Ohio History Journal

220 Ohio Arch

220 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

THE FIRELANDS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

BY RUSH R. SLOANE, PRESIDENT.

1857-1901.

Early in the spring of 1857, steps were taken to secure a

meeting of Pioneers of the Fire Lands for the purpose of friendly

reunion, and to devise plans to effect a permanent organization

for collecting and preserving a record of the incidents and history

of the settlement of the Firelands.

The first meeting was held at the Court House, in Norwalk,

Huron County, Ohio, May 20, 1857.

An adjourned meeting was held at the Court House, in Nor-

walk, Ohio, June 17, 1857, and the draft of a constitution was

made and adopted.

After twenty-one years of successful work and many of the

pioneers having passed away, it was feared that a few years

more would witness the abandonment of the society, and recog-

nizing the fact that while generations are passing away history

is accumulating, it was thought best to incorporate the society

with its old name, under the laws of Ohio, and this was done

on the 9th day of June, 1880, and the home of the Society was

fixed at Norwalk, Ohio, at which place it has its library and

museum, at present in temporary quarters, but expects in the

near future to erect a suitable building for all its purposes, for

which object quite a fund is already secured.

The membership of our Society is constituted of annual mem-

bers who pay one dollar a year in advance, or as a life member

five dollars in advance. All members shall be entitled to one

copy each of all new publications of the Society issued during

the first year of their membership, and by the payment of an

additional five, making it ten dollars, in advance, a life member

will also be entitled to one copy of The Firelands Pioneer, pub-

lished since 1861. Honorary members may be elected by vote of

the Society. And the Society is supported by its membership

fees and from the sale of The Firelands Pioneer.

The Firelands Historical Society

The Firelands Historical Society. 221

The history of the name of our Society often causes inquiry

which it is not necessary to explain to our members, and yet we

do no injustice to the intelligence of the public by briefly stating

the origin of the name "Sufferers Lands or Fire Lands." They

embrace a half million acres of land located in the west part of

the Western Reserve of Ohio, and were granted in 1792 by the

State of Connecticut to those who had suffered loss or damage

by fire or otherwise, from the incursions of the British during the

Revolutionary War, in Danbury, Norwalk, New London, Green-

wich, Fairfield, Ridgefield, Groton, New and East Haven, in Con-

necticut.

They include all of the Western Reserve townships within

the limits of the original county of Huron, as organized and

established by the act of February 7, 1809.

On January 16, 1810, Cuyahoga County was organized and

Huron County attached to it for judicial purposes. And by the

act of January 24, 1824, establishing the county of Lorain, the

"Firelands" were again all included in the old county of Huron,

and to-day are embraced within the limits of Erie and Huron

Counties, excepting the townships of Ruggles, in Ashland County,

and a part of the township of Danbury, in Ottawa County.

On these lands and on the west bank of the Huron River,

about two miles below the town of Milan, over one hundred

years ago was founded a Moravian mission, called "New Salem,"

and was one of the first white settlements made within the

limits of what is now the State of Ohio. What a grand and

noble record has been given to the world by the pioneer settlers

upon these lands.

While these pioneers were felling the forests and building

log school houses and churches at the cross-roads, they were

often compelled to face the savage Indian in defense of

their wives and children and cabin homes, or to join the im-

mortal heroes who gained victory and glory at Fort Stevenson

and Fort Meigs, or upon the waters of Lake Erie, under Perry.

They have given to our nation in times of war a McPherson,

a John Beatty, a Lawton, and in times of peace as well as war

as statesmen and financier, John Sherman and Jay Cooke. As

222 Ohio Arch

222 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

inventors, an Edison; as artists, Frank H. Thompson and Charles

Curran.

In 1857 the pioneers of the two counties of Huron and

Erie met at Norwalk and organized "The Firelands Historical

Society," the chief purpose of which was to collect and preserve

in proper form the facts constituting the full history of the

"Firelands" and to secure an authentic statement of their re-

sources and productions of all kinds. The Society, which has

a charter, was not organized for profit, and yet no corporation

has ever declared richer of greater dividends.

And what has this Society done?

Its meetings, quarterly and annually, have been regularly

held. Its publications, thirty-five numbers or volumes, and in

number of pages exceeding those of any historic society in Ohio

or in the West. These publications, devoted to the early history

of the Firelands and of the State of Ohio, include 4,386 pages

of valuable early history, most of which was never in print before,

and contain full and complete memoirs of thirty-two townships

reported by original pioneers in those townships. It has collected

valuable books, papers, pamphlets and writings along special lines

which cannot now be duplicated.

It has also many bound volumes of newspapers, in which

both the local as well as the general history of the State and

country is preserved for the use of investigators and historians.

Its collection of maps, many made by the original surveyors, will

be of great value in settling matters of facts and early land titles.

It has a large collection of genealogy which is often con-

sulted for early family history.

The museum collection embraces a large number of Indian

relics, nearly all found within the Firelands. The selection em-

braces rare fossils and petrifactions which possess great interest

to the geologist and student, and tend to confirm the theory

that the shores of Lake Erie at some remote period extended

further south than they do now.

There are original letters from our early statesmen and

warriors, from Generals Washington, Green and Harrison, from

Cass and Chase, from Grant and Garfield and from those of the

present day.

The Firelands Historical Society

The Firelands Historical Society. 223

There are guns and pistols, cannon and rifle balls, musket

ball and grape shot, powder flasks and pocketbooks picked up

on the battle fields of all the wars in which our country has

engaged, and also numerous mementoes of the battle on Lake

Erie on September 10, 1813.

During the existence of our Society since May, 1857, it

has exchanged its publications with a number of state historical

societies, thus spreading broadcast the early and important events

of our section of Ohio, both in peace and war, which go so far

to make up and complete the grand and glorious history of the

state of Ohio's century of growth, and which mark its trans-

formation, step by step, from a wilderness into its present pros-

perous condition.

In the Society's publications are to be found the able, in-

teresting and eloquent addresses of such pioneer citizens and

distinguished men as Eleutheros Cooke, Elisha Whittlesey, E.

Lane, Charles Whittlesey, John Sherman, Platt Benedict, Joshua

R. Giddings, L. B. Gurley, President R. B. Hayes, General L.

V. Bierce, P. N. Schuyler, Clark Waggoner, G. T. Stewart,

and others; these addresses being of great interest and value

and never published elsewhere.

The industry and work which has accomplished these results

and kept this Society alive and active during all these years

since 1857, can better be appreciated than described.

Our publications also include the obituaries and memoirs of

many hundreds of our pioneer citizens, the most reliable sources

of local and state history. These eye witnesses of early events

in our state are nearly all gone, and as yet the history of Ohio

in the past century has not been written. Taylor, Butterfield,

and King have furnished valuable general data concerning the

state. Taylor is wholly devoted to the ante-territorial period

and the other two giving but few pages to the progress and

history of the state during the first century of its existence.

If this glorious and heroic period of Ohio's history is ever

written, and it must be, it cannot be full and complete without

the papers, maps, pamphlets and over four thousand pages of

published reminiscences of the Firelands Historical Society. The