History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 23
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 23

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

GOVERNOR SAMUEL HUNTINGTON.

Samuel Huntington, one of the most distinguished characters in early Ohio history, was born in Coventry, Connecticut, October 4, 1765, and was designated, as the Norwich records show, Samuel 3d. He was the protege and adopted son of Samuel Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, president of Congress, and governor of Connecticut. The subject of this sketch graduated at Yale, 1785, and had for those times a very complete education. He was a man of great refinement, and very polished and courtly in his manner and address. Old letters speak of him as being small in person, but of fine presence, and a man of remarkable activity. He was married in 1791 to Hannah, daughter of Judge Andrew Huntington ; was admitted to the bar in Norwich, and re- mained there practicing his profession with his uncle until his decease, when he made a visit to Ohio. This was in the year 1800, and in the following year Mr. Huntington removed to Cleveland, bringing his wife. He was immediately in- troduced to public life, and it followed naturally that, with his talents, activity, ambition, and force of character, he was successful. He appears to have belonged to the moderate Republican faction in politics, and to have retained the confidence of the Federalists. He was appointed by Governor St. Clair in 1802 lieutenant- colonel of the Trumbull county militia regiment, and a little later one of the justices of the quorum. He took by common consent priority on the bench of quarter sessions, and his advancement was rapid from the time he first entered the country until his untimely death. In 1802 he was one of the delegates to the convention which framed the State constitution, and after its adoption was elected senator from Trumbull county, which then included the whole Reserve ; and on the meeting of the first Legislature at Chillicothe was chosen speaker. The first commission given under the authority of the State, made by Governor Tiffin, appointed him as one of the three judges of the Supreme Court. In the following year he was made chief judge, and he held this position until 1808, when he was elected governor. The office of receiver of public moneys at Steubenville was offered him by President Jefferson, as was also that of judge in the territory of Michigan; but both were declined. During the war of 1812 he was paymaster in the army of the Northwest. Old records show that Samuel Huntington was one of the largest among the original land-owners of Cleveland. City lots 1 to 6, 61, 75, 76, 78, 80 to 84, 190 to 194, 206, and 210, were in his possession. About the time that he removed to Painesville he exchanged a por- tion, if not the whole, of these lots with John Walworth for the present farm property of his sons, Colbert and Julian C. He came to Painesville in the year 1805, and remained in that place during the few years left of his life. He was one of the original proprietors of Fairport, and aided in founding that place. Governor Huntington's interests and acquaintance were at no period confined to the immediate locality in which he dwelt. He was known and honored through- out the State, traveled about much through the Reserve, always occupied with some project for the advancement of the country's condition, and constantly ex- erted a strong influence. Once, while making a journey to Cleveland upon horse- back, it is related that he came very near losing his life from the rapacity of a pack of wolves, which attacked him while his horse was floundering through a swamp near what is now the corner of Euclid and Willson avenues. The horse did his part nobly, and the rider, who had no firearms upon his person, kept the savage animals at safe distance with an umbrella, though they followed him almost to the door of the big double log house south of Superior street, at which he stopped. It should be borne in mind that Mr. Huntington rose to the digni- fied and honorable position of governor when only about forty-three years of age. He was a man capable of filling almost any position ably, and had his career ex- tended over a few years more than it did he would doubtless have attained even a higher place in the service of the State or nation than that of governor. As it was, he made an impression upon the men of his time that outlasted his life, and exerted an influence that no doubt had a very favorable effect upon Cleveland and Painesville, the places of his residence. He died June 8, 1817, and his widow November 29, 1818.

The following additional matter relating to Governor Huntington is taken from vol. xix., book v. of manuscripts in possession of the Western Reserve Historical Society. These extracts arc evidently in Charles Whittlesey's handwriting :

Samuel Huntington made his first visit to Ohio in 1800. He traveled over the usual route from Connecticut by way of New York, Philadelphia, and Pitts- burgh. Mr. Huntington was the nephew and protege of Governor Huntington, of Connecticut, whose name he bore. It is reputed that he had visited France in early life. Whether this report is true or not, it is known that the early settlers of Ohio spoke of his manners as somewhat Frenchified; others say he was a gentleman of highly polite and polished address, somewhat in contrast with the rough usages of the pioneers of the west. His journal shows he was a person of active habits. Soon after his arrival, July 25, 1800, Mr. Huntington continued his journey through the forest along the banks of the Ohio to Marietta, the first settlement in this State. He here formed the acquaintance of Governor St. Clair and the principal officers of the territory northwest of the river Ohio. It was his intention to examine the country as far as Cincinnati, but this determination was changed, and he returned to Youngstown. Mr. Huntington was by profes- sion a lawyer, and was a resident of Norwich, Connecticut, where he married Miss Huntington, a daughter of Andrew Huntington, about 1793. His associa- tions at the east had been with the Federal party. After visiting a large number of the towns on the Reserve east of the Cuyahoga, he determined to become a resident. In the territory of the northwest Republicanism was in the ascen- dant, and by degrees Mr. Huntington assimilated himself to their ideas. .. . In person he was neither tall nor short. In constitution he was inclined to con- sumption,-a disease which, while it tends to shorten life, gives brilliancy and pre- cocity to the intellect. Mr. Huntington, by the serenity and approachability of his manners, became popular with the settlers. By his superiority of education he immediately placed himself among the prominent men of the territory. Having returned to Connecticut he collected his family and effects, and, in the spring of 1801, set forward to his new home over the Alleghenies. He was a member of the Connecticut Land Company, and therefore always owned real estate on the Western Reserve. The lots in Cleveland adjoining Bath street were among his drafts.

The first week in October, 1800, was spent in examining the city of Cleveland. He came from David Abbott's mill, at Chagrin Falls (Willoughby), along the ridge-road, and through the settlement in Euclid.

The day, he says, was pleasant and cool. He lodged with Lorenzo Carter, and sallying forth the next morning, the elevated plain where the city was laid out was covered with small oaks. On the west side, which then belonged to the Indians, he found a " long, deep, stagnant pond," which produced fever among those who lived near the river. The settlement, however, was not large or pow- erful, there being only three families, all of whom had the fever. After sailing out of the mouth of the river, in five-feet water, they coasted along the shore a few miles to the west, and returning, proceeded along the Newbury road to the ridge, near Kingsbury's. From there, looking west over the wooded plain, the river, and the lake, they saw a prospect indescribably beautiful. At Newbury Falls, the mill of Wheeler Williams was found to be nearly completed, and resting there over the Sabbath, October 5, the party made their way along the trail to David Hudson's (T. 4, R. 10).

Mr. Huntington selected Cleveland, then in Trumbull county, as his future abode. A house of hewn logs, known in those days as a block-house, was erected in the summer of 1801, and in the fall his family, consisting of three children, was domiciled there.

He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, 1802; State senator, January, 1803; and speaker, pro tem., March, 1803.

During the year 1807 he removed to a farm on the bank of Grand river, be- low Painesville. Previous to the war Painesville had taken the lead of Cleve- land as a future city. The great State road from the forks of the Muskingum to the lake (laid out in 1804) terminated at Painesville. Probably on account of the unhealthiness of the place, Judge Huntington decided to leave Cleveland. He became interested in the mills at Newbury, and for a short time removed his family thither. Negotiations for an exchange of property with the late John Walworth, Esq., of Painesville, were in progress. Mr. Walworth had, in 1805, been appointed collector of the district of Erie, and contemplated residing at Cleveland. In 1807 this exchange was consummated.

Mr. Huntington built his new mansion at one of the curves of the Grand river, where a long view was had along the shore in a southerly direction, be- yond which the conglomerate hills of Geauga County had the aspect of mountains. He cut a vista through the forest of more than a mile in length in order to get a view of the lake. Some tamarack-trees procured from a swamp were planted on the lake-front by his own hands, which are still flourishing and beautiful. The encroachments of the river upon its banks has destroyed the old road that passed

Digitized by Google

Sagtby LEPandersen

Prots Daguercontype

Scaling Fundo-

LATE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF OH!O

Digitized by

Google

1 1

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

between the house and the stream. In the winter of 1811-12 he was a member of the lower house from the county of Geauga. The following summer was characterized by the prosecution of the war with England. Our arms were dis- graced and the State of Ohio seriously compromised by the surrender of Hull, at Detroit, in August of that year.

Governor Huntington took an active part in the defense of the lake country. The surrender took place on the 16th, and on the 24th he was on his way to Washington city with Colonel Cass, to press upon the department the absolute necessity of vigorous action. Three regiments of Ohio troops, the hope and sinew of the State, were dissipated and rendered useless. Having labored assidu- ously with the department and aided in procuring money and supplies, he re- turned in September, in the capacity of district paymaster, with funds for General Harrison's troops.

Of his abilities as a lawyer we know but little. The confidence shown by the . Legislature in his professional qualifications was favorable to his talents, he being then only thirty-eight years of age. He was active almost to restlessness. In the year 1815, while engaged in work upon the road to Fairport, he had the misfor- tune to break a leg. The fracture did not unite well, and the confinement it occasioned greatly impaired his health. This aggravated the constitutional ten- dency to pulmonary disease, and finally terminated his life in June, 1817.

GOVERNOR SEABURY FORD.

What a host of memories this name conjures up! Notwithstanding the State came to be full of his name, it takes me back to student days, back to boyhood, my earliest recollections of Burton, of militia musters, the greatest events of the age, forty or fifty years ago. To me, what a place was Burton, away over the tops of the eastern woods, sitting on her fair hill, and seeming to dominate all the country around, as she did ! There I saw my first real lion and tiger and monkey, under a little canvas, against the west end of Esq. Hickox's barn. There we used to go to the store kept by Vandeuser, and then to George Boughton's; and I can remember of many a time looking with wonder from the top of the hill north, and seeing the large, high, white house, as it then looked to me, of Esq. John Ford. Once an elder brother and I went to deliver some nice new maple-sugar at the house of Esq. Cook. The most I remember of it is my seeing there a slender, tall, willowy young girl, comely, with large eyes, who eagerly appropriated some of the sugar, and who some years later became the bride of a certain young general whom I afterward used to admire, in golden epaulets and yellow plume, on muster-days. I may not approach the subject of this sketch save through the golden fringe of half-memories. A word, too, is due from me to Burton. It was early a place of importance. One of the most intensely New England towns it was in all the Reserve, fortunate in the character of its first settlers, and most fortunate and proud of the fame and value of two of its men,-men surrounded and backed by others of the same stamp,-never widely heard of beyond the home circle. Not a county-seat or commercial or manufac- turing place, it always was, and still is, a centre,-a position which has won for it no little ill will from some of the not remote townships. It was founded in the early years of the century by a people of pure New England blood, character, habits, thrift, and religion. They planted the church and an academy ; and why the latter did not become a college was a matter I never understood. The Hitch- cocks and Fords, with their kindred, the Cooks, and others of the same virile stocks and hardy fibres, the Hickoxes, allied to the Newbury Pundersons, were all there early in the century. The community from which the chief-justice drove away in his one-horse wagon, to fashion the judiciary of a great State, and from which annually went the young farmer, graduate, and lawyer to fashion its legislation, are both coming back to fill the places in the township, and be recog- nized only as the equals of their fellow-citizens and neighbors, must have had a good deal of character. Doubtless these surroundings and backings must have given help and strength to the distinguished individuals referred to. There is not another town in the State that has given it a chief-justice and governor. Its material was by no means exhausted in these. The family of the chief-justice has furnished another of the able lawyers of the State, himself at one time a dis- tinguished member of the judiciary; a learned divine and an accomplished head of a college; the youngest brother has long been recognized as one of the most enlightened legislators of the State, while one of the younger Fords revives the memory of his father in the halls of the Legislature, is quite the equal, if he does not surpass him in ability, though seeming less ambitious. There are the Good- wins, reared and formed in Burton, whose success elsewhere is doubtless due to the strength and impetus derived from their early training.

Some men have made a reputation by a single speech, as did the late Tom Ford at Philadelphia, in 1856, and Colonel Ingersoll at Cincinnati, in 1876.

Men before unheard of have been seized upon by an accident, which occurs only in conventions, and are nominated to office, and become famous for a day. The subject of this sketch owes nothing to accident or luck. He achieved nothing which he did not earn twice over, and nothing ever came to him that was not overdue. He was not a maker of speeches, nor a sayer of brilliant things. He made no proclamation or assertion of himself, was no seeker of high places. He began, and, with intelligent labor, patiently constructed every step of his way, in open light, from his own door, through years of hard, faithful, and valuable public service, to the head of a great State, at the age of forty-seven; and save his rela- tive, the late Chief-Justice Hitchcock, whose career his own resembled, few men have rendered more intrinsically valuable services to the State, with so small a return of emolument and fame, as Seabury Ford. The monument to his memory is the solid, enduring, useful work of his own hand, so unostentatiously placed in the working machinery and structure of the State as scarcely to be identified, and so long ago as not to be within the memory of the younger generation.

He was born at Cheshire, Connecticut, October 15, 1801. The Fords were of good Scotch extraction, and trace back their pedigree two or three centuries. His father, John Ford, was a man of large and vigorous mould and great enterprise. His mother was a Cook, sister of Judge Peter Hitchcock's wife, and daughter of Elam Cook. The Cooks were. from Kent, England, and settled in Plymouth prior to 1640.

John Ford visited the Reserve twice before his migration, and purchased a thousand acres of land within the present township of Burton, Geauga County. In the autumn of 1807, with two yoke of strong oxen, one pair on the pole worked in breeching, and a stout, springless wagon, with his family, of which Seabury was then the junior, he made the transit of the intervening six hundred miles, much of it an unbroken wilderness, in forty-two days, which seems to me to have been great expedition. The tale of this journey will have been told a score of times in the volume of which this is a part. John Ford built his cabin one-half mile north of Burton Village, and there worked and lived out his days, a successful and opulent man. The homestead is now the residence of the young- est son, Colonel Henry H. Ford, so widely known.

Seabury's childhood and boyhood were spent in the woods, growing up sur- rounded by a very intelligent circle of seniors, early evincing much aptitude for learning and study. He quite inherited his father's vigor and strength of body and limb, though not attaining his height. All his early years were spent in the ordinary avocations of a well-to-do farmer's younger son. He became a dexterous and adventurous woodsman, felling trees, hoeing corn, and bringing the cattle from the Cuyahoga bottoms. The most expert wrestler of the boys and youth of his age, his ascendency as an athlete attended him through his college career, when, after the first year, the baton of command, in old time won by the Yale boys in fierce fight from a party of sailors, was voted to him, and he held it un- challenged until he graduated. At ten, for a time he attended school in Warren. At eighteen, he showed such aptitude that his father yielded to his entreaty, and promised him a collegiate course. Before this time the enterprise of a few meu secured a good academical school at Burton. Here he was placed under the tuition of Rev. David L. Coe, the principal. He prepared for college in company with Rev. Dexter Witter, the son of a Burton farmer, and in the autumn of 1821 the two youths were provided with a stout horse and wagon, in which were placed their rural outfits, with which they headed for " Old Yale," under the classic elms of New Haven. The journey was not performed in much less time than the memorable westward migration fourteen years before. The horse and wagon were disposed of, the young men passed successful examinations, and were entered, the first from Ohio, as I believe. I cannot linger over Mr. Ford's collegiate career. We know that he faithfully mastered all his studies, and graduated high in the class of 1825. On his return to Ohio, he commenced the law under the late Samuel W. Phelps, at Painesville. Mr. Phelps was a very accomplished lawyer, but died soon after, and Mr. Ford transferred himself to the office of his uncle, Peter Hitchcock, where he finished his studies. Admirably prepared for the law, few men more thoroughly mastered it in the two years of preparatory study. He was admitted in 1827, at about the same time the Wades came to the bar, and two or three years preceding the admission of his cousin, Reuben Hitchcock. Mr. Ford opened an office at Burton, where he always continued it, though later `he was strongly urged to remove to Painesville, and form a partnership with Mr. Hitchcock. Burton was not a good point for practice, though the extensive ac- quaintance of the family and his own personal popularity secured him a fair share of all the business arising in the south part of the county. He was married Sep- tember 10, 1828. His wife's family and associations were of Burton. He early became enlisted in commanding and disciplining the militia, in which he rose to the highest rank, soon became engaged in politics, and never gave the continued care and attention to his profession, in which, with his ability and industry, he was certain to have reached a very high position.

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

He had from the first a relish for politics, and an aptitude and ambition for affairs. His bias, surroundings, and training were with the friends of Henry Clay, the supporters of Mr. Adams, and, although not a Mason, he was not of those who deemed it desirable to organize a party in opposition to Masonry, and the anti-Masons defeated him in his first canvass for the Legislature. Nor was he of what was for a time known as the Paine party (followers of C. C. Paine), though he voted for him. He was necessarily a Whig, and the party took final form and name in 1834. In 1835 he was elected a representative in the Legis- lature, and, with the exception of a single year, he served in that body till 1848, two or more terms in the Senate, was speaker of the House, and I think twice of the Senate, as the presiding officer of the Senate was then also called. Few men in Ohio had so long a period of service in the Legislature; no one was on the whole so, useful to the State. Within the limits of a sketch, which cannot be passed, one can hardly bring within the intelligent appreciation of the newer generation the extent and value of his labors in this field, nor does it possess salient features of interest to the average mind of to-day, accustomed to the events of the war. At his entrance upon public life the State was groaning under an enormous debt for extensive, unfinished, and generally unproductive canals. She was without any system of finance, either as to banks or taxation, and her scheme of common schools was hardly rudimentary. The greatest known period of financial disaster fell on the American world in 1837, and, that no source of evil might be wanting, the State was often in the hands of the Demo- cratic party-of the Ohio Democracy. Those were the days of Sam Medary, of McNulty, Byington, and Governor Jenkins, of Columbiana.

Mr. Ford at once thoroughly prepared himself for his duties. He mastered all the known sources of information, studied with care all the reports of the various departments of the State government, and brought to the discharge of his duties a carefully-acquired fund of information, such as few men, even of that time, were masters of. In the House he was soon recognized as one of the most valuable members, was placed on all the working committees. He shrank from no labor and avoided no task. He seldom addressed the House, and then on thorough preparation, and upon some matter of business legislation, and, as he in- variably had some much-needed information, he was always listened to with interest and close attention. Such was his steady and long-continued labor, that from a stout, heavy man of two hundred pounds weight he shrank in four months to one hundred and sixty or less, and never after attained his old, or rather his younger, avoirdupois.

In 1838 he was the rival of Joshua R. Giddings for the Whig nomination for Congress, and failed by one or two votes only. 1840 saw the uprising of the American people to overturn Jacksonism, the first and most pernicious period of mere personal government in American history. Mr. Ford took a very conspic- uous part in this wonderful campaign, which introduced what is called stump speeches into the political canvasses of the north generally. With a host of well-arranged, well-digested documents, he devoted his time and means to the service. He made himself widely felt in the campaign. In 1841 he was elected from the counties of Cuyahoga and Geauga to the Senate. In 1842 that body held a special session to apportion the State for Congressional representation, under the census of 1840. Sherman was governor, and the Democrats were in a majority in both Houses. The wrongs of 1840 were to be avenged. They tore and mangled the State into hideous, distorted caricatures of districts, when to prevent the consummation of the scheme by the forms of legislation the Whig members of both houses resigned. The following from the Senate journal recites this event in that body :

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443