This is a guest post written by Barbara Budde
The last Native Peoples, Wyandots, were removed from this area in 1843. The Removal made it legal to settle north of the Greenville Treaty Line. By 1850 there were 6,966 people in Defiance County. Only nineteen were Black. No people of color lived in Highland Township. One Black family lived in adjacent Richland Township.
1854
Archibald and Elizabeth Worthington, Archibald’s brother, Henry, and his wife, Carolyn, and William Jackson and his wife, Judy, all born in Virginia, purchased land in Highland Township in 1853 and 1854. “Billy Jackson or Wiliams” married Judith or Judy Johns in Amherst, Virginia in 1823. In 1850 they lived in Greene County, Ohio. All of the settlers were freed people before the Emancipation Proclamation. The Worthingtons and Jacksons had probably learned from the 1846 experience of the Randolf heirs in Mercer County, that small groups of free Blacks were perceived as less of a threat by White settlers. They also may have felt safer from slave catchers in sparsely populated northwest Ohio and could buy land at low prices. Archibald bought 160 acres in section 7 for $1,700, and 80 acres in Section 17 for $900. Henry bought 40 acres, also in section 17 for $400, and William bought 40 acres across the road from Archibald in Section 8 for $350.
The Jacksons were the elders of the group at 53 and 50. They were accompanied by their son James, 27, and his bride, Celia, 21, son William, 23 and daughter Mary, 18. There were plenty of strong backs to clear land in this family. Henry and Carolyn Worthington were 43 and 36 with 6 children, from an infant to age 12. This family had little immediate labor but plenty of growth potential. The youngest owners were Archibald and Elizabeth Worthington, aged 36 and 33. Their son Henry was six, daughter, Matilda was a year old, and son, James was born shortly after their arrival in Highland Township. Elizabeth’s mother, 73, may have come with them. What Archibald and Elizabeth lacked in labor they made up for in wealth.
1867
Seven years later Archibald and Elizabeth had 110 acres cleared. They raised wheat, corn, oats, barley, hay, clover, potatoes and sweet potatoes. Five cows produced 400 pounds of butter and 30 sheep produced 80 pounds of wool. They also had 3 horses, 2 oxen, and 14 other cattle, and 25 swine. Son, Henry, was only 13, so Archibald and Elizabeth had hired help in both 1850 and 1860 to have such a productive farm.
In the 1860 agricultural census, Henry and Carolyn Worthington had 105 improved acres on which they raised wheat, corn, oats, potatoes and hay. Two cows produced 75 pounds of butter. They also had 2 horses, 3 cattle, 4 sheep, and 11 swine. Their oldest son was 19, four daughters were 17, 15, 13, and 10. Four other children were under 10. There was no live-in hired help.
William and Judith Jackson had 2 horses, 2 cows, 3 other cattle, and 4 pigs in 1860. They raised wheat, corn, oats, beans, potatoes, buckwheat and hay. They also produced 200 pounds of butter, 30 gallons of molasses, 100 pounds of honey, and slaughtered $50 of meat. James and Seleann had 5 children aged eight and under. James farmed, probably with his father. Sometime between 1866 and 1870 James and Seleann divorced and she and the children moved to Paulding County. William H. lived with his parents in 1850 but not in 1860. Mary Jane was married to a Hightower and had three children. The Jacksons had three working age men, and with only 40 acres, they were putting their energy into pork and bees to augment their crops.
In 1862 Archibald gave a lot on the corner of Fulmer and Bowman Roads to the township for a Black school. He had two school-aged children. Archibald’s brother, Henry, had three children, William Jackson’s son, James, had four. The end of the Civil War brought a small increase in the size of the community. In 1867 newcomers, William Cooper (40) and Samuel Finley (27), both born in Virginia, each bought 40 acres in section 16. Both men were probably former slaves, emancipated by the war. Cooper was single and had no children. Finley and his wife, Mary had two young children when they bought their land, and they had two more in 1867 and 1869.
The 1866 Atlas shows a church on Archibald’s section 7 land. He and William Jackson each bought another 40 acres in Section 16, near Cooper and Finley. Meanwhile, Henry (58) and Caroline (51) Worthington and their nine children sold their 40 acres and moved to Paulding Co. in 1868.
The decade of the 1870s seems to be the peak of the community. Defiance County had a population of 15,719 in 1870. One hundred and eleven were Black and 47 lived in Highland Township. Forty-one lived in the town of Defiance.
In 1870, William (51) and Luvinia (38) Mumford and their twelve children lived on 80 acres in section 17 that belonged to Archibald Worthington. They had moved there from Fayette County sometime after 1860.
Also in 1870, Archibald’s daughter, Matilda (21), and her husband John (24) Wise lived on the farm Worthington owned in section 16. Five Black families had 19 school age children in 1870. The community was growing east toward Highland and Blanchard Roads. Samuel Finley (age 33) sold his 40 acres to W. J. and Sol. J. Gatters in 1873 and moved to Paulding. In 1876, William Cooper traded his 40 acres in section 16 for 40 acres in section 17 owned by Andrews.
1878
In 1877, probably when William Jackson Sr. died, Judith and her children divided their two 40-acre parcels between them. Judith (74) continued to live in her house on section 8 with son, William Jr. (50). He claimed ownership of 40 acres, worth $1,600, on the 1880 Agricultural Census. Livestock worth $150 included 1 horse, 10 swine, and 10 poultry. They planted wheat and potatoes and had 8 acres of hay. This is substantially less than the farm produced in 1860.
Daughter, Mary Hightower (45), still had 5 children at home in 1880. Two sons were 18 and 16, but I could not find her on the agricultural census, although she owned 20 acres on the north half of section 16 parcel until her death in 1920. Over those years she provided a home for several of her adult children and their children. James Jackson and his second wife, Sarah, moved to Michigan before 1878 when they sold their 20 acres share to James Ashton.
An Aging Community
Archibald Worthington (63) was highly successful by 1880. He owned 320 Acres worth $5,000. He rented 80 acres to William Mumford and 40 acres to son, James, and 40 acres to his son-in-law, John Wise. Livestock estimated to be worth $1,000 included 2 horses, 12 cows, 21 cattle and 5 calves, 19 swine and 40 poultry. The farm produce, estimated to be worth $800, included butter, eggs, apples, corn, oats, wheat and potatoes.
James Worthington (26) also had 2 horses, but only 1 cow, 8 swine and 28 poultry. The farm was estimated to be worth $1,700, the livestock $240. Produce worth $340 included corn, oats, wheat, potatoes and 100 pounds of butter; and 100 dozen eggs. James and his wife, Mary had four children aged one to five in 1880.
Daughter, Matilda (31) and John Wise, had 2 horses, 1 cow, 14 swine and 20 poultry. They raised corn, wheat, and potatoes. They estimated their livestock to be worth $200 and the farm products the same. Matilda and John had five children.
There were several life changing events in the Worthington family in 1883. John Wise, the husband of Matilda Worthington Wise, died in January in an accident. Elizabeth Worthington, Matilda’s mother and wife of Archibald, died in March. Matilda married her neighbor’s son, William M. Mumford in July of the same year. William rented land from Archibald in 1880. He had four horses, more than the other small farmers. Matilda needed help, William needed land. It was a good arrangement for both. Archibald married Mary Susan Brown in June and sold the 80 acres in section 17 to Cornelius Weaner in September. In October, Archibald split his original 160-acre plot in section 7 between his son, James, and daughter, Matilda.
In 1888 Archibald’s son and daughter sold the land he had given them in section 7. In 1891 and 1893 Archibald (74) sold his section 16 farms that Matilda probably lived on. Archibald and Susan moved to Wilmington, Ohio, and Matilda (39) and William Mumford moved to Toledo next door to James (34) and Mary Worthington.
In 1880 William Cooper (53) raised only wheat and hay on his 40 acres. Two horses were his only livestock. In 1896, when he was (71) he gave the access road to the Hale-Wellman Cemetery. Four years later, he was buried there adjacent to his 40 acres.
1900
The original black settlers, the Worthingtons and Jacksons, made Highland Township their home for the long haul (1853-1893). Archibald and Elizabeth Worthington, with sufficient capital, were able to make a comfortable life for themselves and their two heirs. In contrast, William and Judith Jackson struggled. Their initial purchase of forty acres became insufficient when widowed daughter, Mary Jane, moved home with eight children. William purchased an additional forty, but even that was not enough income to support five adults and eight children. The Finley’s who bought 40 acres right after the Civil War only stayed about ten years. They had four children. William Copper, stayed until his death, thirty-three years later. He managed to subsist on 40 acres as a single man.
Most of the children of those settlers, however, moved out of the community. The forty-acre farms were not large enough to support families, so like their counterparts in the south, they moved to cities looking for better opportunities. Even Archibald Worthington’s son and daughter who each inherited 80 acres moved to Toledo.
William and Lieuvinia Mumford along with some of their children are buried in Hill Cemetery on Bowman Road