USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > History of Ashtabula County, Ohio > Part 47
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MAJOR LEVI GAYLORD.
Leri Gaylord, well known in the early history of northern Ohio as " Major Gaylord." was horn March 30, 1760, in New Cambridge | now Bristol , Hartford county. Connecticut.
He was the oldest son of Captain Levi Gaylord and Lois Barnes Gaylord, and grandson of Benjamin Gaylord and Jerusha Frisbie Gaylord. for many years (about 1720 to 1742 residents of Wallingford, Connecticut.
The Gaylords (written also Gaillard, from the French mode, and sometimes Gaylard) now living in the United States are chiefly descendants of French Protestants who, in consequence of cruel and long-continued religious persecutions, left their pleasant homes in Normandy, about the year 1551, and took refuge in more tolerant England. From the period of the Lutheran Reformation they have usually been sturdy Protestants. doing their own thinking, both in religious and political matters.
The subject of our notice was a lineal descendant of Deacon William Gaylord, who, with his family. came to America from the city of Exeter, England, or its vicinity, at the beginning of the year 1630, and who is also the ancestor of a majority of the Gaylords in the United States.
He and the other immigrants of his company had one chief object in view in coming to America, viz., " freedom to worship God ;" and before embarking at Plymouth, England, formed themselves into a church, of which John Warham and John Maverick were chosen pastors and William Gaylord a deacon. They reached America in 1630, and settled at Dorchester, near Boston. In the years 1635, 1636, and 1638, Deacon William Gaylord was a representative in the gen- eral court at Boston.
At the end of 1638 or beginning of 1639 he removed westward through the wilderness, and settled npon the banks of Connecticut river, where the Farming- ton river joins it. The place was named Windsor.
Deacon William Gaylord was a " deputy" or representative from Windsor in the first general court of Connecticut, held at Hartford, in April, 1639.
It is recorded of him that he was elected to the same office at forty-one semi- annual elections.
Levi Gaylord, Sr., was a soldier in the old French war of 1756-57, and at an early period of the Revolutionary war (June 10. 1776) was commissioned by congress as an "ensign in a regiment in the army of the united colonies, raised for the defense of American liberty." At a later period he was made captain in the army, a post of considerable honor at that period.
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
In all the relations of life he was a worthy man, honored and respected by all who knew him. After the close of the Revolutionary war he removed to Har- persfield, New York, where he died August 17, 1795, aged sixty-six years.
His son, Levi Gaylord (2d), whose name heads this notice, at the age of four- teen years was apprenticed to the trade of manufacturing leather and shoes. Two years later, May 14, 1776, with the consent of his master, he enlisted in the com- pany to which his father belonged, and marched to East Guilford, Connecticut, whence he sailed to New York, and up the Hudson to Fort Lec. Afterwards he returned to New York, and was with the troops under the immediate command of General Washingtou. At the battle of White Plains he participated in some sharp and uncomfortably close fighting, which he never forgot in after-life. How- ever, he liked it much better than lying in trenches, or standing in the ranks to be fired at by distant or concealed batteries, without any chance to return the iron compliments.
At the end of the year he again enlisted, and was in active service on Long Island sound and on the Hudson river. He was on the opposite side of the Hudson, but near enough to see the smoke of Esopus, when it was wantonly burned by the British, in October, 1777. At the end of his second year's service he enlisted for three years iu a corps of artificers, so called, composed entirely of mechanics of every kind required in army service. They were to receive extra wages. Dur- ing that period of service, being usually with the main army, except when in winter-quarters, he often saw the great generals then in service, viz., Washington, La Fayette, Lec, Knox, etc., and witnessed with admiration the training of cav- alry recruits by that skillful general, Baron Steuben.
He assisted in making and placing across the Hudson river the great chain by which it was hoped the British fleet would be prevented from going up the river to attack Albany and form a junction with General Burgoyne. But their hopes proved delusive, as the heavy war-ships broke the chain, to the great disgust of the young soldier and his comrades, who were anxiously watching the event.
As an artificer, unless on detached service occasionally, he was usually in the front, taking his place in the ranks with his musket when any fighting was to be done, then quietly returning to work for the army until called into battle. At the end of five years of arduous service he was honorably discharged, and re- turned to Connecticut, tired and somewhat broken in health. The Continental moncy with which he was paid was then nearly valucless. When returning home from New Jersey the kind people usually charged nothing for food and a chance to rest, but when otherwise, it required about one month's wages to pay for a frugal meal ; and when after his return home he desired to resume work, it cost over one month's wages to purchase a dozen shocmaker's awls ! But the years of service that he had cheerfully given to his country had taught him that patience and perseverance would generally secure success, and with a light heart, as well as purse, he engaged in work for himself.
On February 22, 1782, he was united in marriage to Miss Lydia Smith, second daughter of David Smith and Mary Potter Smith, of Southington, Connecticut, a young lady who possessed lively manners, a most amiable disposition, energy of character, and perfect health.
He settled at first in Waterbury, Connecticut, but two years later (in 1784) removed to Harpersfield, Delaware county, New York. Here in the wilderness he bought a farm, and subsequently engaged in the business of tanning and shoe- making.
That he was a worthy citizen is evident from the fact that he was successively elected to the offices of lieutenant, captain, and major in the New York troops, and also was several times elected supervisor of the town, the chief civil officc.
In the summer of 1804 he was induced to visit Ohio, for the purpose, if the country pleased him, of making it his home, and taking the agency for the sur- vey and sale of the lands of Captain Caleb Atwater, an extensive land-owuer in the Western Reserve.
He took charge of the removal to Ohio of Mrs. Hannah Skinner, a widow lady, and her blind son, Joshua O'Donnell, well known to the early settlers in Ashta- bula and adjoining counties. They were near relatives of the Harpers and Bar- tholomews of Harpersfield. Isaac Bartholomew and family, with some others, removed to Ohio at the same time, and the kind assistance rendered on the tedious journey was often gratefully mentioned by them in later years.
Being pleased with the country, he resolved to make it his home. On his return to New York he was requested by Oliver Phelps, then a large holder of Western Reserve lands, to settle on and take charge of the survey and sale of his lands. Protracted sickness in his family prevented his removal for nearly two years.
In the summer of 1806 he, with several of his neighbors, removed through the wilderness to northeastern Ohio, arriving at the Harper settlement, near the present village of Unionville, late in July.
He concluded to settle on the Atwater tract in Geneva, and selected a farm on
the south ridge, in the east part of the tract. He built a log house about one hundred rods west from the east line of the township, and soon after had the whole tract surveyed into lots. At a later period he had Denmark surveyed into sections, and afterwards into quarter-sections.
After a time, there being an urgent demand for it, he established a tannery, and also erected a shoe-shop, and for several years carried on a moderate business in tanning and shocmaking. His tanncry was probably the first one in the county. But the country was destitute of money, the people generally poor, so that by means of poor pay and bad debts his small capital was hopelessly sunk. Upon the organization of Ashtabula County he was, in 1812, elected one of the county commissioners, and made clerk of the board. These offices he held by re-election until elected a representative in the Ohio legislature, in October, 1817. His election district included nearly or quite all the " lake" couutics from Penn- sylvania to Sandusky.
The journey to Columbus could only be made on horseback, and was scarcely a pleasant one late in November, as nearly all the streams had to be forded.
The next year (1818) he was appointed county treasurer, which office he held until October, 1820, when he was again elected a representative in the Ohio legis- lature. At the next October election (1821), the new office of county auditor having become elcctive, although he did not desire it he was elected to that office, while he also came ncar a re-election to the legislature. However, he accepted the office thus forced upon him, and at the beginning of the second year of ser- vice (February, 1823) removed with his wife and a portion of his family to Jef- ferson, where he resided until the autumn of 1827, when he relinquished the active duties of his office to his son, who had long been his deputy, and returned to his farm in Geneva, where the remainder of his life was spent, except a summer trip, when upwards of eighty years old, to his old home and friends in Delaware county, New York. Until he attained the age of eighty-two years his bodily and mental powers remained vigorons. Then old age came upon him, and his vigor declined, until he suddenly passed away on the 3d of June, 1846, in the eighty- seventh year of his age.
Probably no man ever lived in northern Ohio who was more venerated and be- loved. His undoubted integrity, active benevolence, amiable temper, and gentle demeanor won the hearts of all who knew him. He was an carly and active friend of emancipation and temperance, at a period when it cost much to be thus known. He was eminently a peace-maker, and was often appealed to for assist- ance in the settlement of disputed questions, both in civil and religious matters, and his decisions were always so just and wise as to give universal satisfaction, and leave the partics ever after, as before, his firm friends.
Of his wife, Mrs. Lydia Smith Gaylord, so well and favorably known in the early history of Ashtabula County, some further mention may well be made. In- deed, if space permitted, much might be written to illustrate and record the shin- ing virtues and noble deeds of that excellent woman. Notwithstanding the lacl -. of educational advantages shared with nearly all females of her time, she was a woman of varied knowledge as well as of superior mind. She was one who daily made her faith manifest by the practice of all good works. She visited the sick, nursed, and cured them. In cases where they were despondent, her cheerful coun- sels, active sympathy, and great knowledge of remedies and all the requirements of good nursing scemed like a charm to drive away disease. In the early settle- ment of the county she spent much time by day and night, undeterred by storms, darkness, or wild country roads, iu visiting the afflicted for miles around and ministering to their needs. Sometimes she took the invalids to her home, that she might the better care both for thiem and her own somewhat numerous family. Especially did she do this where poverty was added to the other sorrows of the poor invalids. And all for sweet charity's sake !
Some ten years before her death she became totally blind, and subsequently received a fall with such severe injury that she was never again able to walk, but her cheerfulness under these complicated afflictions was unfailing. She neither repincd at her sad fate nor seemed to wish it otherwise, except as it deprived her of the power of doing good to others.
She had in her earlier days laid up a good store of religious reading, which now became a source of unbounded comfort to her. Her memory was remarkably retentive of all Bible lore, and she was able to give not only the exact language, but the book and chapter where it might be found.
For more than sixty-four years this worthy pair had peacefully trod together the path of conjugal life. But the hour of her departure, for which she had cheer- fully waited so long, came at last, and on May 17, 1846, she peacefully yielded up her life at the ripe age of eighty-two years.
At the time when Major Gaylord and his wife died so nearly together (in May and June, 1846) there had been no death in their immediate family for more than forty years. Eight of their children were married and had families, and with their husbands aud wives were present at the funerals.
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
Of these persons (sixteen in number) only four now survive, viz. : Mrs. Polly Bowers, Mis. Selina Prentice Gaylord, widow of Levi Gaylord (3d), and Harvey R. Gaylord and his wife, Mrs. Stella Atkins Gaylord.
Their grandchildren. great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren are numerous, and reside in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Texas.
H. R. Gaylord
Harvey R. Gaylord, for nearly sixty years a resident of Ashtabula County, is the fourth son of Major Levi Gaylord and Lydia Smith Gaylord, and was born in Harpersfield, Delaware county, New York, July 25, 1805. In the succeed- ing year, 1806, his father and family removed to Ohio. settling on the south ridge in Geneva, then a part of Harpersfield.
That part of the county was then an unbroken wilderness, heavily timbered, and for some years the huge forest-trees remained at a short distance from the house, on the north side of the road, the earlier " clearings" being on the south and east. His earliest recollections are of the semi-annual migrations of the Indians, with their squaws and papooses, ponies and camp-kettles, between Sandusky and Cat- taraugus (going east in the fall to hunt, and, after making sugar in the spring, returning west to plant corn), and of an intense childish desire to attend school with the older children.
The school-house, the only one for several years within the present limits of Geneva, was a log structure on the west bank of Cowles creek (then called Big brook), one and a half miles from his home. When old enough he attended school there to a very limited extent, at first in summer only, but when old enough to gather up and burn the rubbish of a new farm in summer, then in winter only, and seldom for more than six weeks in a year. One reason for the little time devoted to school undoubtedly was that, not being a strong, healthy child, he was often unable to endure the fatigue of the long walks to and from school, especially in bad weather. In those early schools the only branches taught in summer were the alphabet, spelling, and reading ; in winter, arithmetic (as far as " The Rule of Three") was added ; also writing for a short time each day. Consequently his education was confined to the simplest rudiments of English studies. He never attended a school where geography or grammar, or any higher branches, were taught or studied. His father had a small library, larger indeed than most of his neighbors, but of rather too solid a character to interest children. Luckily for him a widow lady came to reside in the neighbor- hood when he was about eight years old, who had more attractive books, such as " Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" and " Holy War," " Arabian Nights Entertain- ments," " Robinson Crusoe," and others of like character, from which she related wonderful stories to the little lad, and after his interest was aroused lent him the books to take home and read, until at length he came to regard everything except reading as irksome, and to be avoided when convenient. After a time a public library was established in Harpersfield and Geneva, and its books of history, biography, and travels, were procured and read with avidity.
At the age of seventeen his father, believing that his health was too uncertain
for a farmer, employed him in his office at Jefferson, and after a few months sent him to New York and Connecticut, hoping that his health would thereby be bene- fited, and that he would be able to attend a good schoch for a few months. In the first he was to some extent successful, but failed to find among his relatives in Connecticut, where he spent the winter, such a school as he desired to attend. Being a green backwoods boy, the journey no doubt helped him to a better knowledge of the outside world than he could have obtained in home employ- ments. At the age of nineteen or twenty he was an acting, if not (for want of proper age) a legal, deputy county auditor, and continued as such deputy until March, 1829 (some four years), taking nearly the entire charge of the business for the last year or more, and apparently giving entire satisfaction to the public. In October, 1829, he was elected recorder, and was re-elected in 1832, and again in 1835, serving in all nine years. On the 5th of May, 1830, he was united in marriage to Miss Stella MI. Atkins, third daughter of Honorable Quintus F. Atkins, of Jefferson, Rev. Giles H. Cowles, D.D., officiating. He was assistant post- master in Jefferson for some three or four years, and while holding that appoint- ment (in 1835), by the construction of a map of Ashtabula and Trumbull coun- ties, showing the leading roads and post-offices for the use of the post-office department at Washington, with suitable recommendations, he obtained an entire change and great improvement in the manner of carrying the mails, and espe- cially of running stages between Ashtabula and Warren, which before that time had not passed through Jefferson.
In the autumn of 1836 he made a journey on horseback through Ohio and Indiana, looking for a place for a home at the end of his term of office, intending to visit the present State of Iowa, then called the " Black Hawk purchase." Late in November he reached Vincennes, where a heavy rise in the Wabash river, with much ice, stopped his farther progress westward. He therefore turned south to the Ohio river at Evansville, and after some explanation purchased lands for a large farm in one of the river counties. But a protracted sickness in the spring of 1838 caused a change in his plans, and he sold his western lands and purchased a farm in Geneva, to which he removed at the end of his term of office, October, 183S.
In October. 1839, he, with many other Ashtabula County men, attended a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery society at Cleveland, Honorable Myron Holley, of New York, presiding, and H. R. Gaylord, of Ashtabula, and F. D. Parish, of Sandusky, secretaries. At that meeting Mr. Holley brought for- ward his famous project for forming a distinct anti-slavery political party ; but the plan met with but little favor among the anti-slavery men of Ashtabula County at that time, and Judge Moffitt, of Monroe, was put forward as their representative to oppose it, which he did in an able and eloquent speech.
Mr. Gaylord was, from early manhood, opposed to slavery in all its forms. At first the American Colonization society seemed the only available mode of action, and was fully indorsed by such men as Gerrit Smith and Arthur Tappan. He therefore, for several years, sustained a county society, of which Honorable Eli- phalet Austin was sometimes president, Samuel Hendry secretary, and H. R. Gay- lord treasurer, and freely spent his time and means in attending its meetings and promoting its objects. But a better acquaintance with the actual working of slavery and colonization, and of the views of slave-holders regarding the institu- tion itself, caused a change in his views, and he became an ardent abolitionist in the year 1835. When the tide of fugitives from the south set northward through Ashtabula County, he never failed to assist them on their way to the extent of his ability.
In politics he was an anti-slavery Whig (though attending the Buffalo Free- Soil convention in 1848, and faithfully sustaining by word and vote its nominees) ; but he gladly joined the Republican party at its first organization in 1854, and has sustained it to the best of his ability since. While recorder in 1834, to ob- viate the great difficulty of tracing land-titles, he took measures to secure the pas- sage of a law to authorize the transcribing of records from Trumbull and Geauga counties, and the necessary transcripts were completed in three large volumes before the end of his term of office. As the agent of the commissioners, he ex- amined the land-titles and wrote the mortgages given for loans of the surplus rev- enne funds deposited with the county about the year 1838. In 1846 he was one of the district assessors to make a new assessment of lands at their value, including improvements. The previous assessment had been made without regard to improvements, except to a limited extent. At a later period he made a general index to the thirty-seven volumes of records in the recorder's office,-a work of great benefit to the public, as many of the indexes were inaccurate, and all of ยท them defective in the extent of information required. This is believed to have been the first index of its kind made in the Western Reserve. From 1831 to 1864 he was engaged to a limited extent in the sale of wild lands for settlement and cultivation in the townships of Geneva, Denmark, and Richmond. His youngest son, Henry T., having died from wounds received at the battle of Shiloh Church,
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
Tennessee, in April, 1862, and subsequent exposure, and his older children hav- ing previously migrated westward, he sold his farm in Geneva in 1864 and re- moved to Saginaw, Michigan, where he is now engaged in active business at the age of nearly seventy-three years. Recently he has sustained a severe loss in the death of his oldest son, Augustine S., one of the rising young lawyers of Miehi- gan for some time, and, until siekness, long continued, compelled his resignation, assistant attorney-general of the United States for the interior department in Wash- ington. While serving in that office, in August, 1876, he was appointed one of the commissioners and the law-adviser of the board to visit the Indians of the western plains, under Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, aud endeavor to make treaties with them for the purchase of the Black Hills country and their removal to res- ervations, all previous attempts having failed. While fully successful iu the ob- jects of the mission, siekness was indueed by the unwholesome water of the country, from which he died in June, 1877. His third and only living son, Ed- ward W., resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been, sinee quite a young man, engaged in building and managing railroads. His present family consists of his wife, Mrs. Stella Atkins Gaylord, an excellent and able woman, with whom he has lived forty-eight years in married life, two daughters, all that remain alive, two grandsons, and a granddaughter. The widow of his son, Augustine S., with two daughters and two sons, resides near him.
Photo. by Woodworth, Geneva, Ohio.
HON. FREEMAN THORP,
of Geneva, a representative in the general assembly, and the subject of this sketch, was born in a log house in Geneva, June 16, 1844. He is a son of Dennis Thorp, Esq., a highly-respected citizen, and for many years a justice of the peace of Geneva township, is a grandson of Aaron Thorp, one of the early settlers of Austinburg, and a great-grandson of Peter Thorp, a soldier of the French and Indian war, from Massachusetts colony. Freeman is the youngest of a family of four, and is by education fairly the product of our common schools, supplemented by a constant habit of study in after-life. His early life was passed upon the farm and in the workshop up to the age of sixteen, when at the break- ing out of the war for the suppression of the Rebellion, in 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier in Company D, Second Ohio Cavalry, serving three years in that capacity. His commanding officer said of him at the elose of his term of service, in a letter to the governor of Ohio, " He was a faithful, conscientious soldier, studious in his leisure moments, his moral and social qualities excellent, his habits perfect." This, which was true of him then, is true of him to-day, being a man of exemplary habits. After the war he engaged in the practice of photography, studying at the same time the profession of portrait-painting, in which he soon attained to high rank, without other aid than such as the best printed works upon the subject and his own genius and experiments afforded, and in 1870 was elected an honorary member of a Berlin society of art. This attracted consider- able attention in this country, and coming to the notice of public men at Wash- ington, they invited Mr. Thorp to come to that city, and he has practiced his profession there during a portion of each year with eminent suecess, stauding at this time securely in the front rank of " American portrait-painters." In 1874 his pieture was the one accepted in a competitive painting of portraits of General 30
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