On a ride to Upper Sandusky, Ohio last September 29, I was looking for signs of an old reservation boundary in this area. There was one place where the maps had suggested there might be a piece of driveway that still remained from an old piece of road that marked the boundary. I don’t think the above driveway was it, but I was a little unsure of exactly where I was at this point, so for a couple of miles stopped and took a photo of every driveway, just to be sure I got it.

I could figure it out from my GPS track, but I have a different topic in mind today. The photo shows the rain that was approaching. I did make it to Upper Sandusky before the rains came. That was the end of several days of riding. I put the bike on the car and we drove back to Michigan.

In between rain squalls we stopped at a rest area. Something didn’t seem quite right there, with the young Amish man talking on his cell phone. It’s not impossible that an Amish person will have a cell phone. It depends somewhat on the rules of the particular Amish community. And there are Amish people in this part of Ohio. There is a large community several miles to the southwest of the above photo. And it’s not impossible to see Amish people at an Interstate highway rest stop. But these young men were driving their own car.

I wondered only a few seconds, because I quickly realized that these were Orthodox Jewish young men, not Amish. In this part of rural Ohio, and especially in the parts where I had spent my day, it’s not surprising to see Amish people. But Orthodox Jewish people? Not so common.

I was reminded of that incident by an article that Eric posted at Amish America: “Amish-Jewish pow-wow in NYC.” Some Hasidic Jews invited some Lancaster County Amish to New York City to look around and compare notes. It seems I’m not the only person to have done a double-take in that type of situation.

This marker is on the south side of the Scioto River, just across from Pfeiffer Station. The previous day and on this morning I had been riding to site’s along Hull’s Trace, as the route used by the War of 1812 armies came to be known. I should have stuck with that them and ridden more of County Road 265, which seems to follow that route through Hardin County. In Logan County I mostly had to ride to places where I could see at a distance the valleys along which the armies had marched. Here in Hardin County there is an existing road — County Road 265 — that is said to follow the route fairly closely.

And it’s a good one for riding.

Googlemap

My route for the day is shown in green. County Road 265 is marked with a reddish line.

This is a view of the Wheeler House at Pfeiffer Station. According to a historical marker on the site (where my bicycle is parked) it’s the very one that I had hoped might still be in existence.

The view is looking down to the road to the west. A Joshua Cope lived two miles down that road. At least I think that’s where he lived. The 1879 county atlas shows the property there being owned by J. Cope, which would most likely have been Joshua Cope, Jr.

The 1883 history for Hardin County tells us that Mr. and Mrs. Cope witnessed an event in the mass deportation of the Wyandots that took place at (or very near) the spot where this house was built.

Near this ford, on the north bank of the river, is also the noted spot of one of the last encampments of a band of the Wyandots, in 1843, just before their removal to the ” far West.” Here Mr. Walker, their half-breed chief, made an affection farewell speech to their many white friends among the early settlers of this section, who had congregated to see them and bid them a last adieu. Among the whites who paid them this last visit at their camp, was Joshua Cope, now the eldest surviving pioneer of Dudley Township. He tells us that he had long been acquainted with the above mentioned chief – William Walker; that he made a very touching and affecting speech, declaring that he had expected that he had made his last speech in the vernacular tongue of his tribe, as they were then so reduced in numbers and so scattered and intermingled with other tribes that the original language of his tribe had become nearly obsolete. Mr. Cope and his lady, who also listened to Mr. Walker’s speech, say they shall never forget the touching pathos of this noble Indian chief’s address; its powerful portraying of his memory of their joys and sorrows, now forever past, were touching in the extreme.

What I take to have been the Cope place was the site behind the trees on the right, where the arrow is pointing. The farm on the left is an Amish farm, if I remember correctly. In 1879 it was owned by a J.S. Kelly, who according to the same Hardin County history was elected the township tax assessor several times in the 1870s.

Between Pfeiffer Station and the Cope place is a cemetery where Joshua and Elizabeth Cope are buried. Joshua Cope’s father, also named Joshua, is buried there, too, along with his two wives.

When I got to Pfeiffer Station I had wanted to tell Myra I had arrived. I was trying to keep the day’s ride reasonably short, because we wanted to drive home (a distance of 200 miles) before it got dark. I was pleased that this was one of those rare times when I was slightly ahead of schedule. But I found that my cell phone didn’t work. There is a little general store there — a successor to a store that Judge Portius Wheeler kept. When I asked about a payphone (there was none) I was told that Pfeiffer Station is a dead zone for cell phones. Go a little west or east, it didn’t matter, and I would get service again. It didn’t work in my case, not even two miles away at the Cope farm, at least not well enough to call Myra, but I think the problem is partly with my phone. Myra’s phone worked in other places on this trip where mine didn’t, and I saw several people driving through Pfeiffer Station, yacking away on their cell phones.

I didn’t linger by the old Cope place and the cemetery too long, because I wanted to be back at Pfeiffer Station in case Myra came. We usually make pre-arrangements in case we have cell phone problems. In this case, she was planning to go to Pfeiffer Station, but the fallback location was Kenton. I had enough riding for the day, and was willing to end the riding at Pfeiffer Station rather than Kenton.

Back to the speech that Joshua and Elizabeth Cope witnessed. I don’t happen to know much about the history of the Wyandot Indians in Ohio, but this Indian deportation story has made me curious.

I wonder who was the intended audience for that little speech that Mr. Walker gave. And what did he actually say?

In this little journal entry he wrote when he was in Nebraska Territory in 1848, he speaks of the Wyandots more as “them” than as “us.”

And what was he doing in St. Louis in 1831 when he was looking over the country on the west side of the Mississippi as a possible new home? (I got information about his presence there from “Francis Haines and William Walker: A Critique, by J. Orin Oliphant, in The Pacific Historical Review (1945).) Other Indians were sent on taxpayer-funded trips to look over lands out west where the government wanted to move them, so that in itself is not unusual. But it seems there is a lot more about this story that I need to learn.

Today I did no bicycling. Instead I took Myra to Michigan State University’s football game. She is a big Spartan fan. Last weekend she helped me with my bicycle expeditions in Ohio, so this weekend (and possibly next) we did something she is more enthusiastic about. It works out OK, though. She is interested in a lot of the history, too, and I also enjoy watching college football and basketball. Sometimes we even combine the two activities. Like we did today. After the game, we walked across the Red Cedar River to the library, where I picked up a few books that may help me learn more about William Walker and other players in his era of Ohio history.

Actually, I was closer to my destination than that, but at the time that’s what I thought was ahead of me. My excuse: I was still riding in the Virginia Military District — land which was never surveyed into the neat grid of square mile sections that make it quick ‘n easy to estimate distances on a map.

googlemap

I wasn’t sure I would find a house with somebody out in the yard where I could ask for water, which is what I’ve done on some occasions like this. This was Amish country. Last time I stopped and asked for water at an Amish farm (three years ago) I realized I was causing more trouble than I wanted to. The people don’t have running water, and in that case it was a young couple just getting started. They had fewer household conveniences than most Amish households. They kept water in coolers in the house, and the pump was off somewhere in the yard.

I rode past another Amish farm with a sign out front advertising baked goods, nuts, and other goodies. Wait a minute! I turned around and went back. That seemed like the sort of place where it would be OK to ask for water. The sign by the door said to pull hard on the cord, which I did, and a few seconds later a young woman invited me to step in. I bought some cookies and cashews (the latter for Myra, who has since hidden them where other people can’t find them). There was a water pump just outside the door, and she pumped water for my bottles. I was glad to see it was one that was easily and quickly primed, compared to some pumps and wells like that which I have known.

Then the man of the house and two boys came around to talk. He joked about my air conditioning, asked where I was from, and where I was headed. I explained about Myra and the car, and pointed to a spot on the map. On some maps it’s labelled Pfeiffer, and on others it’s not labelled. Pfeiffer Station, he called it.

“And what do you expect to find when you get there?” he asked with a big grin. (Almost everything he said was with a big grin.) I was somewhat surprised by that question, because “find” was just the right word to fit what I was doing. “Maybe an old house,” I replied.

I wasn’t really sure what I would see there. The old county histories told about events that took place near where Judge Wheeler’s home stood. There was a good chance a judge from the 19th century would have built a brick home that was still standing, I thought, but I didn’t know for sure. It was at an old crossing point on the Scioto River. I wasn’t sure if the Judge had lived on the north or the south side, but whatever the case, I was going to see what there was to see there.

I told the man a little more of what I knew. I showed him the 1870-something map that showed that a Wheeler — probably a daughter or younger wife of the judge — had owned property near the crossing. And he told me about the old house there. There had just been an article in the paper telling all about its history. A lawyer lived there now, a man who was very interested in the history. The home had been a station on the Underground Railroad. I hadn’t known about that part, but I was pretty sure he was talking about the house I had hoped to find.

I told him that it was a place where Indians had been gathered before they were removed from the state. He hadn’t known about that, but was interested. He pointed out the road on the map — the one I was planning to take — explaining that it had once been an Indian trail. I tried to find the explanation in the notes I had with me, but couldn’t find them. I had him write his name and address in my notebook so I could mail it to him later. I’ve since found that information, and will put some of it in another post.

We also talked about other things — including Amish communities in Michigan that we both knew about. He was not familiar with the new one close to my home, though. We also talked about our gardens and how dry it had been, and what it was like to bicycle in such hot weather.

This is a photo of a farm a little further down the road from the one where I visited. During our visit I explained that I hoped to take photos of the old house and other things I hoped to find in the area, but I didn’t ask to take a photo of his farm.

I don’t like running low on water on hot days, but this wasn’t the only time that stopping to ask for water resulted in a good visit.

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/05/begging-for-water/feed/ 0 http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:37:09 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/04/bellefontaine-to-peiffer-station/

This may look like a google map, but it’s just a screen shot of one, sort of. It shows the route of yesterday’s bike ride and all the places where I stopped to take photos. The temperature was in the 90s with a light wind out of the northeast (the direction where I was headed). Mileage total was about 43. I’m not sure exactly, because the bike is still on the car.

We’re back home now. I ended my bike ride in a drought-stricken area. An Amish farmer I talked to said it had never been that dry before. On our way home we drove through heavy rains in Indiana and southern Michigan — almost too heavy to be driving in — but at home it’s dry, too. We need rain.

I haven’t yet figured out how to take the data from my Sony GPS-CS1KA and move it to my regular googlemaps that I can post on the web, but the log files it produces seem to use standard GPS formats, so I have hope that it can be done.

This was taken within about 10 miles of my finish. The finish was at a good history site, but I’ll have to leave that for later.