History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 75

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

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 75
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 75

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 1844, Horace Moss built another on the same site, which was transformed to a box-factory in 1865, and burned in 1868. In 1840, Austin built a saw-mill on lot forty-eight, by Phillips' creek, which has ceased to be used. Joe Lapper started another on the same stream in 1843. There are now in the township two steam saw-mills, one on lot twelve, owned by Michael Barnes, and the other on lot seventy-four, run by P. R. Wilber, both doing a good business, due to the business character and habits of those controlling them. The first want of a set- tler, beyond the work of his own hands, is a saw-mill and a blacksmith. When the land labors under its covering of forests, streams with mill-seats and desirable timber abound; with the disappearance of woods, the streams perish, but the want remains. Hence the steam-mill, which finds scant and scantier material for its labor.

In 1865, Burton Armstrong built a cheese-factory on lot twenty-three, now owned by Joshua Bennett.

Perhaps the inductions are not yet wide enough and experience yet too imper- fect to determine the influence of the universal dairying on the agriculture and prosperity of the Western Reserve. If detrimental, that shrewd people will soon find it out. The Huntsburg cheese-factory is helping in the solution of that grave problem, to which a few farmers' clubs and several writers are also contribu- ting. It is a matter of the gravest moment.

William Reed was the first blacksmith. One can fancy his setting up his forge under the trees, charring the wood of some old chestnut, and with prompt in-

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genuity meeting the imperative demands of his customers to mend a log-chain, "jump" an axe, bail a kettle, forge a hunting-knife, make a new breech-pin, harden the pan of a flint-lock rifle, make harrow-teeth, or sharpen the point of a bull-plow. O. Morehead and John Haldeman carry on the smithing business now in Huntsburg in a different way for the generations who know not William Reed.

The early pioneer extemporized his own sled or " pung" when he came to own a horse. A cart was a luxury, which came in later. S. M. Webb and L. Dewett now build modern carriages for the present inhabitants of that region. Hunts- burg was indebted to Colonel Paine for the first cider-mill; he set it grinding in 1836, on lot twenty-five. That too has passed away. Doubtless reminiscences, pleasant and other, remain of that cider-mill. It may have contributed inspira- tion to the campaign of 1840. " David Tucker now manufactures this delectable fluid on lot fifty-six."

We are told that the Pomeroys, Stephen and Elijah, were the first carpenters, coopers, and cabinet-makers of Huntsburg.

MERCHANTS.

Of merchants the first was Warren Loomis, from Connecticut, who built the first store on lot fifty-five in 1832. He carried on a successful business there till 1845, when he sold out to G. L. Kyle. The building was destroyed by fire in 1847. A joint-stock company then stocked a store on lot fifty-six, rented to Thompson & Church afterwards. They dissolved in 1859. Thompson continued till 1873; was succeeded by Smith Wright, who died in 1875. Smith & Pease are the present proprietors. In 1869, B. Armstrong opened a store on lot forty-six, and sold to S. Wright the same year. In 1875 he and Kyle opened another store on lot forty-five, and are doing a prosperous business.

EDUCATIONAL.

From the day of Paul Clapp's first school in a log hut in the year 1810, with- out text-books, furniture, and with few scholars, coming long distances through the forest paths, to the complete, almost perfect organization of eight districts, commodious houses, airy and well furnished with the latest books, most approved methods of teaching, neatly-dressed pupils, and the enlightened instructors of 1878, the difference is immense,-wider in event than the intervening time, ex- tended as that is, covering quite the history of the Reserve. Much is certainly due to the pervading spirit of improvement and advance, to the example of sur- rounding communities, and the wide diffusion of correct ideas on the paramount subject of education. With all these allowances, Huntsburg, under the enlight- ened counsels of her own men, has worked her own way to the front rank, and her spirit and the labors of her instructors have had honorable influence and mention beyond her borders. That first school in that far-off time, in the lovel under the trees, had twelve scholars. Each of her schools has now a daily aver- age of thirteen ; her school-property is valued at about two thousand five hundred dollars. In 1826 a laudable effort was made by Elijah Pomeroy, Lyman Miller, and Charles Clapp to establish an academical school, which failed, although, with the aid of Zenas Barns, they maintained a select school for several months, at an unheard-of expense for a teacher at that day. Small as this sounds now, it shows the means and the men who wrought the results of this fullness of time.

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS.

The religious element in human nature always plays an important part in the development of the races of men, taking higher forms with the progress of en- lightened ideas. That people or individual in whom it has had no healthy growth will be found to lack some of the essential qualities of progress and civilization. It is said that the first public religious worship in Huntsburg was conducted at the residence of Stephen Pomeroy in 1818, by that old Connecticut missionary, Joseph H. Badger. We find him laboring in the adjoining townships at about the same time. It is said that all the settlers attended on that occasion, and a church was organized the same year with five members,-Stephen and Lydia Pomeroy, Theoclus Miller, Andrew Johnson, and John Jourby. The services of this occasion were conducted by Revs. Luther Humphrey, of Burton, and H. Loomis, of Painesville. Of this body Stephen Pomeroy and Daniel Clark were elected deacons, and Paul Clapp clerk. It seems to have had healthy growth. In 1821 a church building, costing not quite a thousand dollars, was erected on lot forty-six. It was afterwards sold, and is now occupied by the Methodists. In 1836 the church was reorganized, like most of the early Presbyterian socie- ties, on the Congregational basis, by Rev. V. D. Taylor, who remained as pastor till 1855, when he was succeeded by Rev. L. Pomeroy, who ministered until 1861. He was followed by Rev. B. F. Sharp, who retired in 1865, and busied himself in securing recruits for the Union army also.

Rev. H. W. Stratton became the next pastor, and during his ministration in 1867 the church and surrounding community experienced an interesting " awak- ening." Many accessions were made to the church membership. After the re-

moval of Mr. Stratton to Kansas, in 1869, the church was without a pastor till 1875, when it called Rev. J. E. Cary, who remains in charge, greatly esteemed. There is now a membership of one hundred and twenty; a flourishing Sabbath- school under the superintendency of Silvester Clapp, numbering two hundred at- tendants. The church property, now on lot forty-five, is valued at seven thousand dollars.

The Methodist Episcopal church edifice is at the centre. It has a member- ship of sixty, and is in a flourishing condition under the resident pastoral care of Rev. H. J. Hunscher. There is connected with it a Sabbath-school of seventy pupils, of which F. A. Hughes is superintendent.

The Disciple church, organized in 1835, continued till 1859, since which time it has borne feeble testimony of active existence.

ODD-FELLOWS.

There is quite a flourishing lodge of I. O. G. T., but none of Masons or Odd- Fellows.

The first post-office was established in 1830 or 1831, and Dr. Edward Breck, a son of one of the proprietors of the township, who resided in it for many years, was the first postmaster. A weekly mail from Painesville to Meadville, Pennsyl- vania, supplied it. The present incumbent is H. P. Kyle, and the office is visited by the mail twice each day from East Claridon.

Huntsburg's list of physicians is short. Her first resident was Dr. William Kenedy, a surgeon in the army of the war of 1812. He was a man quite mas- ter of the learning of his profession of that day. Widely and favorably known, and of unfortunate habits, he settled in Huntsburg in 1814. After some years he removed, declined in practice, and his last years were darkened by the blight of intemperance.

Dr. Edward Breck, mentioned above, resided and practiced in Huntsburg from 1837 till his removal, several years afterwards. He was a pleasant, accomplished man, without the stimulus of necessity to provide for himself, and never pursued his profession with great ardor. Since his removal the healthy hills and salubri- ous airs of Huntsburg have forbidden her inviting the residence of other practi- tioners of medicine within her limits.

The first burying-ground was laid off on lot thirty-six, in 1809. The first interment in it was the remains of Sophia Hardy, the same year.

The first road ever opened in the Huntsburg woods was cut from the centre of lot four, thence diagonally running to the centre of lot six, and on to the centre of the township. There are now well-sustained public highways, parallel, run- ning to the cardinal points, which cut the township into blocks a mile square each.

Huntsburg seems to have never had a whisky-still, and her history is marred by but one crime. She has had several accidental deaths, which may be men- tioned. That of Asa Church, by the falling of a tree, in 1826. He was traver- sing the forest alone, was missed, and two days' search led to the discovery of his body under the top of a large, newly-fallen tree. The same year Chester Gard- ner was killed by the fulling of a limb from a chestnut-tree, under which he was gathering nuts. In 1831, Moses Marble was killed at a log-raising. In 1838 two sons of Edwin Phelps, bright little fellows, were drowned while bathing in a mill-pond formed by the Cuyahoga, casting a gloom over Huntsburg and the surrounding country, sending a touch of tender sadness across the intervening dead years to us of this day. Later, Willie Parsons lost his life by a fall from a scaffold. A single suicide-that of Calvin Strong in 1854-may be noted. An eminent living judge.recently told a jury that suicide was prima facie evidence of insanity. It was charity, if not law. A death darker than suicide, sadder than any accident, occurred in Huntsburg. Millard Smith was killed by a single blow from a bludgeon in the hands of Samuel Bennett, who is now expiating the crime under sentence of the law, to end at his own death, in the penitentiary.

Ruffianism and murder are not indigenous to Huntsburg,-to any part of Geauga. Hatred and malice may spring from any human soil without casting a stain on the community where their fruit ripens and falls.

POPULATION.

In 1850, 1007 ; in 1860, 885 ; in 1870, 824; a falling off of 122 from 1850 to 1860, and of 183 in two years.

See population in Russell sketch for some observations on this interesting point.

STATISTICS FOR 1878.

Wheat.

279 acres.

4,322 bushels.

Oats ..

545

14,475

Corn

399

12,535

Potatoes.

133

7,670

Orchards

351

3,368

Meadow

232

2,209 tons.

Butter.

37,585 pounds.

Cheese.

21,600

Maple-sugar.

21,380

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UTH.BY L.N. CVERTS, PHILA, PA.

"GROVE FARM" RESIDENCE OF SYLVESTER CLAPP, HUNTSBURG TE GEAUGA CO., OMIO.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

SMITH WRIGHT

was born in 1816 in Westhampton, Massachusetts. He moved with his parents to Huntsburg, Ohio, in 1826. His father being an invalid, he was early called to responsible duties, which proved a wholesome discipline in preparing him for a thorough business life. He commenced business as a peddler of dry goods, from the profits of which he was soon able to purchase a dairy farm. At this time, 1840, he married Miss Sarah Strong, with whom he lived seven years. She then died, leaving a daughter three years old. He married again, in 1848, Miss Jennette Scott, daughter of Aaron Scott. Mr. Wright educated his daughter Lazette at the Lake Erie Female Seminary.

Smith Wright 1

On his farm Mr. Wright was quite successful, and in ten years he was able to purchase another farm, to which he removed in 1852, and at once engaged in the mercantile business. This business, however, he took up cautiously. He com- menced by buying of his neighbors a little butter and cheese, which he took in at his barn, paying the cash for it as soon as weighed.

Being quite successful in this, he was afterwards induced to purchase a few dry goods and groceries. These he kept in the back part of his house, till his trade so increased that he was compelled to remove his goods to a newly-erected horse-barn. In this he placed counters on all sides and filled up with goods of every description. His customers came from far in great numbers to what they called the " horse-barn" store. In this place he traded for six years, and then removed to the centre of the town, having first purchased the store owned by E. Thompson. Here, also, his business largely increased. He bought the cheese-factory at the centre ; also bought extensively of cheese and butter, and was known in towns around as a prominent business man, always prompt in his payments, making his promises sure to the letter. Mr. Wright found in his second wife an able assistant in all his business transactions. She being an attractive saleswoman, was always found at her post, ready to greet her customers in a cordial manner. In the year 1867, during a religious awakening, Mr. Wright became deeply interested, and at once turned his attention to the support of the gospel. He joined the Congregational church, and gave abundantly of his means for the building up of the same, as well as of the Sabbath-school. Mr. Wright died in 1855, after a severe sickness of one week, at the age of fifty-eight.

AARON SCOTT,

the subject of this sketch, was born in the year 1780, November 6, at Water- town, Connecticut. His father died when he was fifteen years old. He lived with his widowed mother till the year 1801, then married Sarah Howard, and a short time after moved to Harpersfield, New York. He lived in Harpersfield till

the year 1808, when he removed with his family of six children to Ohio. He arrived in Huntsburg, February 28, 1818, having been four weeks on the road. He opened up a settlement in the northwest part of the township, in a dense forest, and also induced many other pioneers to settle in the same locality, which afterwards took the name of "Scottsburg."

Mr. Scott had a superior education for those days, and in consequence was often employed as a school-teacher in the township. He was elected a justice of the peace in 1821, it being the year when the township was organized. Mr. Scott held this office for twenty-one years.

Mr. Scott and wife were members of the Baptist church, and lived exemplary lives till death called them to another sphere. Mr. Scott died in 1850, in the seventy-first year of his age. Mrs. Scott died nine years after, aged seventy- eight.

HON. SAMUEL BODMAN.

Among the prominent men of Huntsburg Mr. Bodman is perhaps the widest known. He was a native of Massachusetts, and accompanied the late lamented Lewis Hunt, when he last returned to Ohio, from Northampton. Mr. Bod- man was then a very young man, and that was a good many years ago.

He had received a good English education ; was familiar with business; had a quick, sagacious mind; and was a valuable acquisition to Huntsburg. He was at once recognized for his worth and his talents for public business made avail- able. He settled up the large business of the estate of Mr. Hunt greatly to the satisfaction of the heirs of that gentleman. His early and extensive acquaintance with the forms of business made him the constant resort of the people generally, who had contracts to draw or matters of almost all kinds to arrange and put in proper shape.

He was early elected a justice of the peace, and continued in the position a good many years, when his uniform accuracy of judgment and sound, good sense were conspicuous in his decisions, while his high character for integrity held him above the possible suspicion that he was ever influenced by anything but a sense of justice.

Mr. Bodman was elected a county commissioner, and filled the position with judgment and fidelity. He was also elected by the legislature one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas, and held the place when the old judiciary system gave place to the new, on the adoption of the new constitution.

In ripe years, Mr. Bodman now enjoys the esteem and confidence of a wide circle of friends.

Of the two sons of Mr. Bodman, the elder is a druggist and postmaster, at a flourishing town in Illinois.

The younger, Samuel E., has for several years been treasurer of Geauga County, and is a well-known merchant of Chardon.

ELIJAH POMEROY

was the eldest son of Stephen Pomeroy, whose advent into the wilderness is set out at length in our history of Huntsburg. He was ten years old upon the arrival of the family into that wild region.

As he was the eldest, next to his father he was the most important member of the household in all out-door labor and enterprises. He early mastered wood- craft, and became an expert axeman, familiar with the forest paths, and an ad- venturous, hardy, brave-hearted pioneer boy, and grew up amid the hardships and privations of the new country, learned its thrift and constant economies, and shared its freshness, sweetness, and vigor. Not a hunter, like his brother, Horace, but the working, staid, reliable boy and youth, accustomed to take responsibility.

With such means for education as the early years placed in his reach, he grew to manhood, married, and succeeded in time to the homestead, where he still resides, a man of great age and wide experience.

Mr. Pomeroy early evinced a lively interest in collecting and preserving the pioneer history of Huntsburg and the adjoining townships. He wrote a very interesting sketch of the settlement of Huntsburg, which was published in the Geauga Democrat, and widely read with great interest. This was largely the text of Mr. Clapp's history, and the well-written manuscript was placed in my hands. Mr. Pomeroy has always enjoyed a large measure of esteem certain to follow a life of usefulness, integrity, and a discharge of personal and social duties.

In 1873, at the suggestion of Horace Spencer Pomeroy, of Chardon, a nephew, a reunion of the Pomeroys and family descendants was held at the old homestead, on the anniversary-August 13-of the arrival of the family in Huntsburg. It was responded to so heartily that Mr. Elijah extended invitations to others of the early settlers, and the event was commemorated with appreciative enthusiasm. The next year invitations were extended to Burton and Middlefield, and there was

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a general meeting of the pioneers. This is said to be the initiation of the move- ment which led to the formation of the historical society of Geauga, whose col- lections we hope soon to see in an accessible form.

STEPHEN BRIDGES POMEROY

was the youngest son of Stephen Pomeroy, mentioned as the first settler of Hunts- burg, was born in 1804, and four years old when he first saw the Huntsburg woods. He too was a pioneer boy.

His first instructor was Paul Clapp, who had him under private tuition ; he was also a pupil of his school. After a proper age he became a student in the old Burton Academy, which at an early day had a wide reputation on the Reserve Here he made such progress that he was found well qualified to teach the common schools of the country, in which calling he had a wide reputation. The sketch made of him is that of a stout, well-made young man, blonde, with nearly red hair standing erect all over his head, giving him a formidable, not to say fierce and forbidding aspect, quite the terror of the unruly, sometimes rough boys, who thronged the schools in the earlier days, and who required quite as much strength of limb and resolution of character to deal with them as the gentler at- tainments of Murray and Daboll. Mr. Pomeroy became popular as a tamer of boys in schools, often found too many for men of less power and less heroic methods. Yet, withal, he was a very amiable and sportive-tempered man, with a certain grim humor quite effective sometimes.

An instance of it is told. One winter many years ago, Mr. Pomeroy and his nephew, Sylvester Clapp, were teaching schools in a region which led them to walk the same path across lots to their respective places of labor. Pomeroy every day and Clapp each week. At a place where they usually got over a high fence the young man discovered a rail broken out of the middle, which per- mitted a man to pass with less exertion. He went through the space thus opened and attached a bit of paper to a rail over it, with a semi-quotation from one of President Van Buren's messages,-" Follow in the footsteps of your illustrious predecessor."

On his return, at the end of the week, he found another slip of paper in his uncle's well-known hand,-" I don't want to go to h-Il."

Mr. Pomeroy, now well in years, resides in Chardon.

LYMAN MILLARD,

the son of Louden and Abigail Millard, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, De- cember 16, 1797. His father's and mother's births occurred at the same place. The former October 22, 1762, and the latter September 18, 1766.

His early education was limited to two or three months' attendance at school during the winter-time; but with good natural ability and industrious applica- tion, he succeeded in obtaining a fair education for that day.

In 1819 he began a journey to the far west on foot, carrying a knapsack

and his axe, stopping at different places along the way to work and obtain the needed means for defraying the expenses of his trip. Arriving in Burton, he engaged for work with Major Hickox, of that place, and continued with him for five or six years, when he purchased, of Lewes Hunt, February 25, 1825, a piece of land in Huntsburg. It was a heavily-timbered tract, and he set himself earn- estly to work to put it into shape for cultivation. The year following the date of his purchase, he built a comfortable house. He had married, March 22, 1823, Miss Thede Clapp, daughter of Paul and Nancy Clapp, and he and his wife be- came the parents of the following children : Lyman, born June 26, 1824, deceased ; Adelia S., born February 20, 1826, deceased ; Alonzo E., born March 9, 1828, now living in Huntsburg ; Fordyce R., born April 3, 1830, now living in San Diego, California; Austin S., born July 5, 1836, now living in Hunts- burg; Quincey D., born November 2, 1838, now living in Huntsburg; Dwight B., born May 17, 1840, now living in Huntsburg.

He became a member of the first Presbyterian church established in Hunts- burg, and afterwards connected himself with the Congregational church, of which he continued a useful and influential member up to the time of his death. He was a strong abolitionist, and voted with the old Liberty party until it was merged into the Republican party.

His parents removed from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Lenox, Madison county, New York, when he was a boy, and from there he came to Ohio. He brought the first thorough-bred cattle to Huntsburg,-a bull and a cow,-driving them from Onondaga county, New York.

He was interested in all the reforms and improvements of the day, and was a strict temperance man. In speech bitter, yet kind of heart; he enjoyed a good joke, and liked to tell a good story. He was an active abolitionist. He used to hold meetings in school-houses to agitate and argue the anti-slavery question, to enlist the sympathies of voters and others in behalf of the slaves, and was answered by the best opposing arguments of those days,-yells and rotten eggs! However, he had the satisfaction to live to see the slave a United States soldier, a freeman, and a voter.

Himself a soldier of 1812, during the war of the Rebellion he was among the most active in raising men and money to carry on the war, not forgetting the boys after they were in the army. Many a sick and wounded soldier in hospital received the necessaries and luxuries contributed and collected and for- warded by him to the south. No soldier ever asked a favor of him he did not grant, if in his power to grant it. Aged as he was, he felt as if he must himself take an active part in the war on the battle-field, and did, after great and repeated efforts, procure a colonel's recruiting commission; but the war closed before he got ready for active service.

A Freemason, he maintained his integrity during the persecutions of the Morgan times, and lived to see the order again respected by all good men, and was borne to his last resting-place by the members of Village Lodge, F. and A. M., of which he was a charter member. The death of this worthy pioneer and highly-respected citizen occurred in Huntsburg, August 30, 1877, in his eightieth year.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 75

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

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