History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 44

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

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 44
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 44

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Many letters were also received claiming to identify the author as the hero. One writer said that he heard Mr. Riddle make the speech given in the ejectment trial of the story,-a speech which, unfortunately for the man's memory, had never an existence outside the book's covers. The ensuing year appeared the " Portrait," also a tale of the " Reserve," drawn somewhat from the author's life in Mantua. It has less redundancy than " Bart Ridgely," and has the advantage of a more ingenious plot. Although many readers of "Bart" were disappointed in the " Portrait," not finding in it the flavor and freshness of the first, from a critic's stand-point it is an advance upon the former, and the author is said to regard it with more favor than either of the others. The following year the Appletons brought out " Alice Brand," a story of Washington at the close of the war. This was received with quite as much commendation as the first, and evinces more inventive power than either of the others, though the story, or stories, are less pleasant. Many readers at a distance charged the author with an overdrawing and color of the state of things existing then at the capital, but intelligent residents of Washington at that day can identify many of the leading characters and incidents, and know the work to be a graphic picture of that strange time.

Mr. Riddle's facility for writing is very great, and is exercised exclusively during the minutes and hours not required in the pursuit of a very active pro- fessional life. It may be said that he has never found a single entire day which he could devote to literary work, and as well that he has never neglected a matter of business for it. His capacity for dispatching professional business will account for the time he finds for other matters. The " Portrait" was written within the limit of twenty-two days. The author's habit is to work out his idea mentally, or permit it to work itself out, before committing it to paper, and not until the whole is complete does he go over or correct a single page. He has also done much newspaper work, and furnished many short stories, all more or less con- nected with his early life, the memory of which has an enduring charm for him. He is said now to be engaged on the pioneer histories of the townships of Geauga County.

In this sketch the attempt has been to make a nearly colorless outline of a busy life, beginning in the obscure pathways of the woods of northern Ohio, and leading finally to the nation's capital. The popular judgment of some of his work has been referred to; the intention has been to refrain from an over-state- ment of its favorable character. No effort of the writer has been made to esti- mate his mental or moral qualities, portray his character, criticise his conduct, or judge of his performances, literary, professional, or forensic. Not a word of his person, manners, or qualities, his likes or dislikes, or how he is esteemed socially. Nothing has been said of him in his various relations to public or pri- vate life. He has been before the eyes of men, has done much work, has met with many of the vicissitudes of human experience. The world must judge of his life and character, and assign him his place among the men of his generation. It is possible that in the hands of a master a biography of him might not be without interest, and be found to contain lessons of use to others. F. R. B.

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HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHIPS AND VILLAGES

GEAUGA COUNTY, OHIO.

INTRODUCTORY.

I AM to write the history of the townships of Geauga County. Let me ask the aid of my readers' imaginations. Let them step back with me across the intervening years to the beginning of the century, when from the Pennsylvania line westward from the southern shore of Lake Erie southerly to the Ohio lay the whole fair realm of plain, hill-side, and forest, river, creek, and streamlet, under the sky, rains and snows, as it had grown to be under the fashioning hand of nature. Covered with a wonderful forest, with a soil of uniform fertility, no arid plains, rocky or sterile hills, no impassable swamps, or waste of savannahs, a well-watered land, with no question of right or title in dispute, it invited the occupation of hardy and enterprising pioneers. These, in the main, were to be drawn from the less-favored East across an intervening stretch of many hundred miles of entire land passage. Enterprise, courage, and hardihood will alone under- take the labor, endure the hardship, and overcome the obstacles. These quali- ties can only successfully plant the new homes and genesis of a new State in these woods. Their enemy will be, by the savagery of nature, in forest, soil, wild beasts, and wild men. The energies of this wild nature, when converted to the purposes of civilization, as found here in their strength, will be the main forces to bear the new communities forward with certainty and rapidity. For the rest, the factors of success must be brought with them. As we know, the territory to be occupied rests on secure title, has been surveyed into townships of the uni- form area of five miles square, from which they vary with the varying lines of a not exact engineering skill. While these blank wastes of forest will present dif- ferences in the quality of soil, timber, and water, in advantages of mill-seats and building-stone, none will be greatly above or below the average. The proposed colonists are to be mainly of one type,-the hardy, tenacious, intellectual, thrifty New Englander. The movement will be wholly due to the individual desire of the middle class to better itself. No State will make or mar by interference. Wealth and class-influence will be quite absent from it. A uniform set of men, of a common origin, intelligence, religious and moral sentiment, will each, in his own way and time, transfer himself and movables over the same road, by the same means, to the same region, build the same habitations, chop and clear the same trees from the same lands, and plant it with the same seeds. Here they will have the same wants, supply them in the same way, all alike going to the same soil, forests, and streams for food and clothing ; have the same diseases, meet and overcome the same obstacles ; shoot the same wild animals, see the same In- dians, encounter the same bears, build the same mills, school-houses, and plant the same churches, and nearly at the same time, in each of those sixteen townships. As a general rule the first settlers purchased land in small tracts, and the county presented few instances of large landholders, who themselves became occupants.

It is obvious that precisely the same features, the same vicissitudes and inci- dents, will be common to all these histories, varied but little by time, circumstance, or individual traits of the various actors. The annals of one township to a stranger will be but a counterpart of most of the others. It will be seen, that although people of a common origin, manners, and customs came and possessed this common country, under the same circumstances, yet the townships, in a few years, came to have characteristics of difference, more or less marked. Those first settled secured some necessary advantage. Some were fortunate above others in the character of their first settlers, men of enterprise, who built them up, or who stamped their in- dividual traits enduringly on the community in its infancy, gave it a direction in the way of education, morality, or religion, which it retains. It might not be

supposed that mere township lines would mark this differen ce. It is to be re membered, however, that all within the lines are brought, and moulded into greater or lesser, but always considerable uniformity, by the wonderful but silent process of the political organization of the township which so widely distinguishes the North from the South. A force under the influence of which we were born, of which we are barely conscious, the potency of which we cannot ourselves appreciate.

In making these sketches I am necessarily dependent for information gathered by others. This I use, as in the main accurate, giving credit for the source. I am only responsible for the use I make of it, and shall have abundant occasion for the indulgence of my readers.

I have pursued the chronological form as the clear and natural one for nar- rative, giving prominence to the earliest settlers and their lives, bringing the sketch, in this form, down to a period when the arrival of new settlers ceased to be an object of interest. In this respect the ordinary incidents of human life, attracting little attention elsewhere, are of grave importance here. The most in- significant man in a New England town, if the first settler of a Western Reserve township, is a man of such proportions that he becomes one of my heroes. So, the first child, is born to eminence. The first slain by accident is a martyr, and the first to depart by the usual exit has his monument set in the memories of sur- vivors, and shall have a place in these pages. All marriages are romantic. The first bride of a Geauga township shall have the tribute of my pencil. It is the reverence, eager interest, with which we turn from these ripe dull days of these later years back to these initial points,-these beginnings of things,-which throws a glamour over these incidents, imparts to them an atmosphere in which they loom to seeming importance, surrounds them with a tender interest, which perpetuates them in story and legend.

These first things I have endeavored to preserve. So, too, the beginning of the civil organization of townships, with the names of succeeding officers. Some- thing of the old militia history, and whatever has in any way marked the current of history, or led to changes in the pursuits or thoughts of the people. Their efforts in education ; the manifestation of the religious sentiment ; the introduction of the various orders, as my sources of information will permit. The later military records and agricultural statistics will be added by other hands. So, too, an account of morals, manners, customs, popular amusements, general intellectual developments, will fall more naturally to the hand that shall sketch the general history of the county. A. G. R.

NOTE .- It will be seen that some of the townships, in the matter of biographical notices, occupy much more space than others. This is entirely due to the material received. The writer found it impossible to secure from many of the townships a single.scrap, date, or place of birth, marriage, or death ; and for many of the sketches in the general biographies, they were kept back until too late to do the subjects proper justice. All were written gratuitously.

The overfullness of Newbury is due to my personal knowledge, and the kindness of friends in giving data. Numerous letters to the friends of prominent families in different townships remain unnoticed. I intended to write an extended notice of Eleazar Hickox, but time absolutely forbids. Every possible moment I could steal from other duties, from the 1st of July till this hour, has been given to this work.

WASHINGTON, September 20, 1878.

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CHARDON TOWNSHIP .*

CHARDON township is No. 9 of range 8 of the Western Reserve, came in 1808 to be distinguished as the shire town of the county.of Geauga, as such must have the first place, although, as will be seen, several of her sister townships were settled some years in advance of her.

SITUATION, SURFACE, SOIL.

Chardon is bounded north by the county line ; Munson lies on the south, with Hambden on the east, and Kirtland on the west. It popularly disputes with other points the honor of the greatest elevation. The Little mountain is in the northwest corner. It has the usual variety of surface of the country, which affords drainage, and the pleasing undulations, quite broken into hills at some points, so delightful to the eye. Chardon hill, to south-southeast, furnishes one of the finest outlooks in northern Ohio.

Her soil is that strong, persistent clay, modified along her streams by loam, with a sprinkling of sand, common to the region. The whole once covered with a magnificent growth of forest-trees, of maple, beech, chestnut, oak, ash, elm, basswood, poplar, the most of which has long since disappeared. Much of the surface has underlying sandstone, which crops out at many points, affording fine quarries of good building-stone.

STREAMS AND WATER-COURSES.

A considerable branch of Grand river, rising in the southwest angle of Hamb- den, makes a bend into and across the northeast part of Chardon, from which it receives small tributaries. While the eastern branch of the Chagrin, rising in Newbury, Munson, and Chester, makes an abrupt entrance across the western line, gathers up the waters of three or four small branches, and as directly turns west into Kirtland, breaking the surface into a succession of considerable hills on its course. High banks and hills also border all the branches of Grand river, caused by the general elevation of the surface ; many fine springs break from the base of the hills, and the township may be said to be unusually well watered.

NAME.

Peter Chardon Brooks, t a large owner of western lands and a proprietor of the township, early offered to the county commissioners of Geauga to donate the land for the village plat to the county for a county-seat if the proposed town should receive his second name. The proposition was accepted, and hence the name of the town, which for civil purposes was a part of Painesville, and became a part of Burton, by order of the county commissioners, in March, 1806.

SETTLEMENT.

The commissioners, under the act of the legislature to establish county-seats for the new counties of Geauga, Cuyahoga, Portage, and Ashtabula, governed by

* From E. V. Canfield's Sketches and other sources.

t To the resident of Geauga this gentleman is but part of a name. One, and that the middle third of his, is borne by their county-seat. It may be well to realize the man to the curious by a brief note of his life. He is of sufficient importance to have writers differ as to his birthplace. " Appletons' Cyclopedia" says he was born at Medford, Massachusetts, while the later "Johnson" assigns North Yarmouth, Maine, as his place of nativity, January 6, 1767. He died in Boston, January 1, 1849. His boyhood and youth were passed on a farm, and he was of age the year the constitution went into effect. Under the influence of the Napoleonic wars, which sent Ameri- can vessels abroad, Mr. Brooks had the sagacity to select marine insurance as a business. He became secretary in a Boston office, and succeeded the principal in the management of its affairs. He labored with all his powers, and studied the law of marine insurance till he became one of its then few masters. His diligence and activity in business, the promptitude with which he paid losses, insured early and great success. The vast fortune he amassed was no part of it due to speculation ; but, with rare good judgment, he availed himself of the opportunities which his business opened to him. Among these the chances of sending abroad articles of trade as "adventures" to the foreign markets, of which he was well advised, brought the most satisfac- tory returns. In this trade he embarked quite all his means. Such was his success that he re- tired in 1803, one of the richest men of "solid Boston." His notion of wealth was the personal independence it secured. The good attained was never hazarded in quest of extravagant gains. He was connected with many benevolent associations, to which he was most liberal. Passed his suminers on the estate of his ancestors, at Medford, where he was a thoroughly practical farmer. Was a member of the first municipal council of Boston, of the executive council, and often of the Senate and House of Representatives of Massachusetts. He exerted himself to suppress the universal resort to lotteries, then prevalent, for the most meritorious purposes, and enjoyed the largest public and private respect, confidence, and love. Of his daughters, one became the wife of Edward Everett, one the wife of R. L. Frothingham, D.D., and third, Mrs. Charles Francis Adams. A good biography of Mr. Brooks appeared in Hunt's " American Merchants," by Edward Everett .- M. A. R. K.

the idea of geographical centre, which, by the erection of Ashtabula and Cuya- hoga, left Painesville, or New Market, at one end of a long strip, selected Chardon hill, in the southeast part of the township. This was approved by the court, to which under the law the report was made, at its June term, 1808. A deed was made of the site to S. W. Phelps, as director, Sept. 16, 1811, and by him dedi- cated in December, 1812.

At the time of this location and order, as at the day of purchase, not a tree had been cut in Chardon township, but at some time early a man of Painesville, by the name of Jordan, went on to the town plat, and built a house by the spring, northeast of the middle of the square, and moved his family into it, thus becoming the first settler.

What became of Jordan I know not. Mr. Canfield several times speaks of the house by the spring as the " Jordan house," but makes no mention of Jordan. Origen Miner, who has written much and well of pioneer history, is my authority for this item.t

I shall treat the village and its life with that of the township, of which it was at first the heart, brain, and hand. As seen, Samuel W. Phelps was director of the county-seat and village plat. He, with the aid of Captain Edward Paine, secured the " chopping" of the square in 1811.

Curtis Wilmot, of Burton, and others unknown, were the principal axemen in the work. In March, 1812, Norman Canfield, father of Rev. Sherman B. and Austin Canfield, an earlier resident of Hambden, who was the first justice of the peace in that region when all was Painesville, and captain of the militia company which made the short campaign to Cleveland, in August of the same year, came over and built a log house where now stands the hotel of Benton & Co., which was soon after occupied by his family. The house was spacious for the day. Had three ground rooms and a chamber, reached by a primitive ladder from the outside, and soon supplemented by the jail. This structure gave place to a framed building erected by Mr. Canfield, in 1818, included in the larger building of D. W. Stocking, and widely known as the Chardon House, of Benton & Co. "Mr. Canfield was the first settler of the township.''§

I am inclined to follow Mr. Miner, and regard Jordan as the first in point of time.

In the spring of the same year a log house, near the present residence of Judge D. W. Canfield, was put up, for a court-house. Into this Captain Paine moved with his family, and occupied it during the summer. This was a house of one room, and all its appointments of the pioneer order of axe architecture. Mr. E. V. Canfield sketches with a free hand, and graphically, the fixtures and furni- ture which it contained when devoted to the purpose of its erection. In the mean time, Captain P. built and moved into a new house of his own, a few yards dis- tant, which my historian calls princely.

The population, which had thus doubled-omitting Jordan-in a month or two, occupied its energies, interrupted by the war, with the more fatal struggle with the giant trees. These were regarded as the standing enemy, to be pursued with a too successful war, which the political economist deplores and the man of sentiment is melancholy over.

In July of the same year Samuel King, of Long Meadow, Massachusetts, with his family and effects, drawn by four oxen and a horse, reached Chardon, after a journey of forty days. He moved into the court-house, built an addition, and used the seat prepared for the judges-the judicial bench-as a doorstep. The surrender of Hull, in August, sent a shiver of fear to all dwellers in the woods, under the influence of which Mr. King packed up and returned East, as did many others, and Captain Canfield and Edward Paine made such hasty provision for the safety of their families as they could, and marched towards the enemy. .

It is said that Captain Paine, clerk of the county, securely packed up the archives, judicial and municipal, of Geauga, consisting of one small volume and several papers, and solemnly deposited them in the safe of the Rocky Cellar, a geological, structure northeast of the village, ere he departed for the wars, and that the vandal red man failed to find them in his absence.

Leaving his family in New York, Samuel King returned in the spring of 1813, cleared the court-house lot, and built a more commodious court-house in the rear

# Geauga, Democrat; Aug. 19, 1868.

¿Sketch by Mr. E. V. Canfield.

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MRS. E.N.OSBORN

E.N. OSBORN.

LITH. BY L. H. EVERTS, PHILA, PA.

RESIDENCE OF E.N.OSBORN, CHARDON TE, GEAUGA CO., O.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

of the old academy, for seven hundred and fifty dollars, where a term-the first of the court in Chardon-was holden that fall. The structure was of squared unframed timbers, a court-room above and jail below, which may be remembered as " old Judge Hoyt's barn." Mr. King's family-a wife, Hannah, and children, Hannah, Warren, John, and Jabez, the two latter so long and well known in Chardon-returned to Chardon in June, 1813. He, Canfield, and Paine logged and cleared the square, and took their pay in "farm produce," raised by them- selves, on the same ground, which they were to use for two years. What a rugged perspective of blackened stumps, roots, and cradle knolls that old-time clearing must have presented ! Samuel King died of fever in 1817.

The 4th of July, 1814, was celebrated by a ball, a grand affair, at the Canfield tavern. Simeon Root, one of the Claridon pioneers, furnished the music. The names of the assembled beauty and fashion, the places whence they came from, the styles of dresses they wore, the bill of fare, and wine list of the host, have not reached us; all, with the throbbing hearts, like the bubbles of mirth, and gladness of that hour, have perished from earth.

Mr. Canfield says that in the fall of 1813 a man, Antony Carter, whom he calls " black Antony," came to Chardon with his wife,-the fourth family in town he calls them,-and for a time occupied a small log structure on the site of William Munsel's shop,-the county commissioner's office. He afterwards built a neat cabin north of the square, on the Painesville road.

`The fifth was the family of Jabez King. He was a brother of Samuel. He finally took up his residence in a house built by one Jordan by the spring at the northeast" corner of Cyrus Canfield's lower orchard. This must have been in 1813. Here Mrs. King gave birth to the first pioneer child. The important event made much noise in the woods. Mrs. Paine, Mrs. Canfield, Mrs. Samuel King, and Mrs. Antony Carter were the only ladies in the settlement. The latter was not requested to be present, while Mrs. Bond and Mrs. Brown, of Bondstown, were. This was the first color line drawn in the county. Mrs. Carter endured it with fortitude. Her irate husband took it hardly, and he returned with her to Trum- bull county to await the fifteenth amendment.

This first child, a girl, was named Laura, and became the wife of O. P. Hale. Jabez King, the next year, made an opening west of the square, built on the Teed place, and died in 1838, preceded by the death of his wife. The first death seems to have been that of Curtis Wilmot, of Burton, caused by a falling tree while chopping on the public square.

The first mail-route must have been established from Painesville to Warren, in 1813 or 1814, and a post-office in Chardon, of which Captain Paine was the first postmaster. Rankin, of Warren, was the first mail-carrier, and made Cap- tain Spencer's house, in Claridon, a resting-place, taking four days for the trip, and on foot. The lowest rate of letter postage then was twenty-five cents for any distance.

The first. jail, doubtless contemporaneous with the first court-house, was a log pen, an " annex" to the west side of Canfield's tavern. Mr. Canfield tells of one McDougal, on being found guilty of debt, was very properly sentenced to this prison for a ten-days' bread-and-water diet, and Mr. Canfield deplores that he did not serve out his time for the benefit of the reflections which he otherwise might have had. In disregard of the law, he impenitently and impecuniously " leaked out" immediately.

John B. Teed came into the county in 1812, went back, and returned in 1813. Soon after he became a resident of Chardon. August, 1814, saw the arrival of Hosea Stebbins and his wife, Patty ; Benjamin Cadwell and Olive, his wife; and Jedediah Sanger and his wife, who all became well-known citizens of Chardon, and passed away many years since. About the same time came Christopher Langdon, his wife, and four children. The younger daughter, Mary, became the wife of Hilen Canfield, and the mother of Judge M. C., Christopher C., and Newton. Daniel Hendryx and wife must have arrived about the same time.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 44

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

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