History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 74

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 74

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

graded school plan. Mr. D. A. Haylor is Prin- cipal of the school at present, and John F. Dix. Miss La Vonne Weatherby and Miss Sarah Warner are the teachers of the lower depart- ments. Elijah Myers is Clerk of Guilford Township, he having held that office continu. ously for twenty-five years. John Montgomery is Treasurer, which office he has held continu- ously since 1846, when he was first elccted. Chauncey Spear, John Coolman and L. B. Wil- son are Justices of the Peace, and John G. Chambers, William A. Lee and P. C. Steiner, Trustees. The village of Seville was incorpor- ated in 1853 by the County Commissioners, under a general act of the Legislature confer- ring upon them the requisite power. Milton Stiles was the first Mayor, A. G. Hawley the first Clerk, and Aaron Leland, L. W. Strong, I. H. Brown, A. R. Whiteside and W. H. Hatch, the first Councilmen. The first meeting of the Council was on the evening of the 4th day of October, A. D. 1853. The present officers are J. T. Graves, Mayor; W. E. Barnard, Clerk ; John Montgomery, Treasurer, and Van Bell, John Eshbaugh, J. F. Martin, C. R. Leland, Frank P. Wideman and A. P. Beach, Council- men. The population of Seville is 588, and of the entire township, 1872, according to the cen- sus of 1880. River Styx is in the northeast corner of the township, is a pleasant village, and near it are the petrifying springs, quite a summer resort for pleasure-seekers. Steam Town is between River Styx and the center of Guilford, it being a little cluster of houses where Mr. Fred Beck has a blacksmith-shop and A. S. Ritter a wagon-shop. Of the little

company who came into Guilford in the spring of 1817, Henry Hosmer and Chester Hosmer are still living. Mary Y. Hosmer married Shu- bael Porter, had six children, and died on the 19th day of February, 1862, aged sixty-four years. Lyman Munson died at River Styx in 1863, aged eighty-two years. His son Albert has represented Medina County in the State Legislature, and is at present Probate Judge of the county. Abigail Porter married David Wilson; died in 1866 at River Styx. Moses Noble died at Seville on the 15th day of Febru- ary, 1831, and Shubael Porter died on his farm near Seville, on the 14th day of March, 1870, aged seventy-two years. Henry Hosmer has held the offices of Justice of the Peace, County Commissioner, Coroner and Associate Judge of Medina County under the old constitution, and to him we wish to give credit for his assistance in gathering material for this history, also, to his daughter, Mrs. L. C. Cronise. Samuel Har- ris came from Saybrook, Conn., about 1820. Had three sons in the Mexican war, John S., now of La Crescent, Minn., William T. died in the United States Army, July 30, 1847, and Albert D., killed at the battle of Churubusco, August 20, 1847. Mr. Harris married Mabel Gibbs ; he died July 22, 1844; his wife is still living at Seville, aged eighty years. Capt. M. V. Bates, the Kentucky giant, and his wife, Margaret Swan Bates, the Nova Scotia giantess, are residents of Guilford. They are the largest people in Ohio, if not the largest in America. They own a large farm east of Seville, upon which they have erected a fine large residence.

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

CHAPTER XII .*

HARRISVILLE TOWNSHIP- A PIONEER EXPLORER -THE HARRIS FAMILY-EARLY ADVENTURES -A PROSPEROUS SETTLEMENT-POLITICAL AND CIVIL DEVELOPMENT CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS.

TN that bright cluster of townships which to-day forms the county of Medina, Harris- ville stands out pre-eminent as the one in which the first dawn of civilization broke forth, and the one in which the first home of a white man was reared. This township is the riehest in pio- neer lore, and in the interesting reminiseences of its earliest settlements. The treasures of memory that are eulled from the first hardships, and the experiences and vicissitudes of the brave men and women who first penetrated into this unbroken wilderness, are to-day clothed with a sacred charm, upon which succeeding generations can searcely look with anything less than veneration. The deeds of personal heroism and the persistent toil accomplished by our forefathers, are indelibly impressed for all time to come upon the fruitful fields, the shady groves, the picturesque valleys, and the bright and happy homes that dot our land.

Under the land company's survey, Harrisville was set apart as Township No. 1, Range 16. It is bounded on the north by Chatham, on the east by Westfield, on the west by Homer, and on the south by Wayne County. The land of Harrisville Township is somewhat rolling, and affords a variety of soil. In some parts, the land is clayey, and in others slightly sandy. Peat covers over 2,000 acres in this township. One-half of this territory has the deposit not over eighteen inches deep, the underlying being heavy, yet light colored. The average depth of the peat on 1,000 acres is about 5 feet. Most of the western and southern parts of this Har- risville swamp have been plowed. The bed-

rock is 12 to 18 feet below the surface of the marsh. The land can be shaken by jumping on it, although cattle go all over it. The digging of ditches has revealed quantities of shells, but no large fossils, as far as could be learned.

Railroad levels were run in 1853, between Wooster and Grafton. The extreme elevation of the road, as it was surveyed through the marsh, was 340.3 above Lake Erie. The road was to have been run west of the village of Lodi, and the elevation there was 336 feet above Lake Erie. This would give the surface, at the town pump, an altitude of about 350 feet. Harrisville is one of the townships in which the water " divides" to the Ohio River and Lake Erie. The great marsh is drained in both di- rections, and is inueh lower than most of the land along the " divide."

Quarrying has been carried on since 1840 in numerous places along Whetstone Creek, a mile southeast of Lodi. The roek is chiefly an ar- gillaceous sandstone, most of the beds being only a few inehes thick, and the thickest not twenty inehes. The exposures here are twenty- five to thirty feet high. Large crevices run through all the rock, which is badly broken up.

In the fall of 1810, a sturdy young farmer, of the clear-headed, gritty New England type, started out on a journey Westward, after he had gathered the season's scanty crop of corn, wheat and potatoes. In his rude hut near Ran- dolph, in Portage County, he left his young wife with her little babe, while he pushed on to prospect the land that lay further west, on which he might find a location more suitable to his ambitious desires, and rear thercon a new home.

* Contributed by Charles Neil, Medina.

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

The impulse that started him on his journey was somewhat akin to that which impelled the famous Genoese navigator to plow the unknown seas and find a newer and richer land near the setting sun. What the needle of the compass and the starry points of the heavens had been to Columbus, the surveyor's "blazes" on the trees were to the intrepid, coarsely-clad pioneer. Unarmed, save with an ax, and carrying a lim- ited supply of provisious, he took his course through the townships on the southern line of the Western Reserve. Coming to the stream in Westfield, now known as Campbell's Creek, and while crossing it on a log which reached from bank to bank, he heard a bear chopping its jaws, in an unpleasant manner, to say the least. Retreat was impossible, and, putting on a bold front, he advanced upon the beast! Fortu- nately, the bear did not wait to try conclusions, and incontinently broke for a place of safety. Scarcely pausing for this episode, he advanced, and before evening. when the sun was yet a half-hour high, he had reached the ridge which runs southward on the east of the valley in which the town of Lodi is now located. Before him, on a line with his eyes, was a waving mass of leaves-a forest of tall and majestic trees. The flickering light of the setting sun was dancing and glowing through the rustling leaves of the stately trees. With the awe-in- spiring impression of the grand sight before him, the resolution formed itself in the young pioneer's mind that he would make this his fut- ure home.

After he had seen the sun sink behind the thick foliage, he built a fire and camped out for the night. The next morning he descended into the valley, and set about exploring the re- gion. The rich virgin soil was studded with clumps of large walnut and oak trees. A small rivulet, a tributary of Black River. came wind- ing through an open gorge from the north, and then bent westward, and, a mile further on, united with the waters of Black River. Fur-

ther on to the west, he found another swell in the ground, which is again broken, a half-mile further on, by the course of the Black River. From thence there is a level stretch west through the township, slightly undulating. To the north of Lodi a high ridge extends along the west side of the East Branch of Black River into the township of Chatham, sloping toward the northwest down to the banks of Black River. Toward the south, from this base of location, which is now the center of Lodi, the land rolled out flat, and he found a large area of marsh land, thickly matted with alders, bogs, cranberry bushes and underbrush.

Young Harris set to work with his ax, after he had assured himself of the practicability of the undertaking and the natural resources and advantages for a settlement, selecting a site for a home. He placed his stake on a spot of ground which is now known as the Tuttle lot, a few rods south of the center of the village of Lodi. He kept at work for several weeks, and erected during this time by his own individual exertions, a small, rude log house, and cut down a small tract of timber. This ac- complished, he retraced his steps to the mother settlement, near Randolph, in Portage County, which at that time, included the territory in which he had just selected his new home. This pioneer was Joseph Harris, the first settler of Medina County, after whom the township of Harrisville has been named.

The Connecticut Land Company had, in the year 1807, under the old charter, granted by King Charles II, of England, to the Colony of Connecticut, made a division of their lands west of the Cuyahoga River Township, and No. 1, in Range 16, (Harrisville) had been drawn by sixteen incorporators, whose names are as follows : Nehemiah Gaylord, John and Jabes Gillett, Solomon Rockwell and brothers, Hez- ekiah Huntington, William Battell, Russ Burr, Job Curtis' heirs, Thomas Huntington, Royal Tylee, Wright & Sutliff, Joseph Har-

Joseph Canis

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

ris, Martin Kellogg, Burr & Loomis, Joseph Battell and Eliphalet Austin, which was known as the Torringford Land Company, together with 2,000 acres, in Township No. 1, in Range 15, to compensate for swamp land in Harrisville Township. In the spring of 1810, the township was surveyed by a party sent out by the Connecticut Land Company, and subdivided into lots of 100 acres each. A road was also established during this same year, by the company of Portage County, through No. 1, from the Franklinton road, in Norton, west, through the center, to the east line in Huron County. The Legislature of the young State of Ohio, also during this year, appropriated $800, by a legislative aet, to estab- lish a State road, to run from Mansfield to Cleveland, through this township. After the subdivision of the lands in this township had been made, Mr. Joseph Harris was delegated by the Torringford Company, with the power of an agent, to dispose of and effect sales of the land. The price of the land was fixed at $2 per acre, Mr. Harris being granted the privilege of 200 aeres as a pioneer settlement- location to be deducted from his undivided portion.

After his return to Randolph, from his jour- ney into Harrisville Township, he set about making preparations to remove his family to the new territory in the following spring. When February came, the young pioneer had all of his affairs in shape, had his household goods and personal effects, few as they were, gotten to- gether, and was now ready to move into the new settlement. On the morning of the 11th of Feb- ruary, 1811, the " moving" party started out from the settlement near Randolph, for the new land, that was about forty miles to the west. The train consisted of four sleds, each drawn by a yoke of oxen. Three of these trains had been gratuitously furnished by the neighbors of Mr. Harris, to help him to his new settlement. The ground was covered with about a foot of snow, and the progress of the pioneers was

rather slow. Near the evening of the third day, they arrived in the lowlands south of Lake Chippewa. A halt was made here for the night, on aeeount of the exhausted condition of the cattle, which had found it a wearisome march through the snow that lay unbroken in the road.

Mr. Harris, with his wife and her two-year- old boy, mounted a horse and pushed forward the same day toward their new home, which was about eight miles distant. On the next morning, the 14th day of February, 1811, the ox-teams arrived in Harrisville, and Mr. Joseph Harris, his wife and child, together with a trusty, bright young lad, named James Red- field, who was about eleven years old at that time, settled permanently in the new township ; and it is from this day that the first settlement of Harrisville Township dates.

The life of the settler in this new clearing, miles away from human habitation, was full of hardships and privations. Winter was still on hand with its benumbing coldness, and the ground and woods were alternately covered with snow and slush. The log hut was small, and the only opening in it, serving as a door, was covered by a blanket. The first days were spent in cut- ting down trees, and making new openings in the woods and laying out roads. A small ad- dition was made to the log hut, and its interior more comfortably arranged. Small brush sheds, for the shelter of the horse and two eattle were erected. With the opening of spring, new life sprang up in this little colony. New work be- gan ; the ground of the cleared tract was got ready, and seeding commenced.

The nearest neighbors were, at that time, at Wooster, in Wayne County, a settlement seven- teen miles south, on the Killbuck River. Woos- ter was then one of the trading-posts in the northwest. An Indian trail leading from San- dusky to Wooster, and thence on to Pittsburg, ran through Harrisville Township, a few miles west of the center of Lodi. Hunters and trap- pers of the different Indian tribes which at that

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

time roamed through Northern Ohio, passed often over this trail, taking their hides and furs to market. The location selected by Mr. Har- ris, had also been, and was then, one of the favorite hunting grounds of the Wyandot and Ottawa Indians, and many of their wigwams- still in a good state of preservation-were standing near the spot he selected for the site of his residence. Still, although the social re- lations that subsisted at this time between Mr. Harris and these denizens of the forest were of the most friendly and reciprocal character, yet, true to their national characteristies, they pre- ferred retirement from the proximity of the pale- faces, abandoning their lodges, and building new ones from two to six miles distant. A few years later, Capt. Wolf, of the Delawares, a sort of missionary among the tribes of Indians north of the Ohio, and a man tolerably well educated, and who looked after the trapping interests at Chippewa Lake, quite frequently visited the Harrisville colony, and conversed and talked with the settlers. He had been under Gen. Harrison's command, and had been an eye-wit- ness to the battle of Lake Erie, fought by Com- modore Perry on the 10th of September, 1812. He gave the Harrisville people a description of the battle as he witnessed it, and told them other adventures of his career, which was all very entertaining. Mr. Albert Harris, son of Joseph Harris, often went, when he was a lad ten or twelve years old, as a companion of Wolf's son -a young buck about the same age-with the Indian Captain to Lake Chippewa, to look over the trapping-ground. The old Indian would put the two boys in a bark canoe, and paddle them back and forth across the lake. The younger Harris is still a resident of Harrisville Township, and has fresh in his memory the days of the early settlement in this township, when young papooses were the associates of his child- hood.

With June of the same year there came an accession to the new colony. George Burr and

his wife and his brother Russell, arrived that month from Litehfield County, Conn., and set- tled on a lot adjoining Mr. Harris. The month of September brought in two more settlers, Cal- vin and Lyman Corbin, from the city of Bos- ton, Mass., who purchased and settled on the farm now owned by George Burr, a mile south of Lodi. That fall the first crop of corn and potatoes was gathered in the township. Au- tumn, with its blustering days, was on hand, and cold winter was fast approaching. The Harrisville colony now consisted of five men, two women and two boys. There were three log huts about one-half mile apart from each other, seven yoke of oxen and one horse and two dogs, with a lot of household furniture and farming tools and wagons. This was the in- ventory on the 1st day of October, 1811.

About this time Mr. Joseph Harris contracted with one Daniel Cross, a earpenter living near Randolph, to put up a log barn in Harrisville. Cross with his son Avery (who was about eleven years old) came out from Randolph dur- ing the fall, with a yoke of oxen, the boy to drive them and haul the logs together, while the old man eut them. The barn was finished in about a month's time. For this job, Mr. Cross received, in payment, a yoke of oxen.

With the declining year came long evenings, and with them the need and desire of sociability and an interehange of views upon topics of common interest to all. The prospects, the new land and the crops had to be talked about ; and, then, there was the old home in the East, with all its dear associations of childhood ; the politieal affairs of the young Republic. These sturdy pioneers often gathered, during these days, in one of the log cabins, and there sat by day and in the evenings, before the flickering fire of a log or stump burning on the hearth, and discussed, like true, sober-minded New Englanders, matters and events that were of interest to them.

The first intimation the Harrisville people

HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

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had of the serious hostilities which began in 1812 was the arrival of a messenger from Ran- dolph, in Portage County, bringing a newspaper containing the declaration of war, also a letter warning the settlers of their danger, as it was not then known in whose interest the Indians would enlist, and urgently solieiting them to return to the older settlements. A consulta- tion was then held in the evening at Mr. Har- ris' house, which resulted in the conclusion, that, under existing eircumstanees, it would be safer to repair to the settlements until something more decisive could be learned in relation to the political affairs on the then extreme northwestern frontier. Accordingly, the next morning, Mr. Harris, Russell and George Burr, with the Corbins, loaded the most valuable of their household goods on wagons, and, with seven yoke of oxen, started for Randolph, George Burr's wife having gone there some weeks previous. Almost at the outset, one of the wagons was unfortunately overturned, throwing Mrs. Harris and the child from the wagon. But, quite undaunted, al- though badly bruised, she insisted on going forward, and, that the journey might be expe- dited, she was mounted with her ehild on the only horse in the settlement. Accompanied by her husband on foot, she reached their friends in Randolph the next morning, having been obliged to lie out overnight in the woods on account of having lost the trail when within a mile or two of the settlement. The settlers, in leaving their homes, of necessity had to aban- don their erops ; and, as the prosperity of the settlement depended on their being secured, Mr. Harris, on the following Monday morning, mounted his horse, shouldered his trusty rifle, and, accompanied only by his faithful dog, proceeded on his solitary way back to Harris- ville. As he approached the settlement, he discovered that some person had been in the vicinity during his absence. On examining the tracks, he discovered that some had been

made with shoes and some with moccasins. Dismounting from his horse and muffling the bell (an appendage, by the way, which all early settlers were in the habit of attaching to their domestic animals), he cautiously proceeded to examine the Indian trail leading from Sandus- ky to Wooster, and, discovering no appearance of Indians having passed along it, he soon came to the conclusion that some white person must have been in the vicinity during his absence.

On entering his eabin, appearances indicated that a number of persons had passed a night there, having used some of his iron ware for the purpose of cooking. It was afterward found out that the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature to establish a road from Mansfield to Cleveland passed a night at Mr. Harris' house, cooking their supper and break- fast there. Mr. Harris, finding that his wheat was not yet fit for harvesting, set about hoeing his corn and potatoes. After having been here about ten days, Russell Burr and Elisha Sears came out and harvested the crops belonging to the Burrs, which occupied about five days, and then returned to Randolph. Mr. Harris re- mained about five weeks, his dog being his sole companion during the whole time, except the five days that Burr and Sears were with him. His only bed was an old wagon-board, each end of which was so supported that it had a sort of spring motion, and furnished as much rest and comfort to his weary body after a day's hard toil as the modern spring bed gives to the gentleman of leisure.

On the return of Mr. Harris to Portage County, he first learned of the surrender of Hull, at Detroit, to the British, and, at a call from Gen. Wadsworth, the militia on the Re- serve turned out en masse, and Harris, with Burr and others, were out in the campaign some three weeks, in and about Cleveland. After a short service in the Western Reserve Militia during the month of September, Harris,

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with his companions, returned to Randolph, and preparations were then made to return forthwith to Harrisville. The Corbins had sold out their possessions in Harrisville about this time, and Russell Burr returned to his home in Connectieut. This left Joseph Harris and George Burr alone, with their families, of those who onee made up the infant settlement. Har- ris and Burr, with their families, again reached Harrisville in the first week in October, 1812, finding everything quiet and unmolested. Here was again a trying period before them. Winter was again close at hand, and, being almost entire- ly isolated from the world around them, and away from post roads and post offices, they conld, of course, know little or nothing of what was transpiring outside of the settlement, and they necessarily lived in that uneasy state of uncertainty, which, to be realized, must be ex- perienced. Yet nothing occurred to disturb their quiet until some time in the latter part of November, when, in the early part of the even- ing, was heard what was supposed to be the shrill whoop of an Indian, easily discerned to be in an easterly direction, and supposed to be abont half a mile distant. Mr. Burr, whose house was nearer to the point from which the whoop seemed to come, hastily seized his rifle, and, taking his wife and child, instantly started for the Harris cabin, giving the old horse, which was quietly feeding in the woods, a sharp cut, to send him on a keen rnn toward Harris' honse, rattling his bell and alarming his family, together with the old dog, which, barking and bounding abont, added considerable to the agi- tation. Mr. Harris was already on the qui vire. He was out on the trail, with his rifle in his hand, after first taking the precaution to extin- guish the light in his eabin. After meeting with the Bnrr family, the women were barri- caded in the house, and the men took positions ontside to await developments. Soon footsteps were heard, and then a hnman form came in sight, nearing the house. Harris drew np his

rifle and halted the man. It was then discov- ered that he was a settler from Randolph named Billy Thornington, who had come out on an exploration tramp to see the country, and, having lost his way, had given the yell. He remained with them for a short time, and then returned to the mother settlement in Portage County.

With the beginning of the new year, 1813, snow commenced to fall and covered the ground several feet deep. The yonng settlers were almost completely snowed in, and it was nearly an impossibility to visit one of the sister settle- ments. Then a biting cold frost sct in and con- tinued nntil the latter part of February. After that the weather moderated. On the night of the 6th of March, a foot messenger arrived at the honse of Mr. Harris and informed him that Henry Chittenden, in charge of five teams loaded with forty barrels of flour, being for- warded by Norton & Adams, contractors at Middlebury, to General Perkins' camp on the Hnron River, were detained by the deep snow in the wilderness in the neighborhood of the Chippewa, and were entirely destitute of forage and provisions, having been five days out from Middlebnry. The messenger had come to so- licit aid from Mr. Harris. He promptly respond- ed and proceeded at once to their camp, with a supply of provisions for the men and a bag of corn for the team. He left his house abont midnight in company with the messenger, and arrived at the camp at 4 o'clock in the morn- ing. His reception by the half-starved men at the camp can better be imagined than described. The provision train was now only thirty-two miles from Middlebury, their starting-point, and. forty-five miles had yet to be traveled through an nnbroken wilderness, to reach the camp of the American army on the Hnron River. Their teams were overloaded and nnderfed. Their only relianee for succor and help secmed to be Mr. Harris, his place being the only settlement on the route. He came very generonsly to their

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History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 74

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