USA > Ohio > Lorain County > History of Lorain County, Ohio > Part 48
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90
Mr. Nathan Basset bought out Silas Allen in 1834. Ile came from New York, but was originally from
189
HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
Bridgewater, Massachusetts. His son, then a boy and now a respected citizen, lives on the old place. Mr. Orrin Gibson came the same year. He was twenty-six years okl, unmarried, and rode all the way on horseback from Tompkins county, New York. Ile afterward married Miss Elizabeth Freeman, whose father settled in the north part of the township in 1829. Both are still living in the same house with their son. About the same time Mr. Lot Parsons bought the Tift place and settled. This settlement was about a mile in length. There was no wagon in the neighborhood, and no wagon track in the road- only a path in the middle. When they went to mill they hitched two yoke of oxen on a sled.
On the same road, farther south, Alanson A. Platt, settled in the spring of 1836, on the place now owned by Gillett, Jarvis and Bassett, He came originally from Milford, Connecticut, but had lived three years in Genesee county, New York. He had a family of thirteen children, though all did not come with him. Henry M. Platt, who has for many years carried ou a photograph gallery in Oberlin, is his youngest son. and was born the fall after his father had removed to Russia.
Silas Gibson moved from Tompkins county, New York, to Henrietta, in May, 1831, and in the follow- ing February removed into Russia township, and settled about a mile and a quarter west of the Tift. settlement, where he still lives. He bought his place of the Thurstou brothers, who were bachelors, and with his wife and three children lived the first year in a shanty twelve by seventeen. He has raised a family of twelve children, eight boys and four girls.
His next neighbor on the south, who came in soon after he did, was Mr. Messerole, from New Jersey, whose son lives on the old place. Deer were plenty, and they could have as much venison to eat as they wanted. There were also large flocks of wild tur- keys; one day he shot five and shared them with his neighbors.
The first school kept in town was in the winter of 1825-26, in a log school house on lot eleven. The teacher was Albert Adams, a man from Wellington, and his wages were twelve dollars per month. This west part of the town constituted distriet number one. Afterward another district was established east of this, and a log school house was built in the Tift settlement.
Previons to 1829, elections were held, and the town- ship business generally was done in the west school house. In 1829, and thereafter till the place of elec- tion was changed to the village of Oberlin, elections were held at the school house on the center road. Daniel Axtell was the first justice of the peace, being commissioned April 22, 1826.
The first religious meeting in the township was held in 1826 by a missionary from Connecticut, who preached in a log school house on lot thirty-one.
Alexander Gaston was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and went to Tompkins county, New
York, when he was twenty-two, and was there mar- ried and raised a family of ten children. He first came to Russia in 1833, and bought the whole of lot seventy-two, of Street and Hughes, which was then a dense foresi. The next year, he removed his family, and purchased of Walter Burk a farm partially im- proved, on lots thirty-one and thirty-two, where he resided till his death, June 23, 1865, at the age of eighty-two, and where his son, Alonzo Gaston, now lives. He was a strictly temperate man, and was the first man in the part of the town where he resided to put up a building, at the raising of which intoxi- eating liquors were not used as a treat to the hands; and as a consequence, he was obliged to make two etforts before the raising was completed. lle may be said to have been the most prominent member of the Congregational church at Sonth Amherst, of which he was one of the deacons from its organization, in about the year 1834, until his death. In 1834 or 1835, he was elected a justice of the peace by a strictly party vote on the temperance question. the election being held at the school house near his residence. and the people of Oberlin going out to vote. He served several years in that capacity to the satisfaction of his fellow citizens.
Samuel Rossiter came to Russia from Richmond. Massachusetts, in the fall of 1834, and bought of Street and Hughes lot eighty-two. The following February, he was married to Maria Gaston, daughter of Deacon A. Gaston, and in May they moved into a log cabin he had erected on his place, thirteen by six- teen feet within walls, with single roof, and without chamber. In the summer he built a frame barn, thirty by forty feet; and, not finding sufficient help among his neighbors to raise it, without whisky, was assisted by students and others from Oberlin. A pig-pun that he afterward built between his house and the road, and larger than his house, was often mis- taken for his house, persons first knocking at the door of the pig-pen. His only vehicle for several years, for use on his farm, or for riding for business or pleasure, was a two-wheeled cart, propelled by oxen. In this, he and his family attended church at Oberlin, riding over roads made in the following manner: A track about ten feet wide was made through the dense forest two miles, from his place to town, by cutting the trees even with the ground Rails were then split, ten feet long, and a continuous bridge made of them on the above surface, then a ditch was dug at the sides, and the clay thrown upon the rails. Over such roads, when the clay settled through the rails, or some of the rails decayed, as they soon did, riding in an ox-cart was anything but delightful. Mr. Rossiter has had a family of eleven children, of whom ten are living. He himself now resides in Tabor, lowa.
The settlement two miles northeast of Oberlin, know as " New Oberlin," was begun by J. B. Hall, father of Rev. H. B. Hall, now a resident of Oberlin. In the fall of 1824, he bought land, and began to
190
HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
clear. He built a barn in 1836, and a house in 1839. lle was an earnest christian man, and carried on meetings in the neighborhood for years.
Omar Bailey built a house in 1832, in which he now lives. Francis Spees, Israel Mattison, Stephen Cole, and Taleott Kinney were among the early set- tlers in that neighborhood.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
CHARLES G. FINNEY
was born in Warren, Litchfield county, Connecticut, August 29, 1792. When about two years old his father removed to Oneida county, New York, where, the country being new, the subject of our sketch grew up with scant religious privileges, seldom hear- ing a sermon. Here he obtained a common school education, and afterward, returning to New England, attended a high school. Ile gained some knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and thought of going to Yale college, but did not.
In 1818 he began the study of law in Adams, Jef- ferson county, New York, where, for the first time in his life, he enjoyed the opportunity of hearing reg- ularly the preaching of an educated minister. At this time also he for the first time owned a Bible, which he read with interest ; and he frequently attended the weekly prayer meeting of the church. Coming finally, through the working of gospel truth on his active mind, under deep conviction, in the fall of 1821 he experienced a remarkable change of char- acter and of life, which led him immediately to give np the law with the view of becoming a preacher of the gospel.
Ilis conversion was the beginning of a revival in Adams, and he entered at once upon christian work with all the zeal of his ardent nature. In his prep- aration for the ministry, pursuing the study of the- ology under the instruction of his pastor, Rev. George W. Gale, his mind revolted from the old school Cal- vmistic doctrines, which brought him into frequent discussion with his teacher.
In March, 1824, he was licensed by the presbytery to preach, and soon after began his labors as a home missionary, in Jefferson county, New York.
" Having had no regular training for the ministry," he says, " I did not expect or desire to labor in large towns or cities, or to minister to cultivated congrega- tions. I intended to go into new settlements and preach in school houses, and barns, and groves, as best I could."
From the first he engaged in his work with an intense yet intelligent zeal ; and his untiring labors produced, with God's blessing, powerful revivals. HIe was indeed possessed of uncommon natural abil-
ities ; but the real secret of his success, from the beginning to the end of his ministry, is found in the fact that he was a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, and of much prayer.
It soon appeared that his great work was to be, not that of a pastor of a single church, but that of an evangelist, going from place to place and laboring for the awakening of the churches and the conversion of sinners. To this work the first ten years of his ministry were wholly given, during which he preached in the large towns and cities of New York, in Phil- adelphia, and in the principal cities of New England ; and powerful revivals occurred, resulting in the con- version of large numbers.
In the spring of 1832 he went to New York City and became pastor of a new Presbyterian church. Tlere he delivered a series of lectures on revivals, which were at the time reported and published in the New York Evangelist, and being afterward collected in a book, have had a very large circulation, not only in this country, but in England and other countries of Europe.
In the spring of 1835 he went to Oberlin, and entered upon the work of his remaining life as a pro- fessor of theology. To the formation of the charac- acter of this new enterprise, in its predominant religious and reformatory aspect, he was to contrib- nte a large share. But he could not be content to be a mere teacher. The gospel message was as a fire shut up within, which would continually burst forth. Neither could it be confined to one place.
Till the intirmities of age made it physically impos- sible, he preached at intervals in many places, with the same fervor and success which had characterized his earlier efforts. Twice he visited England ; the first time in 1849, the second time in 1858 ; and both times extensive revivals, in various places, resulted from his labors.
From 1836 to 1873, he was pastor of the First Con- gregational Church of Oberlin, and from 1851 to 1866 was president of the college. His sermons were for many years published in the Oberlin Evangelist, and since his death a selection of them has been made and published in book form.
As a theologian, Mr. Finney is perhaps less widely known than as a preacher; yet in his preaching his the- ology continually appears. While he was an original and independent thinker, his theological faith belongs to that phase of the evangelical system known as the new school. His theological views are embodied in his work on "Systematic Theology," a new edition of which, revised and slightly abridged by President Fairchild, has been recently published. The basis of his system is found in his theory of the foundation of moral obligation, which he identities with the good of universal being, the willing of which constitutes the true righteousness of a moral agent. The first part of his work on systematic theology consists of a thorough and masterly discussion of this whole sub- ject, comprising a review of other theories.
191
HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
Mr. Finney's preaching was not chielly an appeal to the feelings; his sermons were always weighty with thought, and produced first and most,-convic- tion of the judgment. His appeal to the feelings was through the intellect. In private he was frank and genial. In his preaching, and in personal inter- course, one of his greatest charms was his unaffected sincerity. In his autobiography, published since his death, he has left a vivid and deeply impressive nar- rative of his revival labors.
The last two or three years of his life were spent in comparative rest and quiet. He retained his con- nection with the theological seminary, and finished a course of lectures to the students but a short time be- fore his death. Concerning this closing period of his life, President Fairchild writes as follows: " Notwith- standing the abundant and exhausting labors of his long public life, the burden of years seemed to rest lightly upon him. He stood erect as a young man, relained his faculties to a remarkable degree, and exhibited to the end the quickness of thought, and feeling, and imagination, which always characterized him. His life and character perhaps never seemed richer in the fruits and the beauty of goodness, than in these closing years and months." Taken suddenly ill, after a few hours of suffering, he passed peacefully to his reward, Angust 16, 1845, within two weeks of having completed his eighty-third year.
Mr. Finney was married three times, His last wife survives him. By his first wife he had five children, of whom four, two sons and two daughters, are now living. Of the two sons, one resides in California, the other in Wisconsin; of the daughters, one is the wife of Hon. J. D. Cox, the other of Hon. James Monroe.
JAMES HARRIS FAIRCHILD,
James Harris Fairchild was born in Stockbridge. Massachusetts, November 25, 1817. In 1818 hi parents, with their family, removed to Ohio, and set- tled in Brownhelm, which was then a wilderness. Here, amid the influences, the stimulus, as well as hindrances of a pioneer life, he spent his boyhood. But his prevailing inclinations were to study; and happily an academy was started in his own town, at which, and at the high school in Elyria, he prepared for college. And when he was ready for college his college was ready for him. The school at Oberlin was first begun in December, 1833. In May, 1834, the appointed teachers came on from the cast, and the school was then tirst regularly organized; and it was at this time that the subject of our sketch found his way to Oberlin. The following October, the first freshman class was organized, comprising at that time the two Fairchilds, James and his brother Henry, next older, now president of Berea College, Kentucky. and two others.
Pursuing his course steadily, he graduated from college in 1838; after which he entered at once upon a theological course, which he completed in 1841. In 1839, while studying theology, he was appointed tutor in Latin and Greek in the college; and on the comple- tion of his course in theology in 1841, he was elected professor of Latin and Greek. In November, 1841, he was married to Miss Mary F. Kellogg, of Minden, Louisiana. In 1847 he was Transferred to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy, and in 1858 he received the appointment of professor of moral philosophy and systematic theology. In 1866 Presi- dent l'inney resigned his position, and Professor Fair- child was appointed his successor, a position he has held until the present time.
Thus it appears that from its beginning President Fairchild has been identified with Oberlin. llis con- nection with it, beginning in his youth, has been continued to the maturity of his manhood. This connection has been nninterrupted, save by a single year of foreign travel. Early fashioned in mind and character by the positive and potent ideas,-theolog- ical, philosophical and reformatory,-which have given Oberlin its distinctive character, he has been thus well fitted to become, in his time, one of Oberlin's repre- sentative men. His life has not been eventful, but it has been a busy one. It has been a quiet, yet a progressive life.
As a public speaker he is quiet and self-contained, and though impressive, would not be called oratorical. Yet, so fraught are his productions with elevated and original thought, clothed in a style clear and terse, that corresponding thoughts are awakened in his auditors, which do not pass away with the hearing. His public addresses on special occasions have uni- formly possessed so high a degree of excellence that, almost without exception, they have been requested for publication.
That which best expresses and explains his life is, fidelity to duty. He has not been ambitious, or eager for distinction; but he has risen to a high position in the esteem, respect and admiration of a large number. He has given himself to his work with a devotion which has known no abatement.
There is found in him, in no ordinary degree, both the speculative and the practical. His mind grapples resolutely, and works actively and intensely on the great subjects of thought; but high thoughts do not so absorb his attention as to make him negiectful of the necessary details of practical affairs. He is wise in little things as in great.
The prevailing bent of his mind is unquestionably ethical. Though his mind is too comprehensive to allow him to be a mere specialist, yet his favorite study is ethics. On this summit of human thought he has long dwelt; and the result of his thinking and teaching he has embodied in his treatise on moral philosophy. This is an admirable exposition of the moral law of love or benevolence; first, in its philos- ophy or reason; and, secondly, in its practical appli-
192
HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
cation to human rights and duties. In his theological teaching he is clear, rational, and evangelical.
Under his wise and discreet management, Oberlin college has undergone a gradual and continual im- provement. This improvement is, indeed, its natural growth: yet. it is not spontaneons, but must be pro- moted by intelligent etfort, in which many co-operate. This growth consists in the enlargement and perfect- ing of the course of study, so as to furnish a culture broader and higher; and, as a necessary material basis for this, an adequate college endowment.
JOHN KEEP .*
The name of "Father Keep" is a household word in some parts of the land, and is not unfamiliar in others to those who have known little of his work and his life.
John Keep was born in Longmeadow, Hampden county, Massachusetts, April 20, 1781. His father, Samuel Keep, was of the fourth generation from John Keep, who was one of the earliest settlers of Longmeadow, and the ancestor of all of the name of Keep who have had a residence in New England. Ilis mother was Sabina Cooley, daughter of Josiah Cooley, of Longmeadow. He was the seventh of nine children, all but one of whom reached nearly seventy. years of age. Ilis father died at eighty-four, and his paternal grandmother at ninety-two.
The father, Samuel Keep, was a thriving farmer. of robust frame and vigorous mind, a leading chris- tian man, much regarded in the community for his practical sagaeity, and the wisdom of his counsels in all matters of business.
John was thoroughly trained in farm work until seventeen years of age, when he entered Yale College and passed regularly through the course, graduating in 1802 with a class of sixty members. all of whom he ontlived. A portion of the time in college be paid his board by dining-room work in the college com- mons, returning to the farm in vacations to do good service there. After a year's teaching, he entered upon special study. in preparation for the ministry, under the private instruction of Rev. Asahel Hooker. of Goshen, Connecticut. June 11, 1805, he was ap- proved, by the Litchfield North Association, as a candidate for the ministry, having already received an invitation to preach from the society in Blandford. Massachusetts.
While pursuing theological studies in Goshen, he was a boarder in the family of Judge Nathan Hale. where he became acquainted with Miss Lydia Ilale. whom he married soon after entering upon his work at Blandford.
When Mr. Keep was about go before the association for approval, he ventured to state his thoughts and
wishes to Miss Lydia, asking her to consider his pro- posal a week and then give him a definite reply. Before the week closed, she put into his hand a paper, mostly blank. with her name near the bottom of the page, and the following postscript: "I accept your proposal, and, that you may make your arrangements unembarrassed, you may put above my name any words you may choose expressive of my affection for you. and I will redeem the pledge." That pledge was redeemed, by rare fidelity and devotion, through almost sixty years of married life. Mr. Keep's own testimony to her worth will not be regarded, by those who knew her best, as an overstatement: " To her I owe much. yea, it verily seems to me all, of what success I have had in my ministerial labors. In this sphere she was always a reliable guide. Her counsels, deliberate, never obtrusive, always given in a kind spirit, yet clear and firm, became to me luw, so fully did they bear the proof that she had the mind of Christ. The duties of her home circle and pastoral life were her pastime; yet she quietly bore the priva- tions, often severe to one of her quiet, retiring tem- perament, inseparable from the itineraney of her husband as an agent and a lecturer, never holding him back from any consideration merely affecting herself. Such a helper, such a companion and co- worker, God gave me for tifty-nine years and four months. "
They had only one child, Rev. Theodore John Keep, of Oberlin. Ohio.
The church and society at. Blandford, where Mr. Keep began his ministry, were in a distracted condi- tion, unable to harmonize in the calling of a pastor. The first settlers of the place were of Scotch-Irish origin, possessing much native vigor of body and mind, but not much of the grace of gentleness and conciliation. Conflicts on the affairs of the parish had characterized the town meetings for a generation, and, one Sabbath morning, the preacher had been borne to the pulpit by the triumphant party, after a vigorous tight at the church door and in the aisles.
When the invitation was extended to Mr. Keep to come and preach as a candidate, the church had be- come discouraged in the effort to harmonize with the society, and had ceased to co-operate. Mr. Keep was invited by the trustees of the society alone, and the members of the church came to the meeting on the appointed Sabbath with sad hearts to hear the society's minister. without any expectation of being able to approve.
He preached his first sermon to this distracted con- gregation. Both parties were delighted. but each expected that the other would reject the candidate. The final call for his ordination was unanimous, and when, after sixteen years of labor, he decided to leave, there was a nnanimons vote urging him to remain, and pledging continued and liberal support.
The parish would not seem an inviting one for a young minister seeking ease, or opportunity for self- enlture. It was a rough, mountainous region, and
* By Rev. James H. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College.
Ichn Kach .
193
HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
the people were much like the country, scattered over an area seven by nine miles in extent. The average annual sale of intoxicating drinks in the town at the time of Mr. Keep's ordination, "is put by one anthority at fifty hogsheads, by another as low as twenty-five," and this in a population of only one thousand five hundred. Intemperance, of course, diminished as the people made progress in intelli- gence and refinement. In this good work the pulpit gave no uncertain sound, but announced the doctrines of the temperance reformation twelve years before the general movement on this subject in New England. When Mr. Keep went to Blandford, he found a reso- lution on the records of the town meeting in these words: " Resolved, That we will not allow any preacher the use of the pulpit to solicit money in support of missionaries." When he left, the cause of missions was cherished with interest and received a liberal sup- port. All this was not effected withont earnest and thorough labor. One who was at that time a youth in Blandford writes of these efforts:
"With great plainness he unfolded to his people their obligations to the unevangelized abroad, and to the waste places of our own land. In different aspects and with varying application, he held up the Saviour's last command, and showed the insufficiency and hol- lowness of a picty that consisted of profession alone and did not work by love. These now self-evident truths sounded strangely then, and their utterance excited great opposition. 1 distinctly recall the tones of injured innocence in which one of his parishioners complained of the pain which those appeals occa- sioned him: 'Last Sunday afternoon,' said he, I sweat my shirt through while Mr. Keep was begging for the heathen, '"
In May, 1821, Mr. Keep, in response to an invita- tion from the Congregational church in Homer, New York, decided to "remove to the West." He had at the same time a call from the church in Brunswick, Maine, with the added responsibilities proposed of " teacher of moral philosophy and preacher in the college."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.