Chapter 8

Settlers and Incidents of 1831 and 1832

Not long after these men moved in, Conaway Stone built a cabin near where Mr. Abraham Lotz now lives; but soon moved across into Noble Township. About this time, also, Henry Crowell and John Fox settled there, making quite a neighborhood.

In was during this year (1831) that Thomas Shaylor moved into the county, occupying the vacated "shanties" of Mr. Hawkins until he could build a cabin. This he did upon a branch of the Salimonie, on what was afterward the Hardy Farm, now the property of Lieutenant C. H. Clark. In 1833 Mr. Shaylor moved down the Salimonie, and became the first settler in Green Township.

In November 1831, Mrs. Sarah Riddley - a woman who, during her lifetime, was the wife of seven different husbands - settled with her family in the southeast corner of Pike Township. Beside the enterprising settlement in Madison Township and the coming of Mr. Shaylor and Mrs. Riddley, there were no other additions to the meager population of the county during that year.

Mr. Philip Brown was the first to arrive in the new country in 1832. He came March 8th, and built a cabin just across the road from the north side of Liber, on the southwest corner of the farm now owned by Dr. D. Milligan. It was the first house built in Wayne Township. Though the cabin has long since been gone, until lately a solitary peach tree had marked the spot; but now nothing remains to remind the passer-by of the place where it stood. The next year, when Brown had quite a comfortable improvement made, James Wier was passing through the country looking for land. Being much pleased with Brown's place, and learning that it was not entered, he told him that he (Wier) had entered the land. As it was then termed, Brown had "squatted upon Congress-land," and had not yet been able to purchase it. But now, by this unfair means, he must be driven from a spot he began to call home, to commence again in the woods. He was greatly enraged, and made some threats against Wier, who went to Randolph County and swore his life against Brown. A constable named Robert Parsons came into the settlement and summoned B. W. Hawkins and Joseph Williamson to assist him in the arrest of Brown, who, meantime, had started to Fort Recovery. The settlers in the neighborhood sympathized with Brown, and would do everything to aid him, for they were all mutually interested in seeing that the rights of all "squatter sovereigns" were maintained against the speculating land-sharks. The constable and his "aids" followed Brown's track, the deputies taking care that their progress should be very slow. They found John R. Mays and his boys grubbing near their house. Hawkins asked some rather indirect questions about Brown, at the same time giving Mays the "wink," who, knowing the circumstances, gave the constable the impression that if Brown was not already, he soon would be, in Ohio; at the same time privately informing Hawkins that Brown was then in the house eating dinner! Hawkins then put in the plea that, it being Saturday afternoon, they might not catch Brown before the Sabbath. The constable replied that it was "State's business," and he should pay no attention to the Sabbath. After other arguments, which did not change the purpose of the constable, the deputies declared they would go no further unless their expenses were borne. This led the constable to abandon the chase and return home while the deputies went to the house to congratulate Brown. This was the first attempt ever made in Jay County to enforce the law. Soon after Wier compromised by the latter agreeing to pay the former for the improvements mad on the land. Wier then went to work and built a cabin on the northeast of what is now College Corner. B. W. Hawkins was carrying the mail, and the next trip he examined the records, and ascertained that Wier's story was entirely false. On his return he at once notified Brown of his discovery. But Brown had no money and no saleable property except one horse. The neighbors showed their generosity by making up $20 for him, and mounting his horse, he set out for Fort Wayne. He went to Colonel Samuel Hanna, told him the circumstances, and offered the horse for $30. Learning that it was the only horse the stranger had, Hanna told him to keep it, loaned him the money, took him home with him for the night, and next day Brown, having entered the land, went on his way rejoicing. On reaching home, he notified Wier to leave the premises, which order was soon obeyed. While Brown lived there his daughter, about fourteen years of age, and a dog, chased a bear up a tree in the cornfield, near the house. Obadiah Winters was notified, and on coming over, found two or three families gathered around the tree to see the sport. Some of them begged of him not to shoot the bear in the head, as they had heard that a bear's skull would turn a bullet, and then the animal would come down and kill them all. But Winters aimed at the head, and the bear fell harmless at the toots of the tree. About the time Brown settled there, William and Jeremiah Brockus commenced a clearing where Obadiah Winters now lives; but in a few months sold to James Morrison, who soon afterward sold to Mr. Winters.

On the 15th of November 1832, Mr. Abraham Lotz and family joined the settlement made the year previous in Madison Township. There he has remained for thirty-two years, aiding in various ways the development of the county. ON that farm he has raised a large family, most of whom have identified themselves with the interests of the county, and some hold honorable positions as officers. J. C. Lotz, Esq., was appointed Clerk in the Interior Department at Washington in 1861, which office he is now filling with credit. Abraham Lotz was a member of the first Board of County Commissioners, and for many years Justice of the Peace in his Township. In the summer of 1833 he opened a Sabbath School in his own house, which was very successful. The place of meeting was accommodated to the convenience of the neighborhood, and the school met at different houses from time to time. That Sabbath School, the immediate successor of the Indian dance, was the first ever held in Jay County! Mr. Lotz deserves much praise for having been the first to plant, when everything was rough and wild, and the moral soil unbroken, that most fruitful nursery of the Church. It was a small beginning; but now a score or more of schools, scattered over the county, with their many teachers and hundreds of pupils, their libraries, celebrations, picnics, banners and speeches, are the ripened fruit of that first moral blossom in the wilderness.

Within the next year or two, John McLaughlin, Edward B. Wotten, William Money, William Isenhart, Benjamin Goldsmith and others settled in the Township. It was a very common thing then for the Indians to hunt through there. They were very peaceable, and would often dine with their white neighbors. At one time, a very large, muscular Indian came to help Mr. Lotz roll logs; but he was so exceedingly awkward as to be of no use whatever. A log is still lying on the bank of the creek there in which the Indian had cut notches to assist them in walking up the bank. Jesse Gray also hunted and camped through those woods at that time.

In August 1832, John R. Mays, George Bickel and Henry Glassford came to Mrs. Hawkins', and selected land in the vicinity. Mr. Mays chose the farm he now lives upon, because of the beautiful spring in the bank, around which are a clump of trees, and near it a long spring-house, built twenty-seven years ago. In September these men raised their cabins, assisted by Benj. Goldsmith, and Mays' two sons. Bickel moved out the same fall, and Mays, fearing someone would take possession of his cabin and enter the land, staid through the winter. On the 4th of March of the following spring he and Goldsmith moved to their new homes - the latter settling where the town of Lancaster now stands; the former having no money, three old horses, a worn-out wagon, a wife and ten children. When Mr. Goodrich, of Winchester, sold the clearing of the Portland State Road, Mays took five miles, and cut it out eighteen inches and under, for fifty-one dollars and twelve cents. He and his boys did the work, one hunting while the others chopped. With that money he entered his first land.

Mr. John James, of Randolph County, was one of the Commissioners to lay out the State Road from Richmond to Fort Wayne, and Jer. Smith was his Surveyor. In September 1832, while making the survey, they camped on the north side of the Little Salimonie, where the road now crosses it, probably attracted by the beautiful grove, which is now owned by Mr. Jonas Votaw. Here they were visited by Philip Brown, of whom they obtained "roasting ears" and squashes. They called him "Governor of the State of Salimonie," which cognomen he wore while he lived. They continued the survey across the Wabash. Previous to this they had surveyed the road on another route, which passed two miles west of Portland. When they reached the Loblolly, Mr. James declared it would swamp a black snake, went back and surveyed the road now passing through Portland.

Daniel Farber and family were the first to move into the county in 1834. Of course they staid the first night with Nancy Hawkins, whose house was the first resting place for most of the settlers. They lived with Philip Brown until Farber built himself a cabin, just opposite the present beautiful residence of Dr. Joseph Watson, at College Corner. They moved into it before there were either doors, windows, floor or chinking. Mr. Farber wanted to put in a floor, but his wife, Nancy, said she would live on the ground until he could plant some corn, and so the cabin remained floorless until September. This cabin is justly celebrated as the one in which the first election in the county has held, and in which the first post office was established. Enoch Bowden came that year, occupied the house the absconded Wier had built, and afterward moved into Bearcreek Township. Henry H. Cuppy also came and built the house known as the "Conner House," on the south side of the Salimonie, at Portland, now owned by Col. J. P. C. Shanks.

During this year new settlements were commenced at three different points in the county. The first of these was by John Pingry, who settled where he still lives, near West Liberty, April 10th, having been at Mr. Cuppy's for three weeks, previously. His was the first wagon ever driven on the State Road, leading north of Portland. They had a camp already prepared, and retired quite late that night. The next morning when Mr. Pingry awoke, his wife, Elizabeth, and two of the boy s were clearing a garden patch. Similar energy has characterized Mrs. Pingry's life. John Pingry says that spot looked like a paradise then. The grass and leaves were appearing in their bright green, many flowers were out, and he could stand in one place and count 160 walnut trees, that would average three feet in diameter. He thought then it was the best land he ever saw, and thinks so still. He cleared ground and put in ten acres of corn, but the birds, squirrels and raccoons destroyed most of it. During the summer he killed twenty-six deer, two bears, and skinned sixty raccoons on the cornfield, which were only about two-thirds of the number he killed, and declares that he "killed squirrels enough to have fenced it." From the raccoon skins he got a hat made, costing $6, which lasted twelve years. Like all the early settlers, they enjoyed a continual abundance of honey, taken from bee-trees. They had two barrels at one time. The woods then were covered with pea vines and wild rye, and grazing was fine. Mr. Pingry avers, and it is corroborated by the testimony of many others, that the seasons were very different then from what they are now. There was more rain and high water, and the woods furnished much better grazing for stock.

About the first of May, the same year, Samuel Grissell and Moses Hamilton, from Columbiana County, were in Winchester, hunting land, but had not found any that pleased them. B. W. Hawkins saw them, and, by much hard persuasion, got them to come up into this region. They did so, and stopped with Thomas Shaylor, who lived in a cabin without floor or chinking. The ground had been swept so much that there was quite a hole in the middle of the house. It rained hard during the first night of their stay, the ground on which they were sleeping became very wet, and the hole full of water. They made selections of land, Mr. Grissell's being that upon which he still lives. They went home by way of Fort Wayne, where they bought a canoe and paddled down the Maumee. Mr. Hamilton soon moved out, and he became the first permanent settler of Penn Township. Mr. Grissell followed in October following, accompanied by his family of wife and seven children, and Jonathan, Zachariah and Joseph Hiatt. His log house was twenty by twenty-five feet, fireplace eleven feet wide. They often drew backlogs into the house with a horse who had to go across the room and put his head out the window. That horse is still living is thirty-three years old, and the oldest inhabitant of his kind in Jay County.

In November, Mr. John McCoy moved into the cabin Shaylor had occupied. He says four ten-cent pieces were all the money he had in the world. He had to depend upon his gun for a living. He was as contented as the young man from Jay, who, while traveling out from Dayton with four cents in his pocket, wrote to his friends that he felt just as well as if he had "double that amount." In three years McCoy killed three hundred deer.

The great distanced to provisions, and there being no roads cut out, led the early settlers to make meal by pounding corn in a "hominy block." Mr. McCoy and all his neighbors had to go to Newport and Richmond to find a mill and store. In a year or two the settlers were greatly delighted that Job Carr was going to build a horse-mill, but they were as much disappointed when the first grist ruined the mill, and their hominy blocks had to be used again.

The other settlement made during this year was in Jefferson Township. Mr. Aaron Dillie was the first settler there. But little is known of him now except that he was an earnest, consistent Christian. Mr. Joseph Flesher, who died a few years since, came next, and, very soon after, in the autumn of 1834, Joshua Hudson settled on the land now known as "Baker Johnson's farm," having lived for a year previous on Day's Creek, Randolph County. While living at the latter place, after they had retired for the night, there came quite a shower of rain. When Mr. Hudson rose in the morning he found the puncheon floor floating and the house surrounded with water for fifty yards! He carried his family to a place of safety and, by the next night, the water subsided.

In 1837 Mr. Hudson died, and the family was scattered. Wm. C. Hudson, Esq., his son, and the surviving members of Mr. Flesher's family, are the oldest living inhabitants of that township.

This year (1834) is known among the settlers then living in the county as the "hard year" and the "squirrel year." It was a time of great hardships, caused by the coming of squirrels in vast numbers, who destroyed the crops. It was called the "squirrel march or stampede," as those animals seemed to be emigrating, by hundreds and thousands, for some cause yet unexplained. The inhabitants would stand around their fields and shoot them all day, but could neither frighten them nor perceivably lessen their numbers. The Hawkins family had fifteen acres of splendid corn, which, in order to save, they gathered as soon as it began to harden, and had but fifteen bushels, which they picked from the center of the field. For the same cause the crops failed in Darke County, Ohio, and the settlers had to go to Eaton to buy meal. There was not a wagon then in the Hawkins settlement, and they went by turns on horseback, occupying five days in making a trip.

The first marriage in Jay County took place in this year. Mr. Joseph Williamson married Miss Mary Ellen Hartup, May 21st, 1834. The wedding was at Henry H. Cuppy's, and the Justice was Oliver Walker, of Randolph County. The license was issued at Winchester. Mr. Williamson now lives in Wells County. The next marriage was that of Mr. James Simmons to Miss Christena Avaline Hawkins, June 24th, 1834, by Joel Ward, Esq.

Mr. David Baldwin selected land near John Pingry in the fall of 1834, and in April of the next year he and William Baldwin settled there. They though it a very wild place, for they would sometimes stand in their cabin door and shoot the deer that were browsing in the trees which had been cut down to keep them from falling on the house. David Baldwin opened a blacksmith and gunsmith shop that year (1835), which were the first shops of the kind in the county. The Indians were frequent travelers through there then. David Baldwin was a true pioneer - an active and very useful man. As a Christian, he was a Methodist local preacher; as a mechanic, he was a blacksmith and cabinet-maker, and as a pioneer, a farmer, good bee-tree and deer hunter. He afterward immigrated to Kansas, where he served under the famous John Brown. William Baldwin still lives upon the same place.

During 1835 many persons visited the county and selected land. Every settler's cabin was crowded with travelers. Early in the spring, William and Uriah Chapman came out and camped near by the spring, where James Whiteman now lives, in Bear Creek Township. Two corners of a blanket fastened to the ground, the other two tied up with lind bark, in a slanting direction, served for their camp, in front of which they kindled a fire. On the 22nd of April, William, with his family and father-in-law, George Lipps, arrived on the spot where he lived until his death, February 15th, 1862. He first built a shed, under which they lived, cooking by a log-heap, for two months, until compelled to build a cabin for protection against the mosquitoes. Like many others, Uriah Chapman had to travel by night in great haste to Fort Wayne to save their land from speculators. For several seasons Mr. Chapman did little besides provide for travelers. About half of his time was occupied in hunting to get meat, and the other half going south for provisions.

Mr. Joel Wilson was the first settler in Richland Township, arriving there in the fall of 1835. James Green had, however, visited the county previously, and built a cabin in what he then supposed was Delaware County, but which the survey afterward proved to be in Jay; but Mr. Wilson was the first to move with his family into the township. Most of the earliest pioneers of Richland Township have either moved away or gone to their final rest; but Mr. Wilson still remains, a respectable and influential citizen of the township. Mr. Green's cabin and an orchard he set out were situated on Isaac Ketterman's farm, and were the first improvements of the kind made in that township. The same fall John Booth, Benjamin Manor and William Richardson opened a settlement in the southwest corner of the county.

About this time three new settlers came into the Camden neighborhood. They were Joshua Bond, William Swallow and Elihu Hamilton. William Coffin then lived in the same house with Shaylor. Mr. Bond was raised in North Carolina - a Friend - was a pioneer in Wayne County, then moved to Winchester, and owned a farm on which part of that town is now situated. He built the log house in which he still lives, in the winter of 1836-'36. There were not men enough in that region to raise it, and help had to be brought from Winchester. He is still living, though in his eighty-fourth year.

In November Peter Daily, accompanied by William Carpenter, settled near Joshua Hudson, in Jefferson Township. For four years his business was hunting, in which he was very successful. Raccoon skins were worth $1 a piece then, and he caught ten in one evening and one hundred and sixty-eight during the season. For an otter skin he got $8.50. He and Alexander Stein went hunting one day - shot but six times, and killed seven deer. He had hunted so much with a favorite horse that though turned loose, it would stay near his camp until he was ready to go home. One time he went home without taking the horse, and on going back six weeks afterward, the found the faithful animal still was making the camp his headquarters.

In March 1835, Colonel Christopher Hanna, with a large family, of which H. P. Hanna was the eldest, settled in Noble Township, where George Bergman, senior, now lives. They shared the usual hardships of the pioneers. During a trip to Greenville for provisions his family suffered severely for want of food. Great was their joy when the returning wagon was heard winding through the woods. The wet season and early frost ruined his corn, and while H. P. Hanna was plowing, a falling limb killed the horse instantly.

IN 1836 he moved to Portland, and became prominently connected with the organization of the county; was the first Sheriff of the county by appointment of the Governor, and first County Clerk by election. In 1850 he moved from the county, and died, highly respected, in Tama County, Iowa, March 23rd, 1859.

This year also witnessed the coming of Daniel W. McNeal, who was closely identified with the early settlement of Jay County. He came in November 1835. At the organization of the county he was appointed County Surveyor, which office he filled for many years. In this capacity he laid off the county seat, and suggested to the County Commissioners the name for it, which was adopted. He afterward held the office of Justice of the Peace, School Examiner, Land Appraiser and Surveyor of Swamp Lands. He also taught school in the county several years. Although he had some eccentricities, he was possessed of extensive and varied knowledge; was especially well versed in mathematics and many of the physical sciences. He gloried in having been an early, consistent anti-slavery man. He lived an honest and useful life, and died at Portland in April 1864, aged 62 years.