History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 73

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

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 73
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 73

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).

In the summer of 1811 he had the township surveyed into sections a mile square by Chester Elliott, then of Bondstown. These were numbered from the northeast corner south, and back, making twenty-five sections. Of these he selected the central and western tiers of sections for himself and employers. It is said he secured " Little Phin Pond, of Mantua," to build his cabin at the centre, and Sol. Chester and his brother, of Burton, to open a road, so that a wagon could follow the Indian trail, on the east side of the river, with his daughter and goods, to the new mansion.

Jacob Welsh was a native of Boston, of an old family, and reared in luxury, pos- sibly not the best man to colonize a new country. At the time he came to Ohio,

. From various sources, mainly from Mrs. Pike's manuscript.

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TENANT HOUSE & DAIRY BARNS.

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

RESIDENCE or D.L. POPE, POPE'S CORNERS, TROY TP., GEAUGA CO., OHIO.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

he was a middle-aged man ; a gentleman of the old school, of medium height, fair complexion, dressed in small-clothes, with long hose and buckles at the knee, and shoe-buckles over the instep, liberally educated, of imposing appearance and stately address, quite fitted to the aristocratic drawing-rooms of Boston, but not appearing to especial advantage in the woods, trails, and cabins of the Western Reserve. While he was a good conversationalist, he had little energy, small busi- ness capacity, and a large disposition to spend money. Samuel Butler, a son-in- law, says he owned about three thousand acres of land in Troy, and a large amount in Cuyahoga county. Leaving his daughter in the cabin with only a hired man, in 1813, he went to Boston, where he married Mary Chadwick, and returned, in 1814, with his wife and three more children. Mary became the wife of Samuel Butler, of Fairport. A quarrel arose between the father and daughter, and he cut her off in his will. Butler brought a suit, and, after many years of liti- gation, the will was set aside. Samuel and Mary were married at Painesville in 1816, and she died at Fairport in March, 1859. Mr. Butler, aged and infirm, survives. Jacob, a son, and a widowed daughter, a Mrs. Barrett and her daugh- ter, Mary G., who married a Mr. Brooks, of Fairport, were the others.

This marriage was unfortunate. In three years the children were all driven from the father's house. Jacob went to Warren, entered a store, and cared for his sisters till Mary's marriage, when the sister found a home with her in Fairport. It is said that Mr. Welsh promised the settlers that if they would name the town- ship Welshfield, he would give glass and nails for a meeting-house, and fifty acres of land, to settle a minister, which they did, and hence the name. This he forgot to do in his will, and the people, under the lead of John Nash, by petition, secured a change of the name as stated. Mr. Welsh died April 19, 1822.

Peter B. Beals, from Massachusetts, was the second man who came and settled. With him came his nephew, Ebenezer Ford. They reached the township in June, 1811. Beals was authorized by Seth Porter, a land-owner, to select for him, and he chose the east tier of sections for Porter, securing for himself sec- tion 1, where he put up a cabin of elm bark, and left a small beech-tree near for shade, which stands a spreading tree near John Beals' dwelling. He " girdled" and cleared some four acres of land, sowed wheat, from which grew the first grain raised in Troy. He returned to Massachusetts, and in the fall reached his new residence, with his wife and five children, also Harry Pratt, a youth brought up by him, then not quite of age. Likewise a young girl, Paulina Ford, who became the wife of Captain Eleazar Hayes, of Fairport, Connecticut, came with him. Also John Beals, a brother, with wife and five children; Simon Burroughs, wife and three children, all from Plainfield, Massachusetts.

The party traveled with five wagons, three by oxen and two by horses. It is said they were the first to pass over the route from Painesville to Burton direct, which they reached without accident about the middle of July. Peter Beals moved directly to this bark cabin.

Mr. Beals was a man of more than ordinary ability and position, unfortunate in life. A passing word may be said of him. In flourishing circumstances at his ripe middle life, he emigrated to advance his boys, as all his children were. Enterprising, he commenced in the woods with energy, was laid on a sick-bed in the fall of 1812, and after a painful illness became a cripple, and disabled from farm-labor. In 1814 he purchased the tavern-stand now the residence of M. D. Mariam, moved there, and became a postmaster of Burton. He also became a salesman of merchandise for Hickox & Punderson, which he trusted out, became involved, mortgaged his eleven hundred acres of land, suffered heavy judgments, and finally quite lost his sight. In this condition, Peter Hitchcock, Jr., though a mere boy, used to make out his quarterly returns for him. He lost his wife in 1821, a most excellent, lovable woman, and groped his way thence down hill alone. On leaving Burton, he went to live with Alvord, a son, in 1842, in Troy, and supported himself by shaving shingles. The place was sold to W. W. Beals, a nephew, with whom he lived until his death, April 26, 1850, near eighty- seven years of age. His remains were laid by the unmarked grave of his loved wife, in the Burton cemetery, where both sleep without memento.

It is said of him that on his sixty-sixth birthday he composed a stanza on the misfortunes of his life, and added another each anniversary thereafter, each grow- ing sadder until his death, twenty years later .*

The others remained in Burton until houses were prepared. John Beals set- tled where he lived and died at the age of near ninety-eight,-the oldest person in Troy at the time of his death. Burroughs commenced, lived, and died on the farm afterwards occupied by his son Amos.

Alpheus Pierce, also from Plainfield, Massachusetts, commenced to clear and put up the body of a log house in the summer of 1812; went back and moved his family into the township February, 1813. He settled on the farm afterward owned by L. Burroughs.

John Nash, of Windsor, Berkshire county, Massachusetts (Troy was settled from Massachusetts), came and settled on the farm now owned by his son, John Nash, now an old man. With him came a part of the family of the hapless Benjamin Lamoyn, also from Plainfield, Massachusetts. The venerable Mrs. Pike, an elder sister of John, was about six years old at the time of the westward journey. She has the liveliest recollection of the incidents, especially from Buffalo up the lake coast and trail. Our soldiers were then in the neighborhood of Buffalo, and along up towards Cattaraugus, and were not pleased with the idea of families pushing into the perilous west. The journey was made in the winter. At a point within their lines, during an awfully cold day, where the travelers had stopped, a chilled, benumbed soldier on his post was almost perishing with the cold, and Lamoyn, a generous young man, offered to take his place for an hour,- which he did. It was an exposed place, and the Arctic winds across the frozen lake so chilled and benumbed him in that hour that he never recovered; was carried on, and afterwards died in Madison on the 22d of February, 1813. The others reached Troy on the 11th of February. The widow Lamoyn, and what made the family, began on the farm afterwards known as the Sawyer farm, owned by various persons.

Simon Burroughs, also from Plainfield with his family, reached Burton in the winter of 1811-12, and the next November moved into Troy, on the west side of " sugar-loaf." On the 2d day of July following he lost a son, five years old, the first death in the township.

The first marriage was that of Luther Hemingway, of Parkman, and Mary, daughter of Simon Burroughs, in the winter of 1816.

Elijah Ford, a young man of Plainfield, came in the winter of 1812, bought land of P. B. Beals, and married Esther, daughter of Benjamin Johnson, of Burton, before the above, and in due time their daughter Lovina was born, March 2, 1814, the first of the pioneer children. It is gravely noted of her that she ate the first apple that grew in Troy, and married the first man born in the township of his own nativity, in Orleans county, Vermont. Doubtless she was among quite the first people of Welshfield.

Peter B. Beals built the first framed barn, in 1812, on the old W. W. Beals place. It disappeared long ago.

Nathaniel Weston, Nathan R. Lewis, and Isaac Russell also came and settled on section four.

Thus far all the settlements were in the eastern part of the township.

While Troy was yet a part of Burton, John Nash was elected justice of the peace, and four terms afterwards. He transported his family in a wagon drawn by horses, while his goods were transported by oxen. With his family came an adopted son, Joseph Nash, who died in January, 1858. Besides Joseph, were his wife and five children ; more were added later. Of these, Clarissa married N. Colson, and is living, a widow, in Michigan. Sabina married Amos Bur- roughs, and lives in Troy. Emily, after burying three husbands, survives to tell the story, by the name of Pike. At seventy-one, she lives south of the centre Troy, and feels a deep interest in all the incidents of pioneer history, can name almost every funeral that has occurred in Troy, and repeat the text of the sermons delivered on the occasions. John, Jr., married Mary Lamb, and lives on the old homestead. Alden married Olive Pond, and is dead. Elwin died in infancy. The twins, Philenia and Philansia,-the first named married David Nash, and lives in Trey ; the other, Philousia, died in infancy. Louisa married L. Griffith, and is dead, and Julia A. died in infancy. Of these, the four younger were natives of Troy. The father purchased six hundred acres of land, was long a prominent and highly-respected man, and died September 11, 1846, aged seventy-one. His wife died June 27, 1835, aged fifty-seven.

Joseph Nash, a brother of John, came to Troy in 1826. He settled on seven- teen, the farm of Henry Truman. His family were a wife and ten children. Of the children six are living. These are James, at Hiram; Maud, Rosina, Philander, and Betsey in Wisconsin ; Lyman in Kansas ; and Joseph F. in Troy. Mr. Nash was a minute-man in the war of 1812, an ensign ; also a justice of the peace in Troy. He died September, 1858. His mother, who came with him, died in 1850.

Israel Whitcomb, of Bolton, Massachusetts, came to Troy in company with Benjamin Kingsbury, a native of New Hampshire, in 1818, and made selections of land,-Whitcomb in northwest, near what is known as Pope's Corners, and Kingsbury on the southwest corner. Kingsbury was a blacksmith, and among the first in the township. They returned and brought on their families the next season. Whitcomb had a wife and three children, Elsie, Abigail, and Sophia. The daughters are yet living, two in Auburn and one in Iowa. After their set- tlement in Troy four children were born to them, Orissa, John, Jennette, and Rebecca. Jennette is deceased. Mr. Whitcomb died in Auburn in 1870. Mrs. Whitcomb died in 1874. They were a worthy family. Of the three Kingsbury children, two, Caroline and Jedediah, are living. A daughter of Caroline is now the wife of O. S. Farr, Esq., a lawyer and mayor of Chardon.

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. From a touching sketch of him by his nephew, W. W. Beals.

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

John Fox, known as Captain Fox, of Chester county, Massachusetts, came to Troy in 1819 in company with Benjamin Hall, and purchased three hundred acres of land. In January, 1821, with his family and effects packed in two sleighs, drawn by two and three horses, he made the second journey. He reached Ohio about the 1st of March, and settled on lot eighteen, where he made a fine farm of two hundred acres improvement; and at the intersection of the highways he afterwards erected a fine brick house, for which he made the brick,-the first and only brick building in Troy,-now the residence of D. L. Pope, Esq. His family were then his wife, a daughter, Lovina, who became the wife of Amplis Green, of Newbury, whom she survives; J. Mason, who married Harriet Ober, then of Newbury, and resides on lot nineteen ; Dudley, who married Elvira Scoville, and deceased; George, who married Nancy Hinkley, and lives at the centre of Troy ; and William, who married Caroline A. Pope, also deceased. Of the children born in Troy, Mary was the first wife, and after her death Harriet became the second wife, of Marshal Dresser, who, with his father's family, were early settlers in the northwest corner of Mantua, and lives at the centre of Troy ; and Emily became the wife of-David L. Pope, and died September, 1865. Of this union were born Lewis L. Pope, interested in the Chagrin Falls Paper Com- pany, and the junior in the firm of D. L. Pope & Son. He resides at Chagrin Falls. Mrs. Fox died in 1849, and John Fox in 1850.

Lewis S. Pope, born in Fairfield county, Connecticut, in 1796, married Chary Smith in November, 1817. She was a daughter of David Smith, Sr., a pioneer of Auburn. Mr. Pope removed to Otsego county, New York, in 1823. In 1835 he migrated to Auburn. Here he purchased forty acres of wild land, for which he was to chop and clear an equal quantity. Without means, save a capital of shrewd enterprise, energy, and a robust frame, he suggested to a neigh- bor, Alvinus Snow, a man of means and enterprise, that money could be made on work-oxen and dried apples in Michigan. Snow advanced the money, and Pope purchased eight yokes of oxen and six tons of dried apples. With an assistant he went to Michigan, and doubled the money invested. He made one more venture successfully, and with his share of the proceeds he launched on a successful and honorable career. Of the children of this pair, Linus S. married Mary A. Hinkley, and is deceased; Lucy A. became the wife of Benjamin Kingsbury, also deceased ; Cornelia F. became the wife of William Fox, as stated, and lives in Troy ; Chary M. married H. M. Hervey, and lives in Madi- son, Lake County; Mary S. became the wife of Charles Onderdonk, and resides in the same place; Irving W. married Rebecca Whitcomb, and lives in Chagrin Falls, and is prominent in the Chagrin Falls Paper Company.

Mr. Pope, Sr., removed to Troy in 1838, and made various purchases, till he owned five hundred acres of land. He was extensively engaged in dairying and general speculation. At the county fair for 1847 he exhibited a cheese of eight hundred pounds' weight. He was a man of energy, force, and sagacity, and prominent in his township and the surrounding country. He was a justice of the peace, and held other offices. He died January 28, 1875. Mrs. Pope, at the age of eighty-five, resides with her son, Irving W., at Chagrin Falls.

Lewis T. Scott, of Essex county, New York, came to Troy in 1832, and set- tled on the farm he still occupies.

Thomas Scott, father of L. T., with his wife and seven children, and Benj. Thrasher, his wife, and two children, came the year before. Mr. Scott, Sr., lived in Troy till his death, in 1870. His wife died in 1867. Of the ten children of Lewis T. seven are living. Two sons lost their lives in the war; one in Ander- sonville prison.

Gideon Bentley, from Penfield, Massachusetts, came to Burton in 1817, and took up land, and the next year brought on his family,-a wife and four children. Of these two are living. Nelson married Nabby Burroughs, and moved to Troy in 1833, where he resides with a second wife. Warren lives in Minnesota.

Anson Shaw came from Wayne county, New York, in 1832, with his wife; bought sixty acres of land, section twenty-three, in Troy, and now owns three hun- dred and fifty. To him, by his first wife, were born five children. His second wife was Elizabeth Ober, of Newbury. Of this last marriage seven were added to the family, of whom ten survive. Mr. Shaw is one of the hard-working farmers. Mrs. Shaw is an excellent mother.

Lyman Truman, from New York, came to Burton a boy, and worked for John Ford till eighteen, when he went to Troy ; bought land just west of the centre, where a son, H. O., now lives. He married Sarah, a daughter of Henry Pratt, a Troy pioneer. Of this marriage there were seven children,-Daniel H., Clinton, Maria, Ozro, Herman O., Marietta, and L. A.

The father died in January, 1871, after a useful life. He was many years a' justice of the peace. Mrs. Truman died March, 1878.

There were many other early settlers of Troy, some of whose names have not reached me. There is a large number of conspicuous present residents whom it would be pleasant to mention. I may name Benj. Hosmer, a pioneer of Park-

man, an early settler of Newbury, of which place his first wife, a daughter of Asa Robinson, was a resident. He removed to Troy in 1830 or 1831, where he still lives, at an advanced age, north of the centre. Near him is his eldest son, Henry L., one of the largest and best farmers of Troy ; also his eldest daughter, Emily, the wife of Samuel J. Esty, Esq., between him and the centre. Mr. Esty, a son of Captain John Esty, of Mantua, is a man of note in Troy, a justice of the peace, and township clerk, and much esteemed. South of the centre lives N. C. Welsh, grandson of Jacob, who married Maria Gilbert, of Newbury, a pioneer of Burton, and an early resident of Newbury.

Deacon Ziba Pool was an early settler, still living,-a man of worth, and well esteemed. Deacon Edward Turner was another.

H. Marvin James, father of Wallace James, was an early resident of Troy. N. M. Olds was also an early settler.

Dr. Jacob Thrasher came there in 1831 or 1832; also Solomon Wells, his son- in-law, a man of energy, character, and wealth, still living on section seven. J. C. Wateman, a successful farmer, was also an early resident. There are many of the descendants of the pioneers who hold pleasant seats in Troy, and, with the new- comers, uphold the character of the town for intelligence, good order, and general progress in the acts of Christian civilization. Among others, I must not omit the name of John Cutler, youngest son of John Cutler, one of the Auburn pioneers, and an early settler of Newbury, from which place the first named re- moved to Troy many years since.

We have had our first settlers, our first wedding, and first birth, and many other first things. The first death, as stated, was that of Reed Burroughs, a son of the pioneer, July 2, 1813. There was no clergyman or man to conduct a religious ceremony, and they laid his little form, amid silent tears, under the shade of the forest on land now owned by Lewis Burroughs. In the course of a few years others of the early departed were placed in the earth near him, where they remained till a burying-ground-a cemetery-was established at the centre, when the remains of all those dead were interred in it.

The first saw-mill was built by W. W. Beals in 1826, and afterwards carried off by a freshet.

RELIGIOUS.

The beginnings of worship, the manifestation of the instinctive religious senti- ment, never absent from the human heart when it takes the form of public acknowledgment of a higher power, marks an important era in the organization of human society. Around it the fine social instincts and gentle charities come and group themselves. No man can utterly extinguish it in his heart. The most hardened of male mortals believes that the prayer of a pure woman will be heard, whether there is a God for himself or not. So the most abandoned and profligate of fathers, when he comes to lay the form of a loved child away imits kindred earth, seeks the Christian minister whom he has reviled, and asks him to hallow the resting-place with prayer and dedicate it to the sweet guardianship of the angels. The subtlest of human reasoners argues God out of his universe, when, lo! he finds his footsteps ambushed by the presence which the next moment he instinctively admits. When the mysteries are unlocked the secret of this innate reverence and disposition to worship will be better understood. In the mean time it will continue to make, fasten, and mar human destinies in the asso- ciations of the races of man. I have before me part of a brown and faded letter, without date or signature, addressed to the Rev. J. H. Hopkins. It comes to me without note or comment, yet, which I think, from internal evidence, was written by the late W. W. Beals, at one time the county surveyor, to a copy of whose sketch of the settlement of Troy I am largely indebted. From this I quote as a graphic and a freer sketch than I would venture of the primitive worship of the Presbyterian (congregation) pioneers of Troy. It seems that the writer's uncle, Peter (B. B.), had given Mr. Hopkins some account of that interesting matter, which the writer supplements by his letter. It will be remembered that the Alpheus Pierce mentioned came to Troy in 1812.

" I will therefore state some additional facts which came under my own observation. Uncle Peter has stated the time when Alpheus Pierce and others arrived in town. Immediately on his arrival meetings on the Sabbath were set up, and as he, for a long time, was the only male member of any church of course he had to do all the praying (in public). John Nash and family, Harry Pratt (father of the present chorister) did the singing, and sermons were gener- ally read by some young man, though Mr. Welsh sometimes, when he attended, would read. It would be somewhat amusing now so see the interior of the log cabin in which the meetings were held. Mr. Pierce was a tall, straight, sober-looking man, from fifty to sixty years of age, his garments coarse and somewhat tattered, to hide which, he always wore a leather apron. Beside him sat an idiot son, occasioned by fits (the idiocy not the boy), in garments like his father, only more tattered, without the necessary appendage of the apron. Yet he was not an idle spectator, for frequently I have seen him when the reading closed, and the old man with his head down absorbed in contemplation or overcome by Morpheus would jog him with bis elbow, and whisper, 'Come, daddy, pray.' The old gentleman would raise himself up and go at it. Slowly at first, but would, in a few minutes, get quite fervent in praying, 'that this howling wilderness might soon bud and blossom as the rose,' which he lived to see literally ful- filled, though he moved south, toward the middle of the State, some few years before his death."

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The writer remarks that of those who attended these primitive assemblages, most of them were marked by steady, honest lives, many became members of the church, all good citizens ; while of those who preferred hunting or fishing, and idle spendings of the Sabbath, many became worthless and a few went to the bad.

He further says, that the first wedding in Troy was the marriage of Luther Hemingway, of Parkman, to Mary, daughter of Simon Burroughs. This is a possible error. The record shows that this took place December 5, 1816, by Reverend Luther Humphrey.

The marriage of Elijah Ford and Esther Johnson was April 11, 1813, by Esquire Lyman Benton, of whom sprang that wonderful first baby, who ate and had the first of good things. Both of the weddings are stated by the record to be " of Burton," but it is to be remembered that Welshfield was a part of the township of Burton. The bride Mary Burroughs lived in Troy, and Esther lived in Burton, and it is more probable that the writer of this letter is correct. Evidently he never finished his letter, and it was left to fall into our hands.

The church thus plauted in the woods, thus prayed for by the good Alpheus, albeit prompted by his unapproved weakling, was not lost sight of by a watchful Providence. And as Mrs. Pike says, the people-church people-began early to think of building a "meeting-house" (good old name like that of burying- ground), which was built in 1836, a pleasant, convenient church edifice, at the centre. Of the course of the invisible church from its primitive planting to the year 1832, when the Congregational church organization was formally effected, we are without information. Mrs. Pike says that the organization occurred on the 26th of March, 1832. The following were the members of the body thus formed: John and Mrs. John Beals, W. W. Beals, Osman Beals, Electa Beals, Sabrina Pierce, Polly Nash, Harvey Pratt, Paulina Lampson, and Sally Burroughs. Of these, Sally Burroughs was the only survivor at the time Mrs. Pike wrote her account. Up to the time of that writing, the whole membership was three hun- dred and eight, those who died while members were sixty-four, one hundred and thirty-six took from it letters to other bodies, thirty-seven have been dismissed, twenty-three left without letters, and thirty-one remained as members.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 73

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

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