History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 30

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926; Baskin & Battey. Chicago. pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1014

USA > Ohio > Medina County > History of Medina county and Ohio > Part 30

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The priee for which this vast traet of land was sold to the Connectieut Land Company was $1,200,000, the subseriptions to the purchase fund ranging from $1,683, by Sylvanus Griswold, -to $168,185, by Oliver Phelps. Each dollar sub- scribed to this fund eutitled the subseriber to one twelve hundred thousandth part in common and undivided of the laud purchased. Having ac- quired the title, the Company, in the following spring, commeneed to survey the territory lying east of the Cuyahoga, and during the years of 1796 and 1797, completed it. The first surveying party arrived at Conueaut, in New Connecticut, July 4, 1796, and proceeded at onee to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of American Independ- enee. There were fifty persons in the party, under the lead of Gen. Moses Cleveland, of Can- terbury, Conn. There will be found in Whittle- sey's Early History of Cleveland an extract from the journal of Cleveland, describing the partieu- lars of the celebration. Among other things noted by him was the following: "The day, memora- ble as the birthday of American Independence and freedom from British tyrrany, and couimemo-

rated by all good, freeborn sons of America, and memorable as the day on which the settlement of this new country was eonmeneed, and ( which ) in time may raise her head among the most enlight- ened and improved States " - a prophecy already more than fulfilled.

For the purposes of the survey, a point where the 41st degree of uorth latitude intersected the western line of Pennsylvania, was found, and from this degree of latitude, as a base line, meridian lines, five miles apart, were run north to the lake. Lines of latitude were then run, five miles apart, thus dividing the territory into towuships five miles square. It was not until after the treaty of 1805 that the lands lying west of the Cuyahoga were surveyed. The meridians and parallels were run out in 1806, by Abraham Tappan and his assistants. The base and western lines of the Re- serve were run by Seth Pease, for the Govern- ment. The range of townships were numbered progressively west, from the western boundary of Pennsylvania. The first tier of townships, run- ning north and south, lying along the border of Pennsylvania, is Range No. 1; the adjoining tier west is range No. 2, and so on throughout the twenty-four ranges. The township lying next north of the 41st parallel of latitude in each range, is Township No. 1 of that range. The township next north is No. 2, and so on progressively to the lake. It was supposed that there were 4,- 000,000 acres of land between Pennsylvania and the Fire Lands. If the supposition had proved true, the land would have eost 30 cents per acre; as it resulted, there were less than 3,000,- 000 aeres. The misealculation arose from the mistaken assumption that the south shore of Lake Erie bore more nearly west than it docs, and also in a mistake made in the length of the east-and- west line. The distance west from the Pennsyl- vania line, surveyed in 1796-97, was only fifty-six miles, the survey ending at the Tuscarawas River. To reach the western limits of the Reserve a dis- tance of sixty-four miles was to be made. Abra- ham Tappan aud Anson Sessions entered into an agreeuient with the Land Company, in 1805, to complete the survey of the lands between the Fire Lands and the Cuyahoga. This they did in 1806, and, from the width of Range 19, it is very evident that the distance from the east to the west line of the Reserve is less than one hundred and twenty miles. This range. of townships is gore-shaped, and is much less than five miles wide, circum- stances leading the company to divide all below

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Township 6 into tracts for the purpose of equaliza- tion. The west line of Range 19, from north to south, as originally run, bears to the west, and between it and Range 20, as indicated on the map, there is a strip of land, also gore-shaped, that was left in the first instance unsurveyed, the surveyors not knowing the exact whereabouts of the eastern line of the " half-million acres" belonging to the suf- ferers. In 1806, Amos Spafford, of Cleveland, and Alruon Ruggles, of IIuron, were agreed on by the two companies to aseertain and locate the line be- tween the Fire Lands and the lands of the Connecti- eut Company. They first surveyed off the " half- million acres " belonging to the " sufferers," and, not agreeing with Seth Pease, who had run out the base and west lines, a dispute arose between the two companies, which was finally adjusted be- fore the draft, by establishing the eastern line of the Fire Lands where it now is. This left a strip of land east of the Fire Lands, called surplus lands, which was ineluded in range 19, and is embraced in the western tier of townships of Lorain County.

The mode of dividing the land among the indi- vidual purchasers, was a little peculiar, though evidently just. An equalizing committee accom- panied the surveyors, to make such observations and take such notes of the character of the town- ships as would enable them to grade them intelli- gently, and make a just estimate and equalization of their value. The amount of purchase-money was divided into 400 shares of $3,000 a share. Certifi- eates were issued to each owner, showing him to be entitled to sueh proportion of the entire land, as the amount he paid, bore to the purchase price of the whole. Four townships of the greatest value were first selected from that part of the Western Reserve, to which the Indian title had been extinguished, and were divided into lots. Each township was di- vided into not less than 100 lots. The number of lots into which the four townships were divided, would, at least, equal the 400 shares, or a lot to a share, and each person or company of persons en- titled to one or more shares of the Reserve-each share being one four-hundredth part of the Re- serve-was allowed to participate in the draft that was determined upon for the division of the joint property. The committee appointed to seleet the four most valuable townships for such division, was directed to select of the remaining townships, a sufficient number, and of the best quality and greatest value, to be used for equalizing purposes. After this selection was made, they were to choose the best remaining township, and this township was

the one, to the value of which all others were brought by the equalizing process of annexation, and if there were several of equal value with the one so selected, no annexations were to be made to them. The equalizing townships were cut up into pareels of various size and value, and these parcels were annexed to townships inferior ju value to the standard township, and annexations of land from the equalizing townships, were made to the inferior townships, in quantity and quality, sufficient to make all equal in value to the standard adopted. When the townships had thus all been equalized, they were drawn by lot. There were ninety-three eqnalized pareels drawn east of the Cuyahoga, and forty-six on the west. The draft of the lands east of the river, took place prior to 1800, and of those west of that river, on the 4th day of April, 1807. In the first draft, it required an ownership of $12,903.23 of the original purchase mouey, to en- title the owner to a township ; and in the second draft, it required an ownership of $26,087 in the original purchase-money, to entitle tbe owner to a township.

The same mode and plan were followed in each draft. The townships were numbered, and tbe numbers, on separate pieces of paper, placed in a box. The names of the proprietors who had sub- seribed, and were the owners of a sufficient amount of the purchase-money to entitle them to a township, were arranged in alphabetical order, and when it was necessary for several persons to combine, be- eause not owning severally, a sufficient amount of the purchase-money, or number of shares, to en- title them to a township, the name of the person of the company that stood alphabetically first, was used to represent them in the draft, and in case the small owners were unable, from disagreement among themselves, to· unite, a committee was ap- pointed to select and class the proprietors, and those selected were required to associate them- selves together, for the purpose of the draft. The township, or pareel of laud, corresponding to the first number drawn from the box belonged to the person whose name stood first on the list, or to the persons whom he represented; and the second drawn belonged to the second person, and so down through the list. This was the mode adopted to sever the ownership in commou, and to seeure to each individual, or company of individuals, their interest in severalty. Soon after the conveyance to the land company, to avoid complications arising from the death of its members, and to facilitate the transmission of titles, the company conveyed the

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entire purchase, in trust, to John Morgan, John Cadwell and Jonathan Brace; and as titles were wanted, either before or after the division by draft, eonveyanees were made to the purchasers by these trustees.

Little was known of this country at the time of its purchase by the Land Company. It was for- merly inhabited by a nation of Indians called the Erigas or Eries, from which the lake took its name. This nation was at an early date destroyed by the Iroquois. In his ". History of New France," published iu 1744, in speaking of the south shore of Lake Erie, Charlevoix says : "All this shore is nearly unknown." An old French map, made in 1755, to be seen in the rooms of the Western Re- serve Historical Society, in Cleveland, names the country between the Cuyahoga and Sandusky Rivers, as Cauahogue; and east of the Cuyahoga, as Gwahoga. This is also the name given to that river which is made to empty into Cuyahoga Bay; and the country designated as Cauahogue is iudi- cated as the seat of war, the Mart of Trade, and the chief hunting grounds of the Six Nations of the lake. The earliest settlement was on the Reserve, at Warren, in 1798, though salt was made in Weathersfield, Mahouing Couuty, as early as 1755, by whites, who made short sojourns there for that purpose. The number of settlers increased iu this section until, in 1800, there were some sixteen fam- ilies. In 1796, the first surveying party for the Land Company, landed at Conueaut, followed three years later by the first permanent settler. Then followed settlements in Geauga and Cuyahoga, iu 1798; in Portage and Lake, in 1799; Summit, in 1800; Lorain, 1807, and Mediua, in 1811. "The settlement of the Reserve commenced in a manner somewhat peculiar. Instead of beginning on one side of a county, and progressing gradually into the interior, as had usually been done in similar eases, the proprietors of the Reserve, being gov- erned by different and separate views, began their improvements wherever their individual interests led them. Here we find many of the first settlers immersed in a dense forest, fifteen or twenty miles or more from the abode of any white inhabitants. In consequence of their scattered situation, jour- neys were sometimes to be performed of twenty or fifty miles, for the sole purpose of having the staple of an ox-yoke mended, or some other mechanical job, in itself trifling, but absolutely essential for the successful prosecution of business. These jour- neys had to be performed through the wilderness, at a great expense of time, and, in many eases, the

only safe guide to direct their course, were the township lines made by the surveyors. The want of mills to grind the first harvest, was in itself a great evil. Prior to 1800, many faruilies used a small hand-mill, properly called a sweat-tuill, which took the hard labor of two hours to supply flour enough for oue person a single day. About the year 1800, one or two grist-mills, operating by water- power, were erected. Que of these was at Newburg, now iu Cuyahoga Co. But the distance of many of the settlements from the mills, and the want of roads, often rendered the expense of grinding a single bushel equal to the value of two or three."* Speaking of the settlement of the Fire Lands, C. B. Squier, late of Sandusky City, says: "The largest sufferers, and, consequently, those who held the largest interest in the Fire Lands, pur- chased the rights of many who held smaller inter- ests. The proprietors of these lands, anxious that their new territory should be settled, offered strong indueements for persons to settle in this then un- known region. It is quite difficult to ascertain who the first settlers were, upon these lands. As early, if not prior to the organization of the State, sev- eral persons had squatted upon the lands at the mouth of the streams and near the shore of the lake, led a hunter's life, and trafficked with the Indians. But they were a race of wanderers, and gradually disappeared before the regular progress of the set- tlements. Those devoted missionaries, the Mora- vians, made a settlement, which they called New Salem, as early as 1790, on Huron River, about two miles below Milan. The first regular settlers, however, were Col. Jerard Ward, who came in the spring of 1808, and Almon Ruggles and Jabez Wright, in succeeding autumn." The next year brought a large inflow of immigration, which spread over the greater portion of both Erie and Huron Counties, though the first settlement in Sandusky City was not made until 1817.

It was not until the year 1800 that eivil govern- ment was organized on the Western Reserve. The Governor and Judges of the Northwest Territory, under the ordinance of 1787, by proclamation iu the following year, organized the county of Wash- ington, and included within it all of the Western Reserve east of the Cuyahoga; and in 1796, the year of the first occupation by the whites of the New Connecticut, the county of Wayne was erected, which included over one-half of Ohio, all of the Western Reserve west of the Cuyahoga, with a part of Indiana, all of Michigan, and the Ameri- *Judge Amzi Atwater.

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can portion of Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair and Eric, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga, with the county seat at Detroit. In 1797, Jefferson County was established, and the Western Reserve, east of the Cuyahoga, became a part of it, by restricting the limits of Washington. Connecticut and the Land Company refused to recognize the right of the (teneral Government to make such disposition of the Reserve. The act of including this territory within the counties of Washington, Jefferson and Wayne, they declared to be uuwarranted, and the power of Congress to prescribe rules for the gov- ernment of the same, they denied, and from the opening settlement in 1796, until the transfer of jurisdiction to the General Government was com- plete, on May 30, 1800, the new settlers were entirely without municipal laws. There was no regulation governing the transmission of, or success to, prop- erty on the deccase of the owner; no regulations of any kind securing the protection of rights, or the redress of wrongs. The want of laws for the government of the settlers was seriously felt, and as early as 1796, the company petitioned the Legislature of Connecticut to erect the Reserve into a county, with proper and suitable laws to regulate the internal policy of the territory for a limited period. This petition, however, was not granted, and for upward of four years the inter- course and conduct of the carly settlers were regu- lated and restrained only by their New England sense of justice and right. But on the 10th of July, 1800, after Connecticut had released hier jurisdiction to the United States, the Western Reserve was erected into a county, by the name of Trumbull, in honor of the Governor of Connecti- cut, by the eivil authority of Ohio. At the elce- tion in the fall of that year, Edward Paine received thirty-eiglit votes out of the forty-two cast, for member of the Territorial Legislature. The elee- tion was held at Warren, the county seat, and was the first participation that the settlers had in the affairs of government here. During the same year the Court of Quarter Sessions, a tribunal that did not survive the Constitution of 1802, was es- tablished and organized, and by it the county was divided into eight organized townships. The town- ship of Cleveland was one, and embraced a large portion of territory cast of the Cuyahoga, but all the Reserve lying west of that river. On December 1, 1805, Geauga County was erected. It included within its limits, nearly all the present counties of Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Cuyahoga. On February 10, 1807, there was a more general di-

vision into counties. That part of the Western Reserve lying west of the Cuyahoga and north of Township No. 4, was attached to Geauga, to be a part thereof until Cuyahoga should be organized. In the same year Ashtabula was erected out of Trumbull and Geauga, to be organized whenever its population would warrant it ; also, all that part of Trumbull which lay west of the fifth range of townships, was erected into a county by the name of Portage, all of the Western Reserve west of the Cuyahoga and south of Township No. 5, being attached to it. The county of Cuyahoga was formed out of Geauga, on the same date, February 10, 1807, to be organized whenever its population should be sufficient to require it, which occurred in 1810.

On February 8, 1809, Huron County was ereeted into a county, covering the Fire Lands, but to remain attached to Geauga and Portage, for the time being, for purposes of government. The eastern boundary of this county was subsequently, in 1811, moved forward to the Black River, but, in the year 1822. it was given its present bounda- ries, and, in 1838, Erie County was erected, di- viding its territory. On the 18th of February, 1812, Medina was forined, and comprised all the territory between the eleventh range of townships and Huron County, and south of Township No. 5. It was attached to Portage, however, until January 14, 1818, when it received an independ- ent organization. Lorain County was formed on the 26th day of December, 1822, from the outly- ing portions of Huron, Medina and Cuyahoga Counties. It was organized with an independent local administration, January 21, 1824. In 1840, were organized Summit County, on March 3, and Lake County on March 6; the former drawing from Medina and Portage, and taking two town- ships from Stark County, and the latter being formed from Geauga and Cuyahoga. In 1846, Ashland County was formed, taking three town- ships of the Reserve, on February 26, and Maho- ning, on March 1, taking ten townships from Trumbull, leaving the boundaries of the Reserve as marked at present.

In the history of its social development, the Western Reserve is not less interesting or peculiar than in the beginning of its material interests. The history of the mother State was peculiar, and the Reserve, it was fondly hoped, would be a re- production of the maternal features and graces, a New Connecticut. A chronicler* of the early *Charles W. Elliott.

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history of New England, writing of the New Ha- ven Colony of 1637, says: " During the first year, little 'government ' was needed or exercised. Each man was a lord to himself. On the 4th of June (1638), the settlers met iu Mr. Neuman's tion. * barn, and bound themselves by a sort of Constitu- * * They decided to make the Bible their law-book ; but by and by new towns were made, and new laws were needed, and they had the good sense to make them. Their State was founded upon their church, thus expressed in their first compact, signed by one hundred and eleven persons : 'That ehureh members only shall be free. Burgesses, and that they ouly shall choose Magistrates and officers among themselves, to have the power of transacting all publique eivil affairs of this plantation, of making and repealing laws, dividing of inheritances, deciding of differ- enecs that may arise, and doing all things or busi- nesses of like nature.'" Twenty-seven years later, when eireumstanees made a union of the two Connecticut Colonies necessary, the greatest and most lasting objection on the part of the New Ha- ven Colony was the lessening of the civil power of the church which would follow the union. In 1680, the Governor of the United Colonies, thus describes the community: "The people are strict Congregationalists. There are four or five Seven- day men, and about as many Quakers. We have twenty-six towns aud twenty-one churches. Beg- gars and vagabonds are not suffered, but are bound out to serviee." These characteristics of Connect- ieut have been marked by all historians as well as the facts, that she " Early established and sup- ported schools and colleges ; her people have, from the outset, been industrious and honest ; crime has not abounded ; while talent and character, and courage and elcanliness, have been common through all her history." It was to reproduce these characteristics throughout the territory embraced within the provisions of her charter, that the mother State labored. For one hundred and thirty years she followed this purpose with an un- deviating method. "One traet after another, suf- fieient for a municipal government, was granted to trusty men, who were to form a settlement of well assorted families, with the elurch, the meet- ing house, the settled ministry of the Gospel, the school, the local magistracy, and the democratic town-meeting represented in the General Assem- bly. Under this method, self-governed towns in what is now a part of Pennsylvania, were onee represented in the General Assembly at Hartford

and New Haven."* It was with the hope of ex- tending this method to the Reserve that Connecti, eut so strenuously asserted her jurisdiction to her Western lands ; but in the years of rapid growth succeeding the war of the Revolution, the old method proved no longer practicable, and the par- ent surrendered her offspring to the hands of abler guardians. But there remained a field in which solicitous regard could find action, and the impress of her work in this direction is plainly apparent to this day. It was her method of " missions to the new settlements " which had become crystallized into a system about this time. Of the scope and character of this work, Rev. Leonard Bacon thus speaks: " At first, individ- ual pastors, encouraged by their brethreu, and ob- taining permission from their churches, performed long and weary journeys on horsebaek into Ver- mont and the great wilderness of Central New York, that they might preach the Word and ad. minister the ordinances of religion to such mem- bers of their flocks, and others, as had emigrated beyond the reach of ordinary New England priv- ileges. By degrees the work was enlarged, and arrangements for sustaining it were systematized, till in the year 1798, the same year in which the settlement of the Reserve began, the pastors of Connecticut, in their General Association, instituted the Missionary Society of Connecticut. In 1802, one year after the jurisdiction of the old State over the Reserve was formally relinquished, the Trustees of the Missionary Society were incorpo- rated. As early as 1800, only two years after the first few families from Connectient had planted themselves this side of Northwestern Pennsylvania, the first missionary made his appearanee among them. This was the Rev. Joseph Badger, the apostle of the Western Reserve-a man of large and various experience, as well as of native foree, and of venerable simplicity in character and man- ners. In those days the work of the missionary to the new settlements was by no means the same with what is now called ' Home Mis-ionary ' work. Our modern Home Missionary has his station and his home; his business is to gather around him- self a permanent congregation ; his hope is to grow up with the congregation which he gathers, and the aid which he receives is given to help the church support its pa-tor. But the old-fashioned 'missionary to the new settlements,' was an itiner- ant. He had no station and no settled home. If he had a family, his work was continually ealling 4 Address by Leonard Bacon, D. D.

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hiui away from them. He went from one little settlement to another-from one lonely cabin to another-preaching from house to house, and not often spending two consecutive Sabbaths in one place. The nature of the emigration to the wilder- ness, in those days, required such labors.

" It was soon felt that two missionaries were needed for the work among the scattered settle- ments. Accordingly, the Rev. Ezekiel J. Chap- man was sent. He arrived on the Reserve at the close of the year 1801, and returned to Conneeti- eut in April, 1803. His place was soon supplied by a young man ordained expressly to the work, the Rev. Thomas Robbins, who continued labor- ing iu this field from November, 1803, till April, 1806. In a letter of his, dated June 8, 1805, I find the following statement: 'Since the be- ginning of the present year, I have been taking pains to make an actual enumeration of the fami- lies in this county .* The work I have just eom- pleted. There are one or more families in sixty- four towns. January 1, 1804, the number of families was about 800. The first of last January there were a little more than 1100, of which 450 are Yankees. There were twenty four schools. There are seven churches, with a prospect that two more will be organized soon, and more than twenty places where the worship of God is regu- larly maintained on the Sabbath."" Such was the beginning of an influenee to which the people of the Reserve are principally indebted for the early and secure foundation of the church and school, and for that individuality which marks them as a peculiar and envied people in a great common- wealth made up of the chosen intellect and brawn of a whole nation.

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History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 30

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926; Baskin & Battey. Chicago. pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1014

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926; Baskin & Battey. Chicago. pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1014