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Chapter XXIV.
pg. 243
HISTORY OF
MONROE TOWNSHIP
THIS is
another township which has recently been cut out of the "Big
Woods," and thus destroyed a large part of the happy hunting
ground of the sportsman. It was organized as a
geographical township in 1850, being detached from Harrison
to which it had previously belonged. In the government
survey it is known as township four, north of range seven,
east. The duplicate of 1851 shows only seven chattel
taxpayers resident in the township. We give the names
with the amount of tax paid by each: Samuel E. Edwards
(author of the "Ohio Hunter," who then resided on the farm
now owned and occupied by Philip Heckler), $2.40;
William Hill, $1.89; Michael Hill, $2.02;
Waite Hill, Jr., $1.09; Christopher Kemm, $3.38;
Matthias Knopsley $.97; Amonah Parkison,
$1.05; Paulus Quitman, $1.01. The number of
acres of land entered and subject to taxation was 14,463;
valued at $22,268.21; while the value of the chattel
property was only $476, and the total tax paid, including
specials, was $1,698.35. In this connection the
duplicate of 1887 may as well be given. It shows
22,960 acres of land, valued at $233,210, subject to
taxation; the chattel property is valued at $80,376, and the
total tax paid $7,244.62. The population of the
township was, in 1860, three hundred and fifty-two souls; in
1870 six hundred and fifty-eight; in 1880 it had grown to
one thousand one hundred and forty-eight, and is at present
not less than fifteen hundred. The township is divided
into nine school districts and has as many good and
commodious school buildings; and five churches, all
Protestant, - one a United Brethren, near Levi Dresbeck's;
two Lutheran churches, one on section 18, and one on section
33. The others will be spoken of when we write of the
villages.
Among the early settlers of the township, in addition
to those already named, we may add: David Latta, Matthew
Hill, Daniel and W. H. Bigford, Rev.
Williamson Barnhill, Charles Huber, John Bensing, John
Frankforther, Peter Reimond, John B. Meyers, Rev. Frederick
Witzgall, and Jacob Snyder, who made the early
improvements on the valuable farm now owned and occupied by
John Rentz. All of these persons or their
immediate descendants or families are still living in the
township.
For many years this township was a stunted child, and
its healthy growth commenced with the construction of the
Toledo, Delphos and Burlington Railroad, a narrow guage, but
which has in the present year been extended to a standard
guage, and is now known as the "Clover Leaf" route.
The road enters the township at the northeast corner of
section one, on the east line, runs in a southwest
direction, leaving the township in the northwest quarter of
section thirty-one, on the west line.
The lands in this township, as in the whole county with
the exception of the ridge, are low, flat, level, and were
wet, requiring considerable drainage. This has been
accomplished and three-fourths of the township is now under
a good state of cultivation. The drainage is
accomplished by the cleaning out, widening and deepening of
the natural water courses, the main one of which is Turkey
Foot. This creek enters the township in the south at
the line between section thirty-five and thirty-six, running
north in a winding direction through sections thirty-five,
twenty-six, twenty-three, twenty-two, fourteen, fifteen,
ten, three, four and five, entering Harrison township near
the center of the latter section on the south township line.
School Creek enters the township in the west near the
southwest quarter of section nineteen, and runs northerly,
winding through sections eighteen and eight, emptying into
Turkey Foot in section four. Lost Creek and Ash Creek
also runs from the south to the north, both adding their
waters to Turkey Foot. Into these several streams
artificial drainage, both surface and sub-soil, have been
constructed, pretty thoroughly draining the township and
fitting it for cultivation. Good roads have been
constructed on almost every section line, both north and
south and east and west, many of which have by the county
commissioners been improved under the laws of the
Legislature enacted for that purpose, and the township
to-day ranks among the best and wealthiest in the county.
The hamlets and villages in the township are Ellery
(or, as known on the plat book, Herrtown) Grelleton and
Malinta. Of these in order:
HERRTOWN
or ELLERY.
On the plat
book this hamlet is known as Herrtown, but the postoffice
located there having been named Ellery, the latter has
become the accepted name. It is situated in the south
part of the east half of the southwest quarter of section
sixteen on the "Clover Leaf" route. It consists of
seventeen lots; is a railway station, has a postoffice and
small store. It was platted by Peter Ritter,
Jan. 29, 1881. It may be said to be extensively laid
out but thinly settled.
GRELLETON.
This
village, or more properly hamlet, is located where the
township of Harrison, Damascus, Richfield and Monroe center.
It is also on the corner of section one in the latter
township. On the 10th of May, 1884, Mr. Clay
platted another addition in this township, in the southeast
corner of the northwest quarter of the same section.
It consists of thirteen lots, and was recorded Dec. 27,
1884. The hamlet has a good school-house, two dry
goods stores, a meat market, restaurant, a saw-mill, hoop
factory, stave factory, a railroad depot, express, telegraph
and post-offices, and contains a population of from three
hundred to three hundred and fifty. Among the first
settlers and present residents of the place may be
enumerated Thomas B. Emery, Joseph B. Ward, Eli C.
Clay, William Mead, C. H. Thompson, Jonathan Scheidler,
Leroy Thompson, Randall & Hughes, hoop factory, and the
Dewey Stave Company.
MALINTA.
This is the
principal village in the township. It is also on the
line of the "Clover Leaf," and is located in sections ten
and eleven. It contains a population of from four
hundred to four hundred and fifty. It has four dry
goods and general stores, two hardware stores, two saloons
and restaurants, one sawmill, stave factory, tile and brick
factory, picture gallery, blacksmith shops, shoemaker, etc.
It is a railroad station and has an express, telegraph and
post office. Two churches, one Lutheran and one United
Brethren, are erected here.
The village was first platted and laid out by John
Bensing, Sept. 21, 1880, in the west part of the
northwest quarter of section eleven, on the north side of
the railroad. Turkey Foot avenue bounded it on the
west, Main street on the north, an alley on the east, and an
alley between the plat and the railroad on the south.
It was constituted of twenty lots, with Center street
running east and west, and Henry street and an alley north
and south. Depot grounds were also laid out on the
south of the railroad.
Mr. Bensing platted and recorded his first
addition to the village, April, 1881. It is in the
west part of the northwest quarter of section eleven, south
of the railroad, west of the depot grounds and east of
Turkey Foot avenue. It consists of twenty-six lots.
Washington and Adams streets and one alley run east and
west; Henry street continued and two alleys run north
and south.
May 28, 1881, L. and L. Horn added an addition
to the village, located in part of the southeast quarter of
the northeast quarter of section ten. It embraced four
and a half acres west of Turkey Foot avenue. It
consists of twelve lots, two alleys running east and west
and one north and south, on the south side of the railroad;
and seventeen lots, Monroe street and three alleys, east and
west and one alley north and south, on the north of the
railroad.
The town is thrifty, the population enterprising, and
it will doubtless, before many years, rank among the
foremost villages in the county.
Before closing this chapter a word should be said in
memory of the men who first undertook the task of making
delightful homes of the "tangled forests."
THE STURDY PIONEER.
"Peace has
her victories as well as war;" with equal truth may civil
life be said to have its heroes as well as the tented field,
and if ever man deserved the title of hero, that man is the
pioneer. Language cannot be woven into a fitting
uniform for this hero; he was not an adventurer; he
possessed all the elements of the true soldier: courage,
fortitude, determination, endurance, self-reliance,
perseverance were his characteristics. He went forth,
venturing where no other white foot had ever trod, a
colonist, founding new homes and building new States.
The race of pioneers was a constructive one, and its
conquests were pushed, not only beyond the mountains, but
from ocean to ocean, and where its seeds of thought,
religion and civilization were once planted, there they grew
and flourished.
Time too readily blots from the memory of the rising
generation the glorious achievements of their ancestors, and
the hardships, trials and deprivations suffered by them that
they might crown "a youth of labor with an age of ease" and
leave behind them homes of comfort as inheritances to their
posterity; and the bravest, the best and the noblest are
laid away, in a few years to be forgotten.
There is something grand in the gradual development of
human history and human progress. The actors at any
period may wholly fail to appreciate the effect of their
action on the future, and be ignorant of the links and
succession of events which connect past, present and future.
The actor knows only to face and to do his duty as day by
day it is presented to him, and he too often remains
unconscious of his relation to predecessor and successor and
of the gradual unfolding of the great plan of human
development and progress. In all human movements we
have the temporary and the permanent the transient form and
non-essential incident with the permanent substance and the
essential truth. There must be personal actors as well
as potential causes and irresistible current. Every
age has its heroes, martyrs and victims, and every cause its
defenders, advocates and enemies, and to the heroic men who
preceded us to the pathless wilderness we owe the heritage
we now enjoy, and it is proper that to them honor to be paid
and their memories cherished. No nation ever did
anything worth remembering that failed to honor its heroic
dead and count among its national treasures the fame of its
illustrious ancestors.
As we gaze over the expensive and fertile fields and
see the comfortable and pleasant homes of Henry county,
reflect that but a few years ago it was but a "matted woods,
where birds forget to sing" and recall the labors, toils,
sacrifices and dangers which made up the life of the pioneer
heroes whose graves indent our soil, and as we appreciate
the triumphs won by them which have given to us the noble
heritage we now enjoy, and cast ourselves into the beckoning
future which these men and their labors made possible, our
hearts cannot fail to fill with pride, and love and
gratitude, and in the sight of country and of the world we
lift up their honored names, and ask posterity to emulate
the pioneer.
There seems to be a neglect of duty on the part of the
children of the pioneer. There should be monuments
erected to commemorate the achievements of these brave and
great men. Monuments are the links which connect names
and events to fame. Let monuments be built in each
township and stand as a silent, but eloquent witness, not
only to the devotion and daring, but as a constant witness
that we, the sons and daughters of these pioneers, hold in
grateful recollection those to whom we are so largely
indebted for the blessings we to-day enjoy.
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