184. Randolph County Short Notes

Fuel Riot In Harrisville.   A small sized riot nearly took place at our neighboring town of Harrisville yesterday. The Pierce Elevator Co. had shipped in a carload of coal and farmers came in from around the area and proceeded to load up. A halt was called and several who had woods on their farms were informed that they were barred from taking coal.
  This caused considerable dissatisfaction and the Fuel Commissioner was called and his decision was that nobody was to have coal that had fuel on their farms. Those who have no timber will get coal in half ton lots to carry them over but the other fellows will have to "saw wood."   Union City Times, January 23, 1918.
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Growth Of Martindale Church.   The Randolph County Historical Society held their April, 1968 meeting at the Martindale Friends church and Lewis MAY, pastor of the church gave a welcome to the group and read a short history of the church.
  He stated that Moses MARTINDALE entered land in the extreme southeastern corner of West River Township in 1917, and it is believed that the creek received it's name from Moses Martindale as well as the church. The old creek is still there but is buried and is now only a tile ditch.
  The preparative meeting was established at Jackson Schoolhouse in 1886. Betsy HODGIN and Isaac FRAZIER, with their families, donated the land and contributed both financially and with labor. This meetinghouse was built of logs in the fall of 1887. It was dedicated by Benjamin F. MORRIS December 4, 1887.
  The list of charter members given includes several JOHNSONS, BALDWINS, EDWARDS and FRAZIER names plus others.
  Congregations were large for several years; often all sitting room and standing room was taken. Fourth day meetings were held regularly, and the speaker related when ten-o'clock came on fourth day morning the horses were unhitched, even if they were in the middle of the field. All work stopped and they went to meeting. Martindale organized its own monthly meeting December 3, 1956.
  Descendants of the Martindales attended: Mr. and Mrs. Voyle Martindale from Greensfork, Wayne county.   Winchester Journal-Herald, May, 1968.
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Huntsville Loses Landmark.   This article is from an unknown newspaper dated August 25, 1934.

  With the recent razing of a building that for more than three-quarters of a century was the trade center of a greater part of southern Randolph County, Huntsville people realize that they have lost the last link that connected the community with the earliest history of the village.
  It was necessary to remove the old landmark, in which for generations a general store was operated, in the interest of safety.
  Huntsville became a century-old community in 1932 and the building that has just been razed was only four years younger than the community. The ancient store came into being in 1836 and was the pride of the Kentucky and Virginia pioneers who founded the town. It was built by a Wesley KEENER but it was Richard JOBES who first occupied the building and opened the community's first store.
 The article goes on to detail the recollections of Mrs. Docia (BUTLER) BOTKIN, a native and longtime resident of Huntsville then nearly 90 years old, who at the time was making her home with a granddaughter, Miss Alice STARBUCK, in Winchester. Mrs. Botkin, the article states, was the daughter of one of Huntsville's first settlers.
  Mrs. Botkin recalls that the first storekeeper of Huntsville, Mr. Jobes, was a very important and a very busy member of the community. He not was the one merchant in a large expanse of territory, but he was also postmaster, the first to be appointed to the office and a teacher in the grammar school.
  After Mr. Jobes' passing Mrs. Botkin reports, the store building was purchased by Levi JOHNSON, scion of another pioneer Huntsville family: and he operated the store, now expanded by the erection of an addition, from 1868 to 1903.
  After that business began to decline, the article goes on to say, and after a few years the store was closed. The building was occupied for a time as a garage but then became vacant and eventually had to be torn down. This was likely regretted by a number of the residents who realized that it had represented their link with Huntsville's earliest years and who were proud of its history.  Winchester Journal-Herald, June, 1968.
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Pop Bottle Brings Headache.   Car damage was light when two women drivers collided about three miles north of Winchester on U.S. 27 and the collision injured neither but the drivers incurred minor injuries when they squared off after the crash in a fist fight.
  Lucille BUTT, 19, Versailles, Ohio, driver of one of the cars, was treated by a local physician for bruises caused by a blow from a pop bottle, Sheriff Perry JENNINGS said, while the other driver, Clara ASHLEY, 24, of 830 North Main street, Winchester, escaped with bruises insufficient to require medical treatment.
  Neither of the combatants was arrested.   Winchester Journal Herald, April, 1957.
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Devor School Sold.   The old Devor school building, one mile south and a quarter mile west of North Salem northwest of Union City, was sold by the Jackson township trustee, Neil GETTINGER, to Edward CURTNER for $415.
  The original building and plot was acquired by the township from Thomas and Nancy DEVOR on February 11, 1863 to use as a school. In 1901 the township purchased the present plot and built a new building which was 30 feet by 60 and constructed of brick veneer.
  Sometime between 1913 and 1916 the building was abandoned as a school and used for the election of township officials for several years. Ten years ago the election balloting was moved to the Jackson township school, and for the first time in its long, useful history the old Devor building was completely vacant.   Winchester Journal Herald,  July 26, 1945.
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Teacher Retires.   As Mary WALL prepared to close her teaching career, she was surprised by a visit from a former student who presented her with the standard "red apple for the teacher". The former pupil was James CLOUSE, who had been a fourth grader 26 years ago when Mrs. Wall temporarily taught that grade at the former Central school. At the same time another apple was presented the teacher by Jim's son, Rory, now a third grader in Mrs. Wall's class at Willard.
  Although the two-generation span is considerable, it represents only part of the length of Mrs. Wall's teaching experience, which began in 1927. After graduating from Ball State, she taught two years at the former McKinley school, starting in 1927, then two years at Lincoln in White River township. There, after an eight-year leave of absence, she returned to her vocation in 1939 with three and a half years at McKinley. Except for part years spent as a replacement in various area schools, Mrs. Wall did no further teaching until she accepted the position of third grade teacher at Willard in 1950, a position she has held through 1968. Her actual teaching time totals 26 years.
  Mrs. Wall, who is married to Jim Wall, Randolph County Democrat chairman and supervisor of this district of the state highway department, has three married daughters-Nancy, Judy and Susan, and five grandchildren.
  Now there will be plenty of opportunity for visits and enjoying her family, but for the being, Mrs. Wall says, she'd just like to "hunt up three other bridge players and stay home."   Winchester Journal Herald, June 1, 1968.
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Coal Shortage Is Driving Farmers To Their Supply Of Wood.   It is beginning to look as if the ringing out of the woodman's axe on the cold frosty air is soon to become a familiar sound again. Owing to the prevailing and apparently continuous shortage of coal, the people who live in rural Randolph County are being compelled to look after the supply of wood on their places. In most cases this supply is abundant and where it is not plentiful there are many places where wood, tops, driftwood etc. may be had for the cutting. In many places the finest kind of stove wood has been allowed to go to waste and after being all cut to stove size is rotten in the ricks. We know of one place where the owner has for years cut wood stove size and stacked it up in ricks all over the barnyard. And then he left it to rot. There were originally probably fifty cords of it and now owing to rot, there is only about half of it left in burnable shape.
  This condition of things has also caused a brisk demand for axe handles, bucksaws and cross-cut saws for the first time in many years. Ed McFARLAND, the New Pittsburg storekeeper says that he can hardly supply the demand for axe handles. This is surely sensible too, for there is no nicer, sweeter, more comfortable heat than that of a wood fire. Besides, by using up the visible supply of stove wood it would hold to that extent at least to relieve the shortage of coal for folks who have to depend entirely on coal.   Union City Times, January 2, 1918.
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RYAN, FRAZE, LEWIS, ENGHAUS.   Mrs. William H. RYAN and her daughter, Mrs. Merrell (Barbara) FRAZE, of Winchester, have contributed the story of an ancestor of theirs who became an early settler of Randolph County for a reason which was, to say the least, unique.
  Joel LEWIS (Jr.), great grandfather of Mrs. Ryan, was born in 1806 at Crab Orchard, Kentucky (terminus of the Wilderness Road, or Boone's Trace), during the course of his parents migration from Rowan City, North Carolina. Soon afterward the family resumed its journey, settling in Bellbrook, Ohio.
  When Joel was twelve years old, an older sister's marriage precipitated a crisis in his life. Upon the sisters departure, it was decreed that young Joel should assume some of her housekeeping duties.
  Horrified at the thought, and knowing that there was no escape from this disgrace if he stayed, the boy simply left home and allied himself with a band of Miami Indians then passing through the neighborhood.
  He won complete acceptance from the Indians during the six years or more that he lived and travelled with them, and through tribal ceremonies was adopted and given full status as a brave.
  He returned to his family as suddenly as he had left but a grown man now, in the dress and trappings of an Indian brave. A year or so later, in 1825, he married Mercy Vaughn FALLIS and began to make plans for the future.
  There was a place that he remembered from his travels with the Indians, where he wanted to make his home. It was in the vicinity of the Mississinewa river in Randolph County.
  So it was that a boys abhorrence of housework led to a strange odyssey, which in turn gave our county one of it's early and permanent families.
  Settling in Ward Township in 1827, Joel and Mercy bought two forty-acre plots. Part of the purchase price was obtained by making long rides to Dayton, Ohio to sell maple sugar cakes.
  The Lewises lived in a log cabin for awhile; but as their family grew toward its eventual number of thirteen children they made bricks on the farm and brought in a brick mason from Cincinnati to build a house, finishing the interior in walnut.
  Still in use after a century and a quarter, or more, their house is the present home of the Charles ENGHAUS family. It stands on a knoll overlooking a creek, east of Stone Station and west of the Clear Creek church at Five Points. The old Clark school building, still standing, is across the road from the farm.
  Two or three miles to the north flows the Mississinewa, where Joel Lewis once fished and hunted as a Miami Brave.   By Marianna Reed for the Winchester Journal-Herald, March, 1968.
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