History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 86

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 86

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In the month of February, 1818, Mr. Par- sons started with his family from his home near the town of Middlescx, which is now Yates, in Ontario County, N. Y., with two yoke of oxen and one span of horses, westward. Their scanty supply of household furniture and neces- sary provisions, with a small lot of farming im- plements and tools, was carried on sleds, about the only kind of conveyance in vogue at that time among the emigrant movers. It is par- tially from this reason that these emigrants se- lected the winter months, when the ground was covered with snow, for their journeys into new lands. They traverscd, after having left New York State, the northern part of Pennsylvania, and entered Ohio on its northeastern border. In the course of seven weeks from the time they had left Middlesex, and after the many tedious and laborious advances from day to day, they finally, in the middle of April, reached their destination in the Harrisville settlement, in Medina County. The settlement in which Mr. Parsons with his family landed, was al- ready quite extensively populated, and was then

fast growing into a large colony. A civil or- ganization had already been effected by its in- habitants. A purchase of the land already described was made by the new-comer, of the resident land agent, Mr. Joseph Harris ; and, leaving his wife and two children with the fam- ily of Mr. Bishop, a resident settler in Harris- ville, Mr. Parsons started with two of his boys, a yoke of oxen and a span of horses, for the tract of land he had bought, to make a clearing and erect a place of habitation. They ascended the bluff on the east side of the East Branch of Black River, from the village of Lodi, and cut their way through the woods northward. They kept along the river bank as well as the surface of the ground would permit, and, when their point of destination had been reached, they se- lected a spot on an eminence close to the little stream, on which they placed their stakes for a new home. A clearing was commenced, trees chopped down, logs were rolled together,' and the building of a little log cabin was at once put under progress. Industriously they kept at work, and, within four weeks the primitive structure was completed. The logs had been put together in quadrangular shape, the crev- ices had been patched up with sticks and mud, and a covering of heavy sticks and branches had been put overhead, an opening in one of its sides, overhung by a blanket, served as a door to afford ingress to the space within. After this work had been completed, Mr. Par- sons with his two boys cut a winding roadway through the woods down to the Harrisville set- tlement, and then removed his entire family with all of his effects into the new locality. Small patches of land were cleared by the new settlers with all the diligence at their command, and put under immediate cultivation by put- ting in corn, oats and potatoes. By the on- coming fall, they were then enabled to gather a small crop of grain and potatoes for their own sustenance. For several years they lived here alone, almost entirely isolated in their habita-

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

tion. The Harrisville people were their nearest neighbors. They kept up communication with their neighbors on the south, and on different occasions journeyed thitherward to do a little shopping, get a supply of powder, nails, cloth and such necessities as they stood in need of in their agricultural life, to exchange greetings, and talk over the common affairs of life. Wolves aud bears at that time roamed through the woods, and they were both a terror and an annoyance to the settlers.

It is related by Mr. DeForest Parsons, a son of the first settler, now a retired minister of the Gospel living in Harrisville, that at one time, when he was a lad thirteen or fourteen years old, while walking from the Harrisville settle- meut, to which he had been sent by his father, he encountered a paek of wolves in the woods. He was then nearly a mile from home, and be- came terribly frightened. But it seems the beasts were as mueh taken with fear as the pio- neer lad, for they disappeared quiekly at sight of him in one direction, while he with equal dispatch widened the space between himself and his carnivorous friends in the other. A great event oeeurred in the Parsons family in the summer of 1820. It was the birth of a male ehild. It was named Holden by the family, and the father, after the name of this new-born child, the first in the colony, baptized the new settlement Holdeu. By that name it was known uutil after the political organization of the town- ship, when it was called Chatham, after the town of that name near London, in England.

Considerable advances had now been made by the settlers in the clearing and cultivation of their lands. From ten to fifteen acres were yearly put into crops, and their harvests in- creased in quantity. The raccoons, ground-hogs and other small wild animals that abounded in the entire region of the country, were a great deal of trouble to them in the way of destroy- ing their crops. The injury done by these ani- mals was the more vexatious to the farmers, as

they could not invent or avail themselves of any means to stop the rapacity of these pilfer- ing beasts. The farmers stood in far more dread of these animals than they did of the bears and wolves which prowled about. It was not diffi- cult to the settler to administer a dose of well- meant and direet advice to these, in the shape of powder and lead, to remain in the distance, and this admonition was quite generally well observed by these larger animals.

In the fall of the year 1820, Nathan Hall, afterward known in the settlement as Deacon Hall, removed his family from Connecticut out West, and settled on the Hinekley tract, in Chat- ham, one and one-half miles west of the Parsons place. It had been but a few months prior to this that a young fellow named Henry K. Joline, from New York State, had made his ad- vent at the Parsons home. His mission to the new country soon became apparent. He had not been in the settlement a month when the announcement of his impending marriage to Eleanor A., eldest daughter of Moses Parsons, was made known. It was the result of a tender affection that had sprung up between the two young people during their residenee in New York State. The young lover had followed the choice of his heart to her new home in Ohio, and had asked for her hand in marriage from her parents. Their eonsent was readily given, and the two were made one.

Out of this little romanee grew the first mar- riage in Chatham Township. The wedding ceremonies took place at the Parsons home on a July day. Erastus Parsons, a brother of the bride, was dispatched to the Sullivan settle- ment, in Huron County, fourteeu miles distant. to secure the services of Esquire Close, of that locality, to tie the legal bonds of the marriage union. The messenger piloted the magistrate through the woods to the Harrisville settle- ment, both going afoot, and theuce they made their way to the Parsons home. The cere- monies were conducted in very simple style ;

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

there were but a few guests from Harrisville aside from the different members of the family, and there were no eards. The two young peo- ple stood up in the middle of the narrow little cabin, arrayed in their best homespun apparel, and joined hands together, while the legal fune- tionary pronounced the usual wedding formula. Congratulations, plain and simple and heartfelt, were extended to the newly united couple. A frugal wedding feast had been prepared, and was then partaken of by all present, amidst the happiest and best of good feeling all around. The day's festivities closed with a bridal tour down to the Harrisville settlement. Two choice pair of oxen were yoked to a sled, which had been filled with clean straw, over which had been spread bed-quilts to prevent the straw from stieking to the bride's wedding dress of flannel and the groom's liuen trousers. Two of the brothers of the bride guided the horned team, while the young couple, in company with the se- date Squire occupied the sled in comfortable glee. Their arrival in the Harrisville colony created quite a commotion among the people there for the time being. Toward evening, the young couple returned to the home of the old folks. Squire Close remained with the people in Har- risville overnight, and, on the next day, re- turned as he had come, afoot, to his home in Sullivan. Henry Jolinc, with his young wife, took up his abode for a short time in the cabin of the old folks, while a new one for their own use, on a tract of land a little to the northwest, which the young husband had bought, was put in course of construction. The little cabin was completed, with the assistance of Mr. Parsons and his sons, in a very few weeks, and the young couple theu moved into their new home, and made things as comfortable for themselves as they possibly could under the circum- stances.

By persistent and industrious application, Mr. Parsons had, with the assistance of his sons, by this time, placed a large share of

his farm under an advanced state of cultiva- tion. He had planted an acre or so of ground with young apple-trees, which, in the course of six or eight years, began to bear fruit. His grain fields grew in size from year to year, and it was not many years after he had made his settlement that he had turned a considerable pateh into a growing meadow-field.

In the year 1821, Amos Utter, with his fam- ily, settled in the neighborhood. They located on a tract of land about a mile west of Mr. Parsons' farm. A few years later, that part of Chatham Township iu its northwest corner, which was for some time known as "New Co- lumbus," was colonized by Virginia settlers. Among them were Phineas and Truman Davis, Isaae Vandeventer, William Foltz and Orrin Parmeter. These people settled on the low lands near Black River, in the northwest cor- ner, and they held but little or no communica- tion with their neighbors, four miles southeast. They formed a colony among themselves. Their eulture was of a manner distinctly differ- ent These people lived in a " happy-go-easy" style, varied with a touch of indolence that is characteristic of all classes in the South. They erected shanties for their families, but made no particular nor very great productive progress in the clearing aud cultivation of the lands. Within the first few years of their presenee in this new country, one of its members, Phineas Davis, put up a little "pocket " grist-mill, to which he shortly added a small distillery. Most of these people removed from this section in the course of time, casting their fortunes in other localities, and there is to-day no trace of these people left in the township, except what can be recalled from memory by the older in- habitants. In the meantime, another addition had been made to the number of inhabitants in another part of the township-in the southwest. Several families had come from Massachusetts, among them being Nebediah Cass, William Goodwin and Pleasant Fcazle. They all settled

HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

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in the immediate neighborhood of the Parsous settlement. There were now by this time, about in the year 1826, ten families perma- nently located on the Hinekley traet, which comprised the entire southern half of Chatham Township. The entire northern half was under control of Wadsworth Brothers, of Massachu- setts, and was known as the Wadsworth traet.

In the month of November, 1832, Ebeuezer Shaw, with his wife and family of three ehil- dren, arrived in the settlement and took pos- session of several hundred aeres of land on the Hinckley traet, for which he had traded his farm near Cummington, in Massachusetts. Mr. Shaw was a elass-mate of William Cullen Bry- ant in the publie sehools of their native towu of Cummingtou, Mass. Young Shaw was also, like his ehum, Willie Bryant, qnite a hand at verse-making, during their sehool days. He has, in after years, always fostered a love for the metrie art. In their early sehool years, he had beeome even more distinguished among his friends and sehool-mates for his talent in making verses than his friend Bryant. Young Bryant removed to Williams College, from thenee to New York and into the temple of fame; his friend, Ebenezer Shaw, married and settled and eultivated a farm, and joined the pioneer band that trausforined the unbroken forests of the West into bright and glowing fields. In company with Shaw aud his family, eame Barney Daniels, with wife and five ehil- dren, and Joel Lyon and wife and three children, all of whom eame from the town of Plainfield, only a short distance from Cummington, both towns being located in the county of Hamp- shire. The three families together journeyed by wagon to Troy, N. Y., aud from there took passage on a eanal-boat on the Erie Canal to Buffalo, and theuce sailed on a little lake eraft to Cleveland. Their journey from that point to Medina was made iu wagons, arriving at the latter point within two days after they had left the lake port. This was on a Friday

afternoon. Remaining overnight at the little tavern that was then serving the public, they proceeded the next morning for the Harrisville settlement, going by the way of Chippewa Lake and Morse's Coruers, reaching Lodi on a Sun- day afternoou. They were received with open hospitality by the Harrisville people. On the next morning (Monday) they moved into the new settlement. These people had to eneounter all the difficulties that attend a pioneer location. The first thought was a place of shelter for man aud beast. In many instances, the settler merely ereeted for the time being a " brush hut," erect- ing four eoruer-posts, and with eut poles and brush eovering the top. This would generally serve them until a more substantial structure, with inelosed sides and a fire-place, could be ereeted. Winter was elose at hand when these three Massachusetts families arrived in the Chat- ham settlement, and they experieneed severe diseomfiture in loeating, ou account of the blus- tering storms of the season. Ebenezer Shaw loeated with his family in a log eabin that had been ereeted by Moses Parsons, several years previous to the arrival of the new-eomers. The first experiences of these families in the ap- proaching wiuter days were, therefore, of a less trying nature than that of their companions, who were entirely left to their own resources to provide themselves with a place of habitation.

The arrival of these several families was fol- lowed in the next spring by other Massaehu -. setts people. John Shaw and wife, with two grown-up daughters, and Randall Dyer, with a family of five ehildren, made their appearanee in the settlement, and squatted iu contiguous places to their predecessors.

In the course of this year, the number of fami- lies in the colony was inereased by a dozen or more new arrivals, among them being the Paekard families, who oeeupy a conspicuous place in the annals of the township. There were Iram, Amansa, William Franeis, Josiah, Jona- than and Phillip Packard, with their different

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IIISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

families. Lemuel Allis, Gideon Gardner and Daniel Richards were also among the new-eom- ers. They had all come from the Bay State by the same eireuitous route that had been taken by their friends before them to Troy, thence by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, Lake Erie and Cleve- land, and theu by slow stages and wagons into the interior settlement. Every aeeession of new colonizers was greeted with joy by the older settlers. For days the new arrival entertained his new neighbors with news from his old home, and his adventures of travel ou his way hither. In return, he was repaid with well-meant advice and substantial aid to start on his way in mak- ing a settlement.

A number of young men from Wooster made annual hunting incursions into Chatham Town- ship iu the first years of the settlement, having a little brush cabin in the northern part, and remaining there for days at a time. Their pres- ence and hunting of wild game did not partieu- larly aunoy the Chatham settlers; but it was during this time that many of their hogs, run- ning wild in the woods, very mysteriously disap- peared. They entertained suspicions that the Wooster hunters were the guilty parties. So one night a few settlers armed with guns, pitch- forks and axes, and led by Uncle Dan Priekett, surronuded the hunters' eamp and demanded that a search should be made of the premises to learn if there were not some fresh meat con- cealed among their traps. A parley ensued which grew very hot, and put both sides in belligerent attitudes. Bob Ewing, the leader of the Wooster hunters, drew a line of demarkation around the camp with the butt of his gun, and with his rifle at eock declared "that the first Chatham man who stepped over these bounds would be a dead man." Finally the Wooster men submitted to a search of their eamp, and, as no signs of pork were found, the whole affair ended in a mutual good-feeling, and the hunt- ers thereafter continued their sport unmolested. One of the difficulties that beset the pioneers

in new lands was that of roadways. The Chatham people experienced a great deal of trouble in this line for a number of years. It was several years after Moses Parsons had set- tled in the township, when, by an act of the Legislature, a road was built from north to south, running from Elyria, in Lorain County, to Wooster. The construction of township roads did not begin until the year 1834. These roads were built by order of the County Commissioners. The first one completed was the West River road, diverging from the Elyria- Wooster road at a point one and one-half miles north of Lodi, and leading into the low lands along the banks of Black River, which had by this time been well settled; going along the stream, it passed into Spencer Township. Sev- eral years later, the Center road, passing through the township from east to west, was construeted. At the preseut date the township is well provided with roads, making all points within its confines easily accessible.

Of no less serious aud perplexing annoy- ance than that which was caused the settlers by the absence of roads, was the scarcity of a circulating medium of exchange. "These were terribly tough times with us," as one of the surviving settlers expressed, "we could not get money of any kind. Could not sell any- thing, only in trade. What little we saved from our crops above our own subsistence, we took to Elyria, and there sold it for half in trade and half money, and noue of us would scarcely ever return with more than $5 or $6 in eoin. This would sometimes have to do us for a year or more." Speaking of the postal arrangements in the township in these days, the venerable gentleman gave the following in- formation : "Our letters arrived at the Harris- ville Post Office, and were directed 'Township 2, Range 16.' Every letter we received cost us 25 cents, and it went quite hard with us many times to draw our letters for want of sufficient funds. Many letters remained in the

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

post office for months, because the owners did uot have money enough to pay for the delivery."

On the 5th of December, 1833, a separate politieal organization of Chatham Township was effeeted, forming Township 18, in the sne- eession of organization iu Medina County. The first Board of Township Trustees elected at the first town eleetion, consisted of Nebediah Cass, Iram Packard and Joel Lyon. In the spring of 1835, Orin Shaw was elected as the first Justiee of the Peace in the township. With the separation into a eivil organization, the inhabitants of the colony beeame inspired with a new life. They were dependent now, in more ways than one, of their neighbors on the sonth-the Harrisville people, who had then had a eivil organization for more than fifteen years, and who had, in the few years gone by, been very apt to look npon their Chatham neigh- bors in a sort of patronizing way, and had eon- sidered them merely as a politieal appendage. During the sneeeeding years, Chatham has served as a quite prominent faetor in the po- litieal history of Medina County. During the Abolition movements in ante bellum days, some of the eitizens of this township beeame noted for their aetive and decisive support of this famous canse. That the predominant senti- ments of the people of Chatham is strongly anti-slavery, is evideneed by the township elee- tion statisties during the last thirty years. Out of an average total of about two hundred and fifty voters for the last twenty years, about one hundred and seventy-five have taken sides with the party that abolished slavery aud sup- pressed the rebelliou. It is one of the "stal- wart" townships in the "stalwart" county of Medina.

A few years subsequent to the formation of the township, the families of Luther and Levi Clapp and Alvan Thayer moved in from the East, settling on the Wadsworth Traet, in the northern half of the township. This half, which had not been so early colonized as the

southern part, was now also rapidly beeoming settled. Emigrants were coming in fast, and the open spaces in the woods made by the pio- neer's ax, were growing in numbers. It was abont the year 1838, after the east-and-west road had been loeated and ent through, that several honses, of somewhat more imposing shape than most of the little farm eabins that were seattered over the township, were ereeted at the Center. The general interests of the township gradually drifted toward the geo- graphieal eenter of the towuship. The eleetions and " town " meetings were held in a log sehool- honse that had been put up at the Center, and which also served the purposes of a Union Meet- ing-house for the different denominations who were residents in the township.

An event that marks an epoeh in the history of the township, was the bringing-in of an as- sortment of general merchandise and the es- tablishment of a country store. This oecnrred in the fall of 1839. Previous to that the " trad- ing" of the Chatham people had been done at Lodi, whose loeal mereantile affairs had grown into a flourishing state of development, even before the sister township on the north liad been opened up with highways. The arrival of the goods in Chatham eaused great rejoieing among its inhabitants. Mr. Josiah Paekard was the man who had invested his eapital and energy in the enterprise. He had started in the summer with two ox teams for the eity of Pittsburgh, taking with him a eargo of grain and produee. After an absence of several months, he returned with a full supply of " store " goods. His return had been anxiously looked for by his neighbors. A little frame strueture had been ereeted at the corner of the La Fayette road, one mile direetly south of the eenter, and in this Mr. Paekard loeated his goods after his arrival, and opened up a regular "country " store. Two years later Eli Goodell opened a small store at the Center. A short time later than this, an ashery and small groeery store

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

was established in this same locality, by the firm of Webster & Packard. In 1843, Randall Dyer & Son located a general village store at the "Center," being yet at this date in opera- tion nnder sole control of one of the sons.

A post office was established here in the year 1844. Mr. William Jordan was the first ap- pointed Postmaster, and he discharged its func- tions for a number of years. The mail route extended from Lodi to the village, Caleb Edson carrying the mail afoot, once a week, between the two points. In later years, Chatham has formed a station on the Wooster and Elyria mail line, and there are now two daily mails.

In close connection with the mercantile affairs of the township, is the growth of its industries, though it forms no very prominent part in its history. Jonathan Packard erected the first saw-mill, in the western part of the township. The frame-work of a saw-mill that had once been conducted at the town of Seville, in Guilford Township, was removed, by Horatio Lyon, in 1845, and was pnt up at a short distance south- east of the center of Chatham, on the Branch River. In 1868, Mr. D. P. Fellows erected a cheese-factory-the largest establishment of its kind in Medina County-near the Center. He conducted it for several years, and was then followed by Allan Lewis, for two years, then Alfred Ballou, and it is now under control of Maj. W. H. Williams. This factory forms one of the most prominent factors in the agricult- ural-industrial pursnits of the township.

As has already been stated, the people of Chatham Township, have stood out prominent among their neighbors in sister townships, for their patriotic zeal and the interest they have generally manifested in the National affairs. Many of its sons joined the ranks of the Union army, and bled and died for their conntry. The historian can point with pride, upon the part the Chatham boys took in the great National drama. A grand recognition for the services rendered by its sons to the county has been

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History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 86

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