearing and cultivation of apple trees from the seed.  He first made his appearance in western Pennsylvania, and from thence made his way into Ohio, keeping on the outskirts of the settlements, and following his favorite pursuit.  He was accustomed to clear spots in the loamy lands on the banks of the streams, plant his seeds, enclose the ground, and then leave the place until the trees had in a measure grown.  When the settlers began to flock in and open their “clearings,” Johnny was ready for them with his young trees, which he either gave away or sold for some trifle, as an old coat, or any article of which he could make use.  Thus he proceeded for many years, until the whole country was in a measure settled and supplied with apple trees, deriving self-satisfaction amounting to almost delight, in the indulgence of his engrossing passion.  About 20 years since he removed to the far west, there to enact over again the same career of humble usefulness which had been his occupation here.

 

His personal appearance was as singular as his character.  He was quick and restless in his motions and conversation; his beard and hair were long and dark,

 

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and his eye black and sparkling.  He lived the roughest life, and often slept in the woods.  His clothing was mostly old, being generally given to him in exchange for apple trees.  He went bare-footed, and often travelled miles through the snow in that way.  In doctrine he was a follower of Swedenborg, leading a moral, blameless life, likening himself to the primitive Christians, literally taking no thought for the morrow.  Whenever he went he circulated Swedenborgian works, and if short of them would tear a book in two and give each part to different persons.  He was careful not to injure any animal, and thought hunting morally wrong.  He was welcome everywhere among the settlers, and was treated with great kindness even by the Indians.  We give a few anecdotes, illustrative of his character and eccentricities.

 

One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burnt.  Johnny, who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, “God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures.”  Another time he made his camp-fire at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night, but finding it occupied by a bear and cubs, he removed his fire to the other end, and slept on the snow in the open air, rather than disturb the bear.  He was one morning on a prairie, and was bitten by a rattlesnake.  Some time after, a friend inquired of him about the matter.  He drew a long sigh and replied, “Poor fellow! He only just touched me, when I, in an ungodly passion, put the heel of my scythe on him and went home.  Some time after I went there for my scythe, and there lay the poor fellow dead.” He bought a coffee bag, made a hole in the bottom, through which he thrust his head and wore it as a cloak, saying it was as good as anything.  An itinerant preacher was holding forth on the public square in Mansfield, and exclaimed, “Where is the bare-footed Christian, travelling to heaven!”  Johnny, who was lying on his back on some timber, taking the question in its literal sense, raised his bare feet in the air, and vociferated “Here he is!”

 

The foregoing account of this philanthropic oddity is from our original edition.  In the appendix to the novel, by Rev. James MCGAW, entitled “Philip SEYMOUR; or, Pioneer Life in Richland County,” is a full sketch of Johnny, by Miss Rosella PRICE, who knew him well.  When the Copus monument was erected, she had his name carved upon it in honor of his memory.  We annex her sketch of him in an abridged form.  The portrait was drawn by an artist from her personal recollection, and published in A. A. GRAHAM’s “History of Richland County:”

 

Johnny Appleseed’s Relatives.–John CHAPMAN was born at or near Springfield, Mass., in the year 1775.  About the year 1801 he came with his half-brother to Ohio, and a year or two later his father’s family removed to Marietta, Ohio.  Soon after Johnny located in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, and began the nursery business and continued it on west.  Johnny’s father, Nathaniel, senior, moved from Marietta to Duck creek, where he died.  The CHAPMAN family was a large one, and many of Johnny’s relatives were scattered throughout Ohio and Indiana.

 

Johnny was famous throughout Ohio as early as 1811.  A pioneer of Jefferson county said the first time he ever saw Johnny he was going down the river, in 1806, with two canoes lashed together, and well laden with apple-seeds, which he had obtained at the cider presses of Western Pennsylvania.  Sometimes he carried a bag or two of seeds on an old horse; but more frequently he bore them on his back, going from place to place on the wild frontier; clearing a little patch, surrounding it with a rude enclosure, and planting seeds therein.  He had little nurseries all through Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

 

How Regarded by the Early Settlers.–I can remember how Johnny looked in his queer clothing-combination suit, as the girls of now-a-days would call it.  He was such a good, kind, generous man, that he thought it was wrong to expend money on clothes to be worn just for the fine appearance; he thought if he was comfortably clad, and in attire that suited the weather, it was sufficient.  His head-covering was often a pasteboard hat of his own making, with one broad side to it, that he wore next the sunshine to protect his face.  It was a very unsightly object, to be sure, and yet never one of us children ventured to laugh at it.  We held Johnny in

 

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tender regard.  His pantaloons were old, and scant and short, with some sort of a substitute for “gallows” or suspenders.  He never wore a coat except in the winter-time; and his feet were knobby and horny and frequently bare.  Sometimes he wore old shoes; but if he had none, and the rough roads hurt his feet, he substituted sandals–rude soles, with thong fastenings.  The bosom of his shirt was always pulled out loosely, so as to make a kind of pocket or pouch, in which he carried his books.

 

Johnny’s Nurseries.–All the orchards in the white settlements came from the nurseries of Johnny’s planting.  Even now, after all these years, and though this region of country is densely populated, I can count from my window no less than five orchards, or remains of orchards, that were once trees taken from his nurseries.

 

Long ago, if he was going a great distance, and carrying a sack of seeds on his back, he had to provide himself with a leather sack; for the dense underbrush, brambles and thorny thickets would have made it unsafe for a coffee-sack.

 

In 1806 he planted sixteen bushels of seeds on an old farm on the Walhonding river, and he planted nurseries in Licking county, Ohio, and Richland county, and had other nurseries farther west.  One of his nurseries is near us, and I often go to the secluded spot, on the quiet banks of the creek, never broken since the poor old man did it, and say, in a reverent whisper, “Oh, the angels did commune with the good old man, whose loving heart prompted him to go about doing good!”

 

Matrimonial Disappointment.–On one occasion Miss PRICE’s mother asked Johnny if he would not be a happier man, if he were settled in a home of his own, and had a family to love him.  He opened his eyes very wide–they were remarkably keen, penetrating grey eyes, almost black–and replied that all women were not what they professed to be; that some of them were deceivers; and a man might not marry the amiable woman that he thought he was getting, after all.  Now we had always heard that Johnny had loved once upon a time, and that his lady love had proven false to him.  Then he said one time he saw a poor, friendless little girl, who had no one to care for her, and sent her to school, and meant to bring her up to suit himself, and when she was old enough he intended to marry her.  He clothed her and watched over her; but when she was fifteen years old, he called to see her once unexpectedly, and found her sitting beside a young man, with her hand in his, listening to his silly twaddle.  I peeped over at Johnny while he was telling this, and, young as I was, I saw his eyes grow dark as violets, and the pupils enlarge, and his voice rise up in denunciation, while his nostrils dilated and his thin lips worked with emotion.  How angry he grew!  He thought the girl was basely ungrateful.  After that time she was no protegé of his.

 

His Power of Oratory.–On the subject of apples he was very charmingly enthusiastic.  One would be astonished at his beautiful description of excellent fruit.  I saw him once at the table, when I was very small, telling about some apples that were new to us.  His description was poetical, the language remarkably well-chosen; it could have been no finer had the whole of Webster’s “Unabridged,” with all its royal vocabulary, been fresh upon his ready tongue.  I stood back of my mother’s chair, amazed, delighted, bewildered, and vaguely realizing the wonderful powers of true oratory.  I felt more than I understood.

 

His Sense of Justice.–He was scrupulously honest.  I recall the last time we ever saw his sister, a very ordinary woman, the wife of an easy old gentleman, and the mother of a family of handsome girls.  They had started to move West in the winter season, but could move no farther after they reached our house.  To help them along and to get rid of them, my father made a queer little one-horse vehicle on runners, hitched their poor little caricature of a beast to it; helped them to pack and stow therein their bedding and few movables; gave them a stock of provisions and five dollars, and sent the whole kit on their way rejoicing; and that was the last we ever saw of our poor neighbors.  The next time Johnny came to our house he very promptly laid a five-dollar bill on my father’s knee, and shook his head very decidedly when it was handed back; neither could he be prevailed upon to take it again.

 

He was never known to hurt any animal or to give any living thing pain–not even a snake.  The Indians all liked him and treated him very kindly.  They regarded him, from his habits, as a man above his fellows.  He could endure pain like an Indian warrior; could thrust pins into his flesh without a tremor.  Indeed so insensible was he to acute pain, that his treatment of a wound or sore was to sear it with a hot iron, and then treat it as a burn.

 

Mistaken Philanthropy.–He ascribed great medicinal virtue to the fennel, which he found, probably, in Pennsylvania.  The overwhelming desire to do good and benefit and bless others induced him to carry a quantity of the seed, which he carried in his pockets, and occasionally scattered along his path in his journeys, especially at the wayside near dwellings.  Poor old man! He inflicted upon the farming population a positive evil, when he sought to do good; for the rank fennel, with its pretty but pungent blossoms, lines our roadsides and borders our lanes, and steals into our door-yards, and is a pest only second to the daisy.

 

Leaves His Old Haunts.–In 1838 he resolved to go farther on.  Civilization was making the wilderness to blossom like the rose; villages were springing up; stage-coaches laden with travellers were common; schools were everywhere; mail facilities were very good; frame and brick houses were taking the places of the humble cabins; and so poor Johnny went around among his friends

 

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and bade them farewell.  The little girls he had dandled upon his knees and presented with beads and gay ribbons, were now mothers and the heads of families.  This must have been a sad task for the old man, who was then well stricken in years, and one would have thought that he would have preferred to die among his friends.

 

He came back two or three times to see us all, in the intervening years that he lived; the last time was in the year that he died, 1845.

 

His bruised and bleeding feet now walk the gold-paved streets of the New Jerusalem, while we so brokenly and crudely narrate the sketch of his life–a life full of labor and pain and unselfishness; humble unto self-abnegation; his memory glowing in our hearts, while his deeds live anew every springtime in the fragrance of the apple-blossoms he loved so well.

 

An account of the death and burial of this simple-hearted, virtuous, self-sacrificing man, whose name deserves enrolment in the calendar of the saints, is given on page 260, Vol. I.

 

The following extract from a poem, by Mrs. E. S. DILL, of Wyoming, Hamilton county, Ohio, written for the Christian Standard, is a pleasing tribute to the memory of Johnny Appleseed:

 

Grandpa stopped, and from the grass at our feet,

Picked up an apple, large, juicy, and sweet;

Then took out his jack-knife, and cutting a slice,

Said, as we ate it, “Isn’t it nice

To have such apples to eat and enjoy?

Well, there weren’t very many when I was a boy,

For the country was new–e’en food was scant;

We had hardly enough to keep us from want,

And this good man, as he rode around,

Oft eating and sleeping upon the ground,

Always carried and planted appleseeds

Not for himself, but for others’ needs.

The appleseeds grew, and we, to-day,

Eat of the fruit planted by the way.

While Johnny–bless him–is under the sod–

His body is–ah! He is with God;

For, child, though it seemed a trifling deed,

For a man just to plant an appleseed,

The apple-tree’s shade, the flowers, the fruit,

Have proved a blessing to man and to brute.

Look at the orchards throughout the land,

All of them planted by old Johnny’s hand.

He will forever remembered be;

I would wish to have all so think of me.”

 

 

BIOGRAPHY.

 

JOHN SHERMAN was born in Lancaster, Ohio, May 10, 1823.  His parents were natives of Norfolk, Conn., and a few months after their marriage removed to Ohio.  Charles Robert SHERMAN (the father of John SHERMAN) was a man of eminent legal abilities, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio; he died very suddenly, leaving his widow with eleven children and but meager means of support.  John SHERMAN, the eighth child, was in the spring of 1831 taken to the home of his cousin, John SHERMAN, a merchant of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and placed at school.  It is said that he was rather a wild and reckless boy, and that in their boyhood there seemed greater likelihood of John becoming a warrior and his brother William T. a statesman, than that they should occupy their present positions in life.

 

An Early Start in Life–In the spring of 1837, although but 14 years of age, John anxious to become self-supporting, obtained a position as junior rodsman on the Muskingum river improvement.  He was soon advanced to a position of much responsibility at Beverly, requiring diligence and care in the performance of his duties; and when, in 1839, he was removed because he was a Whig, he felt that the two years spent in this work, with its necessary study for accuracy in details, the close attention to business

 

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required, and the self-confidence inspired, had given him a better education than could have been obtained elsewhere in the same time.

 

As a Lawyer.–At 21 years of age (May 11, 1844), he was admitted to the bar, having studied law with his brother Charles, of Mansfield, Ohio, who admitted him to partnership.  The salient and conquering trait in his mind and character, together with an excellent knowledge of men and familiarity with the ways of the world, enabled him at once to secure a fine practice.  Keeping his expenditures well within his earnings, he acquired the means of investing, a few years later, in a manufacturing enterprise, then new to that part of Ohio (flooring, sash, door and blind factory), that yielded him a handsome profit for a number of years, and formed the nucleus of the comfortable property he has since acquired.  (Notwithstanding the common impression, Senator SHERMAN is not what is called a rich man.)

 

Secretary of a Whig Convention.–In 1848 he was elected a delegate to the Whig Convention, held at Philadelphia.  When organized, he was made secretary of the convention on the motion of Col. COLLYER, who said: “There is a young man here from Ohio, who lives in a district so strongly Democratic that he could never get an office unless this convention gave him one.”  Schuyler COLFAX, being similarly situated in Indiana, was made assistant secretary.  The convention nominated Zachary TAYLOR, and Mr. SHERMAN canvassed part of Ohio for him.

 

In August, 1848, Mr. SHERMAN was married with Miss Cecilia STEWART, only child of Judge STEWART, of Mansfield.

 

A Congressman.–In 1855 he was elected to Congress.  His thorough acquaintance with public affairs; his power as a ready, clear and forcible speaker; his firm position on the questions then before the people, so soon made him a recognized leader.  The great questions then were the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision, slavery in Kansas, the fugitive slave law, and the national finances.

 

Mr. SHERMAN held clearly to the doctrines of the Republican party on the slavery question.  He was appointed by N. P. BANKS, then Speaker of the House, one of a committee of three to investigate and report on the border-ruffian troubles in Kansas.  The committee visited Kansas and took testimony.  They encountered rough treatment, and on one occasion all that saved the lives of the committee was the presence of United States troops at Fort Leavenworth.  One day sixty armed men, dressed in the border style with red shirts and trousers, with bowie-knives and pistols in their boots, marched into the committee room for the purpose of intimidating the committee.  It was necessary that Mrs. ROBINSON, the wife of one of the members of the committee, should secretly convey the testimony to Speaker BANKS.

 

Mr. HOWARD, chairman of the committee, being unable through sickness to prepare the report, it was prepared by Mr. SHERMAN, and when presented to the house created a great deal of feeling and intensified antagonisms; it was made the basis of the campaign of 1856.

 

Opposition to MonopolyAn Authority on Finance.–During his first session in Congress Mr. SHERMAN showed the opposition to monopolists that he has since consistently maintained, by saying in the debate on the submarine telegraph, “I cannot agree that our government should be bound by any contract with any private incorporated company for fifty years; and the amendment I desire to offer will reserve the power to Congress to determine the proposed contract after ten years.”


 

He was soon a recognized authority on finance, and watched all expenditures very closely; the then prevalent system of making contracts in advance of appropriations was sternly denounced by him as illegal.

 

A Senator.–Mr. SHERMAN was re-elected to the Thirty-sixth Congress. In 1859 he was the Republican candidate for Speaker, and came within three votes of an election.  In 1860 he was again elected to Congress, and on the resignation of Salmon P. CHASE he was elected to his place in the Senate, taking his seat March 23, 1861.  He was re-elected senator in 1867 and in 1873.  In the Senate Senator SHERMAN was at the head of the Finance Committee, and served also on committees on agriculture, Pacific Railroad, the judiciary, and the patent office.

 

Mr. SHERMAN’s greatest services to the country were during the war period, when his great financial genius was demonstrated in the system of finances adopted by our government, and of which he was chief in devising and advocating.

 

In 1862 he was the only member of the Senate to make a speech in favor of the National Bank bill, its final passage only being secured by the personal appeal of Secretary CHASE to members opposed to it.  In the same year, on a question of taxation, Senator SHERMAN said, “Taxes are more cheerfully paid now, in view of the mountain of calamity that would overwhelm us if the rebellion should succeed; but when we have reached the haven of peace, when the danger is past, you must expect discontent and complaint.  The grim spectre of repudiation can never disturb us if we do our duty of taxpaying as well as our soldiers do theirs of fighting.  And if, senators, you have thought me hard and close as to salaries and expenditures, I trust you will do me the justice to believe that it is not from any doubt of the ability of our country to pay, or from a base and selfish desire for cheap reputation, or from a disinclination to pay my share; but because I see in the dim future of our country the same uneasy struggle between capital and labor–between the rich and the poor, between fund-holders and property-holders–that has marked the history of Great Britain for the last fifty years.  I do not wish the public debt to be increased one dollar beyond the

 

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necessities of the present war; and the only way to prevent this increase is to restrict our expenditures to the lowest amount consistent with the public service, and to increase our taxes to the highest aggregate our industry will bear.”

 

In Army Service.–In 1861, during the recess of Congress, Mr. SHERMAN joined the Ohio regiments, then in Philadelphia, and was appointed aide-de-camp to Gen. Robert PATTERSON.  He remained with them until the meeting of Congress in July.  At the close of the extra session of the Senate he returned to Ohio and applied himself diligently to the raising of a brigade, which served during the whole war under the name of the “Sherman Brigade.”

 

He was intending to resign his seat as senator and enter the army, but was persuaded not to do so by President LINCOLN and Secretary CHASE, who felt that by remaining in the Senate his watchful care of public finances, his labors to provide for the support of the armies in the field and maintain and strengthen public credit, would be of greater public service than any that could be rendered in the army.

 

Resumption of Specie Payments.–In 1867 he introduced a refunding act, which was adopted in 1870, but without the resumption clause.  From that time onward he was the conspicuous and chief figure in financial legislation consequent upon the war.  In 1877 he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President HAYES.  The crowning triumph of Mr. SHERMAN’s policy was realized on Jan. 1, 1879, when specie payments were successfully resumed, despite the most dismal forebodings of many prominent financiers.


In 1880 Mr. SHERMAN was a candidate for the Presidential nomination, his name being presented to the National Convention by Jas. A. GARFIELD, who subsequently received the nomination.  In 1881 Mr. SHERMAN was again elected to the Senate and re-elected in 1887.  In 1885 he was chosen President of the Senate pro tem.  In 1884, and again in 1888, he was a prominent candidate for the Presidency; being the leading candidate in the convention of 1888 until Benjamin HARRISON was nominated.

 

A Pure Statesman.–Mr. SHERMAN’s career has been remarkably free from imputation upon his integrity, but at the time of the Credit Mobilier investigation a charge was made by political opponents that he had amassed great wealth out of the war.  These charges were speedily squelched.

 

“No man can say that Mr. SHERMAN ever, in the slightest degree, received any benefit from the government in any business operation connected with the government, except the salary given him by law.  It is a matter of public notoriety that no one could have been more stringent in severing his connection with any transaction which by possibility could affect the government, or could be affected by pending legislation of Congress.  He even carried this position to an extreme, and never bought, or sold, or dealt in any stock, bond, or security, or business which could be affected by his action in Congress.”

 

The period is probably coming when no memory will hold the long list of Presidents of these United States, while the name of John SHERMAN will be known in the memory of all generations: a statement we give in the hopeful view that the increased intelligence of the voting population will make their judgment of public men, and what constitutes character and patriotic service, more discriminating than in our day.  Mr. SHERMAN has published “Selected Speeches and Reports on Finance and Taxation, 1859-1878.”

 

Judge JACOB BRINKERHOFF was born in 1810, in Niles, New York; was educated to the law; served as a Democratic member of Congress, from 1843 to 1847.  He then became affiliated with the Free Soil party, and drew up the famous resolution introduced by David WILMOT, of Pennsylvania, and since known as the WILMOT PROVISO; the original draft of which he retained until his death in 1880.  He distributed several copies of this to the Free Soil members, with the understanding that the one who first could catch the Speaker’s eye should introduce it.  Mr. WILMOT succeeded and received the historical honor by the attachment of his name, when it should have been the BRINKERHOFF PROVISO.  Mr. BRINKERHOFF served fifteen years on the Supreme Bench of Ohio, and would have given more service but for failing health and advancing years.  He stood high as a jurist.

 

MORDECAI BARTLEY, the thirteenth governor of Ohio, was born in Fayette county, Pa., in 1783.  In 1809 settled as a farmer in Jefferson county, Ohio, near the mouth of Cross creek.  In the war of 1812 raised a company of volunteers under HARRISON.  After it, opened up a farm in the wilderness of Richland; then from his savings engaged in merchandizing in Mansfield.  From 1823 on served four terms in Congress, where he was the first to propose the conversion of the land grants of Ohio into a permanent fund for the support of common schools.  In 1844 was elected Governor of Ohio on the Whig ticket, and showed in his State papers marked ability.  Declining a second nomination, he passed the remainder of his days in the practice of law and in farming near the city.  He died Oct. 10, 1870, aged eighty-three years.

 

WILLIAM LOGAN HARRIS, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, deceased in New York city about the year 1888, was born near Mansfield, Nov. 4, 1817.  “He was educated at Norwalk Seminary, and entered the ministry September 7, 1837.  In 1848 he became principal of Baldwin Institute, at Berea, Ohio.  In 1851 he went to Delaware and took charge of the Academic Department of the Ohio Wesleyan University, and in 1852 was elected to its chair of chemistry and natural history, which position he held for eight years.  In 1860 he was elected assistant Corresponding Secretary of the Missionary Society, and was re-elected in 1864 and 1868.

 

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He was elected Bishop in 1872, at Brooklyn, and soon after went on a tour around the world, occupying eighteen months, in which he visited nearly every Methodist missionary station.  He was a member of every quadrennial General Conference from 1856 to 1872, and was Secretary of each session.  In 1874 he was sent as delegate to the British Wesleyan Conference.  He received his degree of D. D. from Allegheny College in 1856, and his LL. D. from Baldwin University in 1870.  He again went abroad several times, visiting missionary stations.  From 1874 to 1880 resided in Chicago and last in New York.  He contributed largely to the periodical denominational literature, and was the author of a small but very useful work on “The Legal Power of the General Conference.”

 

BELLVILLE is ten miles south of Mansfield, on the L. E. Div. Of the B. & O. R. R.  The principal industries are the making of rattan baskets and carriages.  It is a remarkably clean and neat village, the consequence of a fire which occurred Sept. 22, 1882.  Gold is found in the neighborhood.  Newspapers: Independent, Independent, J. W. DOWLING, Jr., editor; Star, Independent, E. A. BROWN & Co., editors and publishers.  Churches: 1 Episcopal Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Disciples, 1 Lutheran, 1 Universalist, 1 Seventh-day Baptist.  Bank: Commercial, R. W. BELL, president; J. B. LEWIS, cashier.  Population, 1880, 971.  School census, 1888, 308.

 

INDEPENDENCE, Post-office Butler, is thirteen miles southeast of Mansfield, on the L. E. Div. of the B. & O. R. R.  It has one Methodist Episcopal and one Evangelical church.  Population, 1880, 394.  School census, 1888, 190.  L. L. Ford, superintendent of schools.

 

LEXINGTON is eight miles southwest of Mansfield, on the L. E. Div. Of the B. & O. R. R.  Population, 1880, 508.  School census, 1888, 159.  John MILLER, superintendent of schools.

 

LUCAS is seven miles southeast of Mansfield, on the P., Ft. W. & C. R. R.  It has one Congregational and one Lutheran church.  Population, 1880, 381.  School census, 1888, 203.  D. K. Andrews, superintendent of schools.

 

PLYMOUTH is seventeen miles northwest of Mansfield, on the B. & O. R. R., and line of Huron county.

 

City officers, 1888: A. O. JUMP, Mayor; W. F. BEEKMAN, Clerk; S. M. ROBINSON, Treasurer; William McCLINCHEY, Street Commissioner; B. F. TUBBS, Marshal.  Newspaper: Advertiser, Independent, J. F. BEELMAN, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Catholic, 1 Lutheran and 1 Presbyterian.  Bank: First National, J. BRINKERHOFF, president; William MONTEITH, cashier.  Population, 1880, 1,145.  School census, 1888, 208.

 

SHELBY is twelve miles northwest of Mansfield, at the junction of the C. C. C. & I. and B. & O. Railroads.

 

City officers, 1888: Edwin MANSFIELD, Mayor; J. W. WILLIAMS, Clerk; T. H. WIGGINS, Solicitor; J. L. PITTINGER, Treasurer; S. C. GATES, Marshal.  Newspapers: Free Press, Independent, Mr. E. DICKERSON, editor and publisher; Independent News, Independent, C. E. PETTIT, editor and publisher; Times, Republican, J. G. HILL, editor and publisher.  Churches: 1 United Brethren, 1 Catholic, 1 Lutheran, 1 Methodist, 1 Reformed, 1 Disciples, and 1 other.  Bank: First National, W. R. BRICKER, president; B. J. WILLIAMS, cashier.

 

Manufactures and Employees.–F. BRUCKER, lanning-mill, 6 hands; Shelby Carriage Works, carriages, 8; SUTTER, BARKDULL & Co., furniture, 23; the Shelby Mill Company, flour, etc., 41; HEATH Brothers, flour, etc., 4.–State Report, 1888.

 

Population, 1880, 1,871.  School census, 1888, 601.  J. MYERS, superintendent.  Capital invested in industrial establishments, $100,000.  Value of annual product, $108,000.–Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.

 

SHILOH is fourteen miles northwest of Mansfield, on the C. C. C. & I. R. R.  Newspapers: Gleaner, Independent, E. L. BENTON, editor and publisher; Review, Independent, PETTIT & FRAZIER, editors and publishers.  Churches: 1 Lutheran, 1 United Brethren, 1 Episcopal Methodist.  Bank: Exchange, Smith & Ozier.

 

Industries.–Tile and brick, grain and seed-mills, flour, egg storage.

 

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Population, 1880, 661.  School census, 1888, 269.  C. H. HANDLEY, superintendent of schools.

 

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