Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/647

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY,

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��Penns^ivania about the year 1745, and settled on the Muskingum and its tributaries, on lands granted them by their ' ancient allies and un- cles, the Wj'andots.' Having in Pennsylvania commingled with the German and English pop- ulation, and acquired a smattering of the lan- guage of both, they gave the name of the vil- lage partly to each. Hell, which in the German means clear, united with town, in the English, the words designating simply, but not profanely, the town on the Clear Fork. As to how many huts and wigwams stood originally in this ' Old Plum Orchard,' as it was sometimes called, tradition is silent. When first seen by the writer, there were but three cabins standing, old and dilap- idated, without chimney, floor, door, window, or roof, and one of the corners broken down. Depressions in the neighboring grounds, how- ever, were supposed to have been the sites of other buildings.

"In the spring of 1781, Col. Williamson and his party from Western Pennsylvania massa- cred the Moravian Delaware Indians at Gnau- denhutten, in Tuscarawas County, treacherously and in cold blood. When the inhabitants of Helltown heard of the massacre, the^' were panic-stricken and fled to Upper Sandusk}', the home of the Wyandots. for protection. The panic having subsided, the}' returned to Hell- town, and, after some time, removed, founded and located at Greentown, in Ashland County, near the Black Fork, about two miles above Penysville. Helltown was not wholly aban- doned, but was used until 1812 as a hunting encampment, and, being but five miles distant, the trail between the two places was deep and well marked. A trail also existed, on the first settlement of the whites, from Helltown to Mansfield, and crossed the one from Greentown to Upper Sandusk}-. A trail, too, from Hell- town to Jeromeville doubtless originally ex- isted, but, being disused, was necessaril}- oblit- erated in the lapse of years from 1782 to 1812.

��" The route of Col. Crawford and his army in their march to Upper Sandusky in 1782 has not been definitely located. It is believed they marched from Odells Lake to Mans- field, but the course they took between these two places is not yet determined. In a con- versation the writer had, mau}^ years ago, with the late Col. Solomon Gladden, of this count}', he stated that Col. Crawford and his part}' passed through Helltown on their way to Upper Sandusky, and that such was the statement to him of Capt. Munn, his uncle, who was an officer in the expedition. Of this conversation the writer took a minute shortly after, and as to the fact he cannot be mistaken.

" In and about Helltown many Indian relics, ancient and more modern, have been found, such as arrow and spear heads, pipes of stone, pottery and copper, a stone drinking cup, cop- per lancets, leaden bullets, a scalping-knife, fragments of gun-barrels and brass mountings of gun-stocks, etc. Many of the graves have been opened, as they were superficial and easily dug into, but, so far as informed, nothing but bones more or less decayed wei'e found and ex- humed.

•^ It may be added, that the site of Helltown. with its gi'aves, has for years been part and parcel of a cultivated field, and when last seen, early last summer, the ripening wheat was waving over the former habitations of the de- parted and the dead.'"

Dr. Henderson also notes the history of an old Indian, known as Lyons, who once inhab- ited this part of the country. The Doctor says :

•■ Old Lyons was the last of the Indians who had ■ a local habitation and a name' in Worth- ington Township. His dwelling was on the farm of David Rummel. near where it connects with that of *John Ramsey, and contiguous to the Clear Fork. It resembled a double barn, and consisted of two cabins constructed of buck- eye logs, with a small ground spot intermediate, and the whole covered with basswood ])ark.

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