USA > Ohio > Fulton County > A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. II > Part 61
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The youngest son, Chesterfield Clemmons, bears the ancestral name of the man who was the first settler, and for whom the town- ship was named-the first white man in the territory now known as Chesterfield. Chesterfield Clemmons arrived October 8, 1834, and that long ago Dover and Gorham had not been set off from Chester- field. It was in territorial days, sixteen years before the organiza- tion of Fulton county.
This Butler-Clemmons family history is given to posterity by Mrs. Taylor, the youngest daughter of John S. and Lovina (Clem- mons) Butler. Their children are: Richard, Sarah, Wilford, Mary, Eunice, Edward, Ulysses and Fannie-Mrs. Taylor. Only four: Eunice, Edward, Ulysses and Fannie, survive.
John S. Butler, founder of the House of Butler in Fulton county, was born May 18, 1824, at Lyons, Wayne county, New York, a son of Asa H. and Sarah (Daggett) Butler. There were four brothers: Samuel, Charles, Elijah and James, and there was one sister, Mary. When John S. Butler was nine years old the family removed to Cleveland, showing that in 1833 the Butler family history began in Ohio.
This nine-year-old boy, John S. Butler, was "bound out" in Cleveland to Col. Alanson Briggs, who was an Indian trader. In
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the fall of 1834 he secured possession of a large tract of wild land in western Ohio, now Fulton county, and on the Michigan strip, and in the spring of 1835 Colonel Briggs and his family removed to it, bringing "John, the chore boy," along, and this boy was destined to be at the head of a frontier family of his own in time. In the meantime he was reared by Colonel Briggs, whose two daughters, Eliza and Angeline, regarded him as their brother.
It was Lord Byron who said: "Truth is stranger than fiction," and there is much in the life story of John S. Butler that seems like the stories that begin: "Once upon a time." In reminiscent vein Mr. Butler once wrote: "The trip from Cleveland was made overland, and it was my first experience of pioneer life. Colonel Briggs was wealthy, and he came here to establish an Indian trad- ing post," and he relates that a stock of merchandise was carried along from Cleveland, and that the teams were frequently "stalled," while crossing the Black Swamp enroute to the wild land to be made the abiding place of the family. They brought livestock along and they soon had a farm dairy about their cabin home in the new country.
The settlers along the way helped the Briggs family out of many difficulties enroute, and in time the trading post was a landmark along the trails leading farther into the frontier country. Colonel Briggs was a busy man. He had been brevetted colonel in the second war with England, and the Indian warfare did not have much terror for him. Oftentimes "John, the chore boy," was left in charge of the trading post, and by personal encounter he soon learned to talk with the Indians. For more than one year his only playmates were the young Indians, and when he saw the first white boy, Edwin Patterson, both were speechless as they looked at each other.
In time John S. Butler became one of the best known Indian interpreters, and when the United States government finally trans- ferred the Indians to the reservations west of the Mississippi he rendered valuable aid both to the Indians and the government officials in getting them ready for transportation.
One October day in 1835 some Indians came to the trading post and informed Colonel Briggs of another "pale face," another white man already located in the wilderness. Among them was Chief Winameg, and from him the "chore boy," learned that "white man build wigwam," the first knowledge they had of Chesterfield Clemmons, who had preceded them into the community. In di- recting them to the Clemmons domicile Chief Winameg led them to a stone that had been located by government surveyors, and in the Indian tongue and with signs he indicated the turns in the way at other stones-so many stones and so many turns, and next day Colonel Briggs and the boy set out to locate their frontier neighbors.
Mr. Butler writes: "We received a warm welcome into this home; we were the first white people they had seen in over a year," and it was in this household that the "chore boy" first saw Lovina
Clemmons, who was later to become part of his own life history. He married her on June 14, 1846-something like ten years later.
It was June 22, 1821, that this frontiersman and his wife, Chesterfield Clemmons and Fannie Downing, had been married at Auburn, New York, a good many years before they located in the wilderness of Chesterfield-the township named for Chesterfield
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Clemmons at the suggestion of Colonel Briggs at the time of the first election a short time later held in the Indian trading post store. There were eight children: Sally Ann, Lucretia, Rosetta, Lovina (later the bride of John S. Butler), Eunice, Lucinda and two boys: William and Samuel.
When Chesterfield Clemmons and his family arrived at the spot in the unbroken forest-not a stick amiss in all that vast wilder- ness that was henceforth to be their home, October 8, 1834, there was no kind of a roof to offer them shelter. They camped in their wagon until they could build their first log cabin home in this land of so little promise to them; which was yet to commemorate them ; this their introduction to Chesterfield. The Chesterfield Grange Hall marks the site today, the Clemmons, Gillis, Onweller, Harger farmstead is the original Clemmons family homestead. The com- modious house is unoccupied, and one thinks of the visit there when the "chore boy" first saw the charming daughter-changed condi- tions with the passing years.
The Indian trading post, the home of John S. Butler was only three miles from, there in the unbroken forest. There were only Indian trails through northern Ohio then, and that explains why one pioneer family did not know of the other's existence. Chester- field Clemmons had come over the Rice trail while Colonel Briggs had come over the territorial road from Toledo.
The Butler-Clemmons faniily had its part in shaping the future of the primitive country, and both Mr. Clemmons and the young boy in question were both in attendance at the first township elec- tion, July 19, 1837, when Colonel Briggs proposed that the name Chesterfield be given the township in honor of its first citizen. In his boyhood Mr. Butler carried the United States mail from Syl- vania westward to La Grange county, Indiana, and he used to re- count his many adventures with wild animals in the perilous jour- ney. Some times he was a guide for travelers who were badly frightened at many narrow escapes enroute, and Mrs. Taylor's scrap book is filled with such adventures.
When he reached manhood's estate Mr. Butler had his choice between an Indian pony and forty acres of Fulton county farm land as his bounty from Colonel Briggs. There was land, land, land everywhere and the young man chose the pony, thinking he could later acquire the land, and he was right about it. Mr. Butler was a great newspaper reader, and he was posted on all lines of busi- ness, the school of experience being his only teacher.
It is related of Mrs. Butler that she was a markswoman, and one day a neighbor who heard the gun shots went around the house to where eight birds were lying on the ground under the cherry trees. Mr. and Mrs. Butler lived more than three score years to- gether. She belonged to the Disciples Church, and for more than twenty years he served as justice of the peace in Chesterfield. They were community builders-a man and woman adapted to the times in which they lived, and the History of Fulton County would be incomplete if it did not contain their life history. They lived when history was being enacted in the community.
WILLIAM HENRY COCHRAN. The Cochran family history in Fulton county begins with the coming of Uriah Cochran and his family October 9, 1865, from Columbiana county. Back of that there is little known of the Cochran family story. Uriah Cochran
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was a posthumous child, and at an early age he went among stran- gers. He lived for a number of years with the family of William Smith in Columbiana county. While there is no record of the Christian names of Mr. Cochran's parents, it is understood that the mother had three sets of children, and that Uriah was a son from her second marriage. Their contemporaries are gone the way of the world, and today no one knows this bit of family history.
The grandmother of W. H. Cochran married three times. and the children of her first marriage had the name Creighton. Uriah was her only child named Cochran, and the third set of children had the name of Walker. For a time there were letters from a half brother named Wilson Walker, and there was a half sister, Jane, but W. H. Cochran does not know whether her name was Creighton or Walker. Uriah Cochran lived away from his relatives and he never said very much about them. In fact, he had little opportunity of knowing about them. His children today would be glad of more information about them.
It was in Columbiana county that Uriah Cochran met and mar- ried Anna Faulk, October 14, 1858, and there two children, Cramer G. and William H., who repeats this bit of family information were born, and two sisters, Laura F., who died in childhood, and Orla B., were born after the family had located in Chesterfield Township, Fulton county. Anna Faulk was a daughter of Jonathan and Re- bekah (Stout) Faulk. While she was born in Lehigh county, Penn- sylvania, when she was a small child her parents removed to Colum- biana county, Ohio. She had two brothers, William and Daniel, and four sisters, Elizabeth, Rebekah, Catliarine and Mary. None but Anna ever lived in Fulton county. Uriah Cochran died Feb- ruary 14, 1911, and his wife followed him to the grave April 7, 1917, and both lie buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
Cramer G. Cochran was born April 12, 1860, and he married Gertrude Butler. They have one daughter, Mabel Gertrude. They live in Wauseon.
Orla B. Cochran, born April 20, 1870, is the wife of U. G. Butler. They have one daughter, Lula B. Another daughter, Florence A., deceased, was the wife of Thomas Soule. The Butlers live in Chesterfield.
William H. Cochran is the second son, born December 17, 1862, in Columbiana county. He was three years old when his parents located on "Hillside Farm" in Chesterfield-since that time the Cochran family homestead in Fulton county. Only for a short absence he has always lived on this farm, around which the family memories cluster. On December 27, 1894, Mr. Cochran married Alice Greeley, and he brought her as the home maker to Hillside Farm. Their children are: Howard A., Ruth L. and Gladys M.
Mrs. Cochran is the second in a family of five children, and she was born May 2, 1874, a native of Fulton county. She is a daughter of Lewis A. and Mary E. (Wickey) Greeley, who were married Oc- tober 12, 1871. The Greeley family home is in Franklin Town- ship, their children all being born there, although in later years they lived in Chesterfield. Their oldest child, Alvin, died in in- fancy, leaving Mrs. Cochran the oldest living, and the others are: Leonora V., wife of L. O. Farley, and their children are: Lewis A. and Arthur G., Lois M. is the wife of E. C. Lane, and they have one son, E. Earl, and they buried a son, Vaughn G .; Ida M. is the wife
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of J. C. Lane, their children being Roscoe B. and Marjorie B. Lewis A. Greeley is a son of Orrin G. and Letitia (Prettyman) Greeley. His sisters were: Jane and Emily, both deceased. The father married a second time, his wife being Matilda Thomas, and there is a half-brother, T. Parker Greeley. There is a tradition that Andrew Greeley came front England in the seventeenth cen- tury, and that he was the founder of this branch of the family in America. Horace Greeley, who said: "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country," and caused such an exodus to the fron- tier, is of the same parent stock although not very closely related to the Fulton county Greeleys.
The Wickey family lived in Wayne county, but as a babe in her mother's arms Mrs. Greeley was brought to Fulton county. They located in German Township, and the mother, aged ninety-four years, still lives there. Mrs. Greeley is one of seven children : Cassie, Mary E., Francis H., Emma, Amanda, Victor E. and S. Ellen. Mr. and Mrs. Greeley live within one mile of Hillside Farm in Chesterfield. The three children, Howard, Ruth and Gladys, of Hillside Farm, are in the third generation of Cochrans and the fourth generation of Greeleys in Fulton county.
Howard A. Cochran is a graduate of the Fayette High School, and for four years he was a public school teacher. On August 15, 1918, he entered military training in the department of auto-me- chanics in the University of Cincinnati, and on October 28 he sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, and remained "Somewhere in France" until January, when he was transferred to the River Rhine in the Army of Occupation in Germany. He was thirteen months in the service. He married Lela Eldridge of Morenci, November 27, 1919. Ruth L. Cochran is a graduate of the International Business College of Fort Wayne, and she is a stenographer there. Gladys M. is a student in the Chesterfield Centralized School, it having been the am- bition of Mr. and Mrs. Cochran to give to all their children the advantages of a good education.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Cochran, "my politics-why, I vote for the man," but the early vote of the family was with the democratic party. The church relationship is both Methodist and United Breth- ren. William Faulk, of Columbiana county, who died in the Civil war and lies buried at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and Howard A. Cochran are the two members of the family having military rec- ords. General farming-not military officers, is the order of the day at Hillside Farm, where always awaits a welcome for the chil- dren who are outside its shelter-a son employed in Toledo and a daughter in Fort Wayne, and one daughter who always returns at eventide-the school girl at Chesterfield.
AMAZIAH CLARK. In discussing family history: "Yes, we all know that Clark is an Irish name," said Amaziah Clark of Dover. However, Mr. Clark was born, April 4, 1842, in Livingston county, New York. The story handed down is that three brothers came over from Ireland, although Mr. Clark knows little in detail about them. He has met others by the name of Clark who came direct from Ireland, and yet they were not related to him. In express- ing his pride in Irish ancestry, Mr. Clark exclaimed: "Just about as apt people as we have in the world are Irish," and why should the genealogist argue with him about it?
There was a time when Mr. Clark knew everybody in Dover
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and many others, but today he inquires who used to own the farm when trying to get a line on new people in the community. There were four sons born to Philander and Mary (Rulison) Clark while they lived in Livingston county, New York, as follows: Edgar H., Amaziah, Leander and Lemar. After the family had removed to Lake county, Ohio, there were two daughters born: Martha and Mary. In 1857 they all came with their parents to Fulton county.
Mr. Clark, who was the second child, was a young lad at the time, and for sixty years he has lived within one mile of his present habitation. It was here that he volunteered as a soldier, in Sep- tember, 1862, and from that time on he was in blue uniform until the end of the struggle, returning in 1865 to Fulton county. His brothers Edgar and Leander were also volunteers. Leander was wounded while in pursuit of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and he died at Fortress Monroe. In recent years Mr. Clark stood at his grave in a government cemetery there. "The nicest place you ever saw," is the way he describes it.
Mr. Clark and his brother Edgar lived neighbors for more than seventy years, seeing each other frequently. He still has one sister, Mrs. Mary Shaffer, of Decatur, Illinois. All the family married cx- cept the brother who died in the government service. Mr. Clark never saw his father's people except one brother, Amaziah, for whom he was named, and one sister, Mrs. Eunice (Clark) Carter, who later lived in the community.
"So far as I know the Rulisons were all born in York State." said Mr. Clark. "My mother had two sisters, Margaret and Betsey, and she had three brothers, William, Robert-and the other name, well, I never saw him. Grandfather Rulison died early and I never knew anything of him, but grandmother Rulison lived with us when we were children at home. I do not know their names at all."
On March 4, 1866, Amaziah Clark married Lydia Ann Mark- ley, and they began housekeeping on the farm he still owns, and here six children, Edwin Elmer, Frederick Eugene, Myrtle May, Minnie Viola, Mabel Blanche, and Lula Pearl, were born to them.
Edwin E. married Ella Borton. Their children are Clarence, Alta and Ida.
Frederick E. married Hattie A. McLain. Their children are: Roscoe A., Howard O., Dale W., Virgie L., Wilbur B., and Opal I. Hazel May died in infancy, and another died at birth, no name hav- ing been given to it.
Myrtle May is the wife of James P. Long. Their children are: Effie, Wayne, Leora and Myrtle. Two died, Kenneth, and one that had not been named.
Minnie Viola married Charles Gillespie. She died within one year from her marriage.
Mabel Blanche is the wife of John H. Miller. Their children are: Clark, Vernie and Lydia.
Lula P. married Ray Pennington. Their children are Alice. Wilma and Inez.
"My wife and I belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Spring Hill," said Mr. Clark, "but some of the family are United Brethren and-well. we are scattered," and then as to politics ---- there is free soil, whig and republican history in the Clark family, and he cast his first vote for Lincoln. While the Clarks lived in Lake county there was an Under Ground Railroad in the commu-
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nity, and there was a station. He often saw fugitives in hiding there. None of the family has ever sought or held office, but all exercise their rights of citizenship, and they always have part in the election.
The occupation of the Clark family has been agriculture, and although retired from active business Mr. Clark continues his resi- dence at the farmstead, the son Frederick Eugene and his family living there and relieving him of all responsibility. His wife died April 4, 1900, and this son has always lived there. While Mr. Clark frequently goes for short visits among his other children, no place suits him quite as well as the old homestead in Dover.
While there has always been an Angola road by the farm, Mr. Clark helped "blaze" the way for all the other roads in the community. He never lived in the log cabin-the primitive Ameri- can dwelling so common among Fulton county settlers, but he bought the lumber and built a frame house that still stands on the farm, although not kept in habitable condition. In 1897 Mr. Clark built the commodious home in which he lives today. "When I located here," said Mr. Clark, "I could no more drive a team across the country without a chopping ax along than I could drive through Lake Erie today," but all that is changed and hard surface roads enable him to reach the surrounding towns in any kind of weather. The story of Mr. Clark's life is certainly part of the history of Fulton county.
MRS. MARY ELLEN BUTLER. The history of the Chesterfield family of Butlers represented by Mrs. Mary Ellen (Valentine) But- ler and her immediate household began in the community with the purchase of the land for more than four score years known as the Butler homestead, March 20, 1839, by Harlow Butler of Ontario county, New York. It was in territorial days when; what is now known as Fulton was part of Lucas county, and since it was in the Michigan strip the purchase money was deposited in the land office at Monroe, Michigan.
Harlow and Mary (Hickok) Butler, of Ontario county, New York, felt the need of more land, and they came early to northern Ohio. They had six children born in New York: Derwin Elwell, Elvira Caroline, Corintha Sebra, Arretas Nathaniel, Harriet Jerusha and Arthur Dwight. Two of them. Elvira C. and Arthur D., died in Ontario county. After the family located in Ohio two others, Lewis Harlow and Marshall Wirt Butler. were added to the family, and Mrs. Butler, was the wife of Lewis Harlow, born June 19, 1837, on the farmstead now occupied by the family, although his father did not own it until two years later. Mr. Butler died here March 24, 1915, when he was almost seventy-eight years old, and his entire life had been spent on one spot only as he worked as a cabinet maker in Wauseon-always maintaining his home in Chesterfield. While he was in the Civil war his home continued at the old homestead, now the home of Mrs. Butler.
Nathaniel Butler, of York state, later joined the family of his oldest son, Harlow Butler, and the names of Nathaniel and Sebra Butler are now chiseled on gravestones in the Butler Cemetery. given by their son Harlow to the Chesterfield community as a burial plot, and in this God's Acre are stones marking the graves of Na- thaniel, Harlow and Lewis Harlow-the first three generations of the Butler family in Chesterfield. However, there are graves in
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the fourth and fifth generations-the gravestones in plain view from Mrs. Butler's window at the old family homestead. From the beginning this farmstead has remained in the name of Butler, and the cemetery will always perpetuate it.
It was Harlow Butler who planted the first fruit trees in the community-apples and peaches, and there has always been fruit, the parent stock of the peaches still perpetuated there. When his first cabin was erected in the clearing, Harlow Butler hung up some quilts to the doors until after he had planted his orehard, and in 1919 there are three trees still standing that he planted there. It was always fruit and venison on the Butler family dinner table, while most pioneer families only had the wild meats of the forest.
Lewis Harlow Butler married Mary Ellen Valentine, March 31, 1867, and he brought her as a bride to this family homestead, where she relates the family history more than half a eentury later. She is a daughter of the Rev. George W. and Mary Ann (Leist) Valentine. Their children are: Mary Ellen, Samantha, Elmira, Melinda, Ro- setta, Susan and Solomon. Elmira, Melinda and Rosetta all died of diphtheria, Melinda and Rosetta being buried in the same grave. At the time the Valentine family had never heard the words diph- theria or quarantine, and the disease was called putrid sore throat. Beside Mrs. Butler there is one sister, Mrs. Susan Clark of Wauseon, and the brother, Rev. Solomon L. Valentine of the Liberal United Brethren Church, living today.
The ehildhood home of the Valentine family was on Turkey Foot Creek in Henry county, and the burial plot is at Liberty Chapel there. The grandparents, David and Elizabeth Leist, were early settlers, locating their children around them in the Leist family community. but none of the older ones are living therc today- illustrating the truth that the "places that know us now shall soon know us no more forever," a condition that has come true in so many communities.
The immediate posterity of Lewis H. and Mary E. Butler is as follows: Rosella Gertrude, wife of Cramer G. Coehran of Wauseon, has one daughter, Mabel Gertrude.
Herbert, deceased, married Matie Terry. Their children are: Ellis Bryan, who died at three months; Ruth Belle, who died in young womanhood: and Marshall Herbert. He was a volunteer soldier in the war of the nations, and because of his musieal ability he was a bugler in different training camps, and he was "Over There" several months. He is a violinist and frequently plays in orehestras.
Clement Lewis Butler married Harriet Snow, and they live in Denver. Their children are: Helen Alta, Theodore Roosevelt and Constanee. Mr. Butler graduated in musie and is teaching in Den- ver. ITe is a member of the Denver Rifle Team and was fitting himself for a military instruetor when the Armistice ended the World war. He has won a number of medals in marksmanship eontests, the use of firearms being second nature with him. While his father always went to the woods with a gun, he goes to the gun elub shoots, and is frequently winner of first honors. His inclina- tion to sports keeps him in excellent physical condition, health the best investment.
Mary Blanche, wife of James P. Punehes, has always lived at the Butler family homestead with her mother. Their children are:
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Clement Alexander, Edson Lewis, Mary Ethel Viola, Velma Golda, Ruby and James Pirl, Jr. Clement and Ruby died in infancy.
Ethel Elvira died in young womanhood. She graduated from the Wauseon High School and was a teacher. The Butler children were all given common school advantages, and all had musical åbil- ity, their father having been a gifted musician for his opportunity. The vote of the Butler household was with the republican party until the advent of the prohibition party, when L. H. Butler mounted the "water wagon," and from the founding of the National Women's Christian Temperance Union in Cleveland in 1874 Mrs. Butler has been identified with the Fulton county branch of the organization. She has served as president of the Fulton County Union, and still maintains her membership at Oak Shade. For twenty-five years she has been president of the Oak Shade Union, and it has had its part in making Ohio dry, and in creating senti- ment for Sabbath observance in the community.
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