HISTORY OF OVID TOWNSHIP.

 

Source: History of SHIAWASSEE AND CLINTON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN, D.W. ENSIGN & CO. 1880

 

THE six miles square of territory designated in the United States survey as town 7 north, in range 1 west, and known as Ovid township, is one of the four towns lying on the eastern border of Clinton County, It has Duplain on the north, Victor on the south, the Shiawassee County line on the east, and Bingham township on the west.

Ovid is not only agriculturally prosperous, but contains moreover two villages, at one of which, Ovid, there are im­portant manufacturing interests. The surface of the country, like that of neighboring towns, is generally level, the soil is productive, and the members of the farming community are, as a rule, a prosperous people.

    The supervisors' report for 1879 gives the number of acres of wheat harvested during that year as 2964, the

number of bushels yielded as 65,764. May 1, 1880, there were on the ground 3231 acres of wheat. Eleven hundred acres of corn harvested in 1879 yielded 50,986 bushels.  Twenty‑five hundred and fifty‑seven sheep were sheared,  and gave a yield of 10,194 pounds of wool. The sheep in the town May 1, 1880, numbered 2865.

 

INDIAN MOUNDS.

 

I Traces of Indian mounds are alleged to have been dis­covered in Ovid, and from a paper prepared by Dr. M. L. Leach, of Duplain, in 1877, it would appear that at one time a chain of mounds extended northwest and south­east, and lay in the northern portion of Ovid and south­ern part of Duplain,‑‑‑chiefly in the latter town. Sev­eral small mounds are supposed to have had an existence on the Benjamin Hicks place, just west of Ovid village. About forty rods west of the centre section is a mound measuring, two and a half feet in height and

seventeen feet in diameter. Report has it that excavations therein have revealed the presence of human bones. Pro­ceeding towards the northwest a distance or two miles one comes to the site, upon section 4, of a mound which is described by those who have seen it as having been two feet high and sixteen feet broad. It is upon the farm of C. H. Gleason, who claimed to have dug a human skull out of it, and to have seen, moreover, in the mound other skulls and human bones. On the top of the mound grew an oak‑tree containing one hundred and forty‑three rings of growth. Where the relic occupied a place may yet be designated, but the relic itself and all it contained have long since been leveled and scattered by the plowshare.

 

SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWNSHTP.

 

Contrary to the general impression, the pioneer settle­ment in Ovid was effected by Samuel Barker, in July, 1836, simultaneously with the settlement in Duplain of Oliver Bebee, with whom and John Ferdon came Barker, as a member of the Rochester Colony and one of the three above named, who led the van in the Colony settle­ment. In the drawing of Colony lots Barker had drawn a lot in section 6 of Ovid, and upon the north town‑line in that section built a log cabin with a bark roof and bark floor. In that cabin Barker lived, however, only until the following December, when he moved over into Duplain and made his home upon one of the Colony lots in that town. As the record of his early experiences belongs to the Colony history, it will be found there.

Barker bad no more than moved out of his Ovid cabin than along came Allen Lollusbury, who, with William H. Faraghar, had taken up land in July, 1836, upon sections 4 and 6 in Ovid. Lounsbury was then‑December, 1836 ‑just in with his family, whom he had transported from Oakland County by ox‑team by way Henry Leach's, in Sciota, and so over the Colony road to within a mile of his destination. Finding Barker's cabin vacant, he took pos­session of it, and then, with the assistance of Enoch Willis, his brother‑in‑law, set about building a house for himself on section 4, where he and his wife have ever since resided, ‑Ovid's oldest living settlers.

Illustrative of the difficulty encountered in obtaining bread, Mr. Loungbury tells the story of his setting out in the spring of 1837 for a walk over to Lainsburg for a supply of flour. When he reached Dr. Laing's he found the supply of lour there reduced to the infinitesimal quantity of nothing. Determined to keep up the search until successful, Lounsbury continued his travels as far as DeWitt where he got what be wanted, and then trudged homeward with his load. He had started from home with the intention of getting back the same day, but his absence was extended to three days. His wife, worried by his con­tinued and unaccountable non ‑appearance, and growing hourly more frightened at her lonely condition, was about to put off through the woods for the Colony when her hus­band appeared on the scene safe and sound, with the precious flour secure in his grasp.

    Barker was Ovid's first settler, and Lounsbury the second. The third comer to the town and the first to the southern portion thereof was John Cross, who in 1836 located a tract of land on section 36, and who in September, 1837, come with his family to make a settlement. He brought a supply of provisions sufficient to last, he thought, until the following spring, but his calculations proved at fault, for the larder gave out before the winter did, and their set in “hard times," although until then the had fared decently enough. Many were the hungry days they passed, and many the determined efforts they made to get a bit of meat or flour from far‑off neighbors. During the winter Law­rence Cortright came along, axe on shoulder, bound for the Colony, and Cross persuaded him to stop and work for him a year, for which service he was to have eighty acres of land. Shortly afterwards Cortright sallied out to borrow some flour for the family, and, although be succeeded in getting it, he had a desperate job of finding his way home.  He was absent so long that lie was given up for lost, and was about to be searched for when be turned up all right. The Cross family thereupon fell to congratulating themselves that they had once more the prospect of bread, but directly along came Robert G. McKee and a party of twelve surveyors, all very hungry. As badly off as they were, the Cross family placed their hospitality before selfish considerations, and set out before the party what they bad. The consequence was that the surveyors ate up all there was in the house, and Mr. Cross and his house­bold were once more reduced to their usual condition of destitution.

When Cross brought his family to his place, they found, it is true, a cabin which Cross and his brother Thomas had previously prepared, but it was a rough specimen of a cabin, minus a floor and minus door as well as windows. Being without the convenience of a bedstead, they all slept the first few nights in the wagon‑box, and being like­wise without a stove, they prepared their meals as best they could at a log‑heap fire.

Cross, a shoemaker by trade and lame at that, found himself by the spring of 1838 pretty thoroughly discour­aged with the hard experience he had endured, and the prospect of more hard work and hard times yet to assail him. He resolved, therefore, to remove his family to the east, and to remain with them in that country until the vicinity of his Michigan possessions should become more thoroughly subdued by the advance of civilization. Ac­cordingly he packed away his goods in his cabin, nailed the latter close shut, and turned his face arid the faces of his people towards the rising sun. He came not again to Ovid until 1844, and then he found that the cabin he thought to reoccupy, and the household goods he thought to use again, bad been confiscated by marauding hands, arid all he found amounted to scarcely sufficient, he remarked, “to swear by."

About the time Cross left the town‑-that is to say, the summer of 1838‑William Vansickle made a small clear­ing and put up a cabin on the south half of section 31. He did not, however, continue his efforts in the matter of clearing his land, and after a while those knowing him to be there, and knowing that no land improvement was being effected, began to speculate upon the character and busi­ness of the people located there, for there were known to be at least five persons in the household. Henry Leach, of Sciota, who was frequently enagaged in the business of looking up hands for others, had encountered the Van­ sickle cabin in his travels, arid, like others, thought there was something queer about the place. Unlike others, be made secret investigations, and soon satisfied himself that Vansickle was the master of a counterfeiter's den. Acting upon his conclusions, Leach gave due information at De­troit, and a posse being sent out for the capture, Vansickle and his party were surprised and taken in the very busi­ness of' manufacturing counterfeit Mexican dollars. Besides Vansickle there was a woman and three men, named Ward, Skiff, and Gridley. The woman kept house for the party, the three last‑named men performed the mechani­cal work of marrufacturing the coin, while Vansickle, the leading spirit, charged himself with the business of dis­posing of the fruits of their bogus dollar‑factory. His method of conveying his dollars to Detroit was by means of a black valise, which he always carried on foot, and with which he became a tolerably familiar figure to dwellers alony the line of' the State road and Grand River road, although until his capture by the law he was regarded its an industrious and innocent peddler. The Vansickles place and the neighborhood have to this day continued to bear the name of the Bogus settlement. John McCollom and James Nelson settled upon tire place in 1839, and close by them, at about the same time, settled also Mark and Benjamin Brown.

Jabez Denison came to the town in the fall of 1839, his brother‑in‑law, Enos Kenyon, having preceded him in the spring. Denison became noted as a successful slayer of bears, and killed, it is said, during his residence in Ovid nineteen of the beasts, no less than four falling victims to his prowess on one day, the 19th day of February, 1845, to wit. So say the town records. Previous to Denison's coming Stephen Pearl‑ had made a settlement in 1837 upon the, site of Shepardsville, and in 1839 William Swarthout moved to section 36 from Victor township. To that section came also, in 1840, Lawrence Cortright, heretofore men­tioned as having sojourned temporarily in 1837 with John Cross. He had been for a couple of years at the Rochester Colony, and after abiding seven years in Ovid proceeded eastward, whence be returned in the spring of 1853, fol­lowed in the fall of the same year by Daniel Dilts

Among the settlers of 1839 and 1840 were Frederick Cranson (upon the place occupied by John Gilbert in 1857), Joseph Parmenter, Moses Smith, and John Voorhies. In Cross' time Ann Arbor was the objective‑point when a journey to mill became necessary, and in Voorhies' time Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti were his market as well as milling towns. Mrs. Voorhies remembers her rides thither upon loads of wheat and behind an ox‑team. "The roads were that bad and tortuous," remarks she, “that we had at times to go three miles around a swamp to make a half a mile in a straight course, and by the time we got to Ann Arbor we felt sure we had traveled a hundred and fifty miles." Voorhies bought his place (on section 25) in 1839 of David Cranson, who had entered upon its occupation in 1838 and chopped about two acres. Into his log shanty Voorhies conveyed his family, and so desolate and wretched a habitation did it appear that Mr. Voorhies offered the re­mark that as a horse‑stable it would be a miserable affair. It possessed a bark roof, and as a consequence the interior of the house was generally afloat whenever the rains of heaven descended upon the earth. When Mr. Voorhies settled upon section 25, in 1840, the country north of him was a wilderness. There was not a settler in that direction between him and Frederick Cranson, on what is now the Gilbert place. Later to section 24 came Solomon Buck and 0. Carpenter, and close by John Kent, Manzey Sowles, Dodge, and others.

Passing northward towards the Shepardsville region, re­mark may be made that John Jessup settled in 1840 upon the place now owned by John Miller, Enoch Willis to section 9 (Willis had come in with Lounsbury in 1836), and William and B. M. Shepard, who settled at what is now Shepardsville, but which was then a trackless wild.

North of the present town of Ovid, Orville Williams, a comer to Michigan in 1836, bought some land on section 1 in 1843, and in 1847 began chopping upon it, boarding meanwhile with John McCarty, in Middlebury. He chopped and cleared ten acres, and then, winter coming on, he took a job at Sickles' mill, in Elsie, and during that .period lived with George McClintock, who had eighty acres on section 1 in Ovid. Previous to Williams' appearance, in 1843, one Bigelow had in 1840 made a clearing in that vicinity, and lived there until his death in 1843. In 1850, Williams, having been away three years, permanently re­occupied his place on section 1, and there still abides. In 1850 there was also on section 1, one Elijah Fitch, but in that locality settlements progressed slowly until the comple­tion of the railway at Ovid gave to the surrounding country a bold push forward. 'Squire Guile settled upon section 2 in 1856 and cut the first stick on that section. Following upon Guile's settlement, Heman Smith came to section 2, John Winfield to section 3, and Oliver Hammond and Wil­liam Hall to section 2.

The Joseph Parmenter place on the town‑line was occu­pied after Parmenter by James McGuire, and in 1852 by John Jamison, who found one hundred acres underbrushed and girdled and twenty acres cleared.

In 1855, Edward Potter and J. W. Welter occupied places on section 22, which was then a wild tract. Welter was the first one in his neighborhood, and had to cut a road to the spot on which he proposed to make a commencement. West were Christian Baker, H.C. Shiffer, Charles Wilson, Jonathan, John, and Jacob Baer; north were Eli Anderson and James Davis; south, Enoch De Camp and H.S. Ellis; and east, Harvey Dodge. David H. Sowles had a saw‑mill on section 14, but the country generally round about was a dense forest. N. R. Allen made his home in 1854 on section 32, where Layton Swarthout had girdled twenty acres. William Ellis was on a place in section 33, which in 1855 he sold to I. W. Taft. Later set­tlers in Ovid included Jacob Dunkle, D. A. Sutfin, George Cox, W. A. Barnes, George Ramsey, C. Boyd, Josiah Mur­dock, George W. Simpson, W. Cronk, Frederick Perkins, Perry St. Clair, A. St. Clair, and Jackson Voorhies.

 

 

THE DARK DAY OF 1856.

 

The great forest‑fires of October, 1856, worked consider­able damage to the timber and fences in the Welter neighborhood, and for ten days filled the atmosphere with smoke and the people with apprehensions and fears. The 16th of October is remembered as the “dark day." It was so dark that objects at a distance of two rods could not be distin­guislied, and lights were necessary indoors. Fish in the streams were killed, and some people, sure that the end of the world was at hand, made haste to bury their valuables and to make their peace with heaven.

 

RESIDENT TAX‑PAYERS OF OVID IN 1840.

 

                                                                       Acres

Allen Lounsbury, section 4              .. 160

Enoch Willis, section 5                         80

Williain Faragliar, section 6               240

John Jessop, section 9                           160

Stephen Pearl, sections 9 and 10     60

Frederick Cranson,  Section 15 .                 40     

Jude Carter                                          Personal

D. B . Cranson, section 25                     160

William Van Sickle, section 31     160

John McCallum, section 31                       80

James Nelson, section 31                         80

  Enos Kenyon,  section 35                         80

Jabez Dennison, section 35                    120

Lawrence Cortright, section 31                 80

William Swarthout, section 36 ....               320

James Gunsally, Lot 43*, section 5            80

 

.................
*Colony Purchase

 

TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION AND CIVIL LIST,

 

    Town 7 north, in range 1 west, was, under act of Legis­lature approved March 19, 1840, organized as the township of Ovid, the name having been bestowed by William Swarthout, who came to Michigan from the town of Ovid, in the State of New York. The first town‑meeting was held at Stephen Pearl's house, April 22, 1840, on which occasion fifteen votes were cast. But one ticket of candi­dates was placed in the field, since there were not people enough in the town to make up two tickets had there in­deed been a disposition for it, and there was of course no particular difficulty in declaring for the successful ones. A full list of the officials chosen follows: Supervisor, Fred­erick Cranson ; Clerk, Stephen Pearl; Treasurer, John Jessop; Justices of the Peace, William Van Sickle (four years), Stephen Pearl (three years), John Jessup (two years), Jabez Dennison (one year) ; Collector, David B. Cranson ; Assessors, John Jessop, Jabez Dennison, John McCollum; Highway Commissioners, William Swarthout, John Jessop, John McCullom; School Inspectors, Stephen Pearl, Jabez Dennison, William Van Sickle; Constables, Enoch Willis, Enos Kinyon, Christopher Van Deventer; Overseers of the Poor, William Swarthout, Allen Louds­berry; Highway Overseer in District No. 4, John Jessop; in No. 5, William Swarthout.

One hundred and fifty dollars was voted for expenses of the township during the ensuing year, and it was further resolved that the next town‑meeting should be held at Ste­phen Pearl's house. A by‑law was moreover adopted to the effect that “any person leaving syrup in the woods to the damage of his neigbbor's cattle should be liable for all damage." The inspectors of the election just recorded were Stephen Pearl, Frederick Cranson, William Swarthout, John Jessop, and David B. Cranson.

From 1841 to 1880 those persons elected annually to be supervisor, clerk, treasurer, and justice of the peace were as follows:

 

SUPERVISORS.

 

1841. F. Cranson.               1862‑65. W. C. Bennett

1842‑43. 1. V. Swarthout.  1866‑68. J. A. Potter

1844. S, Pearl.                     1869‑71. 1. W. Taft

1845. 1. V. Swarthout.         1872. D. C. Harrington

1846‑51. L. Swarthout.         1873. J. A. Potter

1852‑55. E. Fitch.                1874‑77. D. C. Harrington

1856. J. Jamieson.                1878. J. C. E. Gumear

1857. J. B. Park.                   1879. D. C. Harrington

1858. No record.                  1880. S. H. Valentine

1859‑61. 1. W. Taft.

 

CLERKS.

 

1841‑42. J. S. Denison.   1860‑61. W. C. Bennett.

1843. S. Pearl.                1862. J. A. Potter.

1844. 1. V. Swarthout.    1863. J. M. Fitch.

1845. L. Swarthout.        1864. George Shepard.

1846‑47. J. W. Cross.    1865. Thomas Hall.

1848. 1. Lounsberry.       1866. 11. A. Potter.

1849. Joseph. Wilson.     1867. A. Swartbout.

1850. 1. Lounsberry.       1868. S. D. Haight.

1851. James McGuire.    1869‑70. D. C. Harrington.

1852. J. McGuire.           1871‑72. F. S. Davis.

1853. J. C. McIntyre.      1873. C. M. Hagadorn.

1854. R. q. Finch.           1874‑75. F. S. Davis.

1855. A. 0. Chapman.     1876‑77. S. C. King.

1856‑57. William Shepard. 1878. C. H. Misner.

1858. No record.            1879. E. De Camp.

1859. E. D. Clark.           1880. E. C. White.

 

TREASURERS.

 

1841. F. Cranson.           1857. E. Potter.

1842‑45. J. Parmenter.    1858. No record.

1846. J. Cross.                1859‑60. E. Potter.

1847‑48. F. Cranson.      1861‑67. P. A. Winfield.

1849‑51. L. Swarthout.   1868‑73. J. L. Button.

1852‑53. J. Wilson.         1874‑78. P. A. Winfield.

1854. L. Richard&          1879. L. H. Allen.

1855‑56. W". S. Ellis.     1880. P. A. Winfield.

 

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE

 

1841. J. S. Denison.     1853. J. Jamieson.

1842. J. Jessop.           1854. J. S. Denison.

1843. J. Parmenter.      1855. N. R. Allen.

1844. George Parrish. 1856. D. Birmingham.

1845. William Putnam. 1857. E. Fitch.

1846. J. W. Cross.       1858. No record.

1847. M. Smith.           1859. W. Shepard.

1848. J. Cross.             1860. 0. Baker.

1849. J. S. Denison.     1861. J. S. Bennett.

1850‑51. J. W. Cross.             1862. N. Fitch.

1852. H. D. Wilson.     1863. William Shepard

 

 

1864. J. Haire.             1873. D. C. Harrington.

1865. J. S. Bennett.      1874. J. Miller.

1866. E. N. Fitch.        1875. J. L. Hadley.

1867. Wm. Shepard.    1876. C. M. Hagadorn.

1868. D. H. Misner.     1877. D. C. Harrington.

1869. S. D. Haight.      1878. William Shepard.

1870. J. Miller.             1879. J. Murdock.

1871. J. A. Valentine. 1880. C. M. Hagadorn.

1872. C. M. Hagadon.

 

 

 

JURORS OF 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, AND 1850.

 

1842.‑Grand Jurors: B. P. Aldridge, Henry Brown, James Nelson, A. Lounsberry; Petit Jurors: William Putnam, Enos Kinyon, I. V. Swarthout, J. Denison, J. Parmenter.

1843.‑Grand Jurors: SLephen Pearl, John Jessop; Petit Jurors: Peter Brown, W. S. Swarthout, J. Voor­hies.

1844.‑Grand Jurors: I. V. Swarthout, J. Parmenter; Petit Jurors: F. Cranson, Enoch Willis.

1845‑Grand Jurors: J. W. Cross, Enos Kinyon; Petit Jurors: William Putnam, T. Van Fleet.

1850‑Grand Jurors: Benjamin Fuller, Enoch Willis, J. W. Cross, H. Smith ‑ Petit Jurors: J. S. Denison, Joseph Wilson, F. Cranson, 0. 0. Pray.

 

THE TREASURER'S REPORT OF 1845.

 

March 24, 1845, the town board settled with Joseph Parmenter, town treasurer, and found sixteen dollars and twenty cents in school library funds and six dollars and sixty‑nine cents in funds for township purposes. The treasurer had collected forty‑one dollars and thirty‑seven cents ‑ in town‑orders, one hundred and ten dollars and eighty‑five cents in highway orders, sixty dollars and seventy‑two cents in town‑orders “to balance last year's account that was charged said treasurer," and fourteen dollars atid sixty‑seven cents on balance on “last year's school funds." The treasurer had collected thirty dollars and one cent in school funds, sixteen dollars and twenty cents in cash, eleven dollars and eighty cents “in note given to David Jones for finishing school‑house in district No. 4," and two dollars and one cent "in receipt from school teacher."

 

HIGHWAY RECORDS.

 

Aug. 4, 1843, Stephen Pearl and William Swarthout, highway commissioners, laid out a highway commencing at a stake eighteen chains and seventy‑nine links south of the southeast corner of section 9; thence south on the section­line to the northwest corner of section 34. A second road laid that day began at the southeast corner of section 34, and passed thence north on the section‑line to the north­erst corner of said section ; thence west on the section‑line to the northwest corner of said section ; thence south on the section‑line to the southeast corner of section 31. A third road began at the quarter‑stake on the east side of section 15, and ran thence east forty‑five chains, thirty‑five links; thence, south on the section‑line one hundred and fifteen chains, fifty links; thence south seventy degrees east, twenty‑five chains to a stake standing in the centre of the highway. A fourth road commenced at the northwest corner of section 9 ; thence west on the section‑line to the southwest corner of section 6.

March 30, 1844, the town was divided into road dis­tricts, embracing sections as follows:

No. 1‑Sections 1, 2, and 12.

No. 2.‑Section8 3, 4, 9, and 10.

No. 3‑Sections 11, 13, 14, 15, and 16.

No. 4.‑Sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, and 18.

No. 5.‑Sections 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, and 32;

No. 6‑Sections 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, and 35.

No. 7.‑Sections 23, 24,25, 26, and 36.

The annual report for 1843 gave the following: days assessed, four hundred and fifty‑nine; days returned to the clerk, two hundred and seventy‑three.

    The commissioners said in their report: “The state of the roads and bridges in the town is bad in the extreme, but if the jobs should be let to the amount of the back taxes, we have no doubt but that it would be sufficient to improve the roads. Of the rejected road‑tax of 1838 it appears that eighty seven dollars and sixty‑sevcn cents have been collected."

March 22, 1842, the town was set off into four road districts. No. 1 contained twelve sections in the northeast corner of the town ; No. 2 the remaining six sections in the northern half of the town; No. 3 the southwest quarter of the town ; and No' 4 the southeast quarter.

Nov. 21, 1843, a road was laid beginning at the north­cast corner of section 1, in town 6, and running thence on the section line to the northwest corner of section 1. March 12, 1845, a road was laid commencing at the north­western corner of section 6, running thence south eighty­-three degrees west nineteen chains and eighty‑nine links to the highway leading past the house of John Cross. A road, Feb. 19, 1845, beginning at a stake standing in the Colony road, running south forty‑five degrees east to a stake standing in the section‑line and eight chains due east of the quarter‑post on the south side of section 25, in town 7; thence south twenty‑eight degrees fifteen chains. A road beginning at a stake eight chains due east of the quarter‑post on the south side of section 25 in town 7, running thence west on the section‑line forty‑eight chains to the southwest corner of section 25.

 

 

 

 

The commissioners' annual report, dated April 7, 1845, contained the following:

 

 

Whole number of days assessed ..        233

Whole number of days returned ..      1551

Whole number of days  worked ..                    771

District chopping out four rods wide                 70 rods.

District crosswaying                   ..        135

Number of rods of crosswaying by jobs let       256

Amount.of highway orders issued by commis­

sioners                                        .                    $223

 

At the time of making the report, “ the state of the roads was extremely bad."

Other early roads were laid as follows: May 23, 1845, one beginning at the northwest corner of section 4, thence west on the town‑line twenty‑two and a half chains to a stake standing in the centre of the highway. Sept. 5, 1846, the towns of Ovid and Sciota laid out a road from the southeast corner of Ovid north, on the principal merid­ian, thirty‑two rods, and divided the road into two equal parts, apportioning one part to each town. Nov. 7, 1846, a road beginning at the town‑line of sections 30 and 31, thence one mile east. The towns of Ovid and Bingham laid out a road commencino, at the corners of the towns and running one mile north on sections 31 and 36. Dec. 4, 1847, a road beginning at the quarter‑stake on the south side of sec­tion 32 ; thence north on the quarter‑line to the quarter‑stake of said section ; thence north on the quarter‑line twenty­ seven and a half chains to a stake standing on the quarter­ line running north and south through section 17 ; thence north on the quarter‑rme to the south line of G. R. Lound­berry's land; thence east on the south line of said land four chains seventy‑one links; thence north and west six chains fifty links to a stake standing, in the centre of the

highway. Sept. 26, 1849, a road beginning at a stake standing on the section‑line between sections 5 and 8, two chains eighteen links from the section corners west; thence north to the quarter‑line on section.5. The same day a road beginning thirteen chains thirty‑seven links north of where the former road ended on the quarter‑line running north to the town‑line road. April 17 and 18, 1849, a road beginning in the centre of the road on the south side of Maple River, on a line with the centre of the bridge across said river and near the northeast corner of section 9, thence north to the north line of said section 9. A road commencing on the section‑line between sections 28 and 29 on the south side of said sections, and running north two miles.

 

.SCHOOLS.

 

Ovid's pioneer poineer school‑house was built in 1839, upon Wil­liam Swartbout's farm in section 36. It was constructed of basswood logs, and within its walls Hannah Slocomb taught the first school. The second teacher was probably Nellie Laing. In that school‑house the town enjoyed its pioneer preaching at the hands of Revs. Levi Warner and Mr. Blowers. Jesse Treat, a settler in Victor, preached Wes­leyan Methodist sermons in that school‑house occasionally, and was eventually buried within its shadows.

 

Aug. 19, 1840, the school inspectors formed district No. 1, and apportioned to it sections 3, 4, 9, 10, 15, 21, 22, 27, 28. May 20, 1843, a school district was organized to em­brace portions of Duplain and Greenbush and Colony lots Nos. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, and 50 in Ovid. A district was likewise formed of sections 31 and 32 in Ovid and portions of Bingham, Olive, and Ossowa.

The annual report of fractional district No. 2, dated Oct. 10, 1841, gave the number of children in the district as twenty‑four, and the number of children between the ages of five and seventeen as thirteen. The annual report of fractional district No. 4, in Ovid and Ossowa, gave nine as the number of children over five and under seventeen, and three children under five and over seventeen, three months' school being kept. The school records touching early schools were imperfectly kept, and but little can be gleaned from them. The only report concerning teachers prior to 1860 is one dated 1851, reciting the engagement of An­geline Ladue to teach in district No. 5 ; Mary Smith, in fractional district No. 2; and Hannah Wilcox, in district No. 1.

 

 

The annual school report for 1878 presented the subjoined details:

 

Number of districts (whole, 7) fractional, 4)      11

Number of scholars of school age ..............                  1063

Average attendance ...................................                  905

Value of school property ...........................                  $16,992

Teacher's wages ........................................                  $3,413

 

The school directors for 1879 were A. R. Dayen, D. Mc­Collum, H. L. Munson, M. Nichols, Hugh Swarthout, D. A. Sutfin, William Hunter, William F. Hall, Joseph Har­ris, S. J. Sutliff, and George C. Marvin.