History of Lorain County, Ohio, Part 55

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 626

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Before the close of the year in which the families previously mentioned arrived, those of Solomon Whit- tlesey, Alva Curtis, Ebenezer Scott and Benjamin Bacon moved in. Mr. Whittlesey located on the farm now occupied by his son Cyrus, his original habitation being situated a short distance east of the son's pres- ent frame house. Mr. Whittlesey was a great hunter in his pioneer days. His death occurred in 1871, aged eighty-five.

Deacon Curtis settled near the Vermillion, on the spot now occupied by Fred. Bacon. He opened here, in his honse, the first hotel in the town. He has no descendants living in Brownhelm, and we have but little information concerning him. lle died in 1846, his wife subsequently.

Mr. Bacon made his location where his son William now resides. He was the first justice of the peace in the place. Mr. Bacon was qualified by nature to be a leader, and was probably a man of as much influence and extended acquaintance as any other in the settle- ment. This weight of character was used on the side of order, education and sound morality.

The next year the settlement was increased by the arrival of a dozen families. One of the first was that of Anson Cooper, who moved in from Euclid, Cuya- hoga county, where he had resided about a year. IIe took up his residence on the place now occupied by his widow in her eighty-third year. Mr. Cooper died in 1846. lle was the first town clerk in Brownbehn.

The families of Colonel Brown, Grandison Fair- child, Atfred Avery, Enos Cooley, Elisha Peek, George Bacon, John Graham, Orrin Sage, Chester Seymour, Thomas Ely and Dr. Brown moved in soon after. Colonel Brown took up his abode in the house on the lake shore already prepared for him. A brief biogra- phy of Mr. Brown may be found at the close of the history of this township.

Grandison Fairchild was born in Sheffield, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, April 20, 1792. November 25, 1813, he married Nancy Harris, daughter of William Harris, who was an early settler in Brownhelm. She was born October 30, 1795. Mr. Fairchild, with his family, then consisting of wife and three children, re- moved from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to Brown- helm in September, 1818, coming from Buffalo to Cleveland on the pioneer steamer, Walk-in-the- Water. Four days were spent on the water, the vessel lying for two days on a bar at Erie. From Cleveland the journey was made with team and wagon. Mr. Fair- child's location was on North ridge, between the present residence of his son Charles and the church. He is yet a resident of the town, now living a short distance east of his original location, in his eighty- seventh year, erect and seemingly as vigorous as ever. Mrs. Fairchild died in August, 1875. There were

ten children, seven of whom are yet living, two in the town.

Orrin Sage, originally from Hartford, Connecticut, married Ley Cooper, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in June, 1818, and, immediately afterwards, with George Bacon and his wife, who was a sister of Mrs. Sage, set out for the distant west. The party had a wagon and two ox-teams, and a single horse and wagon with which they made the journey, and were five weeks coming through. At Buffalo they shipped their goods by the lake to Black river. Sage located on the farm adjoining on the north-that on which Mrs. Bacon now lives. He died in October, 1823, and his widow soon after exchanged farms with Jona- than Hosford, and returned with her little son to Stockbridge. Bacon located on the farm, now oecu- pied by his widow, formerly Mrs. Sage. His first wife died in 1826, and he returned to Stockbridge and a year subsequently married Mrs. Sage, when they removed to Brownhelin. Mrs. Bacon died in Jaunary, 1825. Mr. Bacon is now in her eighty- sixth year. She says the first barrel of meat the family used in Brownhelm, cost thirty dollars, and was of the "shank" variety.

Enos Cooley began life in the wilderness on a cash capital of six cents. He located near the lake shore, erecting his eabin on the spot now occupied by the residence of the widow of Lewis Brann. He subse- quently removed to a permanent location on the North ridge, where he resided until his death, in 1847. Two of his children are now living in this township. They are Moses and Chester A. The latter owns and operates at Bacon's Corners the only cheese factory in the town.

Elsha Peck, with wife and ten children, arrived in Brownhelm, in November of the year previously men- tioned. The family stopped with Colonel Brown the night after their arrival, and then moved into the house of Alfred Avery, where they remained some three weeks. They then took up their abode on lot fifty-four, a log honse having been rolled together. It, was indeed a primitive house when the family moved into it, for it was without a floor of any kind, and the first night, the children made their bed on mother earth. The father and mother were provided with a bedstead constructed of poles, and elm bark was made to answer in place of a cord. Mr. Peck was a shoemaker, and worked at his trade for over sixty years. Ile also had a rude tannery in Brown- helm at an early day. He was born in Berlin, Con- neetient, March 4, 1423, and died in Brownhelm Jan- uary 2, 1858, aged eighty-four years and ten months. Ilis wife was Millicent Byington, of Bristol, Connec- tient. Four children are now living.

Deacon George Wells, now residing in Brownheh, in the eighity-second year of his age, arrived in 1818. He was at the time unmarried. Ile bought a piece of land on the lake shore, felled a tree, and with a few poles and bark made himself a rude shelter, in which he lived the first summer. A short time after-

HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.

ward this was substituted by a log house, in which his widowed mother and the remainder of her family took up their abode in the summer of 1820. Mr. Wells returned to Hartford in 1825, and married, immediately after which he set out with his bride for the far west. At. Buffalo he engaged passage on a vessel, the captain of which agreed to land him on the shore opposite his residence in Brownhelm. IIe disregarded his promise, however, and carried Mr. Wells and wife to Johnson's Island, thence to San- dusky, and finally landed them, with some twenty other passengers. at Cedar Point. Mr. Wells and wife started for their Brownhelm cabin on foot, but after traveling some ten miles, were overtaken by Captain Day, who was returning to Black River from Sandusky, on horseback. Hle kindly offered his place on the horse to the young wife, which was accepted. Mr. Wells and the captain traveling on foot. The end of the journey was duly reached, when two men with a skiff were sent after Mrs. Wells' baggage, which was hardly equal either in value or quantity to the outfit of the modern bride.

John Graham married a sister of Deacon Wells, and removed to Brownhelm soon after he arrived. lle located on the same lot-lot four-and lived there the remainder of his life.

Abishai Morse came from Great Barrington, Massa- chusetts, to Brownhelm in September, 1820, with his family, consisting of his wife and tive children. Eight were born subsequently. A horse team and wagon brought the family and their effects, and they were six weeks on the journey. They lived with Alva Curtis until their log house was completed. This stood a short distance east of the present resi- dence of his son, Geo. G. Morse, west of the Vermil- lion. The log house was occupied until 1833, when the pleasant frame house previously mentioned was erected. He and George Hinckley had a saw mill on the Vermillion in an early day, where lleyman's grist and saw mill now stand: and they afterwards bought the old grist mill of Judge Brown, which had been removed to the same place from its original location near the Swift place. Mr. Morse died in December, 1835. Five of his children are living and four in Lorain county.

Tra Wood came into the township in 1831. His tirst location was west of the river, where John Stevenson now lives. Stephen Goodrich came in at the same time, and they together established a tan- nery. Mr. Wood subsequently sold his interest to Goodrich, and moved to the east side of the river, where he now resides.

President Fairchild, in his history of this township, written in 1867. locates generally the early settlers as follows:

There were originally five lines of settlement in town, the lake shore and the four ridges parallel to it. * * * On the lake shore there were Brown, Sey- mour, James, Shepard, Weed, Dr. Brown, Goodrich, llart, Sly, Wells, Graham and Sheldon Johnson; and

at a later day, Hawley Lathrop and Leach. Between the shore and the first ridge, Cooley, Barnum, Scott; and later, Perley Monlton and Rankin. Along the first ridge, Whittlesey. AAlverson, Peter P. Pease, Cooper, Orrin Sage, Moulton, Joseph Seolt and Ketchum; and later, Baker, Ewing, Lyon, Culver, Hiram Pease, Hamilton Perry, Parkhurst, Hastings, Bartlett, HIos- ford. Dimmock, Graves, Blodgett. Hemmingway, James Newbury and Job Smith. On the principal ridge, known as the North ridge, Andrews, Avery, Baldwin, Lincoln, Fairchild, Betts, Daniel Perry, and afterward his sons; the Bacons, three families, Curtis at the mill. Hinkley and Waters Betts; and beyond the river, Abishai Morse, Bradley, Hewett, Booth, Davis and his distillery, and Saunders. At a later day, along the same ridge, we have Belden, Samuel Curtis, Rodney Andrews, Henry Sage, Samuel Bacon, Leavenworth. Dr. Willard, Bailey, Kent Hawley, Edward Morse, Stephen Goodrich, Stephen Brown, John Newbury, Fancher, and many others still later. Along the middle ridge or near it, on one side or The other, Peck, George James, Seth Morse. Wallace, Jones; and at a later day, Harris, Locke, Van Dusen, Ira Rugg, Cable, Frisbie, Chapin, Bushrod Perry. S. G. Morse, Parsons and Ira Wood ;* and still further south, Joseph Swift. On the south ridge road, the earhest families were Powers, Leonard, Durand, An- drews, Hancock, Denison, Holcomb, Abbott and Fuller. This road was soon set off to Henrietta. ** * Almost all of these families came from the east, most from Berkshire county, Massachusetts, some from Conveetient, and a few from other parts. A very few, discouraged by sickness and by the hardships of the new country, returned cast." * * * * It was not a rare thing for young men to walk the entire distance from Massachusetts lo Ohio, carrying a few indispen- sable articles upon their backs, in a white canvas knapsack. One or more of these knapsacks might be found in almost every neighborhood during the early years, cherished as mementoes of such pedestrian feats. One young man brought in his . pack,' from Massachusetts to this county, a pair of iron wedges, implements more valuable to him than a wedge of gold. For myself, I have moving reason for recalling the knapsack; for I remember that in the old school house, my seat mate, Delia Peck, and } shared to- gether a flagellation for smiling over the quaint word knapsack, which we found in Webster's old spelling book. held between us. Some of my juvenile hearers will be impressed with the Puritan sternness of our early school discipline, when told that the smile was not audible, and that no whisper accompanied it. Our rebellious hearts even then would question the propriety of the chastisement.

As successive families came on, they found shel- ter for a few weeks with those who had preceded them, until they could roll up a log house, roof it with " shakes " and ent an opening for a door. Then

*Also Colonel Nathaniel and Norman Crandall.

bol, Elisha, F. Peske

Sally From Mars ,,

COLONEL ELISHA FRANKLIN PECK.

Col. Elisha Franklin Peck, the fifth child of Elisha Peek and Milicent Byington, was born at Old Stockbridge, Mass., May 25, 1806.

Elisha Peck, a descendant of Deacon Paul Peek, of Hartford, Conn., was born at Berlin, Conn., March 7, 1773.

In the year 1817, Elisha Peck came to this country and made a selection of lands, and erected a log cabin in the town of Brownhelm, Lorain Co., Ohio, which at that time was an unbroken wilderness, after which he returned for his family, consisting of a wife and ten children; and the year following made a permanent settlement, arriving Nov. 12, 1818. No furniture was in possession of the family, and a bedsteud was improvised for the older members of the family the first night of their stay in the then far West, the children sleeping on the floor. Mr. Peck's purchase amounted to four hundred and fifty acres.

Col. E. F. Peck remained with his father until he was twenty-one years of age, and in the month of August fol- lowing started out in life for himself, with forty aeres of land as a gift from his father; and the same year started for Old Stockbridge, Mass., the old home, to attend school, but was taken sick at Buffalo, N. Y., while working on the harbor. Ile went to an unele's in Orleans Co., N. Y., and remained four months. lle then returned to Brownhehu, having abandoned the idea of attending school in Massa- chusetts, and purchased the interests of several members of the family in the estate of his father, and has since added materially to his possessions.

He was married, July 3, 1833, to Sally Aun, daughter of Abishua Morse. This union resulted in the birth of four children, whose names are as follows: Ann Milicent, Lydia

Marianne, Henry Franklin, and William Elisha, all of whom are living except Ilenry F., who died Feb. 4, 1864, at his father's house.

Col. Peek, now seventy-three years of age, is still vigor- ous and active, and only last fall (1878) plowed and pre- pared the soil for ten acres of wheat. He has cleared over two hundred acres of heavy timbered land. His physique even now proves the advantage of a life of sobriety, industry, and uprightness. His only education was obtained by giv- ing one day of labor for one day of instruction in the elementary branches. Its practical benefits to himself and family are evineed by his success in life, financially and morally.

In politics, Col. Peck has always been a Democrat, with which party he is prominently identified, and a working member. He is earnest, even zealous in the advocacy of his convictions, and no matter what others may think as to the facts at issue, HE IS SINCERE.

From 1857 until 1861 he was postmaster at Brownhelm, the proceeds of the office going to his poor neighbors.

Prior to the late civil war, and during the old militia days, Mr. Peck joined an Ohio regiment, in which he be- came popular, both as a genial comrade and an able military commander, and passed through the several grades, from private in the ranks to that of colonel, being regimental commander when mustered out of service.

Ann M. Peck, eldest daughter of Col. E. F. Peek, married H. O. Allen, Jan. 1, 1865. He died Nov. 17, 1869. Lydia M., second daughter, married Geo. P. Deyo, Sept. 13, 1871. William E. married Lena S. Smith, Dee. 28, 1871.

ELISHA PECK (DECEASED )

RESIDENCE OF E.F. PECK, BROWNHELM TP, LORAIN CO.,O.

221

HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.

they would move into their new home and finish il at leisure. This finishing consisted in laying a floor of planks split from logs, puncheons as they were called, putting up a chimney in one end of the house, ordinarily of sticks plastered with clay, sometimes of stone, with a large open fire-place, generally made with a hearth and back, without jambs or mantel, adding at length a door, when there was leisure to go to Shope's mill on Beaver creek, for a board, and a window of glass if it could be had ; if not, oiled paper. A later stage in the operation consisted in "chinking" the cracks between the logs with pieces of wood on the inside, and plastering them without with elay mortar. As leisure and prosperity followed, loose boards were laid above for a chamber floor, and in cases of unusual nicety and taste, the man devoted several evenings to hewing the logs on the sides within, and peeling the bark from the round joists overhead. Families unusually favored had rough stairs to the loft above, otherwise a ladder. An exca- vation below, entered through a trap in the floor, served as a cellar. In rare cases, a family attained to the dignity of a sleeping room, separated from the common living apartment by a board partition ; oftener chintz curtains, or sheets, or quilts, secured the privacy of the bed. These often disappeared as the wants of the family pressed, and the bed was left shelterless.

The furniture of this primitive home was as simple as the domicile itself. The bedstead was made of round poles, shaved or peeled, the posts at the head rising above the bed and joined by a bar in place of a beadboard. Elm bark often served in place of a cord. The trundle-bed was the same thing on a smaller scale. A table was extemporized from the cover of a box in which the family goods were brought from the cast, while the box itself, with a shelf introduced, served as a cupboard for provisions. A shelf on the side of the room supported the crock- ery and tin ware, while a few stools, with now and then a back added, according to the mechanical skill or enterprise of the proprietor, served the place of chairs. This simple house, with its simpler furniture, furnished a home by no means uncomfortable where health, and hope, and kindly feeling were the light of it. The skeleton frame house of the pioneer of mod- ern days, withont paint, or ceiling, or plaster, or tree to shelter it, will by no means compare with the snug, well chinked, substantial log house of the early settlers.

According to my recollection, the first frame house in town was built by Benjamin Bacon, and the next. by Dr. Betts. I am quite sure that Mr. Bacon's was the first painted one that my eyes ever rested on. The first brick house in town, and indeed in the county, was built by my father, in 1824. To this day it is, I believe, the only brick house in the town. It was built with twenty thousand brick, at an aggregate cost of three hundred dollars. It has received some additions and improvements, but does not appear to

be as large as when it was first built. The first stylish honse in town was Judge Brown's, built in 1826, a grand affair in its day, and still a slately farm house.

The great drawback of the country, and at the same time its chief advantage, was the grand old forest with which the entire surface was covered. fur- nishing every variety of timber that could be needed in a new country, in quantities that seemed absolutely inexhaustible. Along the ridges the chestnut pre- vailed, the trunk from two to four feet in diameter, and a hundred feet in height, furnishing the best fencing material that any new country was ever blessed with. The only discount on the chestnut was in the fact that the stump would remain full thirty years, an offense to the farmer, unless some strennons means were used to eradicate it. The surest way was to un- dermine it, and bury it on the spot where it grew. The tree next in value for timber was the whitewood or tulip tree, of regal majesty, and second only to the white pine for finishing Inmber, and for some uses superior to it. The oak and the hickory, in every variety and of magnificent proportions, were found everywhere; and, on the lowlands and river bottoms, the black walnut, probably the most stately tree of Northern Ohio forests, inferior in magnificence only to the famous red wood of California. A single speci- men was standing on the Vermillion river bottom at. a recent dale, which was said to measure fifteen feet in diameter above the swell of the roots. In the early years, this valuable fancy timber only ranked next to the chestnut, and there are barns and cowsheds in town roofed with clean black walnut boards, two feet and more in width. With the first settlers, these magnificent forests were not held in high apprecia- tion. They were esteemed usurpers of the soil, and the great endeavor was to exterminate them. The coming generation will not be able to comprehend the labor involved in this enterprise, or the pluck that could accomplish it. "A man was famous according as he lifted up axes upon the thick trees." No iron- sinewed engine was at hand to take the brunt of the work. The pioneer himself, equipped only with his axe, a yoke of oxen and a log chain, must attack, lay low and reduce to ashes the forests that overhung his farm. The men that accomplished this were sturdy in limb and strong in heart. A feeble race woukl have retired from the encounter. The pioneer of the present day, who has only to turn over the prairie sod, and wait for the harvest, can know little of the labor involved in settling a heavy-timbered country. Yet, if this had been a prairie country, its settle- ment must have been deferred full twenty years. The forests were a vast store house of material for building and fencing, and for fuel. The house in- volved no ontlay of capital. Stern labor could accom- plish everything. But for these forests each family would have required a capital of a thousand or two of dollars, and facilities for the transportation of lumber and other material would have been required, and a market where the prodnets of the soil could be ex-

HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.

changed for these materials. The pioneer found his best friend in the forest, but the friendship was one of stern conditions, yielding its advantages only to the brave hearted. It is a little sad to look back to the uncounted thousands of splendid trees of white wood, and oak. and ash, and hickory, and black wal- nnt, and chestnut, which by dint of vast labor were reduced to ashes, and recall the fact that each one of these trunks, if now standing where it grew, would sell for ten to fifty dollars. Indeed, it is probable that if the original forests could be replaced, the standing timber would bring more at sale than the farms of the township, with all their improvements, are now worth. But our case is not peculiar; at some snch sacrifice every new country is settled. The farms of New England would to-day scarce sell for enough to construct the stone walls that separate their fields. The grain that has rotted on the prairie farms of Illinois for want of barns and granaries, sold in the market to-day, would buy all the farms of that rich State. To regret such a circumstance is only less absurd than to mourn over the fact that Adam did not put out a few dollars at compound interest, which by endless reduplications would have furnished every child of Adam with a fortune. There is amusement. in such figures, but no instruction. The divine wis- dom that planned the continent, placed the prairies west of the forests, and the gold still farther on in the direction of the "march of empire." Any other arrangement would have obstructed or greatly retarded the occupation of the country.

The habit contracted in the clearing of the lands, the passion for destroying trees, has sometimes sur- vived the necessity, and even to this day needs a little guarding. The men who rejoiced over the fall of every tree, are not likely to cherish with sufficient care the remnants of the grand old forests, or to re- plant on the grounds, cleared with so much labor, the trees necessary for shade, and ornament, and utility. I have seen a splendid elm, the delight of a whole village, ruthlessly ent down by some border ruttian whose only thought of trees is to ent them down. But such was our carly training. The glad- dest sound of our childhood was the crash of falling trees, and mother and children together rushed ont of the cabin as each giant fell, to see how the area of vision was extended. Thus, slowly and with huge labor, the cleared circle expanded around each home. When ground was required for cultivation more rap- idly than it could be thoroughly cleared the plan of "girdling" or deadening" was adopted, which killed the larger trees and left them standing. The advan- tage was a doubtful one. The falling limbs of the girdled trees destroyed the erops and sometimes the cattle, and often crushed the fences, and now and then the cabin itself; and a fire in a girdling on a windy autumn night was full of terror to a whole neighborhood. The loss of many a hay-stack, and barn, and house, was the price of the seeming advan- tage. Then, too, the final clearing away of the

branchless timber, case hardened in the sun, was a more discouraging work than the original thorough clearing would have been. But these facts were only learned by experience, and so every settlement had its "girdling."

It was a stern work, the clearing up and subdning of these beautiful farms, snatching meanwhile from among the countless stumps, by hasty culture, the support of the family, and in many cases the means of paying for the farm, or at least the interest on the purchase price, until a brighter day should bring the principal. He was a fortunate man who brought from the cast the price of his land. It many cases it made the difference between success and failure. It was very discouraging, after a struggle of years with hard work and sickness, to find the original debt increasing instead of diminishing; and it is not strange thal here and there one sold his " improve- ments " for the means of conveying his family baek to the eastern home, and retired from the conflict. The great majority stood bravely to the work, and achieved a satisfactory success.

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History of Lorain County, Ohio, Part 55

Author: Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia, Williams brothers Number of Pages: 626

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 626