Reuben Evarts
REUBEN EVARTS is a descendant of two old Massachusetts families. His grandfathers, Gilbert Evarts and Joel Bigelow, moved to Addison County, Vermont, in 1755, and participated in the Revolutionary War, and here Timothy Evarts and Hannah Bigelow, the parents of Reuben Evarts, were born, raised, and married. Before the war of 1812, Timothy Evarts was a partner in a company owning vessels and doing a transportation business on Lakes Ontario and Champlain. He was settled south of Hamilton, on the Canada side, at the head of the lake, and here the subject of our sketch was born, December 12, 1809. When the war broke out, Timothy Evarts and thirteen others were requested to take the oath of allegiance and go into the British army. Upon their refusal they were arrested and paroled, but they were mal-treated, and some murdered by the drunken Indians. This bad faith induced them to attempt an escape to General Harrison's army, in which they were foiled by the betrayal of a cowardly Judas. He is said to have met is reward, not in pieces of silver, but of lead. At the close of the war, Mr. Evarts found himself destitute by confiscation of property and other privations, with nine children. In company with five or six others be procured two row boats and launched them, loaded with their families, for Ohio. With great difficulty they escaped the hands of hostile savages, and stole and fought their way down into Lake Erie. Nothing but vigilance and spirit together with the assistance of a worthy Canadian named Chapman preserved the little band. The family took up winter quarters in 1814 and 1815 in the barracks of burned Buffalo. When the lake opened in the spring they re-loaded their boats and continued up the lake shore, stopping at Erie, Cleveland, Black River, Vermillion, and finally at the mouth of the Huron River, where the six families sheltered themselves as they could, and waited chances to get through to "The New Purchase". Here they lived on game and fish and corn procured from the Indians from July, 1815 to February, 1816, when Mr. Evarts got a passage with a five horse team, of a Mr. Smith, to Newark, on his return from delivering corn at the lake. At this time there was a house at Truxville, a few cabins at Mansfield, and Robert Bell at Bellville. A man named Harter kept a tavern between Bellville and Mount Vernon, and there was Hunt's Tavern, five miles south of Mt. Vernon. Here Mr. Evarts stopped, in a primitive cabin in the woods. He had sold everything that had any money value, even his gun, and every dollar was spent. They were only partially recovered from the ague they contracted at Huron, and here a little daughter died.
There was a "Poor Law" in Ohio, as now. The constable came with his warrant ordering Mr. Evarts to leave or give bail for his maintenance, which he could not do. The overseers of the poor visited him. Mr. Evarts told them that if the Poor Laws of Ohio prevailed in all other places than he had no residence on earth. They heard the story of his Canadian troubles with sympathy but insisted that the law must be enforced. Some of his Canadian exile friends sent wagons and brought him into Jefferson Twp. in March, 1817. Before a year had passed, the constable made his inevitable demand, and wanted bail or departure. Mr. Evarts said he would not go, he would not give bail, and there was no wagon load to any legal residence for him (for the officer threatened to take him out of town in a wagon); that he would stay there until he could buy all the men that were harassing him. Every freeholder then offered to bail him, but he would not give bond. He said he had run a schooner on the lakes, and would now try to "paddle his own canoe". This was in the fall of 1818, and some twelve or fifteen settlers were building a school house, the first in the township. They drew up a note for fifty dollars, three men signed it and on one year's time. Mr. Evarts put off for Wooster, and made an entry of forty acres of land with the money borrowed on the note, became a freeholder, and never after feared the law or its minions.
The journey to Wooster he accomplished on foot and alone (with two days' rations), and returned in forty-eight hours. The note was extended one year, and then the fifty dollars forthcoming paid out this land, which was the W. ½ of the S.E. ¼ of Section 22, a lot relinquished in his favor by one of his friends. He was appointed to teach this first school, and taught winter terms for many years, thereafter. He was also the first town clerk of Jefferson Twp. as now constituted. Some time after this he met his brother Cyrus on the road, an emigrant with a worn-out team. They had been separated twenty years, and only found each other out by such questions and conversation as pass between settlers and new comers. This brother settled in Clear Creek, now Butler, Township, where he died in 1854. In 1828, Mr. Evarts sold his first entry, and bought the N.E. ¼ of section 16, where he died in 1846, in his seventy-third year. The first school of Mr. Evarts was attended by pupils from Washington, Perry and Worthington Townships, and a few from Berlin Township, Knox County, making an average of more than thirty. In politics he was a Henry Clay Whig, and so strongly tinctured with abolitionism that he was a constant subscriber to Garrison's paper, and twice violated the fugitive slave law. These views being largely in the minority he never received any official honors outside of his own township.
He opposed the building of the Ohio Canal, from first to last, and foresaw and foretold with remarkable acumen the coming age of railroads. He wrote articles over the signature "Ishmael" and labored against the scheme, and his candidates, Hedges, Gass and Swan were elected.
Reuben Evarts, whose name is at the head of this sketch, and whose regard for his father's memory has caused these facts to be preserved and published, as may be expected received a good home education, though never more than twelve months at school, and when scarcely eighteen, and about to begin for a winter's schooling, was offered a position as teacher; and his success was such that fourteen successive winter terms were taught by him, excepting only winters of 1837 and 1838. In the year 1834 he bought the E. ½ of N.W. ¼ of section 16, to be paid for in eight yearly payments, and he paid it in three. In the summer of 1837 he was induced to go to Iowa, with a millwright, and they found a location for a mill on one of the tributaries of the Des Moines, where it cost twenty-five cents to get a bushel of corn ground. A squatter's claim was bought for sixty-five dollars; but the financial crash cut off the means of business which they had relied on, and the project was abandoned, and the claim was sold for $450 in silver. He here met a party of surveyors who had lost their chief, and were unable to manage the business. He went to Farmington, Iowa, with them, and instructed them for six weeks, receiving $150 in all as teacher, and reached Ohio with a few dollars more than when he left, after nearly a year's absence.
On the 5th of April, 1840, he was married to Rebecca Howard, and moved on to his new purchase, where he yet lives. Their children are Andrew, Eli, Levi, Annette, Reuben, Comfort, Ann, Alverda, Robert, Rebecca J., John and Sarah C., all of whom are now living in the township, excepting Eli, who is a citizen of Hutchinson, Reno Co., Kansas. Andrew, Eli and Levi, volunteered in the late Rebellion, and Andrew was wounded and permanently disabled in the battle of the Wilderness.
In 1846 Mr. Evarts was elected Justice of the Peace, which office he has held now for twenty-seven years. During that time he has married two hundred and fifty-three couples, and also has administered on and settled thirty-one estates. He still enjoys unusual vigor of body and mind, and is passing his old age in comfort and case on his pleasant farm near Bellville.
From ATLAS MAP OF RICHLAND COUNTY, OHIO. By A.T. Andreas. Chicago, Ill., 1873, p. 22-23