Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/669

 HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

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��Clinton, Knox County, among whom were Ebenezer Rice, Joseph Jones, Calvin Hill, Abraham Banghman, J. L. Hill, and their families. Peter Kinney, James Cunningham, Andrew Craig, David Davis, AVilliam Slater, John Wilson. Peter Zimmerman, Harvy Hill, Henry McCart and Henry Nail, with their fam- ilies, fled to Lewis' block-house, on the Clear Fork. Most of these families made a temporary stay at the block-house, returning frequentl}- during the fall months, to their cabins, to look after their stock, etc. The next day after the flight to Lewis' l)lock-house, Harvy Hill and John Coulter, who aided the fugitives in driving along most of their cattle, returned, and by the aid of the Tannehills, Olivers, and some others, the roof of Thomas Coulter's cabin was taken off, a second story put on, and it became "Coulter's block-house."' This cabin was about sixteen bv eighteen feet, and had been erected in 1810. It stood at the base of a bold bluflE", on the bank of the Black Fork, half a mile south- east of the village of Penysville. x\s soon as this block-house was completed, it was occu- pied by Thomas Coulter, Allen Oliver, Melzer Tannehill. Jeremiah Conine, George Crawford, and the families of these gentlemen. Thomas Coulter and Harvy Hill then voliuiteered to go to AVooster, through the forest, at that time a dangerous undertaking as was supposed, to secure soldiers to defend the settlement. They succeeded in obtaining a guard of eleven soldiers under command of Lieut. AVin- tringer, of the Tuscarawas militia of the arm}' of Gen. Beall, then collecting at AA^ooster. The guard accompanied them home, and in the daytime scouted through the hills and valleys for Indian signs, and stood guard at the block- house at night. A\'^hile a resident of the block- house, the wife of Jeremiah Conine died, and was buried in the cemetery at Perrysville. She was the second person interred in that ground ; Samuel Hill, who died the preceding June, beino- the first.

��AVith the removal of the Greentown Indians by the Government, disappeared forever the red men as a tribe from this part of the coun- try. Two of their trails, well marked and much used, passed through the township ; one from the direction of Mifflin, down the east side of the Black Fork to Greentown, Avhere it was joined by another from the direction of Lucas ; then it passed near the track of the Pittsburgh Railroad, a little north of the present site of Loudonville, continuing down the valley through Holmes County toward the Lake Fork of the Mohican. The other trail kept down the south side of the Black Fork from Greentown to the AA^alhonding ; then to the forks of the Muskingum. These trails were evidently their great highways to the East, over which the war parties of the AVj'andots and Delawares fre- quently passed on their marauding expeditions into the infant settlements of Eastern Ohio and AA^estern Pennsylvania.

It is said that the scener}' along the Black Fork and in the vicinitv of this Indian village was of unrivaled beauty. The l)anks of the streams resembled a A'ast greenhouse, where choice flowers, flowering shrubs, and plants of every variety peculiar to this climate might V)e seen, growing in wild luxuriance, filling the air of all the country with sweet perfume. In May, when the trees were in full leaf, with an undergrowth of shrubber}', pea-vines, and sedge- grass, intertwined b}' wild gi'ape- vines, and in the glades, black haw, red haw and plum-trees in abundance ; and all echoing with the merry songs of birds and chirp of squirrels leaping from branch to branch, saluting the pioneer or hunter, rendered the scene a veritable paradise.

As may be inferred, ({reen Township is rich in Indian relics, and archseological specimens. These have been gathered by the hundred, and are now safely deposited in the cal)inets of cu- riosity seekers, or in possession of the inhabi- tants. The plow continues to turn up a few every year. Ancient eartliworks also exist

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