Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/471

 HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

��457

��was not painted either inside or out. This edifice served for various purposes, and was a kind of an omnium gatliprum (this last word is not to be lound in any ancient Latin diction- ar}'). People of all denominations, except the Methodists, who had a small frame church in the northeast part of the village as early as 1 820, worshiped in the upper story. There, too, the county courts were held, and public meet- ings generally. On the east and west sides of this room were fireplaces, and a stove right in the center, and often in the coldest weather, by reason of the flues drawing downwai'd instead of upward, the fuel had to be carried out or the fire quenched, or the inmates suffered by smoke. In that room, I preached every alternate Sabbath for two or three years. The Judge's bench was on a slight elevation above the floor, and the fixtures in front of it, and the appearance around the bar, were in perfect harmon}' with the appearance of the room and house. The lower story was divided into three apartments ; the west half being used as a jailer's residence. and the south apartment of the east half as a cell — a close, tight place — where criminals were confined, and were said to sufler considerably sometimes by the rats ; the north part of the east half was a place of confinement for perse- cuted debtors. ' Mr. Henry Newman, still liv- ing at Br3-an, Ohio, adds the following regard- ing this : •• The hewed-log block-house was built in the fall of 1813, about three rods east of the main street, in the direction of the old court house. The logs that formed the under story were dovetailed ; the under and upper floor laid with hewed logs. The under story, after the war, composed the first jail ; the upper story projected eight inches on every side, and was large enough for a court house for the county. It had one twelve-light window, 8x10 glass, on the gable end (north end), and port-holes above and below. " It ma}' be added that the lower part of this edifice was of double logs, with a space between filled with stones ; at least such is the

��evidence of several old settlers, though Judge David 3IcCullouh, still living on East ^Market sti-eet, and who came in 1822, thinks this a mistake. He says the logs were nicely hewn, and laid very closely together, but the wall was not double. Mr. Rowland says maple sugar was from 4 to 6 cents per pound ; land from $2 to $6 per acre ; wheat 37^ cents per bushel, and wood from 75 cents to $1 per cord.

Mrs. Mariah H. Smith, still living in a log house (weatherboarded over), on South Main street, came to town in 1823, and moved shortly afterward into that same house. She says the old original Wiler House was moved up on South East-Diamond street, where it still remains. There was a small block-house at that time on South Main street, on the south side of the run, where Roop's, and afterward Ritter's, tan- yard was located. Jacob Newman's cabin was further up the hillside, where Mrs. Ritter now lives. Andrew S. Newman, son of Jacob New- man, the first settler in Richland County, died January 31, 1872. He was born in Richland County in 1811, and always resided in ^lans- field. She remembers attending the Methodist Church on Water street, near the big spring, and that she went through the hazel brush to get to it. There was a carding-mill where the water- works are now located, which carded the wool that was spun and woven into cloth by the settlers for their clothing.

Mrs. Elizabeth Grant, formerly Carothers, who still lives on Fourth street, came in 1815. Her statement is interesting, but as it is a repe- tition of what has alread}- been written, it is not given fully. She says that on the south- west corner of West Market and Mulberry streets was a pottery, where crocks, etc., were made, kept by a man named Locke, an uncle of '' Pe- troleum V. Nasby." She has now in her pos- session some of his pottery ; she has also a small tub made by the first cooper — a Mr. Maxwell, who kept a shop near the big spring. This Carothers family was- one of the earliest in

��■^

��'y

�� �