USA > Ohio > Huron County > History of Huron County, Ohio, Its Progress and Development, Volume I > Part 24
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The township of Greenfield was surveyed by Caleb Palmer, of Trumbull county. assisted by Cyrus W. Marsh and B. Newcomb, in the year 1811, and before the war with Great Britain.
As stated before, the first house in the township was built by Hanson Reed, in the spring of 1811. This was on section four. The second house was built by Eras- tus Smith, in November of the same year. The above two families and their hired men, C. W. Marsh and Jacob Rush, were the only white settlers in the township at the time of Hull's surrender. A little later came William McKelvey and his son and son-in-law, Truman Gilbert, came to the township without their families, cleared a few acres and sowed wheat, but did not bring their families until later.
The surrender of Hull exposed the whole northwest to the ravages of the enemy. The frontier settlers had to abandon their homes, or run the risk of being massacred by the savages. The first settlers of this township chose the former, and did not return until peace was assured.
The first death in the township was that of an infant son of Samuel C. and Nancy Spencer, in the spring of 1816. The child was buried on the farm.
Ruth, daughter of David Lovell, was the first person buried in the cemetery at Greenfield Center. Her death occurred February 17, 1818, at the age of nearly fourteen.
Dr. Moses C. Sanders, of the township of Peru, was one of the earliest physi- cians that practiced in this township. The first resident physician was Dr. Henry Niles, who began the practice of medicine in this township in the spring of 1831.
The first religious meeting in the township was held at the cabin of Erastus Smith, on the first Sabbath in the spring of 1815, on which occasion the Rev.
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Green Parker, from near Milan, officiated. A church organization was not effected until the year 1822.
In the winter of 1814-15, Hanson Read and Abram Powers built a grist mill on Huron river, in the first section, near where the Phoenix Mills now stand. This was undoubtedly the first grist mill erected in the county as now constituted. The character of the establishment was in keeping with those simple times.
The first sawmill was built in 1819, by Josiah Root, on Huron river. The next was built by Hiram C. Spencer, east of the center of town, on the river, a short dis- tance below the bridge. It was built about the year 1827 or 1828, and did a large business. A few years after, Archibald Easter erected a sawmill, and at about the same time one was built by Dan Lindsey on the west branch of the river.
It is impossible for the young people of the present day to understand the con- ditions of living in the new settlement. The first settlers in Greenfield were among the first in the county, and they were completely isolated from all the appliances of civilization. The nearest mill, at which grinding was done, was at Owl Creek, a great many miles distant, through an unbroken forest. The grain was ground in the order of its reception at the mill, and sometimes several days would be con- sumed in going to mill and back. It was customary for one person to take the mill- ing of the entire neighborhood, when going with a team. While there are no in- stances of suffering from want of necessary food, in the history of this township, provisions were by no means plenty. Wheat was at one time three dollars per bushel, and other articles of food in proportion. William McKelvey on one occa- sion went to Owl Creek to buy some pork, and could only find some of the "shack" variety, for which he paid forty-four cents per pound. The meat was a poor sub- stitute for that of the domestic hog, being spongy and of ill flavor. For fresh meat the carly settlers had venison and other wild game so plenty at times as to become a drug.
In the matter of necessary clothing, the pioneers experienced a greater difficulty. The families, in general, came well furnished with wearing apparel, but a year or two of wear and tear in the woods sadly diminished their stock. Flax could be raised, and summer clothing of tow, butternut-dyed, and bleached linen could be manufactured when a weaver could be found to do it ; for, although every woman was a spinner, only here and there was one weaver, and each family had to await its turn. The old garments were often worn to rags before the new cloth could be put through the loom.
To obtain the material for winter clothing was still more difficult .. The in- troduction of sheep was attended with much difficulty. They were not safe from wolves, and the new, wet lands proved unhealthy to them. The summer clothing would often have to answer for winter wear, or other expedients be resorted to. Buckskin, either wholly or in part, frequently served as material for winter apparel, but garments made entirely of it were never popular. The pantaloons would fre- quently be wet to the knees, and when dry would be as stiff and uncomfortable as if made of tin.
The center of the township is two hundred and ninty feet above the lake and the surface of most of the township is covered with irregular, undulating hills of gravel and drift. So many years have now elapsed since the settlement of Greenfield, where our pioneers cleared away the forests, tilled the soil and at
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last left all to their children and children's children, where today they live in luxury and peace on the farms that are dotted with fine homes attended with prosperity and happiness.
Mr. Seba Mather opened the first public house in the township in the year 1816 which he kept until 1820, when he discontinued and established the mills east of Steuben and carried on an extensive business for thirty years when he retired to his farm and spent the remainder of his life and died at the advanced age of eighty-eight years.
The first church in the township was built by the Congregationalists in 1832. It has since been greatly improved. The church is in Steuben.
The Freewill Baptist church was erected in the year 1843. This church is at present without a pastor.
Mr. Seba Mather erected the first frame building in the township in 1820.
But now, where once were no sounds but those of nature, there has come the hum of industry, the bustling of trade, a hurrying to and fro, the greetings of man with man, the activity impelled by varied human interests, men who were babes when the country was new, grew old and went down to their graves. In the midst of change only the Huron river went on unchanged.
The Steuben cemetery has been greatly improved during the past year. It has been thoroughly graded and leveled, gravel walks and roads have been made through the entire grounds, also an addition of several acres has been added and laid out into lots and numbered.
Steuben has at present two telephone stations. Many farmers through the townships also have the lines in their residences and would not do without them.
We have an electric railway which has been built within the past year, and has increased the value of land in the township from ten to fifteen dollars per acre.
Much might be said by way of improved machinery of all kinds, the bounti- ful crops, the health of the township, good prices for all kinds of produce which we are blessed with at the present time.
GREENWICH TOWNSHIP.
Greenwich township received its name from Greenwich, Fairfield county, Con- necticut, where most of the original owners of the land resided. It is known as township number one, range twenty-one.
Its surface is moderately undulating, without marshes of any great extent, and those that did exist were easily drained. The soil is mostly a clayey loam. mixed in places with gravel and sand along the streams.
Butternut, black walnut and sycamore are abundant along the streams. Black walnut is also found on the uplands. In general, the land of the township may be considered of the beech and maple grade-beech being predominant. White oaks are more abundant in the first and fourth sections than elsewhere. In the second and third sections there has been a new growth of timber since the tor- nado which passed over that part of the township in pioneer times and tore down all the original growth.
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It is bounded upon the north by Fitchville; east by Ruggles, Ashland county ; south by Ashland and Richland counties; and west by Ripley. Its surface is low and quite level for the most part, though, in some places, it is slightly uneven. The principal streams are the east and west branches of the Vermillion river. The former flows through the northeast corner of the township ; the latter, formed by the union of the two streams, enters upon the south line, and thence flows north into Ripley. It again enters the township near the intersection of the east and west center and the Ripley town line road, and from thence flows northerly and diagonally across the third section, and, receiving the added volume of water from a number of small streams that drain a large portion of the township, be- comes, by the time it reaches the north line, a water-course of considerable size.
The first school was taught by James Nixon, who, with his father, Robert Nixon, left Ireland at the time of the Irish revolution, and chose America as the country in which to begin life anew, and drifted, by some chance, to this locality. The school was held in an abandoned log house, one mile south of the center, in the winter of 1820-21. About 1825, a school house was built at the center, and Tracey Case was the first teacher who occupied it. The second school house was built by James Mitchell's, near the center of section four. Willis R. Smith, assisted by his wife, gave instruction in writing to a number of young men (some of them married), in the winter of 1824-25. About a dozen men attended this school. It was held evenings, in Mr. Smith's house, which he fitted up for the purpose, with writing desks made of slabs, which were fastened to the wall as sloping shelves.
But little was done in road-making in this township until 1820. The north and south center road was the first laid out. The line was established in 1820 but only a small portion of it had been chopped and cleared half a dozen years later. The east and west center road was the second one laid out. It was sur- veyed and opened through the county. What is known as the "angling road" was ordered to be laid out in answer to the petition of Ephraim Baker and others in 1828 or 1829.
The first mail was carried through the township in 1829, and for three years thereafter, by Robert Inscho, of New Haven. He went once a week between New Haven village and Medina county, upon horseback. The first postoffice was established at the center, and Benjamin Kniffin was the first man who held the commission of postmaster.
Greenwich was attached, in 1815, to New Haven, or was within the jurisdic- tion of that township ( for civil purposes). In 1819. Greenwich, Fitchville and Hartland were united, and an election was held in that year, at the house of Thomas B. White, for the purpose of choosing officers for the territory included within the three. Hartland was detached in 1820, and in 1823, Greenwich was sep- arated from Fitchville and organized as a separate township, the first election be- ing held at Thomas B. White's house, and the following officers elected : Jeremiah Rusco, Henry Washburne, trustees; David W. Briggs, clerk; Varney Pearce, justice of the peace ; Ephraim F. Barker, constable.
Adna Carpenter, son of Henry Carpenter, was the first white child born in the township.
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Henry Carpenter, father of the first born, was the first person who died in the township. His death, caused by over exertion, occurred in November, 1818. He was buried in a coffin constructed of hewed black walnut planks. Hannah Barker was the second person whose demise the little band of pioneers were called to mourn. The coffin, in which her remains were buried, was made from the boards of a wagon-box, which were rudely stained with logwood.
The first marriage in the township, was that of David W. Briggs and Alzina, daughter of E. F. and Hannah Barker. They were made one by Squire Rundel Palmer, of Fitchville, in August, 1819. Briggs died in 1861.
The first log cabin was built in 1817, near the northeast corner of the township. Henry Carpenter built the first permanent residence. a log house, a little later in the same year. The first frame house was built by Joseph Washburne, in 1827. on lot twenty-seven, section two, and the first brick house was erected at the center, by Cyrus G. Mead.
The first tavern was built at the center by Benjamin Kniffin, who also had a store there. The store opened by Ezra Smith, near Joseph Washburne's, in the northeast corner of the township, in the year 1824, was the first.
For a number of years after the first settlers came into Greenwich, there was no regularly ordained minister living in the township, and when there was preach- ing, it was by some of the ministers from neighboring townships. Religious meet- ings were held frequently, and preachers of all denominations had assurance when they came here that they would be met by audiences of large size (for these times ) and gladly listened to. The township had a large element of Quaker pop- ulation, and many of its earliest pioneers were of this people. The first Quakers, or Friends, came to Greenwich in 1818, just eighteen years after the first Friends' settlement in Ohio.
The first settler in Greenwich was Henry Carpenter, who came from Ulster county, New York, in 1817, and located upon lot twenty-two, in section two. He died in the fall of the following year, from over exertion at a house raising, leav- ing a wife and four children.
The trials of those men and women who turned their backs upon the places of their nativity, and sought to hew them out homes in the wilderness, cannot be fully appreciated at the present day. Many of them had but little to begin with. Those who had much were scarcely better off, for the comforts and conveniences of life were not procurable. The early settlers, of whom we shall treat presently. after succeeding, through almost infinite trouble, in clearing a few acres of ground and raising a small crop of wheat or other grain, were far from being in a condi- tion to defy want. They had still to procure articles which were equally necessary. If the weather had been dry for some time, they were obliged to go to Cold creek to have their grain ground, and the trip there and back, about seventy-five miles. occupied eight or ten days. Two yoke of oxen were required. The price of carry- ing a bushel of wheat was fifty cents. Money, it was almost impossible to get in sums sufficient to pay taxes, or buy those few articles which are indispensable to the family or individual. Daniel Fancher relates that he worked three years, and did not receive, during that time, three shillings in money, but took grain, flour. meat, and other articles, which, in the early days of the settlement, were regarded almost as legal tender. Henry Washburne once took a large load of wheat to
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HURON RIVER VIEW, MONROEVILLE
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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR. LC"AY AND R L
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Sandusky, consuming a week in making the round trip, and exchanged it for one barrel of salt, six milk pans, two pounds of tea, and the cloth for two shirts. With these few articles, which would seem but poorly to pay for the grain, and the time spent in getting to the market, he returned, feeling very well satisfied. He had done fully as well in his barter as others were able to do. Many of the settlers really suffered for the want of those things which a few shillings would have bought. Luxuries were unthought of. The unceasing and hard grind of daily labor was necessary to accomplish the task that lay before the pioneers-the main- tenance of life and the development of the new country, which they so subdued as to make a rich inheritance for their children. And yet, with all their hard labor, with the severe simplicity of their lives, with hardships and privations unnumbered and unrecorded, the lives spent in the fulfillment of duty were made up more largely of pleasure than of pain, were fuller of joy than sorrow, and as they drew to a close, there was the profound satisfaction in every honest, toiling pioneer's heart, of having accomplished a great and tangible good.
Although the forest abounded in game. the Indians, it is supposed, did not come here with the intention of following the hunt, but the locality was a favor- ite one for maple sugar making, and they frequently pursued this calling, the nearest approach to anything like an active, industrial occupation that ever re- ceived their attention. The Indians had temporary camping places in various parts of what is now Greenwich, where they resorted in the spring and remained until the flow of sap, in the sugar maples, had ceased. They made troughs to receive the sap from the bark of beech trees, and evaporated it in small kettles, most of the labor being performed by the squaws. Farther east, in the Black river vicinity, were the favorite hunting grounds of the red-men who belonged to the great tribe, a portion of which made its headquarters around Upper San- dusky. They journeyed every year to these hunting grounds, and the paths they trod were visible only a few years since, in the northern part of this township. As they always followed the same trail, and invariably passed in single file, a de- pression of the earth was caused, which was very easily noticeable.
In the early settlement of the township all kinds of game was abundant. Deer were so numerous that they were frequently seen in droves of from a score to fifty. A good hunter like David W. Briggs would kill as many as eight or ten a day when lucky, and in the season would bring down three or four hundred. Briggs kept the settlers pretty well supplied with venison, and it was not an un- common thing for him to have half a dozen or more frozen carcasses hanging outside of his house at once. He was hired by Mr. Beach, a pioneer of Ruggles, one time to do a day's shooting, Beach having a number of men at work for him and nothing in the house for them to eat. Briggs was to report for duty at Beach's house before breakfast, and to have two dollars for his day's hunting. He arrived there as he had agreed to, and told his employer that he had killed two deer on the way over, giving directions for finding the carcasses in the woods. Beach told him he might call it a day's work and quit, which he did, thus earning two dollars before breakfast, by doing what any sportsman would travel a hundred miles to do now-a-days.
As late as 1853, when John M. Carl came into the township, deer were so numerous that he was able on some occasions, to kill two, or even three, in a day
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Briggs at this time had given up hunting because, as he said, "game had grown so scarce." Beside deer, there were all the varieties of small game common to a new country. Wolves were a great source of annoyance. They committed numerous depredations, some of them quite boldly.
GREENWICH.
Greenwich was incorporated as a village in 1879. It is fifty-five miles south- west of Cleveland. The village has never had a rapid growth because the land was held by a man who was adverse to the town. It has had almost its entire growth since 1874, and in that time has increased from a small cluster of houses to a village of importance and the leading place for the shipment of cat- tle in that part of the western reserve. It is a station of note on what is known as the Big Four railroad. The village is surrounded by a rich country and has within its limits the elements of enterprise, and will doubtless achieve in the future greater importance as a trading place and shipping point.
HARTLAND TOWNSHIP.
Hartland township was originally called Canterbury. It was attached to Clarksfield until 1826; at which time it was organized.into a separate township and received the name of Hartland.
The first election held in the township was in the school house on the Ridge in April, 1826.
The surface of the township is generally level, though less so in the south and east parts than elsewhere. The soil is a clay loam, modified by gravel and sand along the streams and on the Hartland ridge, which runs a general north and south direction through the second section. There were formerly a number of swamps or marshes in the township, the largest of which were known as Canterbury swamp, Cranberry marsh, Grape swamp and Bear swamp. The first was over two miles in length, varying in width from fifty to one hundred and fifty rods, and lay south east of the center. Cranberry marsh lay north of the center, and con- tained about one hundred acres. These formerly unsightly places have been more or less reclaimed, and the soil, which is a deep black muck, is the best in the township.
The principal native varieties of timber were white wood, white, black and burr oak, white and black ash, black walnut, hickory, birch and maple.
The Vermillion river runs through the southeast quarter of the township, and adds a pleasing element to the landscape. Indian creek has its source in the south- west part and flows into the Vermillion near the east town line. Brandy creek, which is said to have derived its name from the peculiar color of the water, rises near the center of the township, flows through the northeast part of the township and across the northwest corner of Clarksfield, uniting with the Vermillion a short distance west of the center of Wakeman township.
NATIVE ANIMALS.
The animals of the forest were the bear, deer, wolf, wild cat, gray fox and other species of less importance. Bears were not numerous and seldom seen.
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They seem to have collected more generally in the marshes of Ripley, where they were frequently killed. Deer were very plenty.
The first white child born in the township, was a child of Jared Tolls, in 1818.
The first couple married was Elijah Bills and Mary Howard, daughter of Cap- tain William Howard. This event occurred June 2, 1822, at the residence of the bride's parents,-John Beatty, Esq., performing the nuptial ceremony.
The first death was that of Jared Tolls, who died in the fall of 1818. He was buried on his farm, in a coffin made out of Daniel Bills' wagon-box, as there was no lumber to be had. A small apple tree sprout was planted at the head of the grave, which grew to be a large tree, but it has been removed, and the exact lo- cation of the grave is now unknown. The early settlers sometimes experienced a great deal of difficulty in getting their grinding done. There were grist mills in some of the adjacent townships, but they were at rest much of the time in con- sequence of dry weather, and at such times trips to Cold creek, and occasionally even to Mansfield, sixty miles distant, and through almost unbroken forests, were necessary to get grinding done. Families whose supply of flour would be ex- hausted before the return of the grist from the mill, would enjoy a week's variety of pounded wheat or "jointed corn."
The first school house was built in the fall of 1821, on the ground that is now occupied by the Ridge burying ground. The size of the house was sixteen by twenty feet, with puncheon floor. The door, seats and writing desks were also made of puncheons, and greased paper served as glass for the windows.
The first school was kept by Cyrus Munger, in the winter of 1821-22. The families of Josiah Kilbourn, William Howard, Daniel Bills, Joseph Osyor, Nathan Miner and Samuel White were represented in the school.
In April, 1826, the township was erected by the trustees into one school dis- trict, called district number one. The following were at that time householders of the district: Josiah Kilbourn, William Howard, Daniel Miner, Elijah Bills, Samuel White, Jesse Taintor, Nathan Miner, Sylvester Waldron, Libeus Stoors, Allen Mead, Eli Barnum and Henry Pickard.
In 1833 the first post office was established in Hartland, with Daniel Miner as postmaster, who kept the office in his house, on the ridge, for a period of twenty- one years.
The first sermon preached in Hartland was by the Rev. Lot B. Sullivan, a Con- gregational home missionary. The first regular religious services were held at the house of Joseph Waldron, in the summer and fall of 1821, at which the Revs. True Pattee and James McIntyre, Methodist circuit preachers, officiated.
After the school house was built, on the ridge, in the fall of 1821, the meet- ings were held there. There was at this time but one Methodist family in the township. In 1824, a few Free Will Baptist families moved into the township, among which was that of Allen Mead, a preacher of that denomination. They soon after began to hold meetings, and, under the preaching of Mead, Elder Wheeler of Greenfield, and Rev. Mr. Carlton, quite a revival followed, resulting in the organization of a church in Clarksfield, with which the Baptists in Hartland united.
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