Interesting Recollections Of Brice Hilton (Defiance Democrat 21 May 1891)

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    The town of Defiance was laid out by Benjamin Leavell and Horatio G. Philips, in November 1822, just about one month before my father, Joshua Hilton, moved with his family to a tract of land he had purchased the spring previous and on which now stands the large Schlosser Carriage Works

    My father came here from near Troy, Ohio. In moving our effects we used two wagons, one drawn by two yoke of oxen and the other by a yoke of oxen and a span of horses. When we came here the roads were not quite as well defined as now and there was no bridges over any of the streams. Several times we were compelled to cut out the road sufficiently wide to permit our wagons to pass along and in numerous instances, trees had fallen across it and there being but very little travel over it with wagons we found it in bad shape.
    My father's log cabin was the second house built between Defiance and Fort Wayne. I remained at home with my father for six years and assisted in clearing the place, which was all woods, and then being 20 years old I began to look out for myself.
    The only frame house in Defiance in December, 1822, was the Post Office, situated on the N.W. corner of Lot No. 1, in the original plat of the town. It was built by the postmaster, a man by the name of Smith, who lived on the north side of the river and for a short time after his appointment he kept the office on that side, but proprietor of the town soon gave him to understand that the Post Office was Defiance, and he must keep it in Defiance or he would be removed and he built the little building which was not over 10 by 12 feet, as I said, and it was the first frame building ever built in the town. I remember of the nine families living in and about Defiance at that time, I came here and they were Benjamin Leavell, Timothy S. Smith, the postmaster, a man by the name of Buttler, old Judge Shirley, who had the largest family, a blacksmith by the name of Borrows, Peter Blair who lived on what were afterwards known as the Bouton bottoms, and two men by the names of Thatcher and Driver, and William Preston, who afterwards was the first Sheriff of Williams county.
    There were a few Canadian French families living near, but I do not recall their names. In December 1822 there were no goods sold on the south side of the river, but on the north side, on top of the hill, about where now is Christ Diehl's residence, a man by the name of John Hollister, sold goods in a double log cabin which fronted on the road now called High Street. His trade was not very extensive of course, for there were but few families here, but he did quite a little business with the Indians and the Canadians.
    The first time I ever came into the town I saw Benjamin Leavell framing the timbers for a dwelling house, a frame house, which he erected on the lot which now is the south-east corner of Front and Jefferson street. He moved his family into this house and I believe remained there as long as he lived in the town. The next spring he built a two-story frame, sort of store and a warehouse building, which extended from Front street over the river bank; this building was situated on the corner of Front and Jefferson, where now is the J.J. Myers property, and he kept store, selling goods as long as he remained among us. In the upper story of this building the first court ever held in Williams county was organized in April, 1824, with old Pierce Evans and Perkins, and I think Robert Shirley as associate judges.
    In the winter of 21 and 22, John Perkins built a dam across the Tiffin river, at where now is the village of Brunersburg, which dam still remains with very many of the original timbers placed there by him, and erected a saw mill on the east side of the river, which furnished all the sawed lumber for the early frame structures in Defiance and for miles around. This mill, I think I can safely say was the first, and for many years the only mill ever built in the Maumee valley.
    In 28 and 29 Perkins built a large grist mill at the west end of the dam and for years managed both the mills and I want to tell you they each did a flourishing business. Prior to the time Perkins built his grist mill there was no mill for grinding nearer Defiance than Waterville Ohio.
    When I came here Fort Winchester was in a good state of preservation. Its block-houses, bastions and stockade were standing and in good state of preservation. The fort of those days were unlike in very many particulars, the forts of today; then they were not only a place of defense, but the residence of the settlers living in the neighborhood, who in case of an uprising of the Indians, could move into the fort and remain there until the trouble subsided. Fort Winchester stood about where is now the widow Switzer's property on Washington street, extending north to within eight or ten rods of the present south line of the grounds of Fort Defiance. This fort had four block-houses connected by a continuous fence or wall of pickets about 12 or 13 feet high, composed of logs hew so as to stand closely together. These block-houses were considerably higher than the stockade or fence, the upper story extending out over the lower about three feet. Port holes and loop holes were arranged at regular distances both in the block-houses and the stockade. The block-houses were roofed over with logs and covered with earth to prevent the bullets from passing through.
    There was an under ground passage way extending from inside of the fort to the Auglaize river, built for the purpose of escape and obtaining water without being exposed to the shots of the Indians. The fort faced out towards the Auglaize river, and at the time I saw it, there was no fence or anything that indicated that there had been one on that side. But two of the block-houses when I first saw it, and they with two stone built on the inside of the fort, were fairly preserved and occupied by tenants.
    Old Fort Defiance was about as it is now when I first saw it, only there was more ground on the river sides, and the trees are much larger. I don't believe those large locust trees standing in Ft Defiance were over 10 inches through when I came here. New settlers were coming in all the time and in the years 23, 24, 25 and 26 quite a few families had settled among us and in the mediate country.
    Since I saw you last, I have been looking up matters a little and I recall the fact that the river road was located in December, 1824, at the first session of the commissioner of Williams county. It was to cross the Maumee at Jefferson street and old Benny Leavell ran a ferry there for sometime. I like to talk over old times here, but don't you think we are stringing this out too long? I do. I think we had better wind this up for this time or else we shall have the people all tired out.
    

Old Trowbridge Mills Jewell Ohio, Defiance county (9 Feb 1933 Defiance Crescent News )

    G.E. Mohr of Jewell (Defiance County, Ohio) Says that when his father, Jacob Mohr, came to Jewell in 1871, the site of the present village was still forest. The first site of the village was a mile west of present. Location of this town was change because of the coming of Lyman Trowbridge's stave factory. 

   Trowbridge, who left to posterity an enduring 

monument in Trowbridge Hall at Defiance College, owned a tract of 80 acres south of the village he erected 3 long log and several plank cabins to shelter his wood crews.

    G.E. Mohr believes that he is one of the few mills hands still in this vicinity, but says that Henry Rummell of Defiance was employed as a stave piler.

    This mill made staves for flour and sugar barrels from elm and red oak logs. One of the twelve foot oak logs which John Hull hauled in from the Trowbridges woods contained 1600 feet of lumber.
    The staves were formerly roughly spit into bolts, but with the coming of the modern saws, they were sawed into bolts approximately the length of the intended staves. Then they went into one of the 11 brick steam chest which held three cords each. After 24 hours of steam they went to an equalizer which cut the bolts to the exact stave length, passing through two saws which trimmed both ends at once. Waste ends from the bolts furnished the fuel for operation of the plant.
    Operation of the stave-cutter was a task that exacted a steady toll of fingers, and it is said that in those days a man with one or more fingers off his hand was naturally taken for a stave-miller.
    After the staves were cut they were piled to dry and cure in 12 long sheds each 200 feet long and about 24 feet wide. They were then passed through a joiner which cut the stave in such a shape that the center of the barrel would bulge to a smaller end. 
    These jointers were also in the habit of nipping off fingers and Mohr recalls the day a son of Frank Shoup of Defiance lost two fingers there. Each operator had boys to help bring staves to the jointer, and carry then away. The helpers were called "tads."
    The finished staves were bound in bundles of 50 each and stored up in storehouses to await shipment.
    A machine sawed out the heading from shorter bolts of cottonwood and basswood timber fed into a planter. Then they were roughly matched and held against a knife which rounded the head and cut the edge which would fit into the groove of the stave when the barrel were made in a cooper's shop. 
    Lyman Trowbridge lived at Napoleon at this time and drove a team of handsome black to and from Jewell and his other mills.
    The 480 acre tract has passed into other hands. Ed Flory lives on a section of it and Emma Gackel, Rothschilds and Fred  Makus owns some of this land.
    G.E. Mohr says that the sticks that are hauled to the sawmills of today were regarded by the timber cutters of that era as toothpicks. Trees of this size were often cut into fuel for the wood-burning locomotives which with their bulging or flaring smokestacks passed over the crude right of way though the forests, stopping every now and then from the long ranks of wood piled on the right of way.
    Trowbridge's mill used between three and five million feet of timber annually and soon ate up the forest; the Jewell mill was moved to Standley. Trowbridge, in partnership with his son-in-law, M.E. Loose operated a stave mill at Mark Center which he fed with timber from his 1300 acre holding in Mark and Farmer townships. At the height of his activities he owned better than 3000 acres of land.
    Supplying wood to the railroad furnished a profitable sideline to many timber owners. Not all of this wood however went beneath the boilers. The haulers preferred to burn dry wood, and if they ran out of this fuel at home, took a load of green wood to the right of way and brought back a load of dry wood.
    In the late summer when the earth had dried from the summer sun, the old wood-burners passing though the woods with their smokestacks spewing millions of sparks set fires which consumed thousands of cords of cut and uncut wood and wrought great loss to the woods.

Cricket Phenomenon (Defiance Democrat 17 Aug 1899)

    

    Defiance people were treated to a peculiar infliction. So far as reported it was the first of its kind ever experience here.

    Soon after dark a swarm of crickets, the ordinary black ones, which are heard to almost continuously sing in the grass and weeds at this season of the year, was turned loose and the air was soon full of the objectionable pests which persisted in lighting on people at every point of their persons, but showing a special fondness for the head, face and neck of those on whom they alighted. 

    The people who attended the open air concert of the Military Band at Clinton and Fourth street have especial reason to remember the crickets.
    After the wind storm passed over no further notice was taken of the insects, so it is supposed they were blown away.

Adams Township Pioneers (U.G. Figley) Defiance Democrat 22 Feb 1917

    Adams township was organized 6 April 1836, and was a part of Henry County, and was annexed to Defiance county when it was formed in 1845, so it seems in a way not so much a part of the county as the other townships originally a part of Defiance. It was named after Judge Bishop Adams, who was the first settler locating in section 18.
    Among the earliest settlers were A. Battenberg, Joseph Frantz, John Hornish, John Hively, Darius Jones, Eli Markel, Jacob Shock, John Scott, Jacob Tittle, Jacob Schwartzel, and Tollman Voorhes.
    The old "great prairie" is in section 16, and the county ditch through there finished its being a marsh for heavers and such, bordering on the Black Swamp, so familiar to all the early settlers as a land of mud and water and brush and other stuff,through which the as a rule had to move in coming from the east.
                                      Relics Are Found
    In the process of draining a large collection of skeletons, elk-horns and numerous relics were found. What is known as the Ridge Road, was evidently once along the shore of Lake Erie, extending from the river at Independence, to Detroit, Mich. Being a nice sandy road, naturally it was the Indian highway to Detroit. 
    Aaron Diehl came from Montgomery County in 1843. His father served in the war of 1812, and an uncle was one of "Marion's Men" during the Revolution. Mr. Diehl purchased his home in section 21 in 1835.
    Ephraim Markel came from Delaware county in 1835 with his uncle, Eli Markel, and married Barbara Lehman in 1840. He was a great hunter, dispatching three or four bear or forty or fifty deer on a hunt. He also trapped wolves for the fun of it. Bears also were killed.
                                      Fought Buck Deer
     Abraham Schrimplin came with his family from Knox county about 1841, and was one of the solid old pioneers. John Hornish Sr., came with his family from Montgomery county in 1835. A son, John Jr, when only 13 years old, had a terrible fight with a buck deer, wounding it with a gun-shot, and when the buck jumped for him, he took advantage of its catching a foot on a root and stumbling. The lad jumped on it, grabbed it by the antlers with one hand and killed it with his hunting knife. Another time, he was hunting with J.K. Potter, when they found a she-bear and her cubs. Thinking they had finished the old bear, he gave her a final blow, as he though, on the head with a club. She came to her feet with a rush and grappled  with him, necessitating Mr. Potter,s putting his gun against her head and shooting her dead for sure. Mr. Hornish accumulated 650 acres of land in Adams township.
    Jacob Swartz came to the township in 1836, helping to organize it. Among the early settlers in those days, George Grubb appears to have been the second to locate, Charles Tubbs from Oswego county New York in 1836, and settled in section 11. Nearby were Jacob Hively, William Mozier, James Davison, Mrs. Tubbs (formly Lucy Howe), taught the first school in 1837, with nine pupils. Expenses of the school were paid by subscription. 
                                   Built Meeting House
      Henry Lehman was born in Germany and located in Adams township in section 21,  in 1837, and he was influential in the building of the meeting house of the Church of the Brethren (Dunkard), in 1878, and he was one of its local ministers. Others were Aaron Diehl, John Hornish, Ephraim Markel, and John W Lehman.
    Jacob Tuttle moved from Richland township ( to which he had moved in 1824) to Adams township in 1839. There are numerous descendants. Sylvester A Hull, a prominent Defiance man, was a son of Emanuel and Jane Osborn Hull, who came to Adams township, from Trumbull county, in 1849. Elijah Osborn, her father, came from Mahoning county in February, 1846, moved with three teams across the state in six days. At Gilboa he concluded to have the six children walk and have the two teams haul the goods. The children broke out with the measles, and wading through the mud and water of the famous Black Swamp for several miles, they were both tired and sick, when they reach Independence. There they were cared for, all fortunately recovering. 
    Michael Lutz was born in Bavaria, Germany, and he came to Seneca county in 1841. He married Catherine Hassett, who born in Ireland, and he came to Adams township in 1850. A daughter Gertrude, who married John Wisda, in 1871, who was born in Klatan Bohemia, in 1844, he came to America with his father's family in 1854, locating in Sandusky county. A brother, Joseph, lived in Tiffin township. The family name appears to have originally have been spelled Hwezda. Mr. Wisda accumulated a great deal of land, and was a prominent citizen of the county, serving two terms most acceptably, as County Treasurer in the 1890s. A son, John G., being a deputy.
    
                  

Day Of The Steamboat (Defiance Democrat 5 Aug 1913)

The Maumee River

    In the middle 1830 a small steamboat came up the Maumee river from Defiance during the high waters. She landed above the bridge that spans the river just above where the St Joe and St Marys form the Maumee. It was a sight to be seen on these rivers. The boat did not stay long only long enough to take a few excursionist up the river.

    The above is from an article in the Ft. Wayne Sentinel in which the fact is lamented that there are no longer any small steamers operated on the rivers at Ft Wayne and that not even the christening of a launch is heard and that in days gone by there was a steamboat operated on the river in that city and that canoe races were very popular sport.
    Bringing the subject back to Defiance, it wasn't so many years ago that steamboats operated on the rivers here. There was the steamer "Laurina" which made daily trips to the Island and Independence Dam and later the Dan W Miller and the big steamer Goldie, which gave the Maumee the appearance of the Ohio or Mississippi. The Laurina was loaded and shipped to Louisiana. The Goldie went to Finley where was used on the Blanchard river to Riverside Park and the Dan W Miller was doing tug service on the Maumee at Toledo
    The motor launch has replace the steamboat and it is safe to say there are fifty or more launches on the Maumee,Auglaize and Tiffin rivers at Defiance. Still Defiance people do not take full advantage of these river. A steamboat operating between Defiance, Island Park and Independence Dam would be a treat today, and especially to visitors to Defiance, from towns where there are no rivers.
    In the olden days there were many boats, and canoes races on the old Maumee here at Defiance. The Defiance canoeist, were leaders in the sport and won many trophies.
    With three broad rivers and a stretch of six or eight miles of navigable water. It seems odd that the streams are not dotted with crafts, and that the cities of Toledo, Napoleon and Ft Wayne are not rivals in motor boat racing, canoe racing and other water sports that would make them popular to the people of the non river towns. 

Girty's Ghost. (Defiance Democrat 31 July 1899)

    Three night last week the ghost of Simon Girty has made its appearance on Girty Island, seven miles up the river from Napoleon. He appears a solitary figure in a bark canoe, rowing slowly and stealthily in and out of the little inlets of the island. He is dressed in Indian costume, with a silk handkerchief about his head to conceal the ugly wound which was the the cause of his death.

    Every five years the ghost comes back, and the form and dress of the old renegada are as well known in the locality as they were seventy years ago, when he terrorized the early settlers of the county.

    Simon Girty was a white man who fell into the hands of the Seneca Indians when a child. He was reared by them, and became more blood thirsty and cruel than the savages themselves.

    At the head of a band of outlaws Indians he made his headquarters in the Maumee valley. He delighted in torturing his prisoners, especially women and children, and his name still conjures up unknown terrors. When hard pressed Girty and his band would escape to the island, fortify themselves, and defy capture. He it was who led the attack on Colonel Crawford and burned the captured men at stake.

    Before his death Girty became blind and suffered excruciating pain from rheumatism. He continued game to the last, and was literally hacked to pieces when Colonel Johnson's men defeated Proctor's force.

P.S. Good ghost story, bad history, someday I will do Girty's story.     Dave

Mollencup Brings First Auto (Defiance Daily Crescent 24 Feb 1926)

1902  Pope-Hartford Steamer

    Harty H. Mollencup, Defiance jeweler, owned the first automobile in Defiance, a Pope-Hartford streamer.

    This famous horseless carriage arrived in Defiance in June 1902. It had been shipped to Toledo by rail. From Toledo to Defiance it was driven over the bumpy roads by a representative of the factory, with Mr. and Mrs. Mollencup as passengers and Ballast.

    The river and canal road was followed all the way from Toledo. Several times the chariot slipped on into the sand and once during such a caprice one of the exposed drive chains was pulled off, necessitating considerable delay. The journey took an entire day. Mr. Mollencup went ahead to help hold the horses met in the road, while the factory man drove the engine-buggy past the frightened animals.

    Once in Defiance, the new contraption was the talk of the town. People ran out of the stores to get a sight of this vehicular marvel. It was a double seated affair, the cushions being back so that one in the rear might well imagine himself on a miniature observation platform.

    Poor condition of the roads, none of which were paved, weak tires and the necessity for helping every farmer pass with his horses made travel with this 1902 bus rather slow, Mr. Mollencup relates. On present roads, however, he is sure high-powered two cylinder stream engine with which the machine was equipped would have given most present-day automobiles a close race.
    The first automobile race in this vicinity occurred after a year or two, when C.E. Chenrvert, now a resident of Toledo, had imported the second Defiance automobile. John W. Winn offered a prize-a handsome picture for the winner of a contest to be held in a stubble field on the Island Park. The Mollencup entry won and its owner still has the picture he won as a prize. 
    Tires with which the first Defiance automobile was equipped would run not more than 500 miles. Mr Mollencup says. If present day motorist doesn't get ten times that mileage out of balloon cords, he thinks he's been cheated.
    Once the Mollencups had driven to Napoleon, a real journey over the roads of that day. People kept yelling at him and pointing to his tires, but Mr Mollencup though possibly they were just making fun of that derned new contraption from Defiance. He  hadn't learned how an automobile feels when one tire is flat. When he finally stopped in Napoleon one of his tires was torn to shreds. That was the first tire trouble of a Defiance automobilist. 
    What was the first automobile accident in Defiance? Mr Mollencup doesn't remember. In fact, he is sure never happened to his car.
    Mr. Mollencup sold this first Defiance car to somebody in North Baltimore and he doesn't know what ever became of it.