|
a.
|
Note: , A. R., History of Delaware County Ohio, Delaware, Ohio 1908.
The Bale-Havens family has also been important in the development of the Northwest. Homer Havens, designed the hydraulic aerial ladder still used on fire engines and patented numerous other inventions. John Bale's son, Fred, graduated from the Ohio State University law school and became a professional lecturer, who spoke extensively in nearly every state on the Chautauqua and Lyceum platform for many years. He was on the faculties of a number of universities such as William Penn college, where he was professor of law and speech. He served as mayor and municipal court judge in Westerville. Another Bale, William, organized the Bale Family Circus. Another Bale descendant married into the White family.. Paul White became mayor of Delaware. Ohio. The White's ancestors are said to have received the Columbus land east of Union Station for their Revolutionary War service, but gave it away because it was then a useless swamp.
James Bale was descended from Henry Bale and Abigale Current, his parents. He was married to Sarah Havens. Sarah's mother was Mary Gustin, whose Old World ancestors including the Makepeace, Jean, and Browne families, had vigorously supported democratic causes and had migrated to North America. Sarah's line had moved to New Jersey. James Bale was born in 1797 in a log house. His grandparents, Henry (Heinrich Behl) and Elizabeth Gunderman, from Germany, had also settled in New Jersey and worked as millers.
On the day of the presidential election in 1848, James boarded the stage for the nearest railroad point for Delaware County, Ohio, where previously his sister and her husband, Andrew Havens, had settled in the spring of 1848. Before he arrived at the train station, one of his friends overtook him to bring him back to vote. Bale returned and caught his train. In Delaware County, Bale purchased 247 acres of land at $15 an acre.
Although much is written about the privation of pioneers as they undertook such journeys, son, John Bale, then 16 looked upon the trip as high adventure. In newspaper articles he later wrote about this trip ("Sixty Years in Ohio" published in the New Jersey Herald and the Delaware Semi Weekly Gazette in 1909), he asked the reader to imagine a company of eight persons aged from two to fifty-two years starting on their journey in anticipation of their new home, blessed with enough money to meet all bills, and able to make the trip as comfortable and full of interest as possible.
On May 1, 1849, with two daughters, Mary Ann Bale and Abigail Roof, and her husband, and three sons, John, David, and George, they left Baleville for their new home in the great West. They carried their belongings in a large covered wagon drawn by two horses. They towed a one-horse buggy with wood axles behind the wagon.
They crossed the Delaware River at Easton (he thought by ferry), and passed through Allentown and Carlisle, where there was a government institute for the "poor Indians," and then came to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. This was one of the finest farming sections he had seen anywhere. The German farmers built immense wonderful barns but often had diminutive inferior houses for their families. They viewed the barn as the most important building. Black locust trees that they raised for fence posts surrounded the fields.
In Harrisburg, they saw a truly remarkable sight - their first railroad. The wagon bridge across the Susquehanna River was near and parallel to the railroad bridge. This bridge was one and one quarter mile long. The river at Harrisburg was so extremely wide and so much greater than they had seen before that one of the younger members of the party was quite astonished.
During the trip one of John's sisters, Abigail (Bale) Roof gave birth. Another son, David, then nine, told of walking behind the covered wagon. It is thought that people brought their belongings in the covered wagons and traveled by walking. They arrived at their new home on May 23. When they arrived they had the typical "luggage trouble" of any traveler - it took some time to receive the items they had sent by canal.
Like many people at that time, they came by way of Columbus, which was now called the "Gateway to the West," because the National Road was the primary route into the West. The National Road enabled the Bale family to make the trip much more quickly and safely than had the Hurlburts, Goodings, and Barrows.
Settlement John Bale later described their trials in settling the frontier and what the area was like in a series of newspaper articles (("Sixty Years in Ohio" for the Delaware Semi Weekly Gazette and in the New Jersey Herald in 1909):
Housing When the Bales arrived, they moved into a one and one-half story frame house, while The house had several large rooms, a large pantry, a good cellar, and a wood house (this was a building that stood beside the main house to keep the wood needed for the fire places and stoves). The house had three fireplaces and by one was a large brick oven.
Most of their neighbors lived in log houses. Bale said that a large percent of people in Ohio lived in log houses in the 1850s. The log cabin proper was built of round logs, notched and beveled at the corners. Many of these were of one story, some were of one and a half stories, and many had one or two rooms. The space between the logs was filled with split sticks called clinking. They were plastered over with lime and mortar but more often with clay mortar. Many of the cabins with clay mortar between the logs, which had to be replaced frequently. They were normally roofed with long shingles called clapboards, which were mostly made from large white oak timber. Some settlers built plank houses in the fifties,
He described the "improved" log cabins that Uncle's Lee Hurlburt and David Patterson had once occupied. He described these as quite good for those days. John tells of the several log cabins that were located on theirs and nearby farms and who lived in them. At that time most of the people on the road lived in log cabins. He also remarked that these cabins served the people here as well as or even better than the famous sod houses found in the Prairie States.
People were quite friendly then and although many of the early settlers were members of different denominations of the Christian Church, they entertained not only the preachers but each other especially on quarterly meeting and other special occasions. The common saying in invitations was "the latch string is out to you." The latch of a cabin door was normally a wooden latch which fitted down in a wooden catch or holder. It was raised from the outside by a string from the latch through a hole in the door and could be pulled in the night. This made a secure fastener. However the custom of locking or bolting doors, windows, and outhouses was not very common in the early days.
Later many of the hewed log houses were sided over to appear as a frame house as was the house second house south of the Bales, which contains a 1803 log cabin. (It is possible that this log house once was a church or possibly even the school where John Bale taught soon after the family arrived.) This house is still in use today. Later around 1900, the Bale family re-built onto their own house and soon it was large enough to almost rival the Patterson house. They also built several mills along the river and streams. A few bricks and traces of the millrace mark the places where these once were.
Forests By then this unimaginably enormous wilderness, held so many people that they could no longer support themselves by hunting and gathering, and turned to agriculture. John told about the process of deforesting the fields for farming by "logging." The area was covered with large heavy trees. Before the railroads came the common way was to deaden the trees by "girding" them. This was done by cutting a ring around the tress which had to be through the bark or deeper. Sharp axes were used for this. Some farmers allowed the timber to die and fall down and the ground to grow up to bushes before taking off the seasoned firewood. The girding process let the roots rot which allowed the land to be plowed as soon as it was cleared. Others chopped the tress down "slashing." Falling one tree against another saved much chopping.
The slashing process caused the timber to season more rapidly, but the girding worked well where the land was to be plowed as soon as it was cleared. It took quite a long while, especially in the upland, for the roots to rot, so the ground could be plowed. Removing the logs was heavy work and required more help than was on-hand at the normal farm. Thus, the farmers made "loggings." A farmer would invite the neighbors to this. Here the logs were cut in lengths to be hauled or carried. People brought ox or horses teams. Bale said that ox teams were normally used because they seemed to get around among the logs and stumps more readily that the horses, but sometimes both kinds of teams were used. The logs were piled into a log heap that went as high as possible. They then were burned. After the timber was burned the ashes were gathered up and hauled to an ashery where the lye was run off and boiled into salaratus and potash.
On the farm of John's nephew, James Bale, which was the next one to the south, in the bend of Alum Creek (where the old sawmill had once been located) was several acres of very heavy timber. It was chiefly composed of Sycamore and Seymore. Cyrus Chambers, the neighbor to the north, took the job of clearing off this land. Bale said that he thought some of this was the largest timber ever cleared off land in Delaware county.
Agriculture By their first Fall, the inexperienced farmers had planted about 20 acres of corn. The Buckeyes in those days plowed corn using a large single shovel plow (of wrought iron or steel) on a wood frame. Shortly afterward a one-horse cultivator came in. In the early days one man furrowed, another dropped the grain and three or four followed with hoes and covered it. Not too long aver that the clod hopper came into use and was a great improvement because only one person and a horse could do the work of from three to four people in the old days. The price of corn was very low then (20 to 25 cents a bushel). However the price of hogs was higher, thus, many began hog farming. Corn was the leading grain crop of Ohio and the hog accompanied it. Bale said that in those days land was cheap, taxes were low, and so farming was not very bad in spite of the often low prices farm products brought in.
Oxen were used on the farm quite a bit in this period. James Bale, John's nephew, who was born in 1875, said that when he was young that people mostly used ox teams, rather than horses.
Medicine Before they were there very long, the youngest member of the family, George, was afflicted with the ague. John was sent on horse back (the most common way to travel) to Dr. Clapp. Such intermittent and remittent fevers were much in evidence in those days. Quinine was the standard remedy. People though this disease was associated with wet and decaying vegetation and many people had it. George died in 1863.
Bale said that another feature of these days was the old lady nurse, with which nearly every community was blessed. Aunt Rosie Hurlburt was their nearest neighbor to the north. In any ordinary child sickness, they called on her. She was always ready and willing to go and was very successful in the treatment not only of child's diseases, but in wounds, bruises, and strains. Her root and herbal remedies normally fixed anything. He thought they seemed to have a cure at hand as much or even more than people did later. (Perhaps such remedies are why Rosie's great-grandmother lived for 112 years.)
In those days, the healing practices of the medical profession, which often could be described as "Bleed and Purge," frequently sent many people to heaven much more rapidly than would just leaving them alone. Women had to take care of the medical needs of the family. Many people are alive because of their "Folk Medicine" which consisted of such things as of learning which herbs were curative. Although the medical profession did not discover antibiotics until about the 1930s, many people's grandmothers used bread mold and other substances as antibiotic substances. Bale also told of the political scene during the years after his family arrived.
Business Money was not as safe as later. Banks kept breaking and merchants and businessmen kept careful watch for broken banks. But as the 1860s approached, times improved. It was before the days of trusts and millionaires. The richest man was John Astor, who did not deal in wheat, oil, or steel. Railroads and plank and gravel roads were being built and times were never better until the beginning of the Civil War.
Education John had been educated in New Jersey. Several of his teachers were called Yankees and came from the New England states. However later he began to have fewer "foreign" teachers.
In Ohio schools were kept in log, frame, and stone houses. They were in session six to seven months a year. Summer schools were taught mainly by females and winter schools by men. Women received from $ 1.00 to $1.25 per week, while men received $12.00 to $ 15.00 per month of 22 days and board.
Bale taught in a one-room log-cabin school. In the winter of 1850-1851, he taught school for $ 11.00 a month in a log schoolhouse on the west bank of Alum Creek. This schoolhouse that stood a little north of the United Brethren Church on the second farm south of the Bale place. A large fireplace in one end heated it and wide boards supported by strong pins in the wall made the writing tables. He mostly lived at home during this time, but occasionally visited among the scholars.
In those days teachers received royal welcomes. He was considered qualified because he was from the east. He made a trip to Delaware, Ohio, and was examined by a young lawyer named Critchfield. He was given a certificate to teach reading writing, arithmetic, geography, and the orthography part of grammar. The teachers' wages were paid out of tax money. In the 1850-1860 period, Ohio made great improvement in schools and examinations in Delaware became much more rigid.
Religion At first they attended preaching and this was mostly at what was called as Hog Back, a building of logs on the west bank of Alum Creek not farm from Africa. Later the Africa Wesleyan Methodist Church was built on the east side in Africa 1846 (it is still in use). This church withdrew from the M. E. Church on slavery issues. Preachers went from one place to another or horseback and carried church literature and hymnbooks.
Politics The election process was changing at this time. Bale said that a degree of privacy was now developing, rather that the smoke-filled public voting booths in the past. Bale said that if full female suffrage existed, it would have been still better and had more refinement. The oldest style of voting was by ballots on tickets written with a pen at the local elections and on printed tickets for state and national elections. For township elections the meeting would organize by electing a representative from each school district in the township. They would meet in a place such as a corner of the schoolroom, select a ticket, and report to the election officers and ticket writing and voting would begin.
Building Bale-Hurlburt descendants also built the next two farmhouses to the south (although the one farthest south was taken down when a development was put in). The next house south is exceedingly old. The inner portion of the house is actually a log cabin, believed to have been built around 1805. The log cabin's outside and inside walls and are now covered with siding so that it appears to be a frame house like all the others. Its logs are hand-hewn and squared.
The Bale-Havens family has also been important in the development of the Northwest. Homer Havens, designed the hydraulic aerial ladder still used on fire engines and patented numerous other inventions. John Bale's son, Fred, graduated from the Ohio State University law school and became a professional lecturer, who spoke extensively in nearly every state on the Chautauqua and Lyceum platform for many years. He was on the faculties of a number of universities such as William Penn college, where he was professor of law and speech. He served as mayor and municipal court judge in Westerville. Another Bale, William, organized the Bale Family Circus. Another Bale descendant married into the White family.. Paul White became mayor of Delaware. Ohio. The White's ancestors are said to have received the Columbus land east of Union Station for their Revolutionary War service, but gave it away because it was then a useless swamp.
During this period, the homestead was changed from a wilderness frontier into farm territory. After this prodigious period of physical labor as people had cleared the areas, they now begun the development of agriculture and industry. They also began to confront less immediate goals, including the treatment of other Americans.
Note: Tombstone, Obituary; Tombstone; Delaware County Land Office, marriage, and tax records. History of Delaware County and Ohio, O. L. Baskin & Co. Historical Publishers, 186 Dearborn Street, 1880; Lytle
|
