Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/434

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

��entering by way of "Beall's trail" and Trucks- ville, through Blooming Grove Township, and were mostly New Englanders ; those settling in the southern part coming from the direction of Zanesville, Mount Vernon and Mansfield. After leaving Beall's trail, these northern set- tlers were compelled to cut their own road through to the lands they had entered. No roads of any kind then existed in the township. It is said that one or two Indian trails crossed it, which was probably the case, but their location cannot be defined at present. Settlers from the south came by way of the McCluer settlement, at Bellville, and Judge McCluer, being well acquainted with the country, was in the habit of acting as guide to these immigrants, and fre- quently accompanied them to different parts of the county, to show them choice quarters of land. It is said that McCluer, during these ex- cursions, frequentl}^ selected lands for himself, and thus became the proprietor of many valu- able quarter-sections of land, in various places. It thus happened that McCluer entered, just after the war of 1812, several quarter-sections of land on the Black Fork, in the southern part of Jackson Township, which were ever afterward known as " McCluer's mill seat," probably from the fact that he expressed his intention of erecting a mill there, which, however, he never did. It is believed, the first road in the town- ship was cut from Mansfield to "McCluer's mill seat," and this road was afterward extended on, noi'th, to the present site of Shelby, where Gamble's mills were located. Two of Jackson Townships earliest settlers, Uriah Matson and Joseph Curran, assisted in cutting this road, and entered their land in the township as earl}^ as 1814 or 1815, though they did not return for permanent settlement until 1816.

At a meeting of the pioneers of the count}^, in 1858, at which a number of axes were pre- sented to the oldest pioneers, Uriah Matson saj^s, in a letter to the committee : " I would inform you, that I came to this county the 4th

��day of August, 1815, and from that time to October, 1822, 1 followed chopping exclusively, during which time I chopped about one hun- dred and ninety aci'cs of land, and did a large amount of other chopping, such as mak- ing rails, sawing timber for frames, getting bark for tanners, etc. Since 1822, I have chopped and cleared upward of eighty acres, on the farm I now occupy. I think I have done more chopping, assisted in raising more cabins and rolling more logs, than anj' other man now living in the county. When I came to the county, there were about four families living in Springfield Township, to wit, Coflen- berry, Condon, Edington and Thomas Adams ; and but four more families in all the northwest part of the county, to wit, Pettijohn, in Au- burn, McCluer, Widow Trux and son-in-law, in Plymouth Township."

Mr. Matson was presented an ax, in consid- eration of the amount of land cleared by him.

In the spring of this year (1816), Mathew and Joseph Curran came, and erected a cabin upon Mathew's land, the southwest quarter of Section 36. This is said to have been the first cabin in the township, and stood upon the farm now owned by Robert Cairns, of Mansfield. Joseph Curran had entered the southeast quarter of the same section, and soon after erected the second cabin. It is related that settlers came from several miles south to help erect this cabin for Mathew Curran and family, among the number being Mr. Calvin Clark, 3^et living and a resident of the town- ship. The time and circumstances are vividly impressed upon Mr. Clark's mind, from the fact that an accident happened at the raising. The Curran family had encamped near where the}' intended erecting the cabin, and were cooking dinner for the workmen, by the side of a large log, in the open air. One of Mr. Curran's chil- dren, a little boy, attempted to walk this log, in sport, and, making a misstep, fell into a large kettle of boiling coffee, scalding him to such an

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