Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Salt Springs

September 8, 2018September 8, 2018 / rtrube54 / 7 Comments

Lewis Evans Map showing Salt Springs circled.

Do you know that the “Salt Springs” literally put the Mahoning Valley on the map? In fact, did you know that the word “Mahoning” is derived from the Lenape word “Mahonik” which means “at the lick.” In 1755 (41 years before John Young surveyed the area), Lewis Evans drew the above map, printed in Philadelphia by Ben Franklin, in which the location of the “Salt Springs” is noted. While the map is lacking in geographic accuracy, it highlighted what the earliest travelers through this area thought important. Salt.

Salt is essential to human health. It was used in the preservation of meat. One of its uses was cleaning brass. It had other medicinal uses. Indians in the area boiled water from the springs to produce salt for centuries. As it turns out, the “Salt Springs tract,” 24,000 acres in the vicinity of the Springs, was purchased by General Samuel Holden Parsons in 1788 and set up a station to extract salt from the waters. Sadly, he died on one of his trips, drowning in the falls of the Beaver Rivers in 1789. The land reverted to Connecticut. The site seemed to have an ill fate hanging over it. In 1786, a storekeeper was killed by Native Americans, and another salt maker in 1804. Reuben Harmon eventually acquired the land, somewhere between 1796 and 1801, according to different accounts. It never became a great salt-making operation–the salinity of the waters was too low to extract large quantities.

Salt Springs, from a painting by Joseph N. Higley, from a photograph taken in 1903, just prior to the springs being covered by railroad fill.

So exactly where were the Salt Springs? They were located in Weathersfield Township, west of present day Route 46 near the intersection of Salt Springs Youngstown Road and Carson Salt Springs Road. In 1903 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad right of way filled in the springs. In 1949, Harlan Hatcher, in his book The Western Reserve, wrote:

“One lone spring continues to bubble up through a piece of drain tile. It has a feeble taste of salt and a stronger smell of sulpher.”

In 1963, James L. Wick, Jr, took pictures of the site, showing the location of the stream. These photographs may be seen at the Mahoning Valley History blog. On June 30, 2018, an Ohio Historic Marker was dedicated at the nearby Kerr Cemetery by the Mineral Ridge Historical Society and the Ohio History Connection. The text of the marker reads:

Text, side A: A salt spring, located about a mile west of this site, was the primary attraction for immigrants to the Western Reserve territory in the mid-1700s. Prior to European-American settlement, Indians used the springs, boiling the water to extract the salt and using it for preserving meat among other uses. In 1755, surveyor Lewis Evans underscored the importance of the springs by noting it on his “General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America.” This enticed immigrants from western Pennsylvania to the region. In addition to the salt itself, the abundance of wildlife near the spring ensured good hunting in the area. (Continued on other side)

Text, side B: (Continued from other side) In February 1788, Connecticut, which asserted ownership of the Western Reserve from the colonial period to 1795, deeded the Salt Spring tract to Samuel Holden Parsons, a pioneer of the Northwest Territory and former Continental army officer. In 1796, Reuben Harmon, an early settler in what became Weathersfield Township, purchased the springs. Although new settlers initially considered the springs an asset, the salinity of the water was too low to make the salt production profitable. In 1903, railroad tracks covered the once-famous salt springs. “Mahoning” is said to be derived from the Lenape word mahonink, meaning “at the [salt] lick.”

Salt Springs Road runs all the way from Austintown-Warren Road south of Warren to the west side of Youngstown, ending at the bottom of Steel Street. I grew up on the West Side and often road my bike along there as a kid, in the shadow of the steel and industrial plants. We used to get pizza at Molly O’Dea’s. But I can’t say I ever had a clue as to how it got its name. It turns out, it was a vital early road connecting Youngstown and Warren to what they thought was a good source of salt, a critical resource. And it is a reminder of how our county and principle river got its name.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Council Rock

July 28, 2018August 2, 2018 / rtrube54 / 6 Comments

[Note: I found this image online. See note below from pepost. This is an altered image of a George Catlin painting]

Growing up on the West side of Youngstown, I never visited Council Rock on the East Side in Lincoln Park, above Dry Run Creek. The rock, which has a crack dividing it roughly one-quarter/three-quarters, is the site of one of the most interesting Youngstown legends, one that may or may not be true.

The story, as recounted in Joseph G. Butler’s History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Volume 1, was written down by William G. Conner, a pioneer resident of Dry Run Creek. On a hunting trip in Illinois in 1865, Conner met an aged trapper, Cyrus Dunlap, who knew the Dry Run area, having been part of the survey party, headed by Alfred Wolcott, who surveyed the area of Dry Run (township two, range two) in 1796. They encountered two French-Canadian trappers living in a cabin in what is now Lincoln Park.

From these trappers, Dunlap learned that Council Rock was a favorite gathering place of Indians living throughout the area as well as those farming the nearby Haselton fields. They would gather three times a year for feasts and celebrations. They called the rock that was the central gathering place, Nea-To-Ka, translated as “Council Rock.”

The most significant, and last, gathering occurred in 1755. On July 9, 1755, a coalition of French and Indian tribes defeated General Edward Braddock, who was assisted by George Washington at Fort Duquesne (later Fort Pitt). Nearly 3500 Indians from Seneca, Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware tribe gathered to celebrate at an autumn feast on or around September 20. The harvest and game was plentiful. In the middle of the feast, high winds (possibly a tornado, from Butler’s description) swept through and a bolt of lightning struck Council Rock, splitting the Rock. Four chiefs and 300 Indians were killed. One piece of evidence that might corroborate the trappers account is that when the Haselton Furnace was built nearby, excavations uncovered an Indian burial ground.

This was the last gathering at Council Rock. Indians, who lived around Mill Creek and throughout the area apparently moved away about twenty years before Youngstown was settled. Apart from a dispirited band of Blacksnake Indians, the immediate area was abandoned when surveyors arrived, along with John Young, in 1796.

Arrowheads found by my father-in-law in his yard, photo © Bob Trube, 2018

Many Youngstown residents have arrowheads, often found in their own backyard. These, along with Council Rock, and the name Mahoning, remind us of the native peoples that lived in or migrated through our area before the first settlement on the banks of the Mahoning. Their presence gave us one of the most unusual stories in Valley history.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Daniel Shehy (Sheehy)

April 7, 2018January 14, 2021 / rtrube54 / 21 Comments

An illustration of the cabin erected by Daniel Shehy, From History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio, Volume 1, By Joseph Green Butler

Who was the first settler of Youngstown (other than native peoples)? The standard answer of course is John Young who surveyed the land, purchased the township, platted the initial settlement, and built the first cabin near Spring Common. This has been disputed by a descendant of Daniel Shehy who contends that Young never lived in Youngstown, nor built the first cabin. Clarence A. Horton writes:

“After purchasing the land Daniel Shehy began at once to construct Youngstown’s first cabin along the river on it’s north-eastern side at a point which later became known as Edgewood Street and Truesdale Avenue. The cabin was made of rough logs about 16 by 20 feet, one story and all in one room.” (As quoted in Howard C. Aley, A Heritage to Share, p. 31).

Daniel Shehy (while it is often rendered “Sheehy”, a descendant wrote me to assert the spelling with the single “e”) without question was one of the first settlers. Born in 1756 in Tipperary, Ireland, he fled to America during the Revolution when two near relatives were executed for opposition to government policies. He joined John Young enroute to survey the township lands Young had agreed to purchased, subject to survey. He had $2,000 in gold to invest and agreed to purchase 1000 acres of land, 400 on the east side of the Mahoning, 600 on the west. Shehy and Young ended up in a land dispute when it appeared that Young sold the land Shehy had agreed to buy to a subsequent purchaser. It took two trips to Connecticut to resolve the question (Youngstown was part of Connecticut’s Western Reserve lands). The dispute even landed Shehy in jail and fined $25 for threats against Young.

Some contend that the settlement of the dispute, granting him the 400 acres east of the Mahoning, came when Shehy’s wife Jane named a son John Young Shehy. Daniel and Jane met July 4, 1797 when Shehy, Young, and James Hillman went to nearby Beavertown, Pennsylvania, to celebrate the holiday. They married the same year and had a number of children.

Beyond being one of the first, if not the first settler and presumably farming the land he finally gained title to, Shehy doesn’t appear to play a major role beyond appearing in an early list of taxpayers. The Reverend Thomas Martin celebrated the first Catholic services in Youngstown in their home in 1826. His cabin appears in a famous horse race between Youngstown and Warren for the county seat of what was then a single county, Trumbull County. The Youngstown horse, Fly, won and kept running for a mile past the finish to Shehy’s cabin. For some reason, Warren still got the county seat.

Daniel Shehy died January 20, 1834, survived by Jane until 1856. His name endures on Shehy Street, on the east side, running from Wilson Avenue to Oak Street south of Himrod. Along with James Hillman and other early Youngstown residents, he is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

If some family descendants or others up on Youngstown history can add to this account, please leave comments here. Shehy was a key figure in Youngstown history but there is little more written about him that I could find than is written here.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — James Hillman

September 23, 2017August 24, 2025 / rtrube54 / 13 Comments

Colonel James Hillman

Recently I wrote a post about John Young, from whom Youngstown gets its name. As I read the early history of Youngstown, I am inclined to think that Colonel James Hillman deserves more than to have a street and a couple of abandoned and demolished school buildings named after him. While Young purchased, surveyed, and subsequently sold the land that is Youngstown today, Hillman arguably was one of the first true settlers and played a significant role in bringing law and order to the newly founded community.

Hillman was born in Northumberland County in Pennsylvania in 1762. He fought in the Revolutionary was as a young man and was captured at Yorktown. He subsequently fought in the Indian Wars until a treaty in 1785. He married Catherine in 1786 (she was fourteen), and appears to have lived for a time near Pittsburgh, in Beavertown. He was employed by a trading company, Duncan & Wilson, in Pittsburgh, and built a cabin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River (near what would eventually be downtown Cleveland) for their trading operations. Travel between Pittsburgh and this cabin would have taken him up the Beaver and Mahoning Rivers so he would have been well familiar with the Mahoning Valley ten years or more before John Young.

It was on one of these trading trips, in late June of 1797, that he spotted smoke on the banks of the Mahoning and encountered John Young and his surveying party. The story is that Hillman had leftover whiskey from his trading efforts and Young traded the deerskin he was sleeping on for whisky for what Joseph Green Butler calls a “frolic.” The two men became friends quickly. Purportedly, Young and his party joined Hillman on his trip home to Beavertown, celebrating the 4th of July there, and then Hillman returned with Young to help lay out the settlement. Young offered the Hillmans six acres if they would move to the new town, and it was Hillman who built the first cabin near Spring Common. Hillman’s skills as a woodsman were invaluable in carving a town out of the wilderness.

In 1798 he purchased 60 acres of land bordered by present day Market Street on the east, Oak Hill on the west, the Mahoning River on the north and Myrtle Street on the south. The frame house they built there was later the site of South Side Hospital. In 1800, he became the first constable of the new town. Later he served as a tax collector. In 1804, he built a log cabin tavern near the present day DeYor Center. In 1806, he became sheriff for Trumbull County, which at that time comprised both Mahoning and present day Trumbull County.

Hillman fought under Colonel William Rayen in the War of 1812, during which he attained the rank of Colonel. Afterwards he was involved in settling several incidents between Indians in the area and settlers. Two of these incidents involved deaths of settlers. In one case, Hillman tracked the Indians involved all the way to Chillicothe and single-handedly brought them back to stand trial.

He served in the state legislature in 1814-15 and later, in 1825 as a Justice of the Peace. He was a Master Mason, and a Masonic Lodge was named after him in 1874. He died November 12, 1848 at age 86 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. In Joseph G. Butler’s History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, he summarizes Hillman’s life in this way:

“Not only in actual term of residence but in leadership, Col. James Hillman was the first citizen of Youngstown in its youthful days.”

Sources consulted:

Joseph Green Butler, History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio, Volume 1, 1921.

Ted Heineman, Riverside Cemetery Journal, Colonel James Hillman.

Mahoning Valley Historical Society, Historical Collections of the Mahoning Valley, Volume One, 1876.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Iconic Places of the Past

March 4, 2017August 25, 2025 / rtrube54 / 10 Comments

“IdoraDanceHall1920” by Youngstown News Agency, Youngstown, Ohio – Public domain

Last week I wrote about iconic places in Youngstown today. Doing so brought to mind many of the other iconic places of the past, places we re-visit in our memories. Some reflected a period, but many reflect what a different city the Youngstown of the past was from the Youngstown of today.

Idora Park. Actually, this was the home to a number of iconic spots in our memories from the Merry-go-round to the Wildcat to the midway to the ballroom to the French Fry stand. Cotton candy, delight and a bit of terror, dates and dances. So much history.
Palace Theater. Photo by Steveovig
The Palace Theater. This was an absolutely gorgeous place just off Central Square. It was replaced by a parking lot. The Paramount hung on longer but it also is no more.
Downtown department stores. McKelvey’s and Strouss’ were incredible old stores. As kids, we would dress up to shop there. Strouss’ building is still there.
Point Market –Source unknown
The Point Market. Remember the big red revolving apple on this local grocery at the corner of South Avenue and Midlothian? Until I-680 was completed, I’d drive past there every time I visited my girl friend (now wife).
The Newport Theater. One of the early suburban theaters where I first saw The Sound of Music.
Uptown. The place to be on date nights–everything from the Pizza Oven to fine restaurants and the Uptown Theater.
20th Century Restaurant. Photo courtesy of Morris Levy, used with permission
The 20th Century Restaurant. Spinning bowl salads, rolls, and great desserts served in an Art Deco style building.
Youngstown Masonic Temple, Nyttend – Own Work, Public Domain
Masonic Temple. The building may still be standing but the last lodge of Masons could no longer afford the upkeep and gave up the building in 2016. Dad was a Mason, and I remember some really fun family events there as a kid.
The Brown Derby. Another popular restaurant on the South Side of Youngstown. A favorite for family gatherings and date nights. I asked my wife to marry me there. Obviously she said “yes”.
Mahoning River Mills c. 1910
Steel mills. Of course the steel mills lining the Mahoning River are perhaps the iconic places of the past for Youngstown.

All cities change over time. Business owners die or competition drives places out of business. Industries change. Once popular institutions fade. It’s good to remember icons. And it is good for a new generation to create new ones. Let’s hope that happens for Youngstown.

What would you add to this list?