The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1901-01-01
THE FIRST HOUSE
Built by a White Man Upon Ohio
Soil .....,,...a ...,,.,..
Was ERECTED IN STARK COUNTY.
A Moravian Missionary Settled
On the Tuscarawas River
In I76I. ...

white man was erected in stark county
This is a fact not generally known, per-
haps, by persons residing in the imme-
date vicinity Of the old site of the
house, in Bethlehem township.
In 17el, AZ years before the county
was organized, Frederick Post, Nora
Wan missionary, was sent out by his
church to work among the Indians. He
followed the old Indian trail, from the
Ohio river valley to the lakes, until he
came to the junction of Sandy and
Tuscarawas rivers. There he found a
large tribe of Delaware Indians. This
tribe was credited with having more
noble traits than any other tribe in the
country. 1t was this tribe that was
immortali;ed by j. Fennemore Cooper,
in his Misunderstanding tales, especially
"The Last of the Mohicans."
The point where Rev. Post settled was
somewhere near old Fort Laurens, and
not far from Bolivar. The Indians
greeted him kindly. He assured them
that he had come to minister to their
spiritual and temporal wants. They
gave him land upon which to erect a
cabin. After the humble house was
built he cleared a strip of ground for a
garden.
The Delawares watched this pro-
ceeding with suspicion. Finally,
several chiefs approached him and said
that they did not approve his clearing
away the forest, and that he was
breaking faith with them.
1t took a good deal of explaining to
convince the Indians that all that Post
wanted was a small plot of ground for
q garden. Finally an old chief, with
dignified meIn, marked off a plot of
ground, so PAGES square. This the mis-
sionary cleared and titled.
Years afterward when settlers came
TO this vicinity, Posts clearing and the
old cabins ruins were clearly discern
nble. In fact, some of'the older resi-
dents still remember having seen the
ruins of the old cabin.
Near Posts home there was an In
dian ford rSWhere the trail crossed the
river In the early days these rivers
were large streams and 1t was only at
certain places that they could be ford
ed. Tie old Indian trail had been used
for centuries, 1t is claimed, by the In
dians. 1t had been tramped over so
long that early settlers who had fol-
lowed it declared that in some places
It resembled a ditch, about three feet
wide and two feet deep.
In the early days the Indians lived
on the banks of streams and lakes,
where game was more plentiful and
where fishing was good. ...a...
Rev. Post, after living several years
among the Indians, married a Della
ware squaw. This led to his church re-
fuslng longer TO support him and, like
the Indians, he had to depend on the
forests and streams for subsistence.
Eleven years later, Post, in company
with Rev. Heckewelder, established
Moravian missions in Tuscarawas
county. They made many converts 10
the Christian faith. There is a story
to the effect that the enraged from
tiersmen ruthlessly murdered nearly
100 of these Christian Indians at Gnad-
enhutten.
Several years after Post came TO
Ohio, trappers and traders came also,
but all the older and more reliable au-
thorities agree that the house built by
Post was the first one constructed by
a white mans hands in the state.
Post afterwards went with number
of Delawhres to Pennsylvania to make
treaty! He never returned to this
part OF the Buckeye state.
This was Is years before the out
break of the revolutionary war.
Aside from this little sketch, Stark
county figures very little in the early
Indian history. so far as fighting and
incident Is concerned In those days,
however, and for years after, along the
Sandy and Muskingum rivers, many
red men subsisted. The section of the
country on which Canton now stands at
one time was nearly all swamp. 1t was
inhabited by deer and bear, which found
shelter In the impenetrable morass.
What are now small lakes were then
large bodies Of water, with shores so
treacherous that they could not safely
be approached.
With the clearing of the timber and
the draining of the land, the swamp
lands were reclaimed. The streams
have diminished in size and the fish
have almost disappeared.
The first house erected on the site of
Canton was built in 1906, As years after
Post built his modest cabin in what Is
now Bethlehem township.
The changes since then are matter
OF history. and the older inhabitants can
repat the traditions of their fathers
rs to what took place, but even two OF
4 three generations cannot recall Posts
arrival in Ohio.
1t 10 thought that only the records OF
the early Moravian church, written by
Rev. Heckewelder, Posts associate, tell
| what Ia known Of these early events.
1 wa