USA > Ohio > Trumbull County > A twentieth century history of Trumbull County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 41
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There were Indians in the township of Fowler when the white men arrived, but there was nothing unusual about them either in their lives or in the way which they treated the white men. They made salt which they said they boiled from water obtained in Johnston. If this were so, it seems strange that
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no settlers later found any brackish water in that vicinity. They sold their product to Colonel Hayes. Salt at this time was often as high as twenty-five dollars a barrel.
In 1806 there were living in the township the families of Levi Foote, Lemuel Barnes, J. Fisher and John Morrow.
Although the Fowlers were among the early settlers, few if any of their descendants lived out their lives there. Two of Abner's children came to that country, but one moved to Brook- field, and the other died in Hartford. Abner Fowler's mother, who was the widow of Asa Foote before her marriage, was so remarkable a woman as to be claimed by the historians of Vienna, Fowler, and Hartford. She lived to be one hundred years old and was a most remarkable woman in every way. When in Fowler, she shot a wolf, and seemed to have. in every way, the courage of a backwoodsman. Several facts in regard to her life will be found in the Hartford chapter.
The year 1806 marked the arrival of seven families from Connecticut. Among these were Elijah Tyrrell and wife, her three brothers ( Meeker) and their families, and Wakeman Silli- man and wife, all of whom became well known in the history of Trumbull County. They settled in the part of the township which was afterwards called "Tyrrell Hill." In fact, the women of the company stayed at the house of Joel Humiston in Vienna, while the men went on to Fowler to prepare some kind of quarters for them. As these houses were built near the Vienna line, the men were really not far separated from their families. This little community soon had a schoolhouse, and Esther Jennings was the teacher, Wakeman Silliman offer- ing his house for this school. Elijah Tyrrell's house was of unusual grandeur for that time. It was split logs, it had an upper floor, and also a door with wooden hinges. Whereas many of the early settlers were content to eat from boards or chests, his house had crude tables made with cross legs. There was not a nail nor a spike used in the construction of this house or its furniture. Everything was made of wood, and the logs of course were chinked with mud. It was around this then comfortable home that friends and relatives gathered. Mrs. Tyrrell had dishes and spoons, few in number, to be sure, but soon one of the Meekers built a little shop, put up his lathe, and then he made wooden dishes and wooden spoons and forks, so there was plenty to be had.
Elijah Tyrrell's father, Asahel, was a soldier in the war
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of the Revolution, and Elijah was in the war of 1812. He was by trade a blacksmith, and had a shop in Fowler. In fact, the men who settled about Tyrrell Hill were all mechanical and this corner of the township was attractive to the pioneer. Later, when Abijah Tyrrell came west and went into the shop with Asahel, the son of Elijah, their place was one worthy of any manufacturers of this district. They made knives, chains, plows, hoes, axes, scythes, etc. The Tyrrell family made the first scythes manufactured in Trumbull County, and sold all they could make.
We have seen that the first birth in the township was that of Lydia Foote.
Abner Fowler was the first man to die.
Abner Fowler Jr. and Esther Jennings were the first to marry.
James Fowler built the first frame house; Daniel Meeker, the first sawmill.
Elijah Tyrrell was the first blacksmith, and he also had the first cider mill. In 1819 he manufactured ninety- six barrels of cider.
Isaac Smith was Fowler's first undertaker. He was also an early postmaster and justice of the peace.
The first justice of the peace was John F. Kingsley, who served fifteen years.
The first doctor was Moses R. Porter.
The first merchant was Elijah Barnes, who kept store at Tyrrell Hill.
Caleb Leonard was an early mail carrier on the War- ren-Ashtabula route.
Among the early families settling in Fowler, well known in other parts of the country, were the Morrows. When they first arrived in Fowler they had no house, and slept in their wagons. John, as we have said, was the pioneer. Ilis son Robert was the father of James, who married the oldest daugh- ter of Dwight Chapman of Hartford, and of Martha, the first wife of Edwin Bennett, of Warren. Miss Emma Bennett, of Warren, is a great-granddaughter of John Morrow. Sarah Morrow, daughter of John, and wife of William Jones, was among the early teachers.
Ephraim Baldwin was also one of the substantial pioneers of Fowler. He married Celestia Wheeler, who came to Fowler
HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
about 1803. They had ten children, seven girls and three boys. Mr. Baldwin used to take the cheese which Mrs. Baldwin made to Ashtabula and other places on the lake, and exchange it for merchandise. Mrs. Baldwin was left, while he was on these trips, alone with this great brood of children. Besides her own, she cared for two orphan grandchildren. She used to entertain these two little folks telling them of the early times in Fowler, how the Indians used to come to her father's home and how she used to hide behind her mother's skirts because she was so afraid of them. The children and grandchildren of Ephraim Baldwin have been very numerous and a majority of them lived in Trumbull County. In most cases they have been connected by marriage with other pioneer families. Lucy married A. R. Silliman (whose mother was Naomi Tyrrell.) They had a large family of children. The oldest. Alice, married one of the Siglers, of Fowler, and now lives in Cleveland. Mary married C. C. Clawson, of an old Trumbull County family and who at present is county auditor. Olive married a Swager, likewise of Trumbull Connty, and Carrie married Mr. Fred Stone, the son of Roswell Stone, a very important man in Trumbull County's early history. Darius Baldwin, a son of Ephraim, was for many years a merchant in Fowler, and Henry C. married Justine Iddings, whose family on both sides were among the very first settlers of Warren township.
Samuel Doud, with his wife, Lois Garrett, in 1822 came west with their eleven children. They had a wagon drawn by three horses, which held their provisions, goods, ete., while Mrs. Dond and her younger children occupied another cart. Mr. Doud and some of the older children walked most of the way. It took them three weeks to reach Fowler, and here Mrs. Doud and the family stayed two years, while Mr. Doud went on to Vienna and cleared up land, to which the family finally moved. He died in 1849 and Mrs. Doud returned to Fowler, where she spent her last days. Mrs. Dond had a hard experi- ence, without comforts, and having been used to a comfortable home in the east, she became so awfully homesick that they feared she would not live. Accompanied by her husband and a Mr. and Mrs. Nichols, leaving the older children to care for the younger, they set out for a trip to New England. They found their parents dead, and so many changes having occurred, they realized their home was really gone, and returned satisfied with the conditions under which they lived. A granddaughter
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of Mrs. Dond, a daughter of Adeline, was one of the very active elderly women of Fowler, a few years ago.
Mrs. C. D. Hayes, of Tyrrell Hill, is responsible for the statement that Emily Beach, the daughter of Dr. Harry Beach, was so small at the time of her birth that they could slip a tea-cup over her head, but that she grew with such marked rapidity that she was a woman of more than ordinary size. She first married Mr. Trowbridge, and then Ephraim Post, who was for years one of the substantial citizens of Cortland.
Among the carly families of Fowler was that of the Aldermans. Many of their descendants are now in Trumbull County. Timothy had a daughter, Dorcas, who was the mother of L. W. Sanford, a former treasurer of Trumbull County and now residing in Warren. Dorcas had five other children aside from L. W., but he, and Noble F. of Pittsburg, are the only two now living. Lyman Alderman had a son Lewis. Lewis was twice married ; first to Annie Hutchins, who had a danghter May. The latter is a dressmaker residing in Warren. Lewis' second wife was Margaret Butts, whose son Homer was possibly the best known of the Aldermans of his generation. He married Ida, the danghter of Darius Bald- win, and thus two Fowler families were united. George Alderman married Mary Greenwood of the well known Green- wood family, and their youngest child, Homer (a family name), married Gertrude Campbell. This marriage united two of Trumbull County's oldest families also. George Alderman died in 1871, and his wife Mary carried on the farm for some time very successfully. She died the middle of Inne, 1909.
The people of Fowler have always kept a record of the fact that at the time of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, the dis- charge of the cannon was plainly heard there.
In the general history of Trumbull County the author dwelt at length on ax marks found in trees which showed them to be several hundred years old, and marked by men living here before any of the Connecticut Land Company appeared. Most of these marks were in the upper part of the Western Reserve, although there were occasionally those at Canfield and other portions of the south. Elijah Tyrrell in his diary says that in 1821 he felled a tree which had two hundred and five annular rings. This would make the tree standing before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. Some scientists now tell us that occa- sionally trees make two ring growths a year.
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The deprivation and the experiences of the first settlers of Fowler were almost identical with those of other townships. There was the same spinning, the same cooking, the same Indians, the same making of garments, woven and spun by women, as well as the buekskin trousers; the same clearing of land, felling of trees, raising of stock and organization of the connty.
Rev. Joseph Badger is supposed to have preached the first sermon in Fowler in 1807. No early records, however, have been kept of the first churches. Among the first was a Congre- gational church. It is presumed that when the congregation was organized, it was on the union plan. Money was raised and a honse built in 1836, on condition that other denominations might hold services in it. This organization disbanded after a time because there were not enough people to attend it. Simon Aldrich, Charles Theker, Henry Sanders, John Morrow and Carrie Barnes, for the sum of twenty-five dollars, purchased the lot on which this house stood. Gideon Waterhouse and his wife Phoebe made the deed. The title was transferred to the Methodist Episcopal church in August, 1873, and since that time the property has belonged to this denomination.
In the very early days of Fowler, as early as 1815, a Methodist class was formed of Rev. Alfred Bronson and his wife, Abner Fowler and his wife, Newman Tucker and his wife. and Charles Tucker. Mr. Bronson had settled in Tyrrell Cor- ners in 1812. He later took up the property at the corners which Mr. Stewart had cleared of timber, and upon which he was about to raise a house, when he suddenly left and never came back. Soon after the formation of this class, Rev. Joseph Davis, a local preacher, his wife and several members of the Barnes family, joined. Their first church was erected south of the center and was a small, plain affair. There is preaching every other Sunday at this church. There have been some members of the United Brethren church in Fowler and they had a church in the western part of the town, at Fowler Ridge. Services are occasionally held there by other denominations.
The Christian church built a house for services in 1852. Although the congregation has not been large, they have gen- erally held services since. This church is on the east side of the public square, and the Rev. Mr. Derthick, of Cortland, preaches there every other Sunday.
CHAPTER XXXVII .- GREENE.
CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS .- THE WAKEFIELDS, HARRINGTONS AND OTHER PIONEERS .- CHARACTER OF FIRST SETTLERS .- PIO-
NEER INCIDENTS .- EPITAPHS .- R. C. RICE'S REMINIS- CENCES .- FORMATION OF THE TOWNSHIP .- CALVINIST PIONEERS .- FIRST CHURCHES,-A BEAR STORY. ATTENDING THE CORWIN MEETING .- THE SCHOOLS OF GREENE. THE HARRING- TON SCHOOL.
In the allotment of land of the Western Reserve Company, Joseph Howland secured the township of Greene, and Gardner Greene, of Massachusetts, secured the township of Howland. They afterwards exchanged, and named the townships accord- ingly. Mr. Greene sold one-half of the township to a Mr. Parkman. This township was the last settled in the county, litigation delaying the sale. So far as we know there is no deed signed by Greene himself on record in Trumbull County. This trouble was finally settled in 1843 or '44. The part sold to Parkman was the east half of the township.
In the early part of 1800 Canada offered 160 acres of land to any man who would settle on it, and a good many people from Vermont and other New England states accepted this offer. When the war of 1812 came, and England exacted of the emigrants that they become British subjects or leave the country, most of them abandoned their newly acquired farms and came to northeastern Ohio.
Dr. John Harrington, of Brookfield, Vermont, who married a sister of old Mr. Wakefield, died leaving six children, and one of them, William, was sent away from home and bound ont until he was twenty years old. As the boy grew, he realized his master was unfair with him, since he had promised to educate him, but instead had allowed him to go to school only two months. At eighteen he bought his remaining time and went to visit an Unele Joseph, in New Hampshire. Many years
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after, when Judge Glidden and Mr. Harrington were associated in business in Warren, Judge Glidden learned, while on a visit east, that this great-nucle of Mr. Harrington's was his grand- father.
One of William Harrington's sisters had been among the people who had moved into Canada with the homesteaders. Therefore, young William went into her neighborhood and began work. He immediately showed executive ability, and was employed by men in the lumber business, and later had charge of a large body of French-Canadian workmen. He learned to speak French. Seeing the War of 1812 approach- ing, he sold out his interests and went back to Brookfield, Ver- mont, where his mother was living with his older brother, John. At this time there was great excitement in New England about the lands in Ohio, and the Harringtons talked of migrating to this country.
In the meantime the families of Rice, Merritt, Bartlett and Crane, having the western fever, had settled in western Pennsylvania. They, likewise, sent back word of the fertility of that country, so that finally John Harrington and his wife, William Harrington and his mother, with some others, rigged np a sled, sold off their goods and started for Ohio. When they got to Buffalo they found just a few houses, blacksmith shop, grocery, and a tavern. They also found the snow nearly gone, and they felt sure they could not reach their destination by sled. They were greatly troubled as to what to do, when the Buffalo people told them that many of the emigrants used the ice on the lake. They therefore set out that way. They made all possible speed, since the ice, already covered with water, was fast melting. After some travel, seeing a creek, they decided to run to shore. Their horses, when turned toward land, set off at a furions pace and never stopped until their load was safe, although they had to pull up quite an embank- ment. The family felt that they owed their deliverance to "Old Baldy" and "Old Eagle" and cared for them tenderly thereafter. What was true of other pioneers was also true of this party. They no sooner were out of one trouble until they were in another. Although they were safely ashore, they did not know whether they were in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New York. There was not a sign of life anywhere. Leaving the women protected by the sled and blankets, they set out to find shelter if possible. When they had gone five or six miles, what
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was their astonishment to come upon their neighbors and rela- tives who had moved from their own section to Canada and then into western Pennsylvania. They retraced their steps for those left behind, and when night came down they were all safe under the roof of friends. This was as remarkable an instance as any recorded in this history.
The question of migration to Ohio was being discussed among these families, and finally Uncle John Wakefield, Eph- raim Rice, Roswell Bartlett, and John and William Harrington came to Trumbull County. They hunted np General Perkins, who they learned was the land agent, and he told them that Greene, which then included Gustavus and Kinsman, was the one township not settled, and advised them to take this. They therefore proceeded to Greene, selected their lots, and Mr. John Wakefield and William Harrington came back to Mr. Perkins, when they were told that they each must deposit $50. Mr. Wakefield had no money. William Harrington had $93, and General Perkins allowed him to pay this on both lots. The five settlers then went back to Greene and built five cabins. All five would work on one cabin until it was done. When these buildings were completed the men returned to Pennsylvania, secured their families and brought them on.
The first settlers in Greene were Lydia Wheelock Merritt and her son, about twenty years old, Ichabod, and a younger son, Aaron. They arrived in this township on an April night. They made a bedstead of poles and bark, and upon this Mrs. Merritt, then about sixty. slept, with the stars for a canopy. The next day the Wakefield family, and soon the rest of the party, appeared.
The pioneer life in this township then began. Up to 1816 not one bit of timber had been out, not a clearing had been made, nor a road; in fact, the township was in just the condi- tion that the other townships were in 1799 and 1800. These old settlers were Calvinists and very strict in regard to relig- ions observances. They were a fine people, and lived like one family. C. A. Harrington is authority for the statement that of all those early families, not one child went wrong, so far as he can recall. Today the Merritts, the Rices, the Harringtons, and so on, are the families influential in Greene. Ephraim Rice was a very peculiar man, rather "sot" in his way. He had two brothers, David and Jacob.
The first child born in Greene was Deborah Harring-
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ton. Edwin Wakefield, born in 1818, was the first male child. He afterwards became a remarkable minister of the Disciple congregation and was the father of E. B. Wakefield, professor in Hiram College.
The first settlers in Greene erected their honses along the east branch of Mosquito creek, but after a time the county built a road east of this pioneer road, and when the new houses went up the settlers abandoned the creek road.
The boys living along the Mosquito creek used to trap minks and muskrats. For the former they got 121% cents apiece, for the latter 25 cents. Now these same minks would bring many times this sum, while muskrats could not be sold at any price.
David Rice, who came to Greensburg in 1818, traveled 1,700 miles in thirty days in a horse and sleigh. He erected a grist mill on Mosquito creek. It was a log mill. and the mill of Rice & Martin in Greensburg was the outcome of that mill.
The early cooking, like that of other townships, was done in the fireplace, either before the eoals, in the ashes, or hanging from the crane. And people visited there as they did in other townships, stopping a day or two, and the occasion was one of hilarity. One time such a party arrived at the home of William Harrington, and just as they appeared a peculiar character in the neighborhood (Mapes), who was a hunter, wandering around in the woods, wearing a coonskin cap with a tail hanging down in front of each ear and one behind, dropped in. Mr. Harrington asked him if he did not think he could go out and shoot a turkey. He replied he thought he could. He soon returned with the fowl, and in a short time it was dressed. stuffed and hung by a string in front of the fire, to roast. It then became the duty of young Charles to sit and turn it so it would be browned all around. Young Charles was not infat- uated with this job, and he noticed that by twisting the string pretty tight it would untwist and twist up again, and allow him to take a little leisure. He had just discovered this won- derful invention and was working it out when his mother, who was overseeing the cooking, informed him that she could not have grease splattering all over everything, so he had to go back to his despised task, slowly turning until he was nearly roasted himself.
It was the habit of the mothers of Greene in the early spring to call up their children on Sunday morning and give them a dose of picra, and every Monday morning a teaspoonful
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of sulphur. This was entirely regardless of the fact whether they needed this medicine.
When the mother of William Harrington died people said, "Greene now has no doctor." She was a spry, capable little woman, who had learned some things about drugs from her husband, and more from practice in a new country. Hardly a child was born in Greene during her lifetime that she was not at the bedside of the mother. When she grew older and not quite so fleet of foot, her boys bought her a horse, on which she used to ride at a lively pace whenever she was needed.
The first frame house built in Greene was that of William Harrington. At that time whiskey was always used at the rais- ing of any building. Mr. Isaac Morey, the grandfather of Miss Jennie Bartlett, of Warren, had the contraet for building this honse. Mr. William Harrington decided that he would have no whiskey at the raising. Unele John Wakefield was making the pins which fastened the beam when the folks arrived for the raising. They were informed that there would be no whiskey served, but they would have plenty of food. Thereupon the men congregated in a spot and appointed a committee to consult Mr. Harrington. He repaired to the place where John Wake- field was making the pins and said that there was a "strike" on. While they were consulting what to do, a man appointed for the purpose came and requested that, since they were not to be furnished whiskey, Mr. Harrington would allow them to buy it for themselves at the store. Immediately John Wakefield spoke np and said, "If there is whiskey, I won't make the pins." Whiskey was therefore forbidden, and the men dropped their work, went a little distance in a field and began to play ball. There were left four or five old men, some boys, and two young men. Mr. Morey said it was not possible to raise the great logs which then were used for the frame with that help. Those present, however, disagreed with him, and the building was raised. The strange part of it was that a little later the chair- man of the committee demanding whiskey became a temperance man and afterwards an ardent Prohibitionist. One great joy of a radical is that he lives to see the conservative come to his side.
One of the early characters of Greene was Bazaleel Waste. He played the fiddle for the amusement of his friends, and was a shoemaker. He would bring his kit of tools into a corner of a kitchen, where the leather for the family shoes was piled
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up, and here he would stay, boarding in the family, until all the members were shod.
One of the interesting places in Greene is the old cemetery. A man named Isaac Sirrine went up to Ashtabula county and bronght back his own tombstone, marked, except the date of his death. He said he composed the following original epitaph. Int this is too familiar to the readers of this history for them not to know where it came from: "Here at last the old man lies; Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he's gone and how he fares, Nobody knows and nobody cares." After he died his brother James, on reading this, felt rather sorry, and ordered the following ent beneath the verse: "But his brother James and his wife, Emmaline, they were his friends all of the time." This same Isaac Sirrine had three daughters who died of con- sumption. This is their epitaph: "Strange as it seems, but still 'tis so, Here lies three daughters all in a row ; All cut down right in their prime, The daughters of I. and M. Sirrine." There was a very nice old man living in Greene who had an enormous wen on his head. It was so noticeable that none could see him withont remembering him. This is the epitaph upon his gravestone: "Our father lies beneath the sod, His soul has gone up to his God; We never more shall hear his tread. Nor see the wen upon his head."
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