History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 55

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

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 55
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 55

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).

INDIANS.

The Cuyahoga and its neighborhood was a favorite resort of small bands of Indians for hunting and trapping. Indeed, much of the Reserve, while it held few if any permanent Indian villages, was, by common red man consent, a hunt- ing-ground of small parties of Wyandottes, Delawares, Shawanese, and other tribes, who had names of their own, derived from a present chief or some object of natural history. Many of these natives were still in the valley of the Cuya- hoga, on the borders of Middlefield, and were well known to the early settlers, and furnished some incidents which might be worked into a more extended his- tory of the early settlement. Though sympathizing with the foreign British, and joining them in the subsequent war of 1812, the crushing defeat of the western tribes on the Maumee by Wayne, in 1794, left them abject and cowed, and the early settlers of the Reserve, quite without exception, found them docile and ab- ject. It is said that news of the approaching war was first received by these wild denizens of the woods, who, in a single night, disappeared with its shadow, from all their haunts, by spring- and stream-side, and their few wondering white neighbors found nothing but deserted wigwams, empty hunting-grounds, and extinguished camp-fires.

They had a little camp in Burton, on the ground which afterwards became the old burying-ground, south of the village, from which was an Indian trail leading into Trumbull township, east across Middlefield, passing the residence of Joseph Johnson, along which large parties, with their ponies led by the squaws, were often seen going and returning to and from their hunts. The last of these trains over the old trail, was not in the usual guise. Strung out in thin file nearly a mile in length, each hunter flashed out in the fierce aspect of a warrior in his paint of fiery red. Their colors and deportment produced much uneasiness in the scattered settlements. Some of these settlers met some of these Indians in the ensuing wars.

It is related that on the return of peace a small band of them went back to their old haunts on the favorite Cuyahoga, and encamped at "The Rapids," in Hiram. They suddenly disappeared, and, as was supposed, had departed West. Their fate was finally thought to be quite different. It was generally said that they were here set upon by a party of the returned soldiers, and destroyed. The legend has it that but one escaped. This account was derived from one of the white avengers. The names of many prominent Indian-hunters of that time are con- nected with this supposed tragedy. Other forms of this story will be mentioned.

SETTLEMENT-1799.

Middlefield was originally purchased by the Connecticut Land Company, and, like so large a share of the Reserve lands, was in the hands of the late Simon Perkins, of Warren, for sale. The first known white occupants of the woods in the township-settlers they can hardly be called-were two men by the name of Romoyn and Hillman. This is said to have been in 1797. They built a rude cabin or shelter to protect them and their property from the storms and wild beasts. Their stay was short. They were probably hunters, and perhaps traders gathering peltries from the Indians, and are said to have gone to Canada.

The first permanent settlers were Isaac Thompson and his son James, who planted themselves in the Middlefield woods in 1799. They originated, as did many of the adventurous early settlers, from Pennsylvania, made their way to

the present site of the city of Rochester, in New York, where Isaac purchased a hundred acres of land. It proved unhealthy, low, marshy, and aguey, and he abandoned it. Thence he removed to Charlestown, West Virginia. Of Irish parentage, if not birth, nomadic was he, and in a short time he traversed the Ohio forests to Mentor, Lake County, under inducements of a friend who had settled there. Mentor was then a swamp, and two years later he made his way to Middlefield. Here he built a tavern on the " Old Girdled Road," laid out by Colonel Thomas Sheldon, of Enfield, Connecticut, in 1798, opened by hands which long since ceased to wield axes. It led from somewhere about the mouth of the Grand river to Warren and the Ohio. This structure stood a few rods south- east of the burying-ground, the site of which is still marked by a few old apple- trees. This long wandering and many times settling in the woods must necessa- rily have quite perfected Thompson in the ways of pioneer-life. He must have become a master of woodcraft, an expert hunter, familiar with the streams, able to thread his way through the wilderness, brave, hardy, and inventive.

He was the first justice of the peace, elected in 1807.

James Thompson, the son and father of the present generation, then about twenty-one, was a man of mark all his life. He was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1779, and died October 15, 1877, aged ninety-eight, on the homestead made by his father, honored and esteemed. He was twice married, was the father of fifteen children, of whom ten survived him .. These are gen- erally esteemed.

It is said that quite contemporaneous with Isaac Thompson came the Wallaces, John and Robert; also S. Donaldson; as did Samuel Meno. The Wallaces built and kept a tavern. These, after a few years, are said to have moved away, leaving no representative of their name in the township. Robert Wallace married a daughter of Meno-the first wedding in Middlefield ; and that of Page to a sister of the Wallaces was the second.

1801 is noted in the early chronicles of Middlefield for the arrival of Joseph Johnson. He, too, was a native of Pennsylvania, and purchased the land on which Romoyn and Hillman built their cabin, four years before. He was the father of John Johnson, Sr., James, and Bartley. Here he cleared a farm, lived his respected life, and died. What hand can restore the forests and portray the life with its incidents and spirit as seen by these pioneers ? I find the name of Basil Kahow also as a settler of these early years. It is said he built a cabin on what is known as the old Chatfield farm. So the name of James Glenn ap- pears, who settled in the east part in 1805. Also Silas Young, of Pennsyl- vania,-" Uncle Silas," a Quaker. He planted himself on the purling waters of Swine creek, in the southern part,-a thrifty man, bringing dollars with him, as was the wont of the men of his garb. Much could be said of Silas Young. James Heathmore, Sr., a native of Virginia, made Middlefield his home in 1806, and planted himself in the southwest corner. Some years since he moved to Ashtabula county. Ezra Bryant came early, as did a Sperry, who got drunk and was burned to death in his house on the old " Girdled road." Benjamin Wells was also an early settler. The day of his advent is not given, nor of others who fol- lowed, among them Jesse B. Bishop, from Connecticut, in 1806, who settled himself on the old State road, south of the Corners. We have not been favored with the names of those who, each in his own toilsome way, built cabins and hunted shadows and silence from the primeval woods for several of the following years. Nor have the supposed possessors of such data deemed it proper for their inscrut- ably wise purpose, best that the world should have the benefit of their carefully- hoarded knowledge. In 1815, Moses Morse came on from Massachusetts, and made himself a resident. A young man was he, and two years later he was made happy by receiving in marriage Lydia Thompson, then in the brightness of sweet sixteen, a daughter of our first pioneer Isaac, born in the Middlefield woods in 1801, the first girl-baby of the township. This thus favored individual is still living just south of the Corners. Among others, David Gleason was an early settler of the eastern part, and Daniel Gleason came in 1817. Moses Hutchins, of Connecticut, moved to Burton in 1812, and crossed over the Cuyahoga to Middlefield, in 1814. William Crittenden arrived in 1819 from New Haven, Connecticut. With his wife he brought four children, Julius, Frederick, Horace, and Julia. The two older are deceased. Frederick was the father of H. W. Crittenden, a merchant at the Corners. Another child, Harriet, is the wife of

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

RESIDENCE OF H. ROBB, MIDDLEFIELD TE. GEAUGA CO.O.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

Daniel Morse, and lives at the Corners, and David, on the old homestead. Am- brose Perkins reached Middlefield in 1818, and located on the farm now owned by his son, William L. Russell Davis, from Connecticut, came .the year before, and pitched his tabernacle in the woods that once stood on the present farm of Calvin Davis. Among the more recent important arrivals were Isaac Betts, from New York, who settled on the Burton and Middlefield road, and is still living. Also Joseph Hingston, about the same time, who first settled three-fourths of a mile west of the Corners, and some twelve years later moved into the southern part of the township, and died in 1858. Thomas Wilson, another migratory spirit, started from New York, went to Pennsylvania, thence to Youngstown, and brought up in Middlefield in 1823, where he sensibly remained, southeast of the Corners, on the Middlefield and Parkman road, on the farm now owned by the widow of his son Solomon. This widow was Lydia Evarts, who came from New York in 1822; was married in 1825. Of Thomas Wilson's other children, Rachel, Edgar, and Lyman are all dead. Calvinus W. Gray arrived in 1830, from New York originally, and settled on the farm now owned by his sons, A. J. and J. H. Gray.

I linger a moment to gather up the names of a few more of the worthy, old, and early pioneers not referred to in this outline of the settlement.

Otis Russel must have been of the first. He was there to sell a load of hay to Captain Spencer, of Claridon, in 1811 or 1812, who, at about the same time, bought a nine-year-old "steer" of Uncle Silas Young, to mate a five-year-old " ox," whose mate was a victim to that scourge of kine of that day,-the "bloody murrain."

There was also Eli Fowler-everybody's Uncle Eli-and his brother, Horace, who built their cabins in the lonesome mid-woods at the very beginning.

The dignified form of Major Chatfield, a stately gentleman of the old school, rises before me,-a man of culture and fine presence, a good reader, who im- pressively rendered the beautiful service of the Episcopal church, of which he was one of the planters in Middlefield.

Enoch Alden was an early settler, and lived to a good old age ; and the John- sons,-John, James, and Bartley, sons of Joseph Johnson. What a famous hunter was John and the younger, Bartley ! and what stories could be told of them and their wildwood adventures! J. V. Whitey gave me the details of John's once being driven to bay by a gang of thirty or forty wolves in the Montville woods. He planted himself against the wide trunk of an old tree, and slew so many that the residue slunk cowed away. James was also a famous hunter, as was the younger, who was said to run the game, and who roamed the West when the game disappeared from the Cuyahoga, where the Johnsons used also to be successful trappers.

I drop these imperfect notes of the earlier peopling of Middlefield to gather up rapidly some of the incidents of the township history.

Next to the first cabin of an actual settler, the first saw-mill takes rank in im- portance. Our old Quaker Uncle Silas was the first manufacturer of boards, slabs, plank, and scantling in Middlefield. He set up a saw-mill in 1805 or 1806, which is said to be the first framed building erected in the township. Worldly- minded was Uncle Silas, or he would not have wandered so far from his " meeting- house," " monthly," "quarterly," and "yearly meetings." I am sorry also to record of him that he set a whisky-still running in 1807, against which his people had already borne testimony. He opened and kept a tavern; had speculative ways, and became a large flour contractor, for the army of General Harrison, in the war of 1812, buying wheat at two dollars per bushel in Colum- biana county, getting it turned into flour as he could, and then hauling through such roads as were, to Fairport. When peace came he had many thousand barrels of flour on hand, which fell to peace-prices, and in many other ways he was a loser of capital. Many respected descendants of Silas Young are in the county.

One of the first framed houses in the township was built by Benjamin Wells at the Corners, now occupied by Eli Bishop.

In this building the first post-office was established, and Wells was the first postmaster,-a post he continued to fill for thirty or forty years.

Soon after the erection of this building James Thompson built the tavern house just south of the Corners, now occupied by Philander T. Thompson as a dwelling- house. James Thompson is said, also, to have built the first corduroy road through the swamps, and the first bridge over the Cuyahoga in Middlefield.

The first schools, as usual, were kept in private buildings. The first school- house was built at the Corners at an unascertainable date. Mercy Tracy, after- wards the second wife of this James Thompson, was one of the first teachers.

Rev. Joseph Badger, of course, was one of the first missionaries who preached to the dwellers in the Middlefield woods.

The first church-edifice erected was by the Episcopalians, who had a church organization many years before, and services at taverns and private residences.

The first mercantile establishment was set up by James Peffers, which stood

opposite the present residence of Patterson White,-a small structure, though doubtless ample for the day. Hiram L. Bishop, long a prominent citizen of Mid- dlefield and of the county, opened a store in 1837, as did J. B. Harrison at an early day. Some of the younger Thompsons have since carried on the business in the township and elsewhere.

The first wedding took place in or near the year 1800, and was the marriage of Robert Walluce and a daughter of Samuel Meno.

As stated, Lydia, daughter of Isaac Thompson, and wife of Moses Morse, was the first white child born in Middlefield, in 1801.

The first death-at least, the first interment in the cemetery-was that of Sarah, first wife of James Thompson.

ORGANIZATION.

It is said by Mr. Colgrove (Geauga Democrat, Aug. 30, 1871) there was an election for township purposes held in Middlefield the first Monday of April, 1802, by the people of Middlefield, Burton, Windsor, and Mesopotamia. This must have been the old territorial district of Middlefield, and more extensive than Mr. Col- grove supposed. I find no order for it in the Trumbull records, nor have I other information concerning it. Organization for civil purposes occurred in 1817, when, by an order of the commissioners of the county, Huntsburg and Middlefield were united as a township, and called Batavia.

The first election of which any record is preserved took place on the first Monday of April, 1818, at the house of John Johnson. From the names it appears that Huntsburg was then politically a part of Middlefield. Of the township officers then elected, Paul Clapp was clerk ; Abner Clark, Simeon Moss, and James Thompson, trustees ; Abner Clark and Calvin Fuller, overseers of the poor ; Moses Townsley and John Young, fence-viewers ; Paul Clapp, lister, and Jesse B. Bishop, appraiser of property ; Jesse B. Bishop, Wm. Thompson, Simeon Moss, Stephen Pomeroy, and John Randall, supervisors of highways ; Stephen Pomeroy, treasurer; and Benjamin Wells, constable. Isaac Thompson was the first justice of the peace who exercised the functions of that important magistrate in Middlefield, having been elected to the office at Painesville in 1806.

It is said that the township was originally called Middlefield. In early days, as is known, the people of many townships were associated for civil purposes ; as one of such a group, Middlefield was a sort of centre, where the elections were held, as in 1802 and later. The old district above named Middlefield continued to wear her Dutch name till, on petition of her people, her rightful and a very pretty name was restored to her by the legislature.

This matter of the names of the townships is a curious one, and not without interest. I think it is not known how some of them were named, or by whom. Sometimes the settlers seem to have exercised the right of naming their own, as would seem proper, either at an election, a raising, or by petition. The last would imply that the right to change, at most, was not theirs. Sometimes it was done by the board of county commissioners, sometimes by the legislature. The two last bodies certainly have interposed to change existing names. In some instances, probably, a proprietor has given a name to his property, though such an instance has not come to my notice, unless Huntsburg is one.

CHURCHES.

As stated, the first religious organization was of the Episcopal faith, indicating the taste and culture of those who planted it.

The Methodists ( Episcopal) organized a church as early as 1835, and soon after erected their neat edifice, just east of the Corners, about the year 1840. The venerable Anson Fowler, now of Burton, is said to have been the first class-leader. The present membership is twenty-two, under the care of the circuit preachers,- a system of church organization having rare and peculiar features of efficiency in all new communities, but having less advantages in old.

The Wesleyans organized in 1843. This was effected by the withdrawal of thirty-one members from the Methodist Episcopal. The names of the seceders are Almon and Maria Nichols, William B. and Hannah Gray, John and Patty Ford, William T. Nichols, J. B. Harrison, E. C. Harrison, A. B. Cook, Phebe and Clarissa Bishop, Mary Stone, John and Dolly Swaney, E. J. Hayes, J. W. Sherman, Ezra and Maria Richmond, Calvin and Betsey Kitcham, Carlton and Andelucia Clapp, John Allen, James Lepper, Lucy Ketchum, Silas Ketchum, H. W. and Maria Peck. Two and two into the new ark. Rev. E. J. Hayes, Jr., is the pastor.

INDUSTRIES.

THE LEBANON CHEESE-FACTORY.

The usual course of agriculture was pursued in Middlefield. The qualities and composition of her soils led to a predominance of grazing interests, finally taking the form of dairying. There is one checse-factory in the township called as

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above, situated at the Corners, under the proprietorship of Messrs. Pierce & Grant. It consumes the milk of nine hundred cows. Its product, about one hundred tons per annum, is said to be esteemed in the eastern market, and is shipped every week as cured.

A machine- and repair-shop is situated on the Burton and Mesopotamia road, east of the old State road. It is a general repair-shop, owned by William L. Perkins, a son of Ambrose. It was erected in 1838, on a spring brook, where Mr. Perkins carried on business for many years. In the busy hay and harvest season it is much employed in the repairs of reapers, mowers, and thrashers. It also turns out hubs, spokes, forks, and hoe-handles.

BUSINESS DIRECTORY.

Hollenbeck & Crittenden, general dealers in merchandise; Mr. J. Johnson, hardware; I. N. Thompson, merchant and postmaster ; Church & Rose, boots and shoes ; E. L. Ford, drugs and medicines ; C. A. Sanford, ice; W. T. Hodges, hotel ; O. N. Glendening, blacksmith ; Charles Smith, ice; L. D. Ward, harness-maker ; L. K. Murdock, boots and shoes; Bently & Landfear, furniture; White & Thompson, steam saw- and feed-mill ; Patterson & White, steam saw-mill.

The physicians and surgeons at present are Dr. E. A. Burchard and Dr. C. S. Sandford.

However worthy these men are, they share the fate of all the men and things of this present day, and our readers of this generation will wonder why I give their and other names of the present time in these histories. Let them remem- ber that I write not only for the present generation, but for the future. Our grandchildren may be as anxious to know something of us and our times as are we of the lives and times of our grandfathers.

EARLY INCIDENTS.

As illustrative of the men and times the following may be given : Joseph John- son, of whom mention has been made, returned East a year or two after his ar- rival in Middlefield, and brought back with him a mare with foal. During the winter the mare was allowed to run out and obtain her living from the swamp grass, which was very abundant upon the Cuyahoga bottoms. Some time in the spring the old mare ceased to return to the stable at night, and after two or three days a diligent search was made for her through the woods. But she could not be found, and Johnson came to the conclusion that the Indians, who were quite numerous, had stolen her. After four or five weeks an old Indian who could jabber some very imperfect English came to Johnson, and, motioning towards the north, exclaimed, " Squaw horse, pappoose horse." Going with the Indian, the mare was found dead in a swamp, and around her the colt had continued to walk until it had made a well-beaten path. The colt, though afraid of the Indian, fol- lowed Johnson home. With care the colt was reared, became a valuable horse, and never parted with.

UNCLE SILAS TRADES WIVES.

For a Quaker, Uncle Silas was said to relish a practical joke. In that old time before the war of 1812 there was an elderly Indian in the neighborhood who became sinitten with the charms of Aunt Hannah Young, then both young and comely. After much sighing and meditation, Lo proposed to Uncle Silas, who was of a speculative turn, to trade squaws. Uncle Silas seemed pleased with the idea, accepted the proposition, and incontinently agreed to swap off-hand, and named the day for an exchange of property. Mrs. Young, who was not advised of the disposition her lord had made of her, was a lady of unusual energy of char- acter and muscle, and withal had very little romantic admiration for the noble red man, his person, habits, or character. The enamored Indian brought over his woman, like Milton's Eve nothing loath, and proceeded to the abode of the sighed for, where his stay was short. Precisely what occurred Mrs. Young never dis- closed. Uncle Silas, who had secreted his diminutive person within sight, used to describe with immense gusto the exit of poor Lo from the premises, propelled by the broom of the irate spouse, who started him off on a freshet of scalding water.

AN INDIAN'S DOG'S LAST DAY.

James Thompson was so long and constantly annoyed by one of the most worthless of these wolf-like brutes, that in a moment of weakness and wrath, one day, he started him in advance of his equally worthless master for the happy, or otherwise, hunting-grounds. In the affections of an Indian his dog ranks with his wife. Thompson was aware of this, as well as of other less humane traits of the native nature, and knew that an Indian search, to be followed by possible In- dian vengeance, would attend the disappearance of the canine. He knew also that his premises, almost the abode of the brute, would be first examined. He was planting out a peach-orchard at the time. He deepened one of the excava- tions to a sufficient capacity, planted the defunct dog, and set a tree in due order over him. Scarce was the work completed ere the arrival of the Indian master

in pursuit of his favorite. Evidently his suspicions were excited, and subse- quently, attended by friends, he carefully examined the premises. Planting trees was a new and suspicious circumstance to the Indians, and the newly-set shrubs were included in the items of the search. Had there been but this one tree, doubtless the remains would have been betrayed. An Indian was capable of the idea of planting a tree over a slain enemy, but so many, in such order, misled them, and the dog and the secret of his murder slept in peace and security.

The officers of the township for 1878 are E. Haskins and J. A. Pierce, jus- tices of the peace; J. J. Rase, treasurer; H. W. Crittenden, clerk ; J. L. Bamer, assessor ; A. Maffet, S. C. King, and S. J. Church, trustees ; A. C. Bamer and L. J. Gilson, constables.

In 1850 the total population was 918. In 1860 the total population was 872, a falling off of 46 in the ten years. In 1870 the total was 730, a diminution of 42, making 88 in twenty years.

The census of 1870 shows 16 residents of Middlefield to be of foreign birth .*

STATISTICS FOR 1878.

Wheat

263 acres.

3,938 bushels.

Oats

560

17,400

Corn ..

490

3.665

Meadow

2375

2,591 44

Potatoes

4,345

Orchards.

267

1,525 tons.

Butter

51.640 pounds.

Cheese.

345,200

Maple-sugar

17,275

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

HARVEY ROBB

was born at West Newton (formerly called Robbstown), Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in 1819. He was the youngest of eleven children. His parents, John and Susannah Robb, came to Middlefield in 1825, Harvey then being six years of age, and settled in the southwest part of the township, on the farm now owned by Horace Harmon. He continued to reside here until 1866, when he sold out, and purchased of Horace Steele the farm of two hundred and fifteen acres a short distance west of the Corners, better known as the R. M. Johnson farm. He is a progressive farmer, his farm being under a high state of improve- ment. He has recently built one of the most substantial and best-arranged barns in Geauga County. Mr. Robb never having married, his sister, Mrs. Augustus Rose,-her husband being dead,-keeps house for him. She is some six years his senior. In 1833 she was united in marriage to Augustus Rose, who was born in Burton in 1809. To them have been born ten children, seven of whom are living. Henry A. lives in Austinburg, Ashtabula county ; George H. and Joel J. in Cleveland; Gordon C. in Salem, Ill. ; Susan E., wife of O. P. Has- tings, in Saybrook, Ashtabula county ; Joseph J. in Middlefield; and Dudley C. at San Antonio, Texas.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 55

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

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