Ohio History Journal

AN INDENTURE OF 1831 IN PORTAGE COUNTY, OHIO

 

By FREDERICK C. WAITE

 

The procedure of apprenticeship in the crafts as a method

of preparing for a vocation is of ancient origin. It was firmly

established in Europe when the American Colonies were settled

and was prevalent in these colonies and in the United States

until well into the nineteenth century.

Although the method is familiar to all that are acquainted

with the history of the crafts, comparatively few publications of

texts of indentures are available. Therefore this one is offered as

an example to show the obligations of both master and appren-

tice in such a relation.

The document was written on both sides of a single sheet by

Mr. Brown, one of the parties to the indenture. The only para-

graphing is where the sheet was turned. The manuscript is devoid

of punctuation but I have inserted this to make it readable. No

change has been made in spelling or capitalization, however. The

text is as follows:

This indenture made on the fith day of Nov. 1831 witnesseth that

Nelson, son of Benjamin Wait, aged eleven years, by and with the consent

of the said Benjamin, Father, Hath, of his own free and voluntary will,

placed and bound himself apprentice to Oliver 0. Brown, Tanner, To learn

the art, trade, mistery, or ocupation of Tanner which he the said Oliver 0.

now useth and with him as apprentice To dwell, continue, and serve from

the day of the date unto the full end and term or age of twenty one years

from thence ensuing and fully to be completed and ended. During which

term years the said apprentice his master will and faithfully shall serve, His

secrets keep, His lawful commands do and obey. hirt to his master he shall

not do nor willfully sufer it to be done by others but of the same To the

utmost of his power shall forthwith give notice to. his master. the goods of

his master he shall not embezle nor waste. At cards, dice, or any unlawful

game he shall not play. taverns or ale houses he shall not frequent. Fornica-

tion he shall not commit. Matrimony he shall not contract. from the service

of his master he shall not at any time absent himself without his master's

leave but in all things as a good and faithful apprentice shall and will

demean himself towards his master and all his during said term.

And the said master, in consideration of the above, shall instruct his

said apprentice in said trade, mistery, or ocupation whiche he useth with

all things apertaining thereto, shall and will instruct or cause to be well

288

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INDENTURE OF 1831, PORTAGE COUNTY, OHIO           289

 

instructed after the best maner he can and shall and will also find and allow

his aprentice meat, drink, washing, Lodgeing, and physick and apparel, both

Linen and woolen, and all other nessesaries during said term of years and

shall allso send the said apprentice to a good English school to be instructed

in reading, writing, arithmetick, and bookkeeping; in short to give him a

good common education. in witness wereof we have here unto set our hand

and seal this 5th Nov. 1831. BENJAMIN WAIT, LS, OLIVER 0. BROWN, LS,

his

JAMES X MCKISON, witness.

mark

Some account of the parties to this indenture may add to its

interest. Oliver Owen Brown was born in Torrington, Connecti-

cut, October 26, 1804, the fifth child of Owen and Ruth (Mills)

Brown. A brother, four years older, was John Brown, famous for

deeds at Ossawattomie and Harper's Ferry. Owen, John, and

Oliver Brown were all tanners.

Owen Brown came from Connecticut in 1805 to Hudson,

then in Trumbull County but in Portage County after its erection

in 1808 until Summit County was erected in 1840. Oliver Brown

conducted a tannery and small farm a mile and a half northwest

of the village of Hudson.

Benjamin Wait, native of Massachusetts, came with his

father, a first settler of Brecksville in Cuyahoga County. Sarah

Kent, native of Massachusetts, came in 1808 to Brecksville to

teach school. These two were married in 1810 and she died in

1829. Mr. Wait again married within a year and the new wife

was unwilling to accept responsibility for all of her stepchildren.

Therefore the three boys, of which Nelson was the youngest, were

"bound out" to citizens of neighboring towns.

Nelson Wait was born at Boston, Portage County -- Summit

County after 1840 -- on September 28, 1819. He was therefore

twelve years of age, instead of eleven years, when the indenture

was drawn. He and his brothers added the terminal "e" to their

surname about 1850.

Oliver Brown was subject to frequent fits of violent temper

in which he physically abused his apprentice. After this repeated

extreme cruelty had continued nearly two years Benjamin Wait

went into court and secured annulment of the indenture.

Nelson Wait then lived for two years in the family of Rev.

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290   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Caleb Pitkin (1781-1864), A.B., 1806, Yale College, of Hudson.

Mr. Pitkin was one of the two principal founders of Western

Reserve College at Hudson in 1826 and its business manager from

1828 to 1858. In these thirty years he took into his family suc-

cessively nine orphaned or half-orphaned boys and girls, keeping

them for a few years and giving especial attention to their

education.

In 1835, Nelson Wait, at the age of sixteen years, became the

apprentice of Simeon Porter, a highly capable architect-builder

who constructed six of the seven permanent buildings of Western

Reserve College. Under Mr. Porter he learned the craft of paint-

ing, which at that time included the ability to make all paints that

were applied because ready mixed paint was not an article of

commerce until long afterwards. As an apprentice Nelson Wait

helped in the construction of college buildings in 1836, 1838, and

1840, and in, 1843, having finished his apprenticeship, was an inde-

pendent contractor on another college building. All four of these

buildings are in use by Western Reserve Academy at the present

time.

Simeon Porter was a man of many capabilities and a student

of architecture. He taught his apprentice drawing and designing.

In 1844 Nelson Wait was engaged during several months in paint-

ing new canal boats built on the Ohio Canal near Cleveland, and

on the outside of the cabins painted emblems of swiftness such as

running deer and flying geese. In 1845 he painted a self portrait

on a whitewood board eighteen by twenty-four inches. He made

the paints himself and today, a hundred years later, the colors are

as bright as the day they were applied.

The California gold rush of 1849 attracted many young men

of northern Ohio, among them Nelson Wait who left Independ-

ence, Missouri, in early May and arrived at Sacramento, Cali-

fornia, on September 10, 1849. Then he proceeded up the Sacra-

mento Valley, driving the first wagon ever to traverse that valley.

He was alternately a resident of Hudson, Ohio, and Shasta

County, California, during the next fifty-five years. In his trips

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INDENTURE OF 1831, PORTAGE COUNTY, OHIO       291

 

between Ohio and California he sailed around Cape Horn once,

crossed the Isthmus of Panama twice, joined overland caravans

three times and made five transcontinental trips by stage before

the transcontinental railway was opened in 1869.

Nelson Wait became an expert marksman in his youth and

when he was a member of caravans crossing the plains, deserts,

and mountains of the West he was a leader in killing game for

food and repelling the attacks of Indians. Many an antelope and

buffalo fell to his accurate aim and not less than fifty Indians, the

greater part of them in an attack at Humboldt Wells in Nevada,

were dispatched by him.

Simeon Porter was commander of the county militia and of

course his apprentice enrolled and was a member of the militia for

about ten years. General training in 1841 was held at Hudson

with several hundred militiamen attending. The inspector was

Captain Robert E. Lee of the regular army who highly commended

Colonel Porter on the performance of the militia under his com-

mand. Twenty years later some of these militiamen were arrayed

on southern battlefields against troops commanded by General

Robert E. Lee.

Nelson Waite joined the gold rush to Pikes Peak in 1858 but

remained in that region only a few months. When the Civil War

opened he tried to enlist but was refused because of a minor

physical disability. He then entered the Sanitary Commission and

served two years on southern battlefields and in southern hospitals.

He was detailed to take charge of a boat load of wounded destined

for northern hospitals but was assigned to another duty just before

the boat left. That boat -- the Sultana -- exploded in midstream

a few hours after departure, with death by the explosion or by

drowning of nearly all on board.

Nelson Waite was extensively engaged in placer mining in

northern California after the Civil War. This led to his invention

of a portable mining flume, a structure without a bottom built in

sections and designed to cut a straight channel in silted water

courses. He received United States patent number 216,325 on this

invention in 1879.

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292   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The cruelty of his master brought to this boy an escape from

being a tanner and permitted a life marked by many adventures

and much accomplishment. Nelson Waite died at Hudson, Ohio,

August 21, 1904, aged nearly eighty-five years. The writer of this

article is his youngest son.

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