USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > History of Ashtabula County, Ohio > Part 76
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There is a flourisbing post of the Grand Army of the Republic in this town- ship, organized in January, 1878.
TOWNSHIP OFFICERS FOR 1877.
L. J. Parker, Geo. M. Chapman, and Orlando Payne, trustees; S. McCul- lough, clerk ; W. S. Orcutt, treasurer ; T. L. French, assessor ; S. F. Vanhouser and F. Whitney, constables ; and Geo. MI. Cbapmau, Thomas Gillis, and J. B. Bartholomew, justices of the peace. There are eighteen supervisors of roads and highways.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
GILES HOOKER COWLES,
son of Dr. E. W. and Almira MI. Cowles, and grandson of Rev. Dr. Giles H. Cowles, was born in the year 1819, in Brownhelm, Ohio. His boyhood days were spent iu Mantua. where his parents lived for several years, and with his grandfather in Austinburg. In 1832 he moved with his parents to Cleveland, and in 1833 he fiuished his education with the Rev. Samuel Bissel, preceptor of the Twinsburg academy. In 1834 he first went into business by serving as a clerk in the drug- storc of the late Dr. B. S. Lyman, in Cleveland ; afterwards he went into the employ of Mr. Orlando Cutter, an auction and commission merchant of that city. Young as he was he gave evidence of extraordinary business ability, and at the age of eigh- teen Mr. Cutter took him in as a partner. In 1839, owing to having hemorrhage of the lungs, young Cowles was obliged to dissolve his connection with Mr. Cutter and travel to Texas for his health. In 1840 he returned to his home in Clevelaud apparently improved in health, but tbe insidious disease he was afflicted with, con- sumption, soon undermined it, and, in spite of the best medical skill and the tireless nursing of the most affectionate of mothers, be passed away, April 2, 1842, aged twenty-three years. As his soul left its carthly tenement, his loving aunt, Miss Cornelia R. Cowles, sat by his side, while she sang to him in her angelic tones that beautiful hymn commencing with these lines :
"What's this that steals, that steals o'er my frame? Is it death, is it death ?"
Of all the children of Dr. E. W. Cowles, Giles was endowed with the most natural talent, and was considered the flower of that group. With a fine conver- sational power for one so young, he had a business talent that was regarded by all who knew him as being very extraordinary. Said the late Mr. Cutter, " Giles Cowles was the smartest young man that I ever came in contact with, a young man of honor and integrity, and had he only lived and enjoyed good health, he would have been one of the wealthiest men of the country."
Young as he was, he proved himself to be worthy of the name he bore, that of his estimable grandfather.
JOSEPH B. COWLES,
one of the first settlers of Austinburg, was born in Norfolk, Connecticut, October 18, 1774. His parents were Joseph Cowles and Sarah Mills. He was married to Miss Lois Hungerford. In 1800 he accompanied Judge Austin's family to Austinburg with his own family, consisting of wife, oue boy, Lyman, aged five years, and an infant. After a toilsome journey of some several weeks, Mr. Cowles arrived at Buffalo, where he embarked in an open boat, with a member of Judge Austin's party, and sailed by day for Ashtabula Harbor, and at night they would pull the boat on to the beach and camp out. In this manner Mr. Cowles and his party made their way to New Connecticut. After his arrival at Ashtabula creek, he followed the blaze on the trees with his little family, aud reached the north end of the township of Austinburg. The first night he made a wigwam and camped out. The next moruing, with the assistance of a few neighbors who came in from within a circle of twenty miles, he put up his log cabin, just a quarter of a mile south of where the post-office now is in Austinburg. In this manner this brave pioneer started life in the town which he eventually helped to clear and beautify.
Mr. Cowles was a fine specimen of a New England farmer. He was a man of the strictest integrity, and everything he did was founded on a sense of duty. As an illustration, the following incident will show how his sense of duty ini- pelled him to risk even his life. In the year 1803 a settler, by the name of Beckwith, resided in a log cabin at the mouth of Asbtabula creek. In midwin- ter, when the weather was intensely cold and the ground was covered deeply with snow, Mr. Beckwith started for the Austinburg settlement, ten miles off, for the purpose of sharpening his axe and obtaining a bag of salt. Towards night he started to return. The sky was cloudy, and the prospect of a pitch-dark night was imminent, and the weather, as before stated, was terribly cold, rendering the attempt to walk that ten miles through a forest over an apology of a road a very dangerous undertaking, and Judge Austin earnestly tried to persuade him to wait till morning. Mr. Beckwith stated that he had promised his wife that he never would leave her alone overnight, and that brave and devoted husbaud started on his fearful and, as it proved to be, his last journey, rather thau to break his solemn promise made to his wife. The uext day, towards dark, some of the settlers at the uorth end of Austinburg saw an object staggering through the snow. They went to it, and discovered that it was MIrs. Beckwith, who was in an exhausted condition from traveling on foot from her home. It seemed that her husband did uot reach his home, and as she knew he would not violate his promise not to stay away overnight, she concluded that he must have lost his way and perished. The next morning she left her two children in bed and started for the Austinburg settlement to make kuown the loss of her husband, and arrived there in the condition described. The uuhappy wife and mother was iu a state of agony about her children she had left alone in her cabin, for fear of their freezing to death. Mr. Cowles volunteered to start that night, dark as it was, and rescue those childreu. Accordingly, he mounted his horse and proceeded on that perilous journey. Should he on account of darkness lose his way in the wood, it was sure death. But the courageous man felt it was his duty to relicve the feelings of the poor mother and rescue tbose children, even to the extent of risking his own life. Happily, after groping his way for five mortal hours, he succeeded in reaching the cabin, aud found the children alive and safe. He built a fire and kept it up all night. In the morning he took the children in his aruis, mounted his horse, aud in that manner carried them to Austinburg, and delivered them to the almost heart-broken, widowed mother. That day a party of the neighbors started to search for the remains of Mr. Beckwith. He was found frozen and dead sitting on a log. From the tracks in the snow, it was evident he trauiped around a tree for hours, vainly endeavoring to keep himself warm, and he at last succumbed to sleep, and sitting dowu, he soon became frozen.
In 1816, Mr. Cowles became a professor of religion, and joined the church over which the Rev. Dr. Cowles presided. As he advanced in life he accumulated property by houest labor, and lived till 1853, when he died universally respected for his Christian virtue and strict integrity. His first wife died in 1841. In 1842 he married Mrs. Hannah Winchester, the widow of a Rev. Mr. Winchester. He had three children. namely, Lyman B. Cowles, born in Norfolk, Connecticut, 1795, and died in Jefferson, June, 1875; Sally Maria, born in Norfolk, 1799, and married to Mr. Euos Ryder in 1820, and died in the year of 1831 ; and Louisa, born in Austinburg, 1806, and died in March, 1835.
Mr. Cowles was a brother of the late Hon. Samuel Cowles, a prominent lawyer and judge of the court of common pleas iu Cleveland, who died in 1837 ; a half- brother of Mrs. Dr. E. W. Cowles, and uncle of Mr. Edwin Cowles of the Cleveland Leader.
A. W. HOWARD.
MRS. ELMIRA G. HOWARD.
WWWwww.
RESIDENCE OF A. W. HOWARD, EAGLEVILLE, ASHTABULA CO.,O.
193
HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
LYSANDER MIX COWLES.
Captain Lysander M. Cowles was born with his twin sister Cornelia, in Bristol, Connecticut, in the year 1807. He came to Austinsburg with his father, Dr. Cowles, in 1811, where he lived till his death, which occurred April 4, 1857. Captain Cowles became a prominent citizen of the township, and for a number of years commanded an independent military company. Hc filled at various periods the offices of justice of the peace, township treasurer, and other offices. In May, 1835, he was married to Miss Rachel Cowles, a sister of the Rev. Henry Cowles, who was pastor of the church in Austinburg till the following winter, when he moved to Oberlin, where he occupied for many years a professor's chair.
Captain Cowles was universally respected, and was popular among his ac- quaintances on account of his being a peculiar wit. Many stories have been told of his doings in that line, and we will give one or two illustrations of that peculiarity. He took great delight in playing the incorrigible Yankee, nasal twang and all, which he could do to perfection. While in New York on a certain occasion, he noticed a lottery sign offering tremendous fortunes to all who would invest in a ticket. The captain walked in, and, playing the green Yankee, inter- viewed the lottery dealer as follows :
" Mister, can yeou tell me abeout this giving of a big fortune to a feller who buys a ticket in yeour lottery ?"
" Why, sir, if you will take a ticket costing you only five dollars, you will draw a prize of ten thousand dollars in money,-ten thousand dollars, sir !"
" I sweow ! Dew yeou mean to say that if I buy a ticket costing only five dollars, that I will git ten theousan' dollars ?"
" Yes, sir, ten thousand dollars. You can make ten thousand dollars, sir !"
" Yeou don't say so !"
" Yes, I do. I mean what I say : you will draw ten thousand dollars, and it
will be yours if you purchase a ticket costing you only five dollars."
" Wal, that is queer. Hcow can yeou afford to give ten theousan' dollars for five dollars ?"
" You see, my friend, that is our lookout. We make up our losses in another way."
" Wall, I declear! ten theousan' dollars for five dollars. Will that ten theousan' dollars be wine if I pay five dollars ?"
" Yes, sir. I will insure your drawing that sum."
" Wal, mister, with that understandin', I will take a ticket."
" Well, here it is, all filled out for you."
" Neow, mister, dew yeou mean to say that this 'ere ticket will draw me ten theousan' dollars ?"
" Yes, sir. All you need to do now is to pay me five dollars."
" Wal, mister, I'll tell you what you may dew, I will take the ticket and yeou may take the five dollars out of the ten theousan' dollars which yeou say will become mine. That will be all right, won't it, mister ?"
" Hand that ticket back, you infernal fool, and clear out of my office !"
" Look here, mister, don't git wrathy; let me keep the ticket which yeou say will draw ten theousan' dollars, and yeou can deduct the five dollars and give me nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. Isn't that fair, mister ?"
" Give me back that ticket and clear out; I'll have none of your nonsense."
" Wal, mister, alleow me to say that yeou are a darned humbug. Yeou may take yeour ticket and be darned."
This story the captain was in the habit of telling in his inimitable manner. On another occasion, when Mr. Henry C. Wright, the famous advocate of universal peace, was on a visit at Miss Betsey Cowles', he encountered our military friend in the horse-stable, and entered into a discussion on the cvils of war. After descanting in his eloquent and argumentative style, showing that war produced all manner of violence, misery, murders, robberies, and rapine, and that soldiers were no better than so many murderers, the captain, after listening in his imperturbable manner with a sober faee, was bound as the commander of a military company to defend the honor of the American army from such a slanderous assault, and he coolly replied as follows :
" Mr. Wright, allow me to say you are mistaken, sir, as far as our glorious army is concerned. Why, sir, during the whole Mexican war not one of our fifty thousand gallant soldiers engaged was ever known to commit a single dishonorable act, sir. This is a fact, sir ! You arc mistaken, sir !"
Mr. Wright looked at the captain with blank astonishment. The idea that out of an invading army of fifty thousand men not one has ever been known to com- mit a single dishonorable act during the entire Mexican war! He saw it was useless to argue with " such a case," and he retired discomfited to the house.
In 1844, during the Clay and Polk presidential campaign, the Whigs had a grand mass convention at Erie. On the printed posters announcing the eonven- tion it was advertised that all military companies would be carried free on the
steamboats,-there were no railroads in those days. The Austinburg Guards ac- cepted the invitation, and marched to Ashtabula Harbor and embarked for Erie. On their return they took passage on another steamer. As it neared Ashtabula, the captain of the boat notified Captain Cowles that his men would have to pay fare. This Captain Cowles emphatically refused to allow, and called attention to the arrangement that had been made to carry all military frec. The captain of the boat then said he would uot stop at Ashtabula. " All right !" replied Captain Cowles, " we will accompany you to Chicago. We'll stick by you like a brother, and come back with you. But mind you, we shall take the first seat at your table, sir ! We shan't submit to any nonsense, there sir!" The captain of the boat found he was cornered, and he put into Ashtabula Harbor and landed the boys.
These incidents illustrate the humorous feature in the character of Captain Cowles. Although he never sympathized with the ultra views of the Garrisonian clement of the anti-slavery party, he was a zealous friend of the down-trodden slave. He acted with the old Liberty party, and when the Frec-Soil party was organized in 1848, he affiliated with that party. None had a warmer heart than Captain Cowles. He was a consistent member of the Congregational church till a few years before his death, when he changed his views and joined a Unitarian society. In 1856 he was taken ill with that incurable disease the diabetes, which resulted in his death, April 4, 1857 .. Had he only lived and had good health, he would undoubtedly have participated in the War of the Rebellion.
REV. J. B. BARTHOLOMEW.
It seems but simple justice that this gentleman should be placed on record in this volume, he being the pioneer minister of his faith in Ashtabula County. Born in Bristol, Connecticut, April 8, 1807, he was the eighth child of Jacob and Rebecca Beach Bartholomew, who removed to Ohio in 1810, locating in Farming- ton, Trumbull county, and were among the pioneers of this township. His cdu- cational advantages were of course meagre, the clearing of the forest being con- sidered of prime importance. At the age of twenty-one he found himself broken down with labor, and has remained an invalid until the present. At the age of twenty-three he married Martha Reeves, and until 1846 passed much of his time in travel. In the above ycar he came to Eagleville, where he still resides. In 1844, was ordained a minister of the Disciple church, and sent out as an evangelist. Called to Eagleville, March, 1846, by a class of twenty-five. Mr. Bartholomew raised this church to a membership of one hundred and ten in three years. Through his efforts during this time churches were established in Saybrook, Geneva, Trumbull, Footville, Hartsgrove, Denmark, Orwell, Rome, and inany other points, making a total of seventeen. Truly he has done a noble work for his Master. In his township, he has been a justice of the peace for fifteen years, and postmaster for perhaps the same length of time.
ABIAL WILLIAMS HOWARD.
The subject of this sketch, a view of whose fine residence, with portraits of self and wife, appear iu another portion of this work, is the fifth of a family of eight, the children of Hezekiah and Margaret Spring Howard, of Preble, Cort- land county, New York. He was born January 7, 1819, and resided in New York and Pennsylvania uutil 1838, when he came to Ohio, making his first stop with an uncle in Concord, Lake county. His education was received at common school prior to his coming to Ohio. About January 1, 1839, he came to Austin- burg, where he remained some three years. On the 11th day of January, 1842, he found a wife in the person of Almira G., daughter of Saluion and Damaris Pitkin Hills, of Austinburg, and taking his young bride, removed to a wild farm in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and here, some three-fourths of a mile from a traveled road, they began the battle of life, and we may judge something of his success by the fact that he now owns some five hundred acres of land, which, with the mill property, etc., aggregates the snug sum of thirty thousand dollars. In the township he has held numerous offices, among which has been township trustee for many years. He is public-spirited, a kind and indulgent husband and father. His children are as follows: Emily A., born August 26, 1844, married Hubert E. Wadsworth, and resides at Eagleville. The next were twins,-Eugene L. and Emogene L., born October 2, 1846. The former is doing an extensive business in Bridgeport, Califoruia. The latter yet remains at home, as do the remaining three children comprising this interesting family. Salmon Hills, the next child, was born November 29, 1848; Edward F., boru July 25, 1855; and Dwight A., the youngest, born February 28, 1859. Politically Mr. Howard is a Demo- crat. His father was born in Tolland, Tolland county, Connecticut, in 1784, and is still living,-resides in Franklin, Pennsylvania. The mother was a native of
194
HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
Connecticut, and died in 1852. The father of Mrs. A. W. Howard was born in Farmington, Hartford county. Connecticut, July 30, 1788, died 1864, in Austin- burg. Her mother was born September 11, 1790, died March 1, 1874, also in Austinburg.
DEACON JOSEPH MILLS
became a dweller upon the soil of this eounty seventy-eight years ago. His coming hither was simultaneous with the ushering in of the century. In June of the year 1800 the first white womau eame to what now is the township of Austinburg. She was the mother of the subject of this sketeh,-he, an infant of a year old. His parents starting from Norfolk, Connecticut, had consummated a long and wearisome jouruey, and on the night of June 6 had reached a locality in the forest but a few rods distant from Mr. Eliphalet Austin's house, their destination. Darkness and a severe storm overtook them, and they determined to enemup for the night in the woods. During that dark and stormy night this intrepid woman sat upon her saddle on the ground with her infant son in her arms, while an umbrella was held over mother and child to protect them as best this feeble shelter might from the fury of the storm. In this strange and novel man- ner was this pioneer resident of Ashtabula soil introduced to this forest region. He was the third child of Sterling and Abigail Mills, the date of his birth being June 24, 1799. In his early boyhood he was made serviceable to the settlement in carrying his father's and his father's neighbors' grist to the mill on horseback. He was the only boy in the colony of proper age to perform this duty, and his father owned the only horse in the settlement at that time. Joseph was a studious lad, and although the advantages for obtaining an education were limited, he made dili- gent use of every available moment, and early aequired a literary taste that never deserted him. Growing up to manhood upon his father's farm, he was united in
marriage with Chloe Caloway in the year 1819. This lady was a resident of Austinburg, and had come to Ohio with Jacob Austin, Esq. From this union were born eight children, as follows : Eliza, born in 1820; Harlow, born in 1821 Sterling, born in 1824; Laura, born in 1826; Edwin, born in 1828; John D., born iu 1834; Alice, born in 1837; and Lewis Joseph, born in 1839. The mother of these children died April 20, 1843; and on November 29 of the same year Mr. Mills married again, the lady's name being Lois Hotehkiss. The chil- dren by this marriage were Willard, born in 1846, died in infancy ; and Emma A., born in 1850, who married A. Krum. His second wife died on October 29, 1876, and iu August, 1877, he married a third time, the lady's name being Jane Case. Deaeon Mills died on the 22d day of March, 1878, being nearly seventy-nine years old. One of the oldest citizens of the county, his life has been a useful one to the community in which he dwelt. He was warmly attached to the Con- gregational church, of which he was a worthy and a prominent member. He was early made a deaeon of the church in Austinburg, and has been known among his neighbors for the last half-century or more as "Deacon Mills." He has held some township offiees, but his tastes were not in this direction. He pre- ferred the quiet of his home life, and took great delight in books, of which he was a diligent student. His memory was wonderfully retentive. A farmer, he acquired by slow, toilsome industry a handsome competence, being at his death the owner of some three hundred acres of land. But few men of Ashtabula Couuty saw more of privation and hardship ineident to pioneer life, and none faeed them with a more courageous and determined spirit. Who would not wish to live the quiet, peaceful, long and useful life Deaeon Mills has lived ? and what higher tribute to his memory ean be paid than that his integrity was spotless, his virtues manly, and that his name will long remain a household word in the homes of those among whom he dwelt ?
MORGAN TOWNSHIP.
IMAGINARY boundary lines often divide distriets of land whose physical features are greatly unlike, and separate people whose nativity, language, and customs are totally diverse. Instances of this kind, however, are not to be found in Ashtabula County. While but slight dissimilarity iu the topography of the land and ehar- aeter of the soil of the townships of the county is discoverable, the most striking uniformity in respect to the character of the people exists throughout the length and breadth of old Ashtabula. So few of her townships were settled by other than Connecticut emigrants, that it may be said, without mueh distortion of fact, that the small streaus of immigration that eighty years ago began to flow hither, gradually widening and deepening until in a few years it became a mighty river, annually carrying upon its bosom hundreds of pioneers whom it landed in this region, had but one souree, and that source lay within the limits of the little State of Connecticut. Thus were the pioneers of Morgan of Connecticut extraction. Its soil was first owned by the State of Conueetieut, then by the Connectieut land company, then by a Connecticut man, who gave to it his Connecticut name, theu by a Connectieut company, who employed a Conueetieut surveyor to survey it into lots and prepare it for settlement, which was effected by Connectieut citizens. If there ean be any doubt as to the right of Morgan to elaim Conneetieut parentage, it would be interesting to know from what souree that doubt ean spring.
John Morgan, of New Haven, Connecticut, member of the Connectieut land company, became proprietor of the lands of this township September 5, 1798, but soon after sold his possession to the Torriugford land company, composed of the following gentlemen : Eliphalet Austin, Montgomery Austin, Wm. Battell, Joseph Battell, John Gillett, David Soper, Jabez Gillett, Job Curtis, Samuel J. Mills, Stephen Kuowlton, N. Gaylord, Jr., and John Strong, and this company employed Timothy R. Hawley, of Farmington, Hartford county, Connecticut, to survey the township into lots. This task Mr. Hawley completed in the summer of 1801. Ile eommeneed at the uorthwest corner and surveyed the traet into one hundred acres each, excepting the last and south tiers, which are fractional. The lots are numbered from west to east, beginning with the west lot of the northern tier. For this service Mr. Hawley received from the company that employed him a deed of lots numbers 5, 97, and 123, and of the mill-site on Rock ereek, lying on lots numbers 115 and 125; the company stipulating that
Mr. Hawley should, within one year from the time he should settle in the town- ship, ereet a saw-mill on said mill-site. Having completed the survey and opened a road from Austinburg through this township to Gustavus, in Trumbull county, Mr. Hawley went to Connectieut and returned in June of the following year with his family. This gentleman occupied a prominent place in the early settlement of Morgan, surveying as agent for the Torringford land company, aeting as post- master by appointment of General Granger, and as justice of the peace, to which office he was chosen by the votes of the people at the first State electiou, in 1803. He finally was invited to fill the office of elerk of the court of common pleas, to attend to the duties of which office he removed to the county-seat, in Jefferson, where he resided the remainder of his life.
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