Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/459

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COl^NTY,

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��of Wooster. James Hedges and Jacob Newman. The}' agreed to name the new town Mansfield, after the then Surve^'or General of the Ignited States, Col. Jared Mansfield, under whose in- structions Hedges and his companions were working. Col. Jared Mansfield was born in New Haven, Conn., in the 3'ear 1759. and during his lifetime occupied various prominent and responsil)le positions under the United States Grovernment. He was a graduate of Yale College in 1777, and taught school, first in New Haven and afterward in Philadelphia. Becoming known to Mr. Jefferson, he recei^-ed the appointment of Professor of Natural Philos- ophy at the Militarv Academ}- at West Point. The publication of his mathematical and physi- cal essays, about this time, enhanced his repu- tation, and he took a high stand among the scientific men of the nation. He was appointed Surveyor General about the year 1803, an office before held b}- Gen. Rufus Putnam. Col. Mans- field subsequently resumed the Professorship of Natural Philosophy- at the Militaiy Academy, where he continued until a few years before his death, when he retired to Cincinnati, and sul)- sequently died while on a visit to his native city, February 8, 1830, aged seventj'-one years. He was a near relative of the now venerable author and scholar, E. D. Mansfield, who resides near Cincinnati.

The original plat of the city was a square, of which the public square was the center. It extended north one block beyond Fourth street ; south across Ritter's Run, one block beyond First street ; east one block beyond Water street, and west one block beyond Mullierr}'. It was mainl}' on the southeast quai-ter of Section 21, the south side, however, extending a little more than a square into the southwest quarter of Section 22. Since that time, it has extended over the entire section (21), and into all the ad- joining sections, its growth having been mainly west and north. James Hedges entered the two quarter-sections upon which the town was plat-

��ted ; also two other quarter-sections, lying east and north of the town.

New towns, in those days, did not spring into life as rapidly as in these days of steam and electricity. It is a common thing now to build a new town in a few days or weeks, make and lose fortunes on it, abandon it, and start another at some distant point on a new railroad, with, perhaps, the same result. But, in those days of stage-coaches and Pennsylvania " schooners," with their four yoke of cattle, things moved correspondingly slow. People were not whirled through the world on " lightning expresses," or crammed with telegraphic news from " all parts of the world." The future city was not an ex- ception in this particular. So far as can be ascertained, but one actual settler was obtained in 1808. This was Samuel Martin, who came from New Lisbon. This is about all that is known of him. He built the first cabin ; such, at least, is the testimony of many of the oldest settlers, though, like every other matter depend- ing on the memory of the '• oldest inhabitant," it is contradicted, yet the weight of testimony is in his favor. The question as to where that first cabin was built, is one more difficult of solution. It is one upon which, one would think, those who were here first could hardly be mis- taken ; but it must be considered that their attention was not called to this matter for years afterward, and being considered (if considered at all) a small matter, it passed from their minds entirely. Looking back afterward, through the mist of half a century, with its changes, the exact spot might not be so readily determined. It remains to give the evidence, pro and con, and form a judgment accordingly.

^Ir. C. S. Coffinberr}-, writing from Constan- tine. Mich., under date of February 17, 1873, says : '• The first house built in the town of Mans- field was built by George Coffinberry, in 1 809, in the month of August in that year, on the site now occupied l^y the North American Hotel, at the southwest corner of the public square. The

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