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WOOD COUNTY was formed from
old Indian Territory, April 1, 1820, and named from the brave and
chivalrous Col. Wood, a distinguished officer of engineers in
the war of 1812. The surface is level, and covered by the
black swamp, the soil of which is a rich, black loam, and very
fertile, and peculiarly well adapted to grazing. The
population are mainly of New England descent, with some Germans.
The principal crops are corn, hay, potatoes, oats and wheat.
Area about 620 square miles. In 1887 the acres
cultivated were 157,492; in pasture, 26,485; woodland, 65,055; lying
waste, 1,059; produced in wheat, 661,013 bushels; rye, 104,379
(largest in the State); buckwheat, 1,560; oats, 815,896; barley,
27,080; corn, 1,884,832; meadow hay, 21,000 tons; clover, 6,095;
flaxseed, 84 bushels; potatoes, 88,656; tobacco, 70 lbs.; butter,
635,765; sorghum, 2,274 gallons; maple syrup, 4,873; honey, 21,140
lbs.; eggs, 749,213 dozen; grapes, 56,220 lbs.; wine, 962 gallons;
sweet potatoes, 21 bushels; apples, 39,660; peaches, 1,383; pears,
1,537; wool, 83,799 lbs.; milch cows owned, 8,481. Ohio Mining
Statistics, 1888; Limestone, 36,565 tons burned for lime; 81,000
cubic feet of dimension stone; 57,199 cubic yards of building stone;
8,892 cubic feet of ballast or macadam. School census, 1888,
12,763; teachers, 410. Miles of railroad track, 196
| Townships and Census |
1840 |
1880 |
|
Townships and Census |
1840 |
1880 |
| Bloom, |
437 |
2,022 |
|
Montgomery, |
609 |
2,283 |
| Center |
97 |
2,023 |
|
Perry |
559 |
1,474 |
| Freedom, |
238 |
1,667 |
|
Perrysburg, |
1041 |
4,112 |
| Henry, |
213 |
1,688 |
|
Plain, |
272 |
1,985 |
| Jackson, |
27 |
1,028 |
|
Portage, |
1099 |
1,434 |
| Lake, |
|
2,207 |
|
Ross |
|
639 |
| Liberty, |
215 |
1,292 |
|
Troy, |
383 |
1,407 |
| Middleton, |
193 |
1,606 |
|
Washington, |
244 |
1,426 |
| Milton and Weston, |
639 |
|
|
Webster, |
|
1,197 |
| Miton, |
|
2,181 |
|
Weston, |
|
2,351 |
Population of wood in 1830,
1,096; 1840, 5,458; 1850, 9,165; 1860, 17,886; 1880, 34,022; of whom
25,808 were born in Ohio; 1,569, Pennsylvania; 1204, New York; 169,
Virginia; 158, Indiana; 38, Kentucky; 2092, German Empire; 626,
England and Wales; 321, British America; 274 Ireland; 118, France;
110, Scotland; and 21, Norway and Sweden. Census, 1890,
44,392.
DRAINAGE.
Since our original edition
of 1847 few counties of the State have been so surprisingly
transformed as Wood. It was then an almost unbroken forest,
covering the black swamp, and with few inhabitants. This
advance has been owing to the very extensive system of drainage and
clearing off the forest, which has brought a large body of
agriculturalists to settle up the country, three-fourths of whom
are, to-day, within a radius of about 2 1/2 miles of some line of
railway; hence there has been a steady and uniform advance in
agricultural development. It is now fast becoming one of
the great garden spots of the country.
What drainage is doing for this entire region is told
in the article, "The Black Swamp," under the head of Putnam County.
One single ditch in Wood county, the "Jackson Cut-off," drains
30,000 acres, and cost $110,000. It is therein stated that,
counting in the railway ditches with the public and private ditches
of the farmers, there are in Wood county alone 16,000 miles of
ditches, at an aggregate cost of millions of dollars. These
are the basis of the great agricultural prosperity of the county in
connection with the richness of the soil. And later, comes the
discovery and use of its great gas and oil resources to further
enhance its prosperity.
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EARLY HISTORY.
The
following sketch of the early history of this region was
communicated to our original edition by Hezekiah L.
Hosmer, then a young lawyer of Perrysburg. He
eventually removed to the Pacific Slope, and held there a
high judicial position. |
The
Military Expeditions against the Indian tribes in the
West, commenced under the colonial government about the
middle of the last century, were finally terminated on this
river by the decisive victory of Gen. Wayne in 1794.
Previous to that event no portion of the West was more
beloved by the Indians than the valleys of the Maumee and
its tributaries. In the daily journal of Wayne's
campaign, kept by George Will, under date of Aug. 6,
1794, when the army was encamped fifty-six miles in advance
of Fort Recovery, the writer says: "We are within six miles
of the Auglaize river, and I expect to eat green corn
to-morrow." On the 8th of the same month, after the
arrival of the army at the Camp Grand Auglaize (the site of
Fort Defiance), he continues: "We have marched four or five
miles in corn-fields down the Auglaize, and there is not
less than 1,000 acres of corn around the town." This
journal, kept from that time until the return of the army to
Fort Greenville, is full of descriptions of the immense
corn-fields, large vegetable patches, and old apple trees,
found along the banks of the Maumee from its mouth to Fort
Wayne. It discloses the astonishing fact that for a
period of eight days while building Fort Defiance, the army
obtained their bread and vegetables from the corn-fields and
potato patches surrounding the fort. In their march
from Fort Defiance to the foot of the rapids the army passed
through a number of Indian towns composed of huts,
constructed of bark and skins, which afforded evidence that
the people who had once inhabited them were composed, not
only of Indians, but of Canadian French and renegade
Englishmen.
The Maumee Valley After Wayne's
Victory. - What the condition of the valley was
for some years after Wayne's campaign may be gathered from
the following extracts from one of Judge Burnet's
letters, published by the Ohio Historical Society.
After assigning some reasons for the downfall of the
Indians, he says: "My yearly trips to Detroit, from 1796 to
1802, made it necessary to pass through some of their towns,
and convenient to visit many of them. Of course I had
frequent opportunities of seeing thousands of them, in their
villages and at their hunting camps, and of forming a
personal acquaintance with some of their distinguished
chiefs. I have eat and slept in their towns, and
partaken of their hospitality, which had no limit but that
of their contracted means. In journeying more recently
through the State, in discharging my judicial duties, I
sometimes passed over the ground on which I had seen towns
filled with happy families of that devoted race without
perceiving the smallest trace of what had once been there.
All their ancient settlements on the route to Fort Defiance,
and from thence to the foot of the rapids, had been broken
up and deserted.
"The battle-ground of Gen. Wayne, which I had
often seen in the rude state in which it was when the
decisive action of 1794 was fought, was so altered and
changed that I could not recognize it, and not an indication
remained of the very extensive Indian settlements which I
had formerly seen there. It seemed almost impossible
that in so short a period such an astonishing change could
have taken place."
These extracts prove that even after the battle of
Presque Isle, although crushed and humbled, the Indian
refused to be divorce from the favorite home and numerous
graves of is race. A chain of causes which followed
this battle finally wrested from him the last foothold of
his soil. These may be said to have commenced with the
treaty of Greenville, made on the 3d of August, 1795, with
the Wyandots, Ottawas, and other tribes located in this
region. By this treaty, among various other cessions
of territory, a tract of land twelve miles square at the
foot of the rapids, and one of six miles square at the mouth
of the river, were given to the United States. This
treaty was followed by the establishment of the boundaries
of the county of Wayne, which included a part of the States
of Ohio, Indiana, and the whole of Michigan.
The First White Settler. - Notwithstanding this
actual declaration of ownerships by the government, few only
of the whites of the country were willing to penetrate and
reside in this yet unforsaken abode of the Indian.
Col. John Anderson was the first white trader of any
notoriety on the Maumee. He settled at Fort Miami as
early as 1800. Peter Manor, a Frenchman, was
here previous to that time, and was adopted by the chief
Fontogany, by the name of Sawendebans or
"the Yellow Hair." Manor,
however, did not come here to reside until 1808.
Indeed, I cannot learn the names of any of the settlers
prior to 1810 except the two above mentioned. We may
mention among those who came during the year 1810.
Maj. Amos Spafford, Andrew Race, Thomas Leaming, Halsey W.
Leaming, James Carlin, Wm. Carter, George Blalock, James
Slason, Samuel H. Ewing, Jesse Skinner, David Hull, Thomas
Dick, Wm. Peters, Ambrose Hickox, Richard Gifford.
All these individuals were settled within a circumference of
ten miles, embracing the amphitheatre at the foot of the
rapids, as early as 1810. Maj. Amos Spafford
came here to perform the duties of collector of the port of
Miami. He was also appointed deputy postmaster.
A copy of his return to the government as collector for the
first quarter of his service, ending on the 30th June, 1810,
shows the aggregate amount of exports to have been
$5,640.85. This was, for skins and furs, $5,61.85, and
for twenty gallons of bear's oil, $30.
When War Broke out in 1812 there were
sixty-seven families residing at the foot of the rapids.
Manor - or Minard, the Frenchman above alluded
to - states that the first intimation that the settlers had
of Hull's surrender at Detroit manifested itself by
the appearance of a party of British and Indians at the foot
of the rapids a few days after it took place. The
Indians plunders the settlers on both sides of the river,
and departed for Detroit in canoes. Three of their
number remained with the intention of |
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going into the interior of the
State. One of these was a Delaware chief by the name
of Sac-a-manc. Manor won his confidence,
under the pretence of friendship for the British, and was by
him informed that in a few days a grand assemblage of all
the northwestern tribes was contemplated at Fort Malden, and
that in about two days after that assemblage a large number
of British and Indians would be at the foot of the rapids,
on their march to relieve Fort Wayne, then under investment
by the American army, as was supposed. He also
informed him that, when they came again, they would massacre
all the Yankees found in the valley. Sac-a-manc
left for the interior of the State, after remaining a day at
the foot of the rapids.
Flight of the Settlers. - The day after his
departure Minard called upon Maj. Spafford,
and warned him of the hostile intentions of the Indians, as
he had received them from Sac-a-manc. The major
placed no confidence in them, and expressed a determination
to remain until our army from the interior should reach this
frontier. A few days after this conversation a man by
the name of Gordon was seen approaching
the residence of Maj. Spafford in great
haste. This individual had been reared among the
Indians, but had, previous to this time, received some
favors of a trifling character from Maj. Spafford.
The major met him in his corn-field, and was informed that a
party of about fifty Pottawatomies, on their way to Malden,
had taken this route, and in less than two hours would be at
the foot of the rapids. He also urged the major to
make good his escape immediately. Most of the families
at the foot of the rapids had left the valley after
receiving intelligence of Hull's surrender. The
major assembled those that were left on the bank of the
river, where they put in tolerable sailing condition an old
barge, in which some officers had descended the river from
Fort Wayne the year previous. They had barely time to
get such of their effects as were portable on board, and row
down into the bend below the town, before they heard the
shouts of the Indians above. Finding no Americans
here, the Indians passed on to Malden. The major and
his companions sailed in their crazy vessel down the lake to
the Quaker settlement at Milan, on Huron river, where they
remained until the close of the war.
Sac-a-manc, on his return from the interior of
the State, a few days after the event, showed Manor
the scalps of three persons that he had killed during his
absence, on Owl creek, near Mount Vernon. At the time
mentioned by him a detachment of the British army, under
command of Col. Elliott, accompanied by about 500
Indians, came to the foot of the rapids. They were
anxious to obtain guides. Manor feigned
lameness and ignorance of the country above the head of the
rapids, a distance of eighteen miles up the river. By
this means he escaped being pressed into their service above
that point. He accompanied them that far with his cart
and pony, and was then permitted to return. On his
return he met Col. Elliott, the commander of the
detachment, at the foot of Presque Isle Hill, who stopped
him, and, after learning the services he had performed,
permitted him, with a curse, to go on. A mile below
him he met a party of about forty Pottawatomies, who also
desired to know where he was going. Manor
escaped being compelled to return by telling them he was
returning to the foot of the rapids after forage for the
army. The British and Indians pursued their march up
the river until their saw the American flag waving over
Winchester's encampment at Defiance, when they returned in
double quick time to Canada. On their return they
burned the dwellings, stole the horses and destroyed the
corn-fields of the settlers at the foot of the rapids.
Manor, soon after his arrival at the foot of the
rapids, when down the river to the British fleet, then lying
at the mouth of Swan creek, under command of Capt. Mills.
Here he reported himself, told what he had done far the
army, and desired leave to go to his family at the mouth of
the river. Capt. Mills having no evidence of
his loyalty beyond his own word, put him under hatches as a
prisoner of war. Through the aid of his friend,
Beaugrand, Minard was released in a few days, joined his
family, and was afterwards a scout for our army during the
remainder of the war. He is now (1846 living at the
head of the rapids, on the reservation of land granted him
by the government, at the request of his Indian father,
Ton-tog-sa-ny. [Another account of Peter Manor
is in Lucas Count.]
After Peace was Declared, most of the settlers
that had lived here previous to the war returned to their
old possessions. They were partly indemnified by
government for their losses. Many of them lived in the
block-houses on Fort Meigs, and one or two of the citizens
of our town were born in one of them. The settlement
of the valley was at first slow, but the foot of the rapids
and vicinity was settled long before any of the rest.
In 1816 government sent an agent to lay out a town at the
point best calculated for commercial purposes. That
agent sounded the river from its mouth, and fixed upon
Perrysburg. The town was laid out that year, and named
after Com. Perry by Hon. Josiah Meigs, then
Comptroller of the Treasury. This county was then
embraced in the county limits of Logan county, Bellefontaine
being the county-seat. When the limits of Wood county
county were first determined, there was a great struggle
between these three towns at the foot of the rapids -
Orleans, Maumee and Perrysburg - for the county-seat.
The decision in favor of Perrysburg was the cause of the
abandonment of the little town of Orleans, which soon after
fell into decay.
The last remnant of the powerful Ottawa tribe of
Indians removed from this valley west of the Mississippi in
1838. They numbered some interesting men among them.
There was Nawash, Ockquenoxy, Charloe, Ottoca, Petonquet,
men of eloquence, remembered by many of our citizens.
Their burying-grounds and village-sites are scattered along
both banks of the river, from its mouth to Fort Defiance. |
| This
part of the Maumee valley has been noted for military
operations. Wayne's victory over the Indians (see
Lucas County), Aug. 20, 1794, was gained within its borders.
It was also the theatre of important operations in the war
of 1812. |
March of Gen. Hull - About the middle of June,
1812, the army of Hull left Urbana, and passed
through the present counties of Logan, Hardin, Hancock and
Wood, into Michigan. They cut a road through the
forest, and erected Forts M'Arthur and Findlay on the route,
and arrived at the Maumee on the 30th of June, which they
crossed at or near the foot of the rapids. Hull
surrendered at Detroit on the 16th of the August following.
Tupper's Expedition. - In the same summer,
Gen. Edward W. Tupper, of Gallia county, raised about
1,000 men for six months' duty, mainly from Gallia, Lawrence
and Jackson counties, who, under the orders of Gen.
Winchester, marched from Urbana north by the route of Hull,
and reached the foot of the Maumee rapids. The Indians
appearing in force on the opposite bank, Tupper
endeavored to cross the river with his troops in the night;
but the rapidity of the current, and the feeble,
half-starved condition of his men and horses were such, that
the attempt failed. The enemy soon after collected a
superior force, and attacked Tupper in his camp, but
were driven off with considerable loss. They returned
to Detroit, and the Americans marched back to Fort M'Arthur. |
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Winchester's Defeat. - On the 10th of January, 1813,
Gen. Winchester, whose troops had been stationed at
Forts Wayne and Defiance, arrived at the rapids, having
marched from the latter along the north bank of the Maumee.
There they encamped until the 17th, when Winchester resumed
his march north, and was defeated with great loss on the 22d
of the river Raisin, near the site of Monroe, Michigan.
On receiving information of Winchester's defeat,
Gen. Harrison sent Dr. McKeehan from Portage river
with medicines and of PAGE 560 |
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