Kossuth: Making its way along the Miami-Erie Canal

KOSSUTH — The Miami-Erie Canal brought commerce and progress to this area.

During its heyday, however, the canal also brought a good deal of rowdy behavior.

It was the main mode of movement, bringing settlers north from Cincinnati and others along the waterway to make whatever way in the world they could.

Kossuth, a village just south of Spencerville on state Route 66 in Auglaize County, straddles the canal. Auglaize is said to mean “fallen timbers,” speaking to the forests that once covered this swampy area. Kossuth is named after a person, Louis Kossuth, a Hungarian man who was best known for trying to rally support for democracy in mid-1800s Europe. He also was raised Lutheran and married a Catholic, fighting for religious freedom.

Samuel Petit platted and organized Kossuth in 1858, according to the “Atlas and History of Auglaize County” published in 1917. It was a very small town from the start, with the canal its only tangible reason for being there. The canal brought people through, so a hotel was erected. Soon, there were many drinking establishments as well.

“In the pre-Civil War days, when one boat was going each way every hour, the canal was known for its violent brawls. In these times, Ohio was growing rapidly with a 68 percent increase in population from 1830 to 1940. The canal was one of the major factors in this growth, for a boat of wheat or lumber could make the 249-mile trek from Toledo to Cincinnati faster than a train,” an undated story from The Lima News reported.

Bloody Bridge, as it's become well known, is just south of Kossuth. It was the site of a lover's triangle murder and is well-visited even today. Two men working on canal boats had fallen in love with the same woman. She chose one. The other man attacked them with an ax on that bridge one night, killing his rival and his love interest — she had jumped into the canal to escape and drowned. Or so goes the legend.

Another legend involves a midwife named Sibbell (also called Belle) Dressback. On Jan. 27, 1864, she married a physician named Zebedee who had German roots. They came to settle in Kossuth from Logan County for reasons unclear, but what is known is they were in Kossuth during the time of the 1880 census.

Legend says she was Native American and used herbs and nontraditional medicine. Her ancestry shows no obvious proof of this claim, but townspeople have embraced it, even erected a sign marking her Kossuth grave, “Sibbell Dressback, Indian Woman Doctor.” But she was said to have delivered nearly all the babies in the area before dying in 1882 of consumption, also called tuberculosis. She hadn't reached her 40th birthday. Her husband remained in town until his death in 1906, and his grave is also in Kossuth Cemetery.

By the late 1800s, Kossuth had organized itself well enough to try to incorporate. The vote was reported as 129 for and nine against. So on April 12, 1897, Kossuth incorporated and soon after elected its first mayor, clerk, treasurer, marshal and councilmen. The town surrendered its charter just a few years later.

The town gathered together that same year to try to save a local business — with a bucket brigade. John Shively's new general store went up in flames because of a defective flue, the Spencerville Journal reported.

“The citizens were all out, armed with buckets, and a masterly effort was put forth to save the neighboring buildings. Strange as it may appear, the battle of the fire fighters was a victorious one, for another building or shed was burned and Mr. Shively's new dwelling was not 20 feet away. The paint on the house was badly blistered but otherwise it was in no way injured,” the Jan. 28, 1897, story reported.

One citizen was killed by a falling chimney during the firefighting effort, leaving behind a wife and six children.

The store was a total loss, with no insurance, but Shively had reported to the newspaper by March that he was not deterred and would rebuild.

Shively was in the news again not long after that, but the papers that time were reporting on his murder. See next week's Reminisce.