Lost!!

The following account took place two hundred and ten years ago here in North Ridgeville.  The story of this experience was written down by Wyllis Terrell, Jr. (1809-1882) who wrote a series of articles that were printed in the Elyria Constitution newspaper- a predecessor to the Elyria Chronicle Telegram.  Mr. Terrell wrote these articles as the “Old Hunter” and a compilation of them is available to purchase through our website. 

 

David Beebe Sr., the subject of this story, was one of our original pioneers.  He was born in 1747 in what was then known as the Connecticut Colony and, at the age of 63, ventured from his home to our area to claim land here in the Western Reserve.  He must have been a strong, determined man to have accomplished all he did in his lifetime.  He was a Quartermaster Sergeant in the Revolutionary War, and fought in the War of 1812 as well.  He helped found our town and was instrumental in setting up life here in Ridgeville, or Rootstown as it was known until 1813.  He helped build a fortified blockhouse in Columbia to protect area residents from Indian attacks and was charged with training pioneer men into soldiers to protect the families there.  He lived here from 1810 until his death in 1840 at the age of 93.  He is buried in the Center Ridge Cemetery along with his wife and many other family members. 

Added annotations in brackets [like this] have been added to show corrections to Wyllis Terrell’s or the printer’s errors and to add historical information necessary for explanation.  This article appeared in the paper May 30, 1876 and is entitled Ridgeville Reminiscences in 1811.

“In the fall of 1811, a few days after the arrival of Wyllys Terrell [Sr.], my son-in-law, I put on a new pair of shoes, a new hat, all fresh from Connecticut, and took two bridles and started south of the Ridge toward Black River [southwest, towards Elyria we believe] to look for my horses.  The day being cloudy, I lost my direction, and traveled all day in the woods without knowing my whereabouts.  I heard the faint sound of horses and report of guns, but was unable for some cause, to tell the direction from whence the sound came.  I traveled on and on, over logs and through dense thickets until night came on with darkness blacker than ink, when I crept into a hollow tree to rest my weary limbs and to pass the night.

After spending a sleepless night, morning dawned, and I again found myself on my feet, and traveled all day long without even a sound of man or beast to greet my ears.  The sky was densely clouded and toward evening it began to rain.  My fatigue began to tell on my steps, my physical energy was slowly and surely wasting away and my situation began to come up before me in all its unpleasant and terrible realities.  I had spent two days and one night without food and water, no immediate prospects to extricate myself out of what seemed to me a boundless forest.

With many [fears] and forebodings wandering through my mind, night again overtook me, and I sought out another hollow tree as a lodging place, and to my surprise, found the identical one in which I had passed the night before.  After some meditation I again crept into the hollow with sore feet and aching heart, thinking of the anxiety of my friends and what to me now seemed, my hopeless condition.  I looked upon this tree as my final resting place, at the same time serving as a receptacle for my bones as well as an inexplicable monument to memory.  I tried to dismiss these sad forebodings and regain my lost energies in a refreshing sleep, but all in vain.

At length morning came and I resolved to put forth all my remaining energy to get out of the woods.  I suspected that I had been traveling in a circle, and to avoid the repetition of this dangerous exercise, I selected three trees in a line and having reached the first I sought out the third in the same line and so continued my journey.  I began to suffer sorely for want of water.  I finally found some in a pit where the tree had fallen out of root.  Here I laid down my bridles while getting down to drink, and on looking for them could not again find them.  In consequence of my exhausted condition my progress was very slow.  I made every effort to keep on a direct line, and was therefore obliged to pass over logs, through underbrush and what seemed to me almost impassable thickets, making headway at the rate of a mile in two hours.

Thus, I trudged on to the close of the third day, keeping my eyes on the trees in line.  When the third night overtook me I lay down with my aching head on a root of the nearest tree, and here I spent another sleepless night, but the feelings of this night no pen can describe.  In the morning I prepared for what seemed to me my last effort.  I moved on with a gnawing hunger, parched lips and feeble steps until about ten o’clock, when I reached Lake Erie in Avon.

With the lake north of me, I started along the shore and after going six miles I reached the mouth of the Black River, and here Mr. Read [Squire John S. Reid, 1756-1831] took me in and fed me and then sent his hired man with me down the lake to Dover, to a Mr. Porter’s [Asahel Porter].  We reached there about dark the fourth day.  Here I was furnished all the food they thought beneficial to me, I craved more but kind judgement said no.  In the morning Mr. Porter and Mr. Spary [Amos Sperry] shouldered their rifles and came home with me.  My feet had become so sore that I was obliged to carry my shoes in my hands, my clothes were torn in tatters, and I was bare headed, and in this condition I reached our settlement, and immediately the rifles were fired- a signal of my return, when in every direction for miles around there was a responsive sound from horns and guns.  There had been a very extensive search made for the lost man, and the settlers had joined in the search for fifteen miles around.  The fifth day was to be the last day for the search. The general supposition was that I was dead.”

One Who was There

May 30, 1876