History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 66

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

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 66
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 66

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).

Asahel Kellogg arrived the same year, 1814, and took up lot No. 14 for himself and his brother Cotton ; built the first saw-mill on the site now occupied by C. H. Kellogg. The spring of 1815 the brothers, with their young families, made their settlement there. The mill was one of the most needed helps to the infant settle- ments of the township. Asahel died in 1843, aged sixty, and Cotton in 1865, at seventy-nine, both much esteemed. Levi Smith came from Connecticut in the same year, 1815, and took up the land now owned by H. H. Wells.

As stated, Horace Taylor settled on lot No. 11 in 1812. He seems to have been accompanied, or soon after joined, by Benjamin Andrews. In the fall of 1814, Ozi Blakeslee with his wife, a sister of Horace Taylor, came in and took up the land now owned by R. M. Allen. He became the first justice of the peace of the township, a man of local note, eccentric, of whom many anecdotes might be related. He was the father of Hon. Childs T., Schuyler Blakeslee, and Rev. Samuel Blakeslee. All of the family occupy good positions.

¿ For a spirited account of the arrival, the sorrows, and hardships of this much-enduring family, see Geauga Democrat, April 11, 1866, by T. C. Wells.

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T.C.WELLS.

THE ARBOR.

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

RESIDENCE or T. C.WELLS, MAPLE S!, CLARIDON TE, GEAUGA COUNTY , 0.

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T. TAINTER.

MRS . T.TAINTER.

RESIDENCE OF C. L. TAINTER, CLARIDON T!, GEAUGA CO., O.

C.L. TAINTER.

MRS. C. L.TAINTER.

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

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169

HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

In 1815, Roderick Kellogg and Eleazar Goodwin built a dish-mill on the stream just south of the residence of Judge Taylor. In 1817, Lester Taylor, thus referred to, became a resident of the township, taking land north of his brother Horace. These settlements constitute what is now known as Taylor street. To return, the year 1814 saw the arrival of Holden Chase and Lot Hathaway in the town- ship, who took up land and built houses north of the village of East Claridon. Captain Chase was a sailor, master of vessels, a soldier of 1812, and a man of mark. Hathaway was also bred to the sea, and had sailed as mate to Chase. Later, Hathaway's house, with all the contents, was consumed by fire. Hiel Armstrong arrived about the same time; was a well-known man.

In 1815, Shadrach Bosley, John Ransom, and Daniel Ames settled between Hathaway's and the north township line, all on the Erie tract. The same year Martin Bushnell settled on the State road, on this tract, as did Gomer Bradly, son-in-law of Captain Spencer. Rev. Luther Humphrey, then settled in Burton, bought a lot just south of the centre, and had a barn built on it. About the same time, 1815, Abraham Wilmot and Samuel Newell became settlers in the township.

1817 saw Benjamin Mastic and Benjamin Sweat, two young men, in Claridon. They were followed soon after by other Mastics,-Benjamin, Sr., Asel Elliott, and their sister Lavina.

1816 was marked by the first arrival of Colonel Chester Treat, a widely-known man, who made a permanent settlement the year following, bringing a wife and one child, C. P. Treat. He was accompanied by his brother Howell. Chester was a stone-mason, and there is said to be a well-attested incident of his having found a living toad imbedded in a solid mass of freestone with no apparent means of access. On liberation it is said to have evinced much activity. Treat filled important positions; was a representative in the State legislature, and a colonel of militia.

In 1816, Chandler Pease built a small house near the Hambden line for the miller of the Higby-Pease mill, before spoken of, and between that time and 1840 fifteen families lived in it. Among the occupants was the late David T. Bruce, of Chardon. All their names, as well as those of the five or six persons who died, are given by a careful writer,* and yet I find that many of the old and most respectable inhabitants of Claridon are skeptical of this whole matter of the Stephen-Higby mill.

Claridon was, one time, a part of the civil township of Burton,-made so with eleven other townships in the south part of the county in 1806. It was known by the name of Canton. With Munson it afterwards formed a civil town- ship under the name of Burlington. In 1818 or 1819 the first post-office was established in it, by the name of Claridon. Soon after, its inhabitants petitioned the legislature to have the name of the township changed to Claridon, which was done. The county commissioners severed Munson from Claridon in 1821.

ORGANIZATION.

Under the name of Burlington, the first township election was holden on the first Monday of April, 1817, at the house of Asahel Kellogg. Asa Cowles was called to the chair, and himself, Ozi Blakeslee, and Horace Taylor, were made judges of the election. Ozi Blakeslee was elected justice of the peace; Ralph Cowles,-the clerk of the election,-township clerk ; Asa Cowles, Allen Hum- phrey, and Reuben Hall, trustees; Horace Taylor and Timothy Wells, Jr., over- seers of the poor; Benjamin Andrews and Aranda Kellogg, fence-viewers; Truman Pitkin, lister and appraiser; Nathaniel Spencer, appraiser ; Isaac Hoff, John Ransom, Martin Bushnell, Ozi Blakeslee, Ebenezer Wells, Simeon Root, and Samuel Hopson, supervisors of highways.

Hopson was one of the first settlers of Burton, Mesopotamia, and the first settler of Munson.

Of the others, Hoff is a new name, whom I cannot locate, though he was a man of Claridon.

The township officers for 1878 are E. S. Chapel, C. A. Kellogg, and W. E. Spencer, trustees; F. E. Kellogg, clerk ; D. B. Ladd, treasurer ; L. N. Spencer, assessor ; A. S. Watts and Henry Morse, constables ; J. C. Wells and A. B. Knapp, justices of the peace ; and eighteen supervisors.

The first post-office was established as above, and Cotton Kellogg appointed the first postmaster. The mail route from Painesville to Warren, the first through Claridon, was opened and run in 1819.

At East Claridon, George S. White was the first postmaster. In notes of the late Ozi Blakeslee, Esq., dated March 7, 1831, I find this significant paragraph : " There has, as yet, been no tavern, distillery, lawyer, physician, grocery, or. grog-shop located in the town, or a township tax levied." Happy Claridon ! Two of Ozi's sons became lawyers in due time. I follow these notes further :

" The first marriage was that of Matthew Fleming, of Burton, to Miss Chloe

Douglass." The date of this event is not given. T. C. Wells says that the wedding of Tabitha Pease and Jesse Hale occurred in the winter of 1811-12, and was the first in Claridon. On reference to the record, this occurred November 26, 1813, by Esquire N. Canfield. Aranda Kellogg and Sara Cowles were mar- ried October 29, 1815, at which time I find no mention of the Fleming-Douglass marriage.

"Samuel Douglass was the first male child born." He died March 16, 1875. He could hardly have been the first child of Higby's son. Obed was born in 1809.

" The first female child born was Eliza Douglass," now Mrs. George Manly, of Chardon.

"The first adult death was Mrs. Eaton, daughter of Simon Gager."

The first death of adult male was a sojourner by the name of Ransom. Allen Humphrey was the first interment in the cemetery.t

" The first framed house was built by Asahel Kellogg, and the first framed barn was by Captain Spencer." The quotations are all from Mr. Blakeslee's notes.

The same authority (Blakeslee) fixes the population at 321 in 1821; whole number of voters, 76; followed by the number of " horned cattle," which was 511; sheep, 477 ; swine, 307; horses taxable, 17.

In 1830 the heads of families were 114; whole number of males, 310; females, 317; a total of 627.

Population from 1850 to 1870 :

In 1850, 1009; 1860, 993; 1870, 909,-a falling off of 100 in twenty years, much less than in many of the townships. It will be found useful to compare it with other towns of the county. The reader will find this subject briefly discussed under the same head in the history of Russell.

INDUSTRIAL DIFFICULTIES.

The men of this generation can never realize the manifold difficulties in the way of all economic enterprise and success encountered by the pioneers. The first complaint was not the want of a market nor the few and quite impassable roads. A man's life with his family lay in the gradually-enlarging circle of cleared land around his cabin. From this his bread must be made. Between him and the primi- tive earth nothing could come. Roads and markets would be found when he had aught to exchange or sell. His foes were of his household and out-door imple- ments, their lack and imperfection,-the house furniture, the scantiest possible ; the iron or wooden crane and crane-hooks ; the rude oven and bakepan ; the wooden " slice" and poker for the kitchen, which was dining-room, bed-room, and parlor; the rude spinning-wheels; the hatchel, cards, and awkward hand-loom; the gourd-shells, wooden trays and plates with which the unnamed, unsung pioneer mothers and daughters wrought and fought the battle of life, which ended when, worn thin and exhausted, many of them sunk into premature graves : we usually hear only of the long-lived. The clumsy axe, for which the workman had to devise a helve without tools to make it with, and for which he had no grindstone, and which, broken or worn out, had to be carried a dozen miles, if perchance a bit "English blister" steel and a smith could be found to "jump" it; the wooden mauls and " gluts" for splitting rails; the rude sap-troughs and small iron kettles for sugar-making; the heavy iron hoes; the impossibility of getting spades and shovels ; the wooden-toothed harrows; the bull-plows, with an iron nose, less effective than the snout of an enterprising, properly-encouraged pioneer swine; the old sickle; the poor scythe, with self-extemporized snath, flax breaks, swingling knives and boards, flails, and hand-fans,-all these rude and imperfect, often breaking beyond repair, with which the scantily-clothed, barefooted, hatless, weather-tanned, hard-handed farmer and his coarsely-fed boys assaulted and wore away the forests, and the sources of their own lives weakened by malarious fevers and agues as they wrung the hard lives of the family from the roots and weeds of their own unsubdued lands by endless toil and moil. The fossils of all these primitive things might be collected in a curious and useful museum, but what mind can conjure back a shadow of the ghosts of the days and lives of the men and women whose arrivals in these far-off woods I have here chronicled ?

Money-money had to be paid for leather, salt, and taxes. Silver coin so rare that it was cut into fractions for change. No man had ever seen gold then. Every penny hoarded for the indispensables. The little surplus that could be spared from the farm, the maple-sugar camp, geese-feathers and beeswax of the careful wife, the pelts of the successful hunter, were exchanged, bartered for cottons and prints at awful rates for the purchaser. Salts, black salts, would bring cash in remote Pittsburg, and as the forests of Claridon dissolved to ashes they were carefully gathered, and kettles at an enormous cost procured, the field ashes run into crude black salts, and wheeled or sledded through the awful roads. With

. T. C. Wells, Geauga Democrat, February 12, 1868.

t The two last on the authority of H. H. Wells.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

cash from the same quarter came Pittsburg glass, iron, steel, and nails, all of a sadly inferior quality, as many can remember.

The fields extended, flax was raised, cows increased, butter and cheese were for sale, improvements in implements were introduced, woods improved, iron plows, grain-cradles, patent scythe-snaths, with the new reflecting tin baker, cutlery and crockery for the kitchen, came with cheap domestics, cheap satinettes, and imported broadcloths and silks ; and time brought its slower changes for the better.

The intelligent farmers of Claridon were always emulous, and in various ways in advance of many townships. It was fortunate in the character and qualities of the men and women, whose occupation of its woods has been mentioned, and some which have not been, and the many valuable accessions she afterwards re- ceived. These early held among themselves rather informal fairs and cattle- shows, and in various ways kept alive a generous ambition and spirit to excel in the useful.

In the fall of the year, says Mr. H. H. Wells, " the farmers, from an early day, would hold a cattle-show, bringing their oxen, steers, cows, heifers, calves, horses, colts, sheep, and swine together at the centre, which were largely attended, leading to useful results." He says the 4th of July was also a social, domestic occasion, of much patriotic gratulation and visiting. All these influences, under the inspiration of Claridon public spirit, with very little outside aid, kept the township forward on the road of advance so carly entered upon.

THE GEAUGA FREE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,

organized in 1852 or 1853, was largely a Claridon enterprise, to be spoken of here. Its object was, by annual fairs and such inducements as it could command, to improve agriculture, diffuse a proper spirit of emulation and progress among farmers, develop their resources, elevate their characters, and give dignity and importance to their pursuits. Its revenues were voluntary subscriptions, and its premiums were commendatory diplomas. It built a fine hall in 1854 at the centre of Claridon, costing $1000. In 1855 the officers were Hon. B. B. Wood- bury, president, with a vice-president in each township; Recording Secretary, J. C. Hathaway ; Corresponding Secretary, E. V. Canfield; Treasurer, Calvin Moffant; Executive Committee, Colonel E. Spencer, John Murray, G. S. King, Burton Armstrong, and David Brown; Superintendent of Grounds, R. S. Rowley; Marshal, C. P. Treat; Chairman of Police, R. C. Lyon. The association had a fine driving-track, and the fair for that year was on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of September.

The ensuing year, 1856, under the presidency of H. H. Wells, Esq., the association secured Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, to deliver the address at the annual fair, which was holden on the grounds, the 16th, 17th, and 18th of Sep- tember. Mr. Clay was present, and spoke on the last day of the fair; the attend- ance was estimated at fifteen thousand. The occasion was one of great interest. The fair continued to be held till 1870, when, by a vote of the association, it was dissolved.

THE CLARIDON FARMERS' CLUB.

This association marks the character of the agricultural population of the township. It was organized in 1860, with Hon. Lester Taylor, president; Colo- nel E. Spencer, vice-president; H. H. Wells, secretary ; and Burton Armstrong, treasurer. It has now a membership of about seventy, who hold their meetings at the residences of the members, once a month. The usual programme has been a short prepared address, followed by a spirited discussion of some practical question of agriculture. A report of these discussions is given in the press, and evince much scientific and practical information on the part of the members. It is the parent of the two or three other more recent similar clubs in the county.

The " better half" and counterpart of this club is an association of women of the families of the male members, who have an independent organization, in which they discuss the important questions falling more especially within their immediate jurisdiction. Their meetings are at the same house and time, though separate from those of the male branch. The occasions end with a social reunion of much interest.

In addition to notes of the above associations, H. H. Wells gives an account of

THE FARMERS' UNION STORE,

a large joint-stock association, organized in 1848, and interesting, as all similar efforts at associated undertakings are. Its purpose was to engage in a mercantile enterprise, to be carried on in Claridon. It elected H. H. Wells and Maning Shumway superintendents. Mr. Wells remained in charge four years and re- tired. The store went at once into successful operation, and in 1849 started the first cheese-factory of Geauga County,-among the first attempted anywhere. This seems to have received milk in the form of curds, and from nine to ten hundred cows, turning out from eighty to one hundred and twenty cheeses per

day, averaging fifteen pounds each. During the first years the business was very successful, when it fell off, was closed out, and the store and goods sold to R. C. Lyon, and were afterwards burned.

THE GEAUGA MERCANTILE COMPANY

was organized in 1850, and placed under the management of Messrs. C. P. & J. C. Treat as agents. Its place of business was at the centre, and it did a con- siderable business for six or six or seven years. The following other persons have also been engaged as merchants in Claridon : Bolster, Kellogg & Co., A. C. Treat, Lucretia Taylor, C. A. Kellogg & Co., Williston & Kellogg, Hodge & McIntosh, Bolster & Wells, Bolster & McIntosh, Hathaway & Lukens, I. P. Lukens, Leslie Brothers, H. Leslie, and perhaps others.

The present merchants at West Claridon are C. A. Kellogg & Co., general merchandise ; at Centre Claridon, Miss Lucretia Taylor, general merchandise; at East Claridon, H. E. Leslie, general merchandise; Charles H. Chase, general merchandise; John C. Mastick, groceries; Daniel Cummings, wagon-maker ; Henry Hathaway and Eugene Morehouse, blacksmiths; Frank Cribby, harness- and shoemaker.

The first steam saw-mill was built in 1850, at the centre, by Talbot & Wells, was removed, and is now owned by Warriner & Wilmot. In addition it planes and matches, manufactures shingles and cheese-boxes, and is said to have con- tributed materially to the wealth and convenience of the township, as such an enterprise, well conducted, does.

CHEESE-FACTORIES.

In the spring of 1861 a cheese-factory was established in Claridon township. The building was erected on lot No. 9, Holmes' tract, by Messrs. Hall & Parker, at a cost of four thousand five hundred dollars. About nine hundred cows were in contribution ; some make one hundred and eighty tons. In the subsequent fall Hall became sole owner, who continued as such until 1873, when he sold to D. Freeman. He operated the factory some two years, and sold to Hollis Brothers, at present part owners. The spring of 1878, A. D. Hall, the original proprietor, purchased a half-interest in the factory. The manufacture of butter was begun in 1876, they making some five thousand pounds that season. The season of 1878 they are working the milk of three hundred and forty cows, making nine sixty-pound cheeses and some eighty pounds of butter daily. The factory was operated on a commission basis until the present season. Now the milk is purchased direct of the farmers. The cheese made at this factory finds a market in Liverpool, England, to which point it is shipped direct from the factory.

At East Claridon, Messrs. Chase & Armstrong put in operation a factory on lot two, section nine, and conducted the same with an average patronage of five hun- dred cows until the spring of 1875, when Mr. Armstrong disposed of his interest, since when the factory has been conducted under the firm-name of E. H. Chase & Son. The business of butter-making was begun in 1875, and is still prose- cuted. The season of 1878 the milk of four hundred cows is worked, making a daily average of thirteen cheeses, weighing fifty pounds each, and fifty pounds of butter. Present capital invested, two thousand five hundred dollars.

Mr. D. Armstrong, on retiring from the Chase factory, in the spring of 1875, established a smaller factory, just north of the railroad, on lot one, investing some six hundred dollars in the buildings. The season of 1878 they have some seventy cows, make some forty pounds of butter and one hundred pounds of cheese daily.

Without doubt, the oldest manufacturing establishment in Claridon, and perhaps in Geauga County, is the chair-factory on lot No. 9, in the Holmes tract. This was erected in the year 1811, by Nathaniel Spencer, who had recently arrived in the township from Hartford, Connecticut, and was for many years used in the making of chairs and spinning-wheels,-the latter in great de- mand in early times. In the year 1823 the building was rebuilt, enlarged, and put into its present shape.

RELIGION AND CHURCHES.

All the early pioneers seem to have been God-fearing men, of the Presbyterian faith, which they planted and nurtured with care in the wilderness. The best colonizers were Puritans. The first public worship was in the oft-referred-to house of Asa Cowles, who himself conducted it. I turn back to the notes of Ozi Blakeslee and J. C. Wells, for some account of the progress of that church, for many years there, as generally through the West, known as the Congregation- alist. For some reason former Presbyterians shun the old, honored name. Strict and puritanical, servants of the Jewish notion of the Sabbath, they at first at- tached themselves to Burton ; but the distance and roads induced them to forego the solemn ministration of " Priest Humphrey," as he was called, and assemble at

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

RESIDENCE OF J. C.WELLS, CLARIDON TE, GEAUGA COUNTY, O.

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RESIDENCE or ASHBEL SPENCER, CLARIDON TE, GEAUGA C9,0.

LITH.BY L. N. EVENTS, PHILA, PA.

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171

HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

the house of Mr. Cowles, for such religious exercises as laymen had at hand or could extemporize. Of one of these meetings I find this record : " On Sabbath, the 16th of November, 1814, services at the house of A. Cowles, according to custom." A Sabbath-school was also commenced at that early time. J. C. Wells says that the Rev. Mr. Harris preached the first sermon delivered in the woods of Claridon.

THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

was established December 26, 1827. Rev. Luther Humphrey preached, and the words of his text are preserved. The following are the names of the members : Asa Cowles, James Preston, Cotton Kellogg, Elisha Strong, Jacob Warriner, Stephen Pitkin, Aranda Kellogg, Asahel Kellogg, Horace Taylor, Lucy Kellogg, Betsey Kel- logg, Amanda Kellogg, Harriet Pitkin, Lydia Pitkin, Laura Kellogg, Sybil Cowles, Marina Cowles, Nancy Taylor, Sally Strong, Sabrah Warriner, Lydia Warriner, Lydia Preston, Achsah Blakeslee, Hannah Goodwin, Esther Wells, Diantha Wells, and Dolly Andrews,-twenty-seven, of whom two-thirds were women. Would it be irreverent to say, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven" ? In 1822 a school- house was built near Asahel Kellogg's and in 1830 a fine school-house at the centre. In these, and at the oft-mentioned house of Asa Cowles, the church held its worship till the present edifice was ready for use.

I quote from Mr. Blakeslee : " In the summer of 1828 the Rev. Orange Lyman was hired to preach five Sabbaths, at five dollars per Sabbath,"-a seemingly pure business matter. It has been found that even churches do not succeed save by good business methods. "On the 21st of September, 1828, the Rev. Myron Tracy, from Vermont, aged twenty-eight, preached in Claridon, and has continued till the present time" (March 7, 1831). A negotiation with Mr. Tracy resulted in his becoming the pastor, at a salary of three hundred and fifty dollars, " one- third in money, and the other two-thirds (O. Blakeslee) in farm produce, at the current prices." The means of payment were raised by voluntary subscription, and I give several significant items from the list :

Horace Taylor .....

$9.00

Horace A. Taylor.

1.50

Jacob Warriner.

1.25

2.75

Stephen Pitkin.

2.00

6.00

James Preston

5.00

Elisha Strong ..

5.00

3.00 4.00

Huron Humphrey

1.00

In saddlery or harness

1.00

" Alanson Bail agreed to make ' one pair of calf-skin boots yearly.'"

There were seventy-eight subscribers; amount cash, $84.75. In produce, sad- dlery, harness, and boot-making, $190.75 = $275.50. The pastor stipulated for leave to labor elsewhere to make up any deficiency in his salary. Mr. Tracy remained in charge till October, 1834, when one does not regret to hear that he had a (louder) call from the Foreign Missionary Society, of the Mississippi valley, to go West. The matter was referred to the Grand River presbytery, who approved the course of Mr. Tracy in listening to the voice; and the relations be- tween them, always of the pleasantest character, were dissolved, and Rev. Dexter Witter, of Burton, requested to visit them ad interim.

The successor of Mr. Tracy was Rev. Perry Pratt, who labored two years, and was followed by Rev. Samuel Lee, who remained three. Then comes a vacant pastorate of four years, with feedings by Revs. Messrs. Beecher, Page, and Wood. It was a period of trial and transition from the Old-School presbytery to the New, and becoming Congregational. This effected in 1843, for five years following Rev. Marshal Ames ministered. His health failed, and he died regretted.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 66

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

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