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 7
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When the schoolhouses began to appear, the smaller chil- dren attended in summer, and most of the smaller ones, and the older ones, in winter. They walked miles to school, wore no woolen underclothing, the girls cotton dresses, the boys no overcoats. They carried their dinner in a pail or basket, and often ran most of the way. They studied or not, learned or not, got whipped or not, as they eared to and deserved, but at noon they ate their half-frozen dinners in front of the blazing logs. The only thing the early settlers of Trumbull County had was plenty of firewood.
Neighbors would sometimes gather in schoolhouses where the men held debates. No one any more thought of asking a woman to debate a question than they would have thought of urging her to become a candidate for governor. In some com- munities these debates were on a religious subject. The question of atonement, fore-ordination, sprinkling. immersion and like topics were debated to such a degree that friendships were broken and communities divided and disturbed temporarily. Other questions less serious were "Which is the worst, a scold- ing wife or a smoking chimney?" or "How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?"
And here in this new country, where all started nearly equal, some men became leaders, others were lost sight of. Some aceumulated property and assumed a certain superiority (as most moneyed men are bound to do), while others, struggle as they might, never held to that which they bought and died own- ing nothing, or worse, owing much. Stories are told how some of the original land owners became rich by pressing hard men who owed them, and how the same bits of land came back to them, time after time, with improvements, because payments could not be kept up. The people of old Trumbull County were better than their Connecticut ancestors, in that they did not bring the whipping post and the dueking stool, did not burn witches, and did not tortare, physically, heretics, but in the matter of money they followed closely their progenitors.
One of the early settlers writes that the members of his family were great readers and, being unable to procure many books, read those which they had through repeatedly. Ile him- self read "Pilgrim's Progress" twice without stopping.
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In the beginning they had few pastries and pies. Joshua R. Giddings says : "The first mince pie I ever ate on the Reserve was composed of pumpkin instead of apple, vinegar in the place of wine or cider, bear's meat instead of beef. The whole was sweetened with wild honey instead of sugar, and seasoned with domestic pepper, pulverized, instead of cloves, cimamon and allspice. And never did I taste pastry with a better relish." The pie soon became a necessity in the househokl. In the early winter the housewife would bake fifty or more mince pies and put them in a cold room where they would often freeze, and then they were brought out as occasion needed and warmed. The woman who made the oven of bricks once had it full of pies, cooling. when the Indians came in the night and carried them off.
Cooking was interfered with in the early time in the spring by the leeks. which rendered the milk almost undrinkable. The remedy for this was the serving of onions at meals, since one bite of an onion disguised the taste of the leek.
Women not only were the cooks and housekeepers, as we have seen, but they spun cotton, occasionally mixing it with a linen which they always spun for summer clothes. They not only spum the flax, but hetcheled it. They carded the wool, spun it, wove it, and made it into garments. Some of the early men and boys wore suits of buckskin which, over a flax shirt, made up a full-dress suit. One writer says that once when a pair of scissors was lost, his mother cut out a buckskin suit with a broad-ax. Another woman cut wool from a black sheep. carded. spun, wove it, and made a suit in three days for a sudden occasion.
There were three occupations open to women, and even these were not open practically the first few years of pioneer life here. They were teaching, tailoring, and housework, and the remuneration was exceedingly small. One of the earliest teachers (all were paid by the patrons of the school) received, in compensation, calves, corn, a bureau, the latter being still preserved by her family. One man paid her in a load of corn. another by carrying this corn to Painesville and exchanging it for cotton yarn, while the third, a woman, wove the yarn into a bedspread. This spread is preserved with the Imrean.
Women were good nurses and in many cases they worked side by side with a doctor. Again and again do we read of women walking through snow and cold to be with other women at the birth of children or to encourage them during the illness
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of members of their family. These women often rode miles horseback: sometimes they were so helpful that the doctor begged them to help him and carried them behind him on his horse. There are authentic cases of women not only going in the cold on horseback, but swimming streams and arriving at the destination with frozen clothes. Occasionally, a woman would be more capable or more ambitious than her husband or her neighbors, and by extra hours of weaving would pay the taxes on the property, or make a payment on the principal. Girls of fourteen and fifteen sometimes became expert spinners and weavers. One in particular was able to weave double cover- lets at that age. There were no poorhouses, nor hospitals, and women, suddenly bereaved of husbands, were taken into other families, while men, losing wives, were looked after by the women of the neighborhood. Children left alone were cared for in the families as if they belonged there. Hardly a family existed which did not have attached to it a dependent or unfortunate person. Some women, feeling that they had a right to a certain percent of the earnings, demanded a calf or a sheep, which as it grew gave them a little revenue; or asked for a small portion of a crop from which they had their "pin" money.
In 1814 it took seventy-two bushels of corn to buy a woman's dress.
Under the hardships and exposures, with the long hours of work and the large families, women died early, and most men had two wives. Occasionally a father and mother would both die and leave the children to care for themselves. Several cases are given in early records and letters of girls who reared their little brothers and sisters in their primitive cabins. One such girl, eleven years old, kept house for three younger children and was herself married at sixteen to a boy aged nineteen. The community watched over these young folks and called them "the babes in the woods." They had six girls and seven boys. Fami- lies were large in those days, but, although people had many children, the percent which grew to mature years is so small as to be startling.
When churches began to be built women contributed in work. not only in furnishing but even in raising the building. One woman solicited small donations of wool from people of the vicinage and wove a carpet for the church.
Although women spun and wove the clothes which they and their families wore, even to the men's caps, they did not make
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shoes. Therefore, when shoes wore ont, they sometimes went without them. In any case, they were careful of them. In the "Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve" many times shoes are mentioned as being most desired belongings. Women who walked to Warren from Howland put theirs on under the elm tree in front of Harmon Austin's residence. Those who came from Lordstown, if they came to market, stopped on the bank of the river for this same purpose, and if to church, they sometimes waited until they got nearer the meeting house. In one town- ship we read that it was not an unusual thing to see women sitting on the church steps putting on their shoes and stockings. In another place we read: "We always put on our shoes in the preacher's barn." Sometimes a woman would have two pairs of shoes, or two or three dresses, in which case she gladly loaned them to her less fortunate neighbor.
A woman in Mecca, who was exceedingly enterprising. raised silk worms and spun silk to get extra money.
Many of the women were devoted Christians and traveled many miles on Sunday by horseback, sometimes taking two chil- dren with them, to attend services. These same women allowed little or no work to be done on Sunday. Cows, of course, must be milked. and stock fed, but no cooking was permitted. Beds were aired all day and made up after sundown.
Although people did their duty, there was more sorrow then than now, more discomfort then than now, less freedom then than now. There was less open expression of love, and more repressed feeling of all kind. Women were tired and worn ont, and, in many cases, scolded. Men were sometimes over- bearing, sometimes drunken, and occasionally cruel. A very nice woman living in the early days of old Trumbull County, when quite young, lost her husband. She continued to reside for a little time in ber lonesome cabin, but later was induced to marry a man of the neighborhood who had several children. After a time he became very abusive and she was afraid he would take her life. Because of superstition be was afraid to go into a graveyard after dusk. The only place, therefore, that she was absolutely safe was in the cemetery, and many a night she slept in peace on her first Imsband's grave.
Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Frank E. Hutchins, in writing of the early life, says: "The principal recreations for men were hunting, fishing and trapping. while for the women-well, poor sonls. they didn't have any."
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Mr. Il. K. Morse, of Poland, says he has a feeling of sadness every time he thinks of the women pioneers. His stepmother, of whom he was very fond, was the hardest worker they had on the place. and when he tells what the men did each day this is a strong statement. His grandfather and his father were energetic, resourceful, enterprising aud diligent men. Mr. Morse tells of their every-day table reaching clear across the room. twenty-five people sitting down at the first table, while sometimes it was half filled the second time. The mother had help, of course, but what were two or three pairs of hands with one head, to manage such a party as this. He says they ate their breakfast abont four o'clock and their supper late. Often the women were still at work at eleven o'clock at night.
Another gentleman, two years younger than Mr. Morse, in making a speech at a pioneer remion, said he never remembered going to bed as long as he lived at home that his mother was not working, and no matter how early he arose she was always at work ahead of him. A dozen men's voices shout: Here! Here! llere !
The first comers among women suffered cold, hunger and loneliness. Their followers had more comforts, but work was increased. Even the third generation put in long, laborious hours.
One ambitions woman who wanted to make a rag carpet and whose duties kept ber busy all day, used to rise at three o'clock and go quietly onto the porch, where she sewed an hour and a half before the men of her family (she had no daughters) bestirred themselves. In the afternoon she again had about an hour and a half on three days in the week, and at this time in summer she sat in an entryway, but nearby she kept a camphor bottle which she was obliged to smell now and then to keep herself awake. As she sewed great balls of cherry colored rags which were to be striped with darker red and black, she would say gently, "I must be getting old; I'm so sleepy." Eighteen hours of work and six hours of sleep day after day might have explained it. As finished, the carpet was beautiful, and when the men of the family walked thereon with muddy boots she would upbraid them. The husband would say, "Well, it beats things all hollow the way mother jaws about that carpet. A person might think it cost something." Cost something!
Among the early troubles of the housewife was the getting of the material for bread-making. Mills were far distant; at
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first, in Pennsylvania, then Youngstown, Warren and Cleveland. Many families utilized a hollowed stump with a long pole from which a stone was suspended for grinding corn and grain. The hand mills which came later required two hours' grinding to supply one person with food for one day. Sometimes wheat would get wet, or was not properly harvested, and bread woukd run despite the greatest efforts of the housewife. Baking powder was unknown, and sour milk and saleratus was used for light-breads; the latter was made by the housewife herself from ashes. The bread was that known as "salt-rising" or "milk- rising," and required no hop yeast. This would ferment too long and spoil, and the emptins would have to be made again. As cows became more nierons, the churning and cheese- making grew heavier. There was no ice in summer, and churn- ing would sometimes ocenpy half a day. Cheese was made in huge tubs or hollowed logs on the floor, and we wonder how women ever conld stoop over and stir enrd by the hour as they were obliged to do. They dried the wild berries, and later the apples, peaches and other fruits; they rendered their lard, dried and corned their beef, put in piekle their pork, and when winter closed down, after 1800, almost every cabin had provisions enough to keep the family from want. and most of this had been prepared by the housewife.
Bears were very plenty in this country up to 1815. After that their numbers lessened. They were probably the least ferocious of any of the wild animals here, and yet so long have we thought of bears as devonring people that almost everybody who has ever written anything of Trumbull County has related bear stories in connection with the pioneer settler. These ani- mals loving berries and honey, occasionally carried off pigs, but as a rule ran away from men, women and children. Children were always afraid of them, but some women were not. Mar- garet Cohen Walker, of Champion, seeing a bear near the house, chased it to a nearby tree, when it jumped into the hollow. Quickly she returned to the honse, got a shovel of coal, built a fire, and burned both bear and tree. A woman in Braceville working in her kitchen, was greatly startled by seeing a bear jump into her room and run under the bed. It was being chased by some farmers from Nelson.
The free use of liquor was more or less distasteful to all early women and to some men. We know of some early belles who deplored the fact that some men were so drunk at balls that
HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
they could not dance. In isolated spots the women took a stand against whiskey and wine as early as 1805. A man, at the solicitation of his wife, determined to do away with whiskey at a barn raising. When the Imsband gave out the word, the men who were ready for work declared they would do nothing without liquor. The wife promised them coffee and an extra meal, but it was no use. The husband was just about to give in when the wife said: "Just as you like, gentlemen; you can go without whiskey or we can go without the barn." They went away. A few days later part of them, with others, raised the building without whiskey, and consequently without a fight or accident. Wine was always served at weddings. The first women who refused it on those occasions were considered as insulting to the hostess, and they "were treated rather coldly by their convivial friends." Soon a few men realized how harmful the habit was becoming and refused to serve it. One of these men was Mr. Morse, of Poland; another, Ephraim Brown, of Bloomfield; and Jas. Heaton, of Niles. These men had to endure much harsh criticism.
So the shacks of bark became the log hut; the hut became the cabin, the cabin had two stories, and later was covered with clapboards and painted red or white. The chestnut stump was supplanted by open fire inside, the fireplace then had a crane, later came the brick oven, followed by the stove with the elevated oven, and then the range. The laundry was moved from the ereek to the porch or the back room, and now the windmill pumps the water, and the windmill or electricity runs the washing ma- chine. The men went to the woods for meat, while now the meat man takes it to the most isolated farm in Trumbull County, while in the towns it is brought to your kitchen ready for the coals.
Then, people after weary miles of travel camped alone in the wilderness, or at hamlets as the blowing of a horn heralded their approach the entire settlement turned out to welcome them, while now farmers can ride their bieyeles over fine roads to near- by railway stations, go to the county seat and pay their taxes, sell a erop and be back for dinner. Then women longed for a few hours of visiting; now, they can have conversations over their own wire without having to exert themselves at all. And who knows how much of the prosperity of our time is due to these frugal, courageous forefathers and foremothers who sowed so carefully ?
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MAIN STREET. Showing the old Democrat office and the homestead of Mrs. Charlotte Smith. This from a painting by Richard Rawdon, and now owned by Miss Franc Potter.
CHAPTER AL.
EARLY SETTLERS OF WARREN .- QUINBY .- STORER .- MCMAHON .- - COST OF PARK .-- LANE .-- C'ASE .- KING .- LEAVITT .- FAMILIES OF THESE MEN .- ADGATE .- EARLY HOUSES .- COUNTY WITHOUT LAW .- FORMATION OF COUNTY.
We have seen how, in the two years following the appear- ance of the surveyors, people came into the Western Reserve making homes and really blazing the way for the army which afterwards was to follow in squads, companies, and battalions. We can no longer follow personally these settlers, but must be- gin to take up the communities, the embryo towns.
The settlements in the northern part of the region did not grow very fast. Although pioneers were at Youngstown and Cleveland early and abont the same time, the latter did not grow at all and the former grew slowly. In 1801 Warren was by far the largest settlement on the Reserve. We will therefore take up its story.
In 1798 Ephraim Quinby (his grandson, George Quinby, now resides in Warren) and Richard Storer, residents of Wash- ington county, Pennsylvania, having heard of the new terri- tory opened up to purchasers, came on horseback to "have a look." It was fall, the ereeks were swollen, and the trip a hard one. They speak of Yellow Creek in Poland, the woods beyond Salt Springs, more dense woods, and then number 4. As we have seen, people had been at Salt Springs, traders had passed back and forth through number 4, Indians had cleared spots of land there, but no white settlers were yet established. A hale old fel- low of abont sixty years, known as old Merriman, lived in close companionship with the Indians, but he was in no sense a rosi- dent. James MeMahon was a "squatter." Ile had a wife, two or three children, and lived in a sort of a shack which stood where the Second National Bank now stands. Early settlers do
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not seem to have respected him very highly. As related in the last chapter, John Young had built a cabin back of the present Wanamaker residence at the south end of the present Main street bridge, and here Quinby and Storer took up their resi- dence. They were not the first to ocenpy this place when Mr. Young was absent. Men who were trading with the Indians and the whites at Detroit, planned to stay all night, or several nights in this building, going and coming from Pittsburg. There were several clearings here then, one covering about twenty acres where the lower part of the present "Flats" is, and some sixty acres on the land so long known as the Fusselman farm. Al- though this was not a very pleasant part of the year the two men seemed to be well satisfied and each decided on the purchase of property. Mr. Quinby selected 441 acres of land in Lots 28 and 35. This really included a goodly part of what is now Warren. running sonth and west. For this he paid $3.69 per acre, so that our present court-house yard cost him about $16.00. Mr. Quinby and Mr. Storer went home for the winter, and returned about the middle of April, 1799. This is the real date of the settlement of Warren. Aside from Mr. Quinby and Mr. Storer, William Fen- ton, wife and child, Francis Carlton and his children, John, Will- iam. Margaret and Peter, came with them. We presume Mrs. Carlton accompanied Francis, since it is not at all likely that he would bring his children into the wilderness without a mother. Her name is not mentioned. William Fenton and his family lived in the cabin where McMahon had lived, the latter moving into the southwest corner of Howland. As no streets were laid ont, as the whole level of the land has been changed, it is not absolutely certain whether this cabin stood where the Second National Bank now stands, or on the river bank back of the present Byard & Voit store. At any rate, it is not far distant from either. Wherever it stood, it was the first building erected in what is now the business portion of the town. Mr. Storer put up a cabin on the okl Fusselman ground. and Mr. Quinby erected a log building about where the Main Street Erie Station stands. This dwelling had two rooms, bedroom and kitchen. A third room was raised during this first summer but it was not fur- nished until the next year and was used as a jail.
Ephraim Quinby was born in New Jersey in 1766; married Ammi Blackmore of Brownsville in 1795; settled in Washington county and founded Warren in 1799 as above stated. He was a man of great integrity, interested in the prosperity of the new
MAIN STREET, Showing old engine house and site where city hall now stands.
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country and connected with all of the early history of Warren. That this founder and philanthropist should have been forgot- ten by the descendants of his companions is almost inexcusable. lle gave land upon which the court house stands, upon which the first jail and the first city building were built. the whole traet that skirts the river from the west side of the Market Street bridge to the Quinby homestead land, and yet not one mom- ment, park, bronze tablet, or street, except a small, unimportant one, bears his name. The present Tod avenue ran through his farm and should have been called Quinby street. Some time ago an effort was made to change Parkman street to Quinby. People residing on that street objected. They were new people and had not been taught by the press and the older citizens who Mr. Quinby was or how much their town was indebted to him. For many years the land west of the river. in the neighborhood of West Market street, was known as Quinby Hill, but even that term has been obliterated by "the West Side." It would seem exceedingly appropriate to call the land between the river and Main street, upon which the city hall and the monument stand, Quinby Park.
After Mr. Quinby took up his residence in Warren he had eight children, Elizabeth, William, Mary G., James, Warren, Ephraim, Charles A. and George. Anni Quinby died in 1833. Nancy, the oldest daughter, married Joseph Larwell, of Wooster, and lived to be more than a hundred years old. Mary married Mr. Spellman and lived at Wooster. She was the second child born in Warren township. Elizabeth, who married Dr. Heaton, lived and died in Warren. William was recorder of Trumbull Conty and a merchant; lived all his life in Warren. James was a merchant, and lived in New Lisbon. George lived in Woos- ter and acquired a great fortune. Warren and Samuel lived in Warren, as did also Charles. Ephraim Quinby was not only a real estate dealer and a farmer, but an associate judge. He was one of the original stockholders in the Western Reserve Bank. Hle and his family were members of the early Baptist elinreh, and but for his infhience and that of his family comec- tions this church might have gone out of existence.
Ephraim Quinby's children and his grandchildren mar- ried into some of the oldest families in the county, and he bas today a large number of collateral descendants. llis son Samuel was a very prosperous man and occupied the same place in the conmimity as his father had before
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him. He was a member of several of the early business houses, was publisher of the Trump of Fame, was the receiver of monies derived from the sale of public lands, and when the land office for this district was at Wooster, Ohio, he lived there. He returned to Warren in 1840. He was secretary and treasurer of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal and was director of the Western Reserve Bank in 1817. He was always interested in polities, was state senator in '44 and '45 and again in '62 and '63. In 1819 he married Lney Potter of Steubenville, Ohio. He had two daughters, Elizabeth ( who married William Stiles, Luey Stiles Cobb being her daughter, and Elizabeth Cobb. her grand- daughter) and Abagail Haymaker, who is still living in Wooster. Mrs. Lucy Quinby died and Mr. Quinby in 1847 married Emma Bennett Brown, a widow, and a sister of Mrs. C. W. Tyler, who was the widow of Calvin Sutliff, and Mrs. Emily Bennett Hutchins.
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