History of Stark County, with an outline sketch of Ohio

Our history of Stark County, after months of arduous toil, is now completed. Every important field of research has been minutely scanned by those engage in its preparation; no subject of universal public value has been omitted, save where protracted effort failed to secure trustworthy results. The necessarily limited nature of the work, the impossibility of ingrafting upon its pages the vast fund of the county's historic information, and the proper omission of many valueless details and events, have compelled the publishers to be brief on all subjects presented. Fully aware of our inability to furnish a perfect history form meager public documents, inaccurate private correspondence and numberless conflicting traditions, we make no pretension of having prepared a work devoid of blemish. Through the courtesy and the generous assistance met with everywhere, we have been enabled to rescue from oblivion the greater portion of important events that have transpired in Start County in past years. We feel assured that all thoughtful people in the county, at present and in future, will recognize and appreciate the importance of the undertaking, and the great public benefit that has been accomplished.

It will be observed that a dry statement of fact has been avoided; and that the rich romance of border incident has been woven in with statistical details, thus forming an attractive and graphic narrative, and lending beauty to the mechanical execution of the volume, and additional value to it as a work for perusal. We claim superior excellence in our manner of collecting material; in the division of the subject matter into distinct and appropriate chapters; in giving a separate chapter to every town, township and important subject, and in the systematic arrangement of the individual chapters. While we acknowledge the existence of unavoidable errors, we claim to have prepared a work fully up to the standard of our promises, and as accurate and comprehensive as could be expected under the circumstances.

 

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The present State of Ohio, comprising an extent of country 210 miles north and south, 220 miles east and west, in length and breadth — 25,576,969 acres — is a part of the Old Northwest Territory. This Territory embraced all of the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and so much of Minnesota as lies east of the Mississippi River. It became a corporate existence soon after the formation of the Virginia Colony, and when that colony took on the dignity of State government it became a county thereof, whose exact outline was unknown. The county embraced in its limits more territory than is comprised in all the New England and Middle States, and was the largest county ever known in the United States. It is watered by the finest system of rivers on the globe; while its inland seas are without a parallel. Its entire southern boundary is traversed by the beautiful Ohio, its western by the majestic Mississippi, and its northern and a part of its eastern are bounded by the fresh-water lakes, whose clear waters preserve an even temperature over its entire surface. Into these reservoirs of commerce flow innumerable streams of limpid water, which come from glen and dale, from mountain and valley, from forest and prairie — all avenues of health, commerce and prosperity. Ohio is in the best part of this territory — south of its river are tropical heats; north of Lake Erie are polar snows and a polar climate.