westreshist

HISTORY OF THE WESTERN RESERVE
Excerpts from History of the Western Reserve, by Harriet Taylor
Upton, Lewis Publishing Company, NY, 1910
Connecticut Stretches Westward
Chapter II, History of The Western Reserve, by Harriet Taylor Upton,
1902
The Connecticut constitution was drawn up in 1639 by the men of the
three settlements or towns, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor. It
provided for a government by the people and did not mention king or
parliament. Other towns later organized under the title of New Haven.
It was in this colony that the laws were so strict as to be called
the "Blue Laws," although these laws did not compare in severity with
many laws of Old England. On April 23, 1662, Charles II confirmed all
Connecticut charters and deeds, and because he hated the New Haven
colony (it had defied him and denied him certain requests) he turned
it in as Connecticut under this charter. The conveyance gave to
Connecticut "all of the territory of the present state and all of the
lands west of it, to the extent and breadth, from sea to sea." This
really gave to Connecticut aside from the home state, the upper third
of Pennsylvania, about one-third of Ohio, and parts of what has
become Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and
California.

England Demands Connecticut's Charter

Connecticut became prosperous and tranquillity seemed near when
Andros, the governor of Massachusetts, appeared in the state and
demanded their charter. The question of releasing this valuable
document was considered for hours, eloquent arguments were made, the
hardships of early settlers were depicted, but even when night fell
the governor was still demanding. No Tungsten burner lighted the room
in which the council was held, but the best of the time - the tallow
dip - was there. Suddenly there was a darkness. When the dips were
set sputtering again the charter could not be found. Some patriot, or
patriots, had spirited it away and had hid it in the hollow of an oak
tree where it remained till Massachusetts rebelled against Andros,
when it was triumphantly produced. On Sundays, on Thanksgiving, and
on Fourth of July, when the early settlers of New Connecticut had
time to think or to hear orations, their hearts swelled with
graditude as they recalled that the charter which gave them the land
upon which they had built their homes had been preserved to them by
Yankee wit and courage, and the "Charter Oak" was ever held in
reverence.
Modern historians are cruel. Not only do they declare that there was
no William Tell, no apple, no arrow; but that Pocahontas did not leap
forth from the darkness and save the life of John Smith. They say she
was a wise, beautiful, gentle, loving Indian girl doing many good
deeds for white people and her own, and who in turn was loved for her
devotion and her bravery. Pshaw! that picture does not replace the
other. Too many women have been good, wise and devoted to this great
country, in the beginning, later and at this minute, to have "special
mention." It is the beautiful Indian in red skirt, beaded waist and
tiny moccasins standing defiant that we love to think about. The
cruel historian hatefully insinuates that the hollow oak may have
held nuts, leaves, dead branches, toads, squirrels, but no parchment -
no paper upon which the chesty king in 1662 had placed his name and
seal; anyway oak or not, they do not declare there was no charter,
for which we are profoundly thankful.

Connecticut in Pennsylvania

Connecticut's far western land held out hope for the home folks and
land companies were formed to establish settlements in northern
Pennsylvania, then more or less of a wilderness. When the companies
were ready, men and women set out to make new homes in the beautiful
valley of the Wyoming. They sought property and liberty, but they
found others ahead of them who wanted the same things. Seven times
did the Connecticut emigrants attempt to make a settlement. Each time
they were driven out by whites and Indians, and twice massacred. The
life of a pioneer is a hard life at best, but for ment and women to
be cold, hungry, lonely and fearful most of the time, as they
struggled for existence, and to be killed at the end, seems useless
when we know how the fertile land, plenty of it for themselves, their
children, and their children's children, stretched out invitingly
before them. To them it seemed as inaccessible as does Mars to us, no
telescope discerned its canals.
Sometimes husbands settled their families in this valley and went out
to fight or to hunt, and the women did the work of both, their
children hanging to their skirts. They listened as they labored for
the whoops of the dreaded red man.
So busy were these frontiersmen during the Revolutionary War that
they neglected the warnings of wives at home, and when at last, they
reluctantly returned, they found themselves wholly unprepared for
what awaited them. They proceeded immediately to construct
fortresses, while the women engaged in the manly occupation of making
the powder. To us they seem to have been a fool-hardy lot for instead
of keeping within the barricades about three hundred of them marched
boldly forth to meet twelve hundred Indians, Tories and British. One
hundred and sixty were killed outright, while one hundred and forty
escaped, nearly all to be recaptured and tomahawked or tortured to
death. Some were pinned down with pitchforks onto blazing logs, or
were made to run through crackling fires till they fell fainting and
were burned to death. One hundred and fifty widows and nearly six
hundred orphans were made that day. When women realized what was
happening they seized their children and started for the east,
through the "Dismal Swamp." In one of these groups there were nearly
one hundred women and children and only one man. Alfred Mathews
in "Ohio and Her Western Reserve" says: "All were without food, many
scarcely clothed, but they pressed on, weak, trembling and growing
constantly worse from this unaccustomed labor through the thicket,
mire and ooze. One by one the weakest gave out. Some wandered from
the path and were lost; some fell from exhaustion, some from wounds
received in battle, but the majority maintained life in some
miraculous way and pressed on. The only manna in that wilderness was
whortleberries, and these they plucked and eagerly devoured, without
pausing. Children were born and children died in that fearful forced
march. One babe that came into the world in this scene of terror and
travail was carried alive to the settlements. At least one which died
was left upon the ground, while the agonized mother went on. There
was not time nor were there means to make even a shallow grave. One
women bore her dead babe in her arms twenty miles rather than abandon
its little body to the beasts."

The Ordinance of 1787

One of the last and greatest acts of the Congress of Confederation
was the passing of the famous charter of Freedom, more commonly known
as the Charter of 1787. Of it Daniel Webster said, "I doubt whether
one single law of any law giver, ancient or modern, has produced
effects of more distinct, marked or lasting character than the
ordinance of 1787."
This ordinance provided for the government of the Northwest territory
and has been the foundation of the laws governing all of our
territories since. It prohibited negro slavery in that territory,
provided for reglious freedeom for all settlers of that region and
for schools, stating that "the means of education shall forever be
encouraged."
A court, organized by congress under the Articles of Confederation
entered into by the states during the Revolution, sat at Trenton, New
Jersey, in 1787, to consider the dispute between Connecticut and
Pennsylvania as to boundary. A decision was rendered for Pennsylvania.
When the author was a young girl she accompanied her father as he
went from county seat to county seat in the dual capacity of common
pleas and circuit judge. Being thus thrown for weeks together with
judges and lawyers, she soon learned, to her surprise, that printed,
high judicial decisions were not always so clearly and firmly worded
as to make differences of opinion among lawyers and judges
impossible, and further, that conditions and circumstances, personal
and political, entered into decisions in many cases.

Saves Her Western Reserve

The ruling in regard to the right of Connecticut to the western lands
is a fair sample. This state had charters for land in New York, but
Charles had also given the same land to New York. His geography was
as shady as was the spelling of our first president. New York and
Connecticut began to settle their differences in 1683 and finished in
1733. In 1787, Connecticut was possessed of her charter shorn of all
east of the western Pennsylvania line. This Western land was still
hers. She was Yankee and did not let go. Her chance was here and she
took it. When the general government was begging the states to
relinquish their titles, Connecticut conquettishly or mulishly, held
back. At last she agreed, reserving for herself the portion of land
which was bordered on the north by the lake, east by the Pennsylvania
line, south by the 41st parallel, and on the west by a line a hundred
and twenty miles west of the Pennsylvania west line. That this
request was granted rather strengthens the thought that the judges
knew the early decision had been unfair and that amends ought to be
made. Otherwise why should Connecticut be the exception to all the
other states?
Connecticut, after all this trouble and uncertainty of years, was at
last victorious and she possessed the thing, or part of the thing,
for she she had contended.
The stories of states are not unlike the stories of people.
Connecticut was barely relieved of a great anxiety - that of a
possible loss of her land - before she was beset by another one. She
owned the land, but what should she do with it. An unbroken
wilderness, hundreds of miles away, was not money in the purse. She
had seen the Indians driven farther and farther away, she had had a
peculiar experience herself of owning and being deprived of, she had
seen reversal of decisions, beside she realized the approaching power
of central government and knew that individual communities might have
to suffer for the good of the whole. She said to herself, "If I am
not to be undone even at this late day, I myself must be up and
doing."

Connecticut's "White Elephant"

The Connecticut legislature in 1786 appointed a committee of three to
dispose of its far western land. The price was placed at fifty cents
per acre and the territory was to be divided into townships six miles
square. The general assembly agreed to make a grant of a township to
each purchaser, his heirs and assigns, and to reserve five hundred
acres of good land in township for the support of the "Gospel
minister," five hudred acres for "the support of the schools
forever," and two hundred and forty acres in "fee simple to first
Gospel minister who shall settle in such town."
It also was agreed to survey the tract into tiers and ranges, No. 1
to be what is now the northeastern corner of Ashtabula county. The
legislature of the following year although substantially ratifying
this agreement, made a few minor changes such as placing No. 1
township at the southeast corner, Poland, and making the township
five miles square. In 1788 Judge Samuel Parsons bought the Salt
Springs tract. This was the first land sold by the commissioners. The
deed is recorded in Warren. There had been no survey, but the tiers
and townships of this tract are usually spoken of as if surveyed.

The "Fire Lands"

During the war of the Revolution the British destroyed property
belonging to the Connecticut land owners and they demanded
reimbursement from the legislature. This claim was considered by that
body in 1791 and in 1792, and the 500,000 acres set off for these
sufferers, or their heirs, was known at first as "The Sufferers'
Land," and later as "Fire Lands." Most of the property destroyed had
been burned.
The shrewdness of Connecticut is seen even in this transaction. She
gave to those needing and deserving help, as men usually give alms,
that is, she gave that for which she cared least, the land that was
farthest away. Neither did she include the islands lying near and
belonging properly to the territory. Every emigrant as he journeyed
to his new home in the "Fire Lands" helped to make a roadway for the
later settlers, and every acre cleared and every cabin erected on
these "Fire Lands" added to the value of the land to the east
awaiting purchasers.
Thus, the present counties of Huron and Erie, although belonging to
the Western Reserve, brought no substantial gain, uless cancelling
moral obligations be considered substantial gain. Few men so
considered it in these days.

Selling the Reserve

In 1795, Connecticut having grown desperate over her "White Elephant"
determined to dispose of it. After formally resolving to sell it, the
legislature selected a committee of eight, one from each county, to
transact the business. They were John Treadwell, Hartford county;
James Wadsworth, New Haven county; Marvin Wait, New London county;
William Edmonds, Fairfield; Thomas Grosvenor, Windham; Aaron Austin,
Litchfield; Elijah Hubbard, Middlesex; and Sylvester Gilbert, of
Tolland county. It will be seen that the names of these men and these
towns were used in many ways in New Connecticut, as were also the
names of the purchasers. At this time, several individuals wished to
buy land themselves or their friends, but the land company feared
that some of them who were not from Connecticut were not financially
responsible, while the price others offered was not sufficient. Among
the later were Zepheniah Swift, author of Swift's Digest, ex-chief
justice of Connecticut. He offered a million dollars for the whole
tract. This however, was not entirely individual, some of his friends
were interested with him.
The selected, after careful consideration sold the tract September
5th, to the following persons for the following amounts:
Joseph Howland and Daniel L Coit $30,461
Eliam Morgan and Daniel L Coit $51,402
Caleb Atwater $22,846
Daniel Holbrook $8,750
Joseph Williams $15,231
William Law $10,500
William Judd $16,250
Elisha Hyde and Uriah Tracy $57,400
James Johnston $30,000
Samuel Mather, Jr. $18,461
Ephraim Kirby, Elijah Boardman, Urial Holmes, Jr. $60,000
Solomon Griswold $10,000
Oliver Phelps and Gideon Granger, Jr. $80,000
William Hart $30,462
Henry Champion, 2nd $85,675
Asher Miller $34,000
Robert C Johnson $60,000
Ephraim Root $42,000
Nehemiah Hubbard, Jr. $19,039
Solomon Cowles $10,000
Oliver Phelps $168,185
Ashael Hathaway $12,000
John Caldwell and Pelig Sanford $15,000
Timothy Burr $15,231
Luther Loomis and Ebenezer King, Jr. $44,318
William Lyman, John Stoddard, and David King $24,730
Moses Cleaveland $32,600
Samuel P Lord $14,092
Roger Newbury, Enoch Perkins and Jonathan Brace $38,000
Ephraim Starr $17,415
Sylvanus Griswold $1,683
Jozeb Stocking and Joshua Stow $11,423
Titus Street $22,846
James Ball, Aaron Omstead and John Wiles $30,000
Pierpont Edwards $60,000
---------
Amounting to $1,200,000

The early diaries show some little differences in names and amounts,
the total always remaining the same, but the above is from a "Book of
Drafts" in the recorder's office, at Warren. It was prepared by Hon.
T. D. Webb, and given out by Joseph Perkins of Cleveland. Both men
were accurate and painstaking.

The Connecticut Land Company

These then were the men who formed themselves into the Connecticut
Land Company. So careful were they as to the letter of the law, so
exacting as to the carrying out of their obligation, and such
personal standing had they, that, whereas in tracing titles in most
places in the United States one must go back to the grants made by
the rules of the old world, in northeastern Ohio it is sufficient to
go back only to the Connecticut Land Company.
In the beginning this territory was supposed to contain four million
acres, but it was found later that early maps and sketches had been
defective; that Lake Erie made a decided southern dip so that part of
the land proved to be water with some air thrown in.
Below is a table prepared by Judge Frederick Kinsman, who was very
accurate in all statements.

Quantity of Land in the Connecticut Western Reserve by Survey
Connecticut Land Company, land east of the Cuyahoga River, etc
2,002,970
Land west of the Cuyahoga River, exclusive of surplus islands
827,291
Surplus land (so called) 5,286
Islands Cunningham or Kelley's $2,749
Islands Bass or Bay No. 1 1,322
Islands Bass or Bay No. 2 709
Islands Bass or Bay No. 3 709
Islands Bass or Bay No. 4 403
Islands Bass or Bay No. 5 32 5,924
----- -----
Amount of Connecticut Land Company land in acres 2,841,471
Parson's or "Salt Spring Tract" in acres 25,450
Sufferers' or Fire Lands, 500,000
----- -----
Total number of acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve 3,366,921

The $1,200,000 received in payment was placed in Connecticut in its
school fund and has always there remained.
Connecticut having obtained her western land by grant, having
retained it by diplomacy and persistence, and having sold it to her
satisfaction, watched with pride its development. Even at this
writing a large part of the Western Reserve, particularly the eastern
section, is quite as much like New England as Connecticut itself.

The Reserve of the Present

The width of the Western Reserve is the same as the widest part of
Connecticut; that is, seventy-one and a half miles. It is nearly six
per cent greater than the state of Connecticut.
When all the lines were drawn and the townships laid out, the Reserve
did not divide into full and exact counties. Three townships of
Ashland county are north of the forty-first parallel - Ruggles, Troy
and Sullivan. This county is a large and prosperous one, but, as so
much of it lies outside the Reserve, little in connection with it
appears in this history.
The township of Danbury and part of the Islands belonging to Ottawa
county lie east of the west line of the Fire Lands, and are a part of
the country of which we are writing. The Southern tier of townships
of Mahoning county are below the southern boundary of the Reserve,
and they do not figure in this history. They are Springfield, Beaver,
Green, Goshen and Smith.

The Nature of New Connecticut

What was the nature of this new Connecticut? It is heavy with
excellent timber, oak, elm, maple, hickory, walnut, beech, etc. It
was bounded on one side by a great blue lake deep enough to carry the
trans-atlantic steamers of today, and containing more fish in
proportion to its size than any known body of water in the United
States.
It had several navigable rivers and numerous creeks and rivulets. The
climate was temperate, a little colder in winter perhaps than the
home state and possibly warmer in the summer. The surface soil was a
rich sandy loam in the northern portion, running a little heavier
with clay at the southern part.
Within this territory was the fine sandstone for building purposes
and excellent flagging for walks, as the towns of today will testify.
Bituminous coal (now nearly exhausted) of the finest quality lay
waiting to be mined.
The soil was adapted to fruit growing and the very strip of land over
which the Cleveland surveyors passed is now almost covered with
vineyards. The maple tree stood ready for service and today, in the
northeastern portion, is made the the finest mapel syrup in the world.
The woods abounded in game and the streams in fish.
The land in some places is low and wet, and, in others, flat and
uninteresting, whle there were rolling, hilly spots with touches of
exquisite scenery.
Nature had done well by this part of the world and now man was to
demonstrate what he could do with such a foundation. "The folks back
home" - the land company - had bought this territory as the boys
trade marbles, "unsight, unseen." New Englanders knew nothing of the
flat fertle middle west. Their country was stony one and to them
trees meant fertility. The Western Reserve was a forest; that
satisfied them.
Some writers of the New Connecticut history say that into this vast
forest, into this wild region, through whose woods and over whose
hills no white man's foot had passed, came the advance guard, the
surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company.
This statement is exaggeration. White men were here when the first
surveyor arrived, and had been here, as travelers, missionaries,
solders and traders long before.
Possibly La Salle with his party, going east and west, in 1682-83,
walked the shores of Lake Erie (French forts were at Niagara, Presque
Isle (Erie), and at the mouth of the Maumee); it is more probable
that he took the north shore, however, since the Indians of that
region were his friends.
The journals, diaries, survey books, etc., which are now being
brought to light, show that in many parts of the Reserve, timber was
felled by a white man's ax at a very early day. In 1840 Colonel
Charles Whittlesey, who wrote an early history of Cleveland, says he
examined a stump of an oak tree, in Canfield, which was two feet ten
inches in diameter and "about" seven inches from the center where
marks of an ax, perfectly distinct, over which 160 layers of annual
growth had accumulated." Mr. Whittlesey procured a portion of the
tree extending from the outside to the center on which the ancient
and modern marks of the ax are equally plain; the tools being about
the same breadth and in equally good order. "The Canfield tree must
be considered a good record as far back as 1660." This block may be
seen not in the Western Reserve Historical Society, in Cleveland.
Mr. Jason Hubbell, of Newburg, reported the finding of like marks
which he estimated to have been made in 1690.
Mr. Lapham, of Willoughby, felled a tree in 1848 which was seen by
many people of that time and the stump of which was in 1867 standing
near the railroad track one mile and a half west of Willoughby. This
showed 400 rings outside the cut, indicating it to have been chopped
in 1448 or forty-four years before Columbus' landing at San Salvador.
Mr. Whittlesey says some trees form two terminal buds a year and if
this were so it would bring the date about 1648 or near the time of
the other marks.
The early surveyors and settlers were usually good woodsmen; while
not expert with the ax themselves they appreciated the good work in
others. Being able to make the cleanest cut in felling a tree in the
early days of the last century called froth as much admiration as the
management of a huge industrial plant, or the forming of a great
trust. There was no chance, therefore, of these ax marks being
confused with those of the Indians. The "squaw axes" given the
Indians between 1608-20 had different length of bit and the marks the
red men made were entirely different in character. In fact, no matter
how much we may sympathize with the Indians in the loss of their
hunting grounds and the destruction of their tribes, we must admit
that they did not take kindly to agriculture or manual labor, and
few, if any, ever excelled in these directions.
"In 1815," says Mills, "a human jawbone was found in a roadway which
had been cut through a mound. Near the bones was an artificial tooth
of metal which exactly fitted a cavity in the jaw."
Jesuits were among the Iroquois Indians in New York as early as 1656,
but it does not seem, even if they penetrated as far as the Reserve,
that they could have chopped so many trees, because the number found
200 years later was too great for travelers to have made. Just why
the Norsemen landed on our New England coast, when they were there,
how long they really staid, will never be known positively, neither
will the time when the white men visited the Ohio Lake region be
determined, how long they staid, why they came, when they left. But
we know that they, like the Norsemen, were here.
A. T. Goodman in a tract of the Western Reserve Historical Society
says: "The earliest known occupation of the territory embraced within
the limits of the state of Ohio by any collective body of white men
was by the French in 1680." From that time until the conquest of
Canada by the French, French traders were scattered throughout the
territory, building a post, station or store at almost every Indian
town. English traders first made their appearance in the Ohio country
in 1699-1700. From that time until 1745 we hear of them at various
towns and stations. In 1745 they built a small fort or blockhouse
among the Hurons on the north side of Sandusky Bay, near the extreme
western edge of the Reserve.
For many years previous to the coming of the surveyors of the
Connecticut Land Company, men who made a business of trading with the
Indians, bring to them provisions, trinkets and whiskey, taking in
exchange furs, hides, etc., were staying - one could hardly call it
living - between Pittsburg and the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Some of
those men had married squaws and had children. The traders who
brought their wives with them did not remain long. The Indians
preferred to trade with squaw men, as they were at least connected
with the tribe, and the hardships attending a frontier life and lack
of companionship were a double burden which white women were not
willing to endure when there was no promise of home. Some of the
diaries of the first settlers which the author has examined state
that the travelers came upon a cabin in the lower part of the
Reserve, and saw a white woman at work. She gave a cry of joy at the
sight of men coming from civilization. With trembling lips and moist
eyes she begged them to partake of refreshments, saying she had not
seen the face of a white woman in three years.
The Moravians were now and then in northern Ohio, at Sandusky, on the
Lake islands, and for about a year, 1787-1787, on the east side of
the Cuyahoga river. They were forced to leave during hostilities.
The presence of the French inthe Northwest Territory was distressing
to the English. The Frenchman, principally because he was an explorer
and not a colonizer, attached himself to the Indians. He did not buy
land for beads and spoil the hunting grounds. He was no menace to the
roving red man, and hence became an ally, not an enemy.

Clark and the Northwest

Just here the author wishes to introduce an interesting bit of
history which applies only indirectly to the Western Reserve. James
A. Garfield, when a representative in Congress, made an address for
the Historical Society at Burton, Geauga county, in which he said:
"The cession of that great territory under the treaty of 1783 was due
mainly to the foresight, the courage and the endurance of one man,
who never received from his country any adequate recognition for this
great service. That man was George Rogers Clark; and it is worth your
while to consider the work he accomplished. Born in Virginia, he was
in early life a surveyor, and afterwards, served in Lord Dunmore's
War. In 1776 he settled in Kentucky, and was in fact the founder of
that commonwealth. As the War of the Revolution progressed, he saw
that the pioneers west of the Alleghanies were threatened by two
formidable dangers; first by the Indians, many of whom had joined the
standard of Great Britain; and, second, by the success of the war
itself. For, should the colonies obtain their independence while the
British held possession of the Mississippi valley, the Alleghanies
would be the western boudary of the new republic, and the pioneers of
the west would remain subject to Great Britain."
"Inspired by these views, he made two journeys to Virginia to
represent the case to the authorities of that colony. Failing to
impress the house of burgesses with the importance of warding off
these dangers, he appealed to the governor, Patrick Henry, and
received from him authority to enlist seven companies to go to
Kentucky, subject to his orders, and serve for three months after
their arrival in the west. This was a public commission."
"Another document, bearing date Williamsburg, January 2, 1778, was a
great commission, which authorized him, in the name of Virginia, to
capture the military posts held by the British in the northwest.
Armed with this authority, he proceeded to Pittsburgh, where he
obtained ammunition, and floated it down the river to Kentucky,
succeeded in enlisting seven companies of pioneers, and in the month
of June 1778, commended his march through the untrodden wilderness to
the region of the Illinois. With a daring that is scarcely equaled in
the annals of war, he captured the garrison of Kaskaskia, Saint
Vincent and Cahokia, and sent his prisoners to the governor of
Virginia, and by his energy and skill won over the French inhabitants
of that region to the American cause." "In October, 1778, the house
of burgesses passed an act declaring that "all the citizens of the
commonwealth of Virginia, who are already settled there, or shall
hereafter be settled on the west side of the Ohio, shall be included
in the District of Kentucky, which shall be called Illinois County."
In other words, George Rogers Clark conquered the Territory of the
Northwest in the name of Virginia, and the flag of the republic
covered it at the close of the war."
"In negociating the treaty of peace at Paris, in 1783, the British
commissioners insisted on the Ohio river as the northwestern boundary
of the United States; and it was found that the only tenable ground
on which the American commissioners relied to sustain our claim to
the Lakes and the Mississippi as the boundary was the fact that
George Rogers Clark had conquered the country, and Virginia was in
undisputed possession of it at the cessation of the hostilities."
"In his 'Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory,'
Judge Burnet says: 'That fact (the capture of the British posts) was
confirmed and admitted, and was the chief ground on which the British
commissioners reluctantly abandoned their claim.'"
"It is a strain upon the honor of our country that such a man - the
leader of pioneers who made the first lodgment on the site now
occupied by Louisville, who was in fact the founder of the state of
Kentucky, and who by his personal foresight and energy gave nine
great states to the republic - was allowed to sink under the load of
debt incurred for the honor and glory of his country."

The Pioneers of New Connecticut

Chapter III, History of The Western Reserve, by Harriet Taylor Upton,
1910

Although the French (both Protestant and Roman Catholic), the
Spanish, the Dutch, the Quaker, and the English (Cavalier and
Puritan) colonized the new world, we are apt to think of the early
inhabitants of the Massachusetts Puritans alone. Somehow the Puritan,
especially the Pilgrim, with his plain, dark clothes, his high hat
and his determined countenance, impresses itself deeply upon our sub-
consciousness. Just so do we give all the credit of the successful
settling of the Western Reserve to the Connecticut emigrants, which
is entirely incorrect.
There were two ways to enter the New Connecticut, namely, through New
York state to Buffalo and along Lake Erie, or through Pennsylvania to
Pittsburg, up the rivers. From the state of Pennsylvania came the
Pennsylvania Dutch and the Scotch-Irish; some of the most frugal and
industrious were the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Yankee considered
himself superior to his neighbors, who said "du bish" or had a
brogue. His education as a rule was better, his family longer
established in these United States, and he believed himself
resposible for the development of the country. On the other hand, the
early Dutch Pennsylvanian saw faults in his Yankee neighbor, and
commented upon the same. The early Dutch housewife would say to her
neighbor, when inviting her to stay to a meal, "It's not much we
have, but anything is better than the weak tea and crackers of the
Yankees." The "Dutchmen" were frugal, near, industrious, but liked
good living. Early settlers in Pennsylvania uniformly testify to the
excellent cooking of Pennsylania Dutch women. A Trumbull county man,
now fifty years old, who was a boy taught school in western
Pennsylvania, refers with pleasure to those days when he boarded
around. A prominent citizen of Warren, whose grandparents were
Pennsylvania Dutch, and whose mother and wife were excellent
housekeepers, gives credit to both for being successes as homemakers,
but usually ends with "but no one ever quite came up to grandmother's
cooking."
It was the Scotch-Irish who made the mrith for the pioneers,
particularly at "frolic times," as house-raisings, log-rollings, and
the like occasions were called. They cared less for money than did
the Yankee or the German, and did not leave land fortunes to their
descendants. They did, however, one thing for which they are never
given credit. They, and not the men from the state of the Blue Laws,
were first in establishing and maintaining churches.
Lest we may be tossing our heads in pride, we who trace back to the
Connecticut forefather, let us see what others thought and think of
us. W. H. Hunter, of Chillicothe, in an address at Philadelphia,
on "Influence of Pennsylvania on Ohio", says:
"The claims made for the Puritan settlement at Marietta give us an
example of Puritan audacity; the New England settlements on the
Western Reserve give us examples of Yankee ingenuity. In Connecticut
he made nutmegs of wood; in Ohio he makes maple molasses of glucose
and hickory bark. In New England the Puritan bored the Quaker tongue
with red-hot poker; in Ohio he dearly loves to roast Democrats. The
Reserve was the home of crankisms. Joseph Smith started the Mormon
church in Lake county. And there were others."

Colonized by College Man
The Connecticut pioneer impressed himself on the Western Reserve
history because he was a college man. He became the surveyor, the
lawyer, the judge, the legislator, the governor, because he was
mentally equipped for such positions. Almost every leading jurist of
that day was a Yale graduate.
It is known that for many years before the organization of the
Connecticut Land Company, as early as 1755, people had traveled from
Pennsylvania to Salt Springs, between Niles and Warren, for the
purpose of making salt. Long vats and kettles showing much wear and
little care were early found by travelers and explorers. Men who were
identified with the early times have written of seeing travelers with
kettles thrown over the back of a horse on their way to the springs.
Salt was expensive, costing, according to some authorities, six
dollars a bushel; others, sixteen dollars a barrel. The water here
was only brackish and cost of making too expensive to be profitable.
Some of the Salt Spring kettles were later found in a spot near
Braceville, where the Indians used them for making mapel syrup, and
within the last few years one of them still existed.

Salt Spring Region
So far as we know, nothing very good ever came out of the Salt Spring
region. The first man who owned the tract - Judge Parsons - was
drowned. A man stationed in one of the cabins to watch the goods
belonging to a Beaver firm was killed. The white men who constructed
cabins there were in constant fear of the Indians, and were not
financially repaid for their trouble. "The Pennsylvanians who had
recourse to it during the Revolution erected cabins there. In 1785
Colonel Brodhead, commanding the troops at Fort Pitt, had orders to
dispossess them, and did so. The Indians soon burned the cabins they
had erected." Here occurred the first murder on the Reserve, and
here, time and again, in the latter part of the nineteenth century,
people have had hope of making fortunes from the mineral water, only
to give it up in despair later. In 1906 or 1907 the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad acquired the land, and now, where once men, white and red,
boiled water into walt, while they drank whiskey and fought; where
women and children suffered from fear of the red man; where men
invested time and money to no purpose, runs a great trunk line, and
men and women sleep and eat as they pass over the spot where so much
unhappiness existed, and never think of Indians or murder or even
salt, for the latter served them in the diner by black men without
cost.

First Land Purchases

General Samuel H Parsons, of Connecticut, whose father was a
distinguished clergyman, and whose mother (a descendant of Henry
Wolcott) was a strong character, was the first lawyer, and the first
purchaser of land on the Western Reserve. He was an early friend of
John Adams, a graduate of Yale, took an active interest in colonial
politics, and became one of the boldest of America's generals. Old
records in the hands of the family attribute to him the planning of
the siege of Ticonderoga, which was the first hostile move in the war
of the Revolution. Congress, in 1785, appointed him as one of the
commissioners to treat with the Indians for cessions of land.
Cincinnati stands on one of the portions ceded. Two years later he
was appointed judge for the territory of the United States northwest
of the Ohio river, and in 1789 became chief justice of the Northwest
Territory. Having traveled through this country, he was familiar with
the land, and finally bought from the commissioners appointed by the
Connecticut legislature to sell land, a tract situated in the
townships now known as Lordstown, Weathersfield, Jackson and
Austintown. The deed to this twenty-five thousand acres is now on
record in the Trumbull county court house, and all records and maps
agree as to its boundaries. He chose this spot, undoubtedly, because
the Indians and traders had cleared land round about, because the
springs found there contained brackish water from which he hoped
later to manufacture salt, and because Pittsburg was comparatively
near at hand and stores could be gotten at Beaver and other points on
the river. He, however, never occupied this purchase. He was drowned,
as above stated, in the Beaver river, probably at the falls, when
returning east. Little or no money had been actually paid down for
the land, but his heirs claimed it nevertheless. From Webb's
manuscript we learn:
"And although the Connecticut Land Company ran their township and
range line regardless of this claim, and although they in their
proceedings at the time called it only a 'pretended claim', yet in
making partition of their lands, they reserved land enough in the
townships No. 2 and 3, in the third and fourth range, to satisfy this
claim, which they never aparted and which they ultimately abandoned
to the heirs and assigns of General Parsons."

First Land Purchaser

The rules and regulations of the Connecticut Land Company are of
great interest. Every possibility of misunderstanding is provided
for, minor details are mentioned, and the document shows the
workmanship of the careful, conservative New England mind.
The directors of the company were Oliver Phelps, Henry Champion,
Roger Newberry, and Samuel Mathews, Jr.
Following is a list of the surveying party of 1796:
General Moses Cleaveland, Superindent
Augustus Porter, Principal Surveyor and Deputy Superintendent
Seth Pease, Astronomer and Surveyor
Amos Spafford, John Milton Holley, Richard M Stoddard and Moses
Warren, Surveyors
Joshua Stow, Commissary
Theodore Shepard, Physican

Employees of the Company

Joseph Tinker, boatman
George Proudfoot
Samuel Forbes
Stephen Benton
Samuel Hungerford
Samuel Davenport
Amzi Atwater
Elisha Ayers
Norman Wilcox
George Gooding
Samuel Agnew
David Beard
Titus V Munson
Charles Parker
Nathaniel Doan
James Halket
Olney F Rice
Samuel Barnes
Daniel Shulay
Joseph McIntyre
Francis Gray
Amos Sawtel
Amos Barber
William B Hall
Asa Mason
Michael Coffin
Thomas Harris
Timothy Dunham
Shadrach Benham
Wareham Shepard
John Briant
Joseph Landon
Ezekiel Morly
Luke Hanchet
James Hamilton
John Lock
Stephen Burbank

We are told in several original manuscripts that this party consisted
of fifty, but as the above numbers only forty-six; Gun, who was to
have charge of the stores in Conneaut; Stiles, who was to have like
position in Cleveland; Chapman and Perry, who were to furnish meat
and trade with the Indians, must have made up the number. In some of
the original records the full list of men are given with these
words, "and two females." So unused were makers of books and keepers
of records to giving a woman's name, unless she were a queen or a
sorceress, that this seemed nothing unusual.
The "two females," who made the first real homes on the Reserve, were
Ann, the wife of Elija Gun, and Tabiatha Currie, the wife of Job
Stiles. Not only did they keep house, one at Conneaut and the other
at Cleveland, but they kept them so well that the surveyors took
themselves there upon the slightest pretext. They also had an
oversight and care of the company.

Instructions to Moses Cleaveland

Here is given the instructions of the directors to their agents:
To Moses Cleaveland, Esq., of the County of Windham, and State of
Connecticut, one of the Directors of the Connecticut Land Company,
Greetings"
We, the Board of Directors, of said Connecticut Land Company, having
appointed you to go on to said land, as Superintendent over the
agents and men, sent on to survey and make locations on said land, to
make, and enter into friendly negotiations with the natives who are
on said land, or contiguous thereto, and may have any pretended claim
to the same, and secure such friendly intercourse amongst them as
will establish peace, quiet, and safety to the survey and settlement
of said lands, not ceded by the natives under the authority of the
United States. You are hereby, for the foregoing purposes, fully
authorized and empowered to act, and transact all the above business,
in as full and ample a manner as we ourselves could do, to make
contracts in the foregoing matters in our behalf and stead; and make
such drafts on our Treasury, as may be necessary to accomplish the
foregoing object of your appointment. And all agents and men by us
employed, and sent on to survey and settle said land, to be obedient
to your orders and directions. And you are to be accountable for all
monies by you received, conforming your conduct to such orders and
directions as we may, from time to time, give you, and to do and act
in all matters, according to your best skill and judgment, which may
tend to the best interest, prosperity, and success of said
Connecticut Land Company. Having more particularly for your guide the
Articles of Association entered into and signed by the individuals of
said Company.
Pittsburg and Canandaigua were the outlying posts for travelers to
the Western Reserve. The Connecticut Land Company instructed the
surveying party to gather at Canandaigua and proceed.
Several of the journals of these young surveyors are in the
possession of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and the entries
in some of them which have never been published are curious. Mr. Seth
Pease says under several dates in close succession: "I began my
journey, Monday, May 9, 1796. Fare from Suffield to Hartord, six
shillings; expenses four shillings six pence. *** At breakfast,
expense two shillings. Fare on my chest from Hartford to Middletown,
one shilling, six pence." In telling about his trip to New York, he
says: "Passage and liquor 4 dollars and three quarters. When he
arrived in New York we find the following entry: "Ticket for play
75c; Liquor 14c; Show of elephants, 50c; shaving and combing, 13c."
Apparently Mr. Pease was seeing New York.

Usual Route to the Reserve

It will pay the reader to take a map and follow their route from
Connecticut to Schenectady, up the Mohawk river into Oneida lake, on
to the Oswego river, into Ontario lake, along the southern shore of
this lake to Canandaigua, and then to Buffalo, from there touching at
least once at Presque Isle (Erie), on past the Pennsylvania line.
They rowed, sailed and walked the shore. Sometimes part of them
turned back to help bring up those delayed, or went ahead of the
party to counsel with military officers or to make necessary
preparations for the party. It was a tedious trip.
The four batteaux filled with provisions, baggage and men were heavy,
and most of the men were unused to river boating. One of them records
that pulling up the Mohawk was as hard work as he ever did in his
life. It was a relief when they began going down the Oswego and came
to Fort Stanwix (Rome, N.Y.). Here Mr. Stow procured the necessary
papers to allow the party to pass Fort Oswego, which was in the hands
of the British. At this very time an agreement had been reached which
provided that Americans could have access to the Lakes. The party
therefore rapidly proceeded only to find that they had been too
sanguine. The officers in charge of the fort had no new orders from
Fort Niagara; the old orders allowed no Americans to pass. The party,
somewhat disappointed, put into a little bay in the river. The land
was low, the soldiers at the fort were many of them ill and dying,
and the surveyors, ready and anxious for work in the far west, were
not pleased at the thought of lying idly in this unwholesome spot
until a messenger could go to Niagara and return. The directors of
the Land Company had anticipated this trouble, as said above, and had
instructed Mr. Stow, who was the commissary, not to pass the fort if
there was opposition. The situation was trying to Mr. Stow. Since he
disobeyed orders and brough the party through successfully, we
consider him an intelligent, faithful employee. Had the winds been a
little stronger, the waves a little higher, conditions a little less
favorable, so that the boats and passengers had been lost, he would
always have been referred to as a guilty, incompetent hireling.
The officers of the fort at Oswego knew that the party arrived in
four boats; consequently, when Mr. Stow, with one boat, went by the
fort, he was not disturbed. These officers did not observe he carried
provisions; they only thought he was going to Fort Niagara to obtain
permission for the party to move on. The guard not being on the
outlook, the other three boats passed the fort under protection of
night. Thus the party safely reached Lake Ontario. They had been
hindered and bothered in many ways, but now they believed their
troubles to be over. However, as is often the case when people are
sanguine, the worst they were to see was near at hand. A storm came
up quickly and violently, throwing the three boats into Sodus Bay,
where one of them was utterly disabled and where the whole party,
almost miraculously, escaped drowning. One can imagine the anxiety of
Mr. Stow, who had gone on to Irondequoit (the port for Rochester)
when he learned that the three boats following him had been lost and
nothing saved but an oar and a gun, thrown on shore at Sodus Bay.
Either he or Auguster Porter (accounts disagree) with some men,
turned about from Irondequoit to go to Sodus, hoping to learn how the
shipwreck occurred. They were overjoyed to meet Captain Beard, who
told them that instead of all being lost except the oar and gun, the
oar and gun were the only things really lost. One of the boats,
however, which was useless, was abandoned, and the party proceeded on
its way to Irondequoit, Canandigua and the new home.
The Indians at Buffalo were expecting them, and like all traders they
were wondering what they dare demand; that is, how much could they
get for their right to the land. It's a wise man who offers neither
too much nor too little. A man who preceeded the party with the
horses was forced to pay three dollars for pasture. Since the grass
was neither cared for nor used by anybody, this was exhorbitant.

Bargaining with the Indians

It exasperates the reader of today to watch the slow movement of this
party of surveyors. When they arrived at Buffalo, some of them went
to Fort Niagara, possibly on business; some took a look at the Falls,
while Holly, under the date of June 18th, says: "Porter and myself
went on the Creek (Buffalo) in a bark canoe a fishing and caught only
three little ones." How could people with such uncertainty ahead of
them stop to angle?
Finally, the council with the red men was had, and a picturesque
scene it was. On the shore fo the lake, under the starry June sky,
the white men, forerunners of the Western Reserve citizens, with joy
in their faces and hopes in their hearts, sat around the blazing fire
prepared by the red men. Speeches were made on both sides, diplomatic
messages exchanged,and while part of the Indians performed a swinging
dance, the rest gruntedan accompaniment from their sitting position
on the ground. Negotiations were not completed then - not at all; it
was too soon. The Indian was "long on time" and short on whiskey.
They must get drunk, of course. What was the good of a treaty without
a pow-wow? What was the good of the white man except for his whiskey?
So pow-wow and whiskey it was, fortunately with no bad results.
On June 23rd, "after much talking on the part of the Indians,
Cleaveland offered Capt. Brant 500 pounds New York currency, which
equals $1,000, provided he would peacefully relinguish his title to
the western land. This sum was not large enough to please the
captain, but after much parley he finally agreed to it, provided
Cleaveland would use his influence with the United States and obtain
from the government the sum of $500 annually for his trible. In case
he could not accomplish this he was to promise that the Land Company
would pay an additional $1,500 in cash."
Whether this agreement was kept, and whether the government or
company paid this sum is not know to the author, but as white men
were treating with Indians, we presume this money is the last they
saw.

Title Bought of the Red Man

Cleaveland then gave two beef cattle and 100 gallons of whiskey to
satisfy the eastern Indians, and a feast followed. The western
Indians were also given provisions to help them home and all had been
entertained during the coucil. It is greatly to the credit of the
Connecticut Land Company, and a source of much satisfaction to the
residents of the Western Reserve today that the title to the land was
not stolen, but was bought and paid for, even if the price was low;
further, that possession of the new country was given and taken under
the best of feeling and without one drop of bloodshed. To be sure,
our forefathers must have had a larger supply of whiskey than the
sentiment of today would allow them, when we remember they gave away
one hundred gallons and had plenty for all summer. History must be
studied from its own time.

Early Drunkenness

Whiskey was as plentiful during the early days of the colonization as
was food. To be sure, it was not our adulterated stuff of today, but
it was whiskey, and it did what alcohol always has done and always
will do to men. Its stimulating qualities for a time relieved the
lonesomeness and fatigue, but the depression followed surely more
than overbalanced the good. All of the misunderstanding among
travelers and early settlers and Indians were caused more or less by
whiskey. The women in the early settlements abhorred it. They feared
to have their husbands take it, lest trouble should follow. Anxiously
these women in their own cabins, with wolves howling near outside,
and babies huddled close within, awaited the coming of the husband
who had been to an adjoining clearing, not knowing what animal or
savage might have made way with him because of his drunkenness. These
women saw their neighbors succeed and become prosperous because of
their self-control, while they remained poor because of the "fruit of
the corn." Many and many an overworked wife who had looked forward to
log-rolling for weeks went home from the same with weeping eyes and
heavy heart, her husband too drunk to guide the horse or act as her
protector. Some people believe that there was not as much drunkenness
then as now, and will bring proof to bear upon it. This is not the
place to discuss the temperance question, but when we know that in
range one, number one, Poland, there were eighteen stills; that in
many settlements ministers were paid in whiskey, we can scarcely
believe that the drunkenness of today is greater. Then, as now, women
were temperate; then, as now, they suffered from drunkenness and its
consequences; then, as now, they persuaded and begged their very own
to desist; then, as now, they wept and prayed, and then, as now, a
few were heeded, while more were not.
One women of this section, whose husband took to much at stated
intervals, when he came home in that condition, obliged him to sit in
a straight-back chair till he was sober. If he started to mvoe, she
raised a stick of wood as if to strike him, when he immediately
resumed his seat. He finally declared there was no use in drinking if
one had to sit still until sober, and he reformed. As a rule,
however, the stick, in a real and metaphorical sense, was, and is, in
the hands of the man.

First Independence Day

At last the surveyors had reached their destination. Even though they
were adults, they had said good-bye to their home friends with thick
throats and heavy hearts. They had paddled slowly the New York
rivers, had outwitted the British officers, had suffered shipwreck,
had endured the discomforts of long, slow travel, had successfully
treated with the Indians, and now, in the afternoon of a summer day,
they had come upon the "promised land." The blue waters of the lake
lapped the shore, the creek sluggishly sought its bay, the great
forest trees were heavy with bright green leaves, the grass was thick
and soft, the sky was blue, and the lowering sun bathed the landscape
with delicate reds and yellows. It was the Fourth of July,
Independence Day, for which their fathers, twenty years before, had
fought, and for which they themselves held holy reverence. They had
double reason to rejoice, and they shouted, sang, fired guns across
the water, adding an additional salute for the new territory. They
drank water from the creek and whiskey from the jug; they named the
spot Fort Independence, and drank toasts to the president of the
United States, the state of Connecticut, the Connecticut Land
Company, the Fort of Independence, and the "fifty sons and daughters
who had entered it this day." When the camp fires died down, and the
stars above were thick and bright, they went to sleep in the new land
which was shortly to be broken up into thirteen counties, or parts of
counties (Ashtabula, Geauga, Cuyahoga, Lake, Trumbull, Mahoning,
Portage, Summit, part of Medina, aprt of Ashland, Erie, Huron and
Lorain). If anyone had dreamed that night that in one hundred and
fifteen years these thirteen counties would have almost as much
influence on the world as the thirteen original colonies had at one
time; that most of the huge forests would be supplanted by cultivated
fields and prosperous towns; that Indian paths would be macadam
roads; that over tiny wires one could talk to any part of this New
Country as easily as they could talk to each other that night on the
lake shore; that school houses and churches would be thick throughout
the region; and that both would be free; that over the very spot
where they lay sleeping passengers at the rate of sixty miles an
hour; that vehicles without horses would spin along the lake front
from Buffalo creek to the Cuyahoga in less time than it took them to
put their camp in order; that mountains of ore would lie in the lake
ships a few miles from them; that no man wilder than they would be
east of the Mississippi; that the wildest animals would be the
youthful bull or the aged house-dog; that in the nearby valleys would
be some of the most wonderful industrial plants in the world, and
that hundred of men would have sufficient money to buy and pay for
the whole Western Reserve without inconvenience; that on this
territory would stand the sixth largest city in the United States;
that slavery would not exist; that women would have a voice in making
school laws, and that men would float or fly through the air above
their heads in machines made for flying, - if any one of the party
had dreamed any or all of these things, and related them in the
morning, he would have been declared untruthful or as suffering too
much from that taken from the gurgling jug.