Frederick V. Schultz's book "A Reminiscence Sung 1559-2006" is a history of the Clarks and Lanes of Maryland, Huntingdon Co., Pa. and Ohio. It's full of stories about pirates, plantations, and pioneers. Notably, Richard Lane, a direct ancestor of Rev. Samuel Lane, was the leader of an expedition to settle a place near the Isthmus of Panama in the 1630's, and was an important actor in a couple other places in the early history of the English presence in the Caribbean.
What follows is an excerpt from an early version of the book. The introductory paragraph may have been written by Bobby Brown. The entire book can be found at Lana Clark's website. The most recent version of it is available from Fred Schultz or from me.
In that William Brown and Ruth Lane Brown are reputed to have left
Pennsylvania with Wilkinson Lane and Wilkinson's sons-in-law, Clarks,
Kelly's and maybe others, the following is of interest as it may relate
to William, Ruth and their families. It is thought that William Brown
and his family may have stayed in Fairfield County from 1799 to 1806
when they moved to their land in todays Walnut township of Pickaway
county, Ohio. This is not the only possible scenario. William may
have been the only Brown family member to go with Wilkinson's group to
look over the land for purchase purposes. He did buy 320 acres of
land near Ashville, Ohio November 14, 1805 and settled on it Fall of
1806.
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Toby Town and Royalton:
Horatio and Rebecca Clark built their cabin within sight of the
Indian village, Toby Town. This was adjacent to a previous, now
abandond, and much larger native settlement. In fact, Clark planted
an orchard on the ruins of the earlier town. Since the Clarks were
the first settlers in the area, they were fortunate enough to inhabit
a cleared area that may have been prairie but was more likely the
abandoned fields of the village_s former inhabitants. Though the men
of the tribe would have been hunters, the women would have tended the
fields and processed the grain. Land that had been cleared by Indians
was often mistakenly referred to as prairie by Ohio pioneers. This
presence of Native Americans obviously saved the Clarks much hardship
in wresting a living from the Ohio wilderness. While plowing their
fields in the years that followed, the Clark family found many relics
from the former occupants of the older town. Such items as human bones,
arrowheads, old gun barrels, knives, bullets, pipes, bits of silver and
many other things were uncovered by several generations of the family as
they turned the soil.
The earlier incarnation of Toby Town was probably founded by the
Wyandot in the 1750_s. This tribe, driven out of Canada by the
Iroquois, was known as the Huron by the French. The Wyandot and
Delaware, as well as the Shawnee, were in a sense the first
frontiersmen in Ohio. They emigrated to Ohio two or three generations
before the Clarks and Lanes because of two factors: the aggressive
Iroquois, who drove them into Ohio, and the expansion of British
settlers from the middle colonies. Like the settlers who came
afterwards, these tribes had to adjust to a strange land which imposed
many new demands upon their culture. During this period, these Ohio
tribes continued to face incursions by the Iroquois while balancing the
competing demands of the British and French for their loyalties. By
the time the Clarks and Lanes appeared, Delaware Indians had joined the
Wyandot who occupied the site. Leaders of the two tribes the Clarks
and Lanes knew, beside Chief Toby, were Billy Wyandotte, Cherokee John
and Standing Stone. Their Native American names are unknown.
The village that preceded Toby Town was located on Horatio
Clark_s property about 427 yards east of the line that split sections
32 and 33 of Bloom Township, and about 103 yards north of section 33_s
southern line. A small stream, known then as Toby Creek and now called
Little Walnut Creek, ran through the village. The humble stream_s
eastern bank was the principal site of the town. Before the final
spasms of strife in post-revolution Ohio and the Greenville Treaty that
calmed them, the area had been thickly populated by Native Americans.
It was said by early settlers of the Hocking Valley that a raiding
party of whites from western Virginia sacked and burned the original
village in about 1795. After the Greenville Treaty of 1796, most of
the Wyandot nation withdrew northward to their traditional lands.
Despite the village_s destruction and the migration to treaty lands,
some Indians remained or drifted back to the Clark_s locality. A
melancholy reality is that Small Pox and whiskey probably played a role
in the town_s decline as well.
Trade was important on the early frontier, and lead for bullets
was among the goods the local Indians actively traded with the
homesteaders. The Indians made short journeys eastward to obtain the
lead and would never reveal the source to the settlers. It was rumored
to be near the falls of the upper Hocking River, where today a
wonderfully dilapidated 18th century mill, known as Rock Mill, hugs a
ravine_s edge. As more and more settlers arrived, Toby Town gradually
dissolved and by 1807, most of the Native Americans in the area had
wandered north to Crane Town near Sandusky, Ohio. Here, through
diplomacy, the Wyandot had obtained a haven that would last until 1843
when they were forced to the West. The village continued in spirit,
however, as the neighbors of the Clarks and Lanes began to refer to
their community as Toby Town.
In Harvey Scott_s 1877 History of Fairfield County, Thomas Cole
Jr., who Scott described as an Amanda Township farmer and Baptist
minister of the "old style," contributed to the Clark saga. Soon after
the Clarks and Lanes arrived in Central Ohio, Horatio Clark_s brother,
William, built his cabin near the deserted site of the 18th century
Indian village. While digging clay and mixing it with moss or straw to
daub the spaces between logs, William exposed the grave of what he took
be an Indian chief. Interred with the skeleton were several large
handfuls of silver rings, brooches and other ornaments. Horatio
Clark_s first born son, Elijah, was captivated by what his uncle had
unearthed. He proudly carried some of the bones to show his mother,
Rebecca, who was in their cabin a little over a hundred and thirty
yards away. Rebecca, mortified and imagining a disagreeable odor,
insisted her son return the relics to their sacred resting palace. I
imagine she later had a few choice words for her brother-in-law as
well. The next Sunday the remains were disturbed again, this time by a
pair of curious brothers named Wintersteen whose parents lived in
section 32, a half mile to the west. Ironically their cabin was near
the future site of the Clark Family Cemetery. (Info from Fred Schultz)