History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 96

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 96

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In the beginning of the month of February, 1818, the first train of emigrants started in ox sleds from Ontario County, N. Y. The party consisted of Elizur L. Hills, with his sisters, Abigail and Marilla ; Elizur Wolcott, John Codding and wife, and one child ; Festus and James Ganyard, Seth Dye and wife, Richard Paull and wife, and Seth Paull, with his family of two children. They arrived on the new lands in the middle of March. For the first few days after their arrival, they availed themselves of the proffered hospitalities of the cabin of the "Squatter " Mott, and part of them found quarters at the cabin-home of John Turner, over in Copley Township. The men at once set to work, after having placed the stakes for their new possessions, to build cabins for their own use and commenced clearing land. Several cabins were soon erected, and the work for a new and vigorous colony had commenced.

Another party, consisting of Elizur Hills and wife, with seven children; Anthony Low and family, and Burt Codding, left their homes in Ontario, N. Y., and joined their friends and children who had preceded them, in the fol- lowing fall. All these families settled close to- gether, on lands along the Smith road, in the southeast part of the township, in the vicinity of what is now known as Coddingville. John and Daniel Burt, and James and Festus, all of them young men, came out from Ontario and located in the township, in the southern and central part. The increase in the number of settlers in the township now continued. Nathan Hatch came with his family of five children and settled on the west line of the township, on the 24th day of October, 1818. The month of Feb- ruary following this date brought Benjamin Burt and his mother, who settled with their

sons and brothers, John and Daniel, who had preceded them the fall before. At the same time came Belia Spencer, with his family ; the Widow Amanda Isbell, with her child, and James and Amos Isbell, two single young men; James Ganyard, with his wife and two children-two of his sons had already located here the year before-and Mrs. John McCloud, who lived in the Ganyard family, and Hoel Hatch, whose parents had removed into this settlement the year before. He had remained at the old home in Ontario, N. Y., whence all these emigrants had come, on account of breaking his leg a few days previous to the time his parents had started for Ohio.

The young colony now began vigorous efforts to hew out a home in the woods. Cabins were built, land was cleared on every hand, and the same difficulties that settlers in other regions have met, were confronted and overcome. Im- mense trees covered nearly all of the land- certainly all of what was first opened-and, though this timber was convenient for building their houses and barns, and making rails for their fences, it had to be cleared from the ground to make way for cultivation. First, when upon the ground, a house was made of logs, and covered with thin boards, riven out of oak blocks, and next floored with thick slabs of split oak ; this was called a " puncheon" floor. Then came the clearing, which was done by grubbing out the bushes, and cutting off the smaller trees. The trees were deadened, by chopping a. girdle of notches through the bark. The ground was then ready to be plowed, as well as the rough state of it would allow, and planted with Indian corn, potatoes and pump- kins. In the fall, the corn was gathered, and wheat sown where it had stood. The next year, more land was cleared and treated in like manner. But, as the cattle and pigs lived in the forest, and boarded themselves there the greater part of the year, substantial fences-the zigzag rail fence-had to be built around each field ;

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and this fencing cost nearly as much labor as the clearing. Had they not adopted the plan of deadening the trees, it would have been more than the poor pioneer could have compassed to cut the trees down aud re- move them from the ground. As it was, the trees stood till they dried up, and the branches dropped off and the trunks fell. The rubbish was cleared up and burned each spring, till it was gone. A man and his wife and daughters would gather and burn brush and build fences on a spring clearing, and they would do it with far better spirits than the ladies of to-day often do their shopping. This was part of the life that befell the Granger settlers. But they bravely encountered all the difficulties that came in their way, as the smiling fields and handsome homes of to-day attest.

From a paper prepared by the Hon. Myron A. Hills, one of the first settlers of Medina County, read before the Granger Pioneer Society, we take the following few sketches which relate to the history of the towuship :

" Believing that a biography, however short, of the first settlers of Granger, with an incideut here and there of early times, cannot but be of interest to the present as well as future genera- tions of the men and women who redeemed from a wilderness the Granger of to-day. I shall confine myself in my sketches to those of the pioneers with whom I have been acquainted. * *

* I will first speak of my father, Elizur Hills. He was born in East Windsor, Conn., March 22, 1768. My mother, Abigail Codding, was born October 2, 1772. Of my father's early history, I know but little, save that at nine years of age he lost his father, and in the employ of others he fared hard, and was hard worked. He always loved books and read much. I have heard him say, that, at the age of fourteen, dur- ing the war of the Revolution, he was very anxious to stand a draft for the army in place of his brother Norman, who, though older, was not as large, and, thinking that size rather than

age might determine the issue, he stretched him- self to his utmost height, but he failed and be- came very much chagrined. He came at an early day, among the first there, to Ontario County, N. Y., and bought land at 50 cents an acre. He married there in 1792. * * * To show how men become attached to one another, let me state an incident : In the summer of 1824, my father and mother made a visit from here to Bristol, N. Y., and among those whom they went to see was Capt. David Doolittle, who had served in the war of 1812, on the frontier, as a Lieutenant in the Bristol Light Infantry, of which my father had been Commandant. They called at his house, but he had gone out in the woods for a load of wood. A messenger was sent out with the information that Capt. Hills and wife had called to see him. He had par- tially loaded his wagon, but, not knowing what he was doing, he threw out what wood he had loaded, and hastened back to embrace an old friend. * * * I would like, had I time, to give a description of our first journey from Bristol, N. Y., to Granger. After we had jour- neyed to Buffalo, which was then a small village, we. remained there a week, waiting for the new Walk in the Water, the first steamboat that ever plowed the waters of Lake Erie. We em- barked at Black Rock, and, after passing up the lake, we landed at Cleveland, which was then uot as large as Grangerburg. The boat anchored a mile from shore, and we were taken on land in a small row-boat. Job R. Isbell, one of our neighbors here now, assisted in the landing. This was the first time that I saw him. He was always cheerful and social, and quite at home where others were afraid and timid. My mother had become sick on the voyage, and she had to be carried ashore on a bed. On the next day after our landing, in the afternoon, my brother Chester, ten years old, Grant Low, nine years and myself eight years, started with Job and Lyman Isbell on foot for the settlement in Gran- ger. After going through the woods for five or

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

six miles, we boys became very much tired. To cheer us up, Job Isbell proposed that we boys shoot at a mark. We did so, and I think it was the first time we boys had ever fired a gun, It set us up some and gave us new courage. We remained that night near Brecksville, at the house of a Mr. Meach, a little way east of what is now known as Coat's Corners. The next morn- ing we struck through the woods. The first place we came to was the house of old Uncle Farnam, just north of Richfield Center. From there, we passed to Hoadly's Mill, which is now Ghent, and thence across to the Smith road, where Isaac Morse then lived, and from there on to the old homestead in Granger, arriving in the middle of October, 1818. And we were three as tired chaps as ever came into Ohio. I remember well Job Isbell had to keep his brother Lyman in check, that we boys might keep up with them, telling him that we boys were not full- grown Indians, as he was. As we came in sight of Morse's clearing, Grant Low cried. Job told him he must stop, and not go into town bawling. My brother Chester was bare- footed."

The new territory was now in a fair way toward colonization. Rapid advances were made in the clearing and cultivation of lands. There were now a dozen or more farms started through the southern and eentral part of the township, and life among the settlers beeame quite communal. The manner of life among these people was quite simple, and their habits, socially, as well as their political notions, were exceedingly democratie. From necessity, they supplied themselves with clothing, of all the coarser kind. It was the custom of each farmer to clear a small patch every year for flax, which grew best on the virgin soil. From this, he would obtain all the flax fiber that his family could work up. It was prepared in winter time, and made nearly ready for the spinning by the men and boys, but the women spun and wove it. The linen thus made, furnished com-

fortable shirting, sheeting and outward cloth- ing. The furniture used by these people also was very plain, and a very little sufficed to fur- nish their cabins. They had nothing to look at; all was used, and used every day ; and they were all civilized and pretty fairly culti- vated people.

It was a very constant practice with the early settlers to unite their labor for various purposes, and thereby lighten the labor by united strength. Quite generally this was made the occasion of social enjoyment. If a house or a barn was to be raised, there was a gathering of the forces, such as the Yankees call a bee, or, as the Pennsylvanians termed it, a frolic. One of these barn-raising bees, in Granger Township, was attended with very serious con- sequences and was the cause of death to one of its citizens. The farmers had congregated to help raise a barn on a farm which is occupied by David Sheldon. Among the number was Lyman Isbell. The work progressed finely until it came to lifting up the upper rafters. A heavy log, forty feet in length, was in progress of being pushed on the building. Through want of necessary precaution, one end of the log slipped the pikes used for pushing, and the log rolled down with great force upon the body of Lyman Isbell, crushing his skull and killing him almost instantly. It caused great consternation among the people, but nothing could be done for the injured man. He was placed upon a sled and conveyed to his home, where his sudden and calamitous death brought grief and desolation. A messenger was sent to the Rev. Henry Hudson, who resided in Bath, to come and preach the funeral sermon on the next day. The messenger returned with the minister the next day, and the obsequies took place late in the afternoon. The fatal event cast a gloom over the colony for several days, as Mr. Isbell had been a man highly re- spected by all.

To keep the record of the township complete,

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the personal adventure of three of her fair daughters, at a very early day of the settlement, must be related. They are two adventures of a similar kind, and occurred at a time not very far apart. The first was that of Sally T. Hills and Polly Low. The two young ladies had left the house of Elizur Hills to go to Anthony Low's, about a mile distant. There was then no roadway, nor even a beaten foot-path to show them the way to go ; " blazed" trees alone would indicate the direction toward a settle- ment. Darkness grew upon them, and they finally lost their way. The night was dark ; with bewildered minds they walked on irreso- lutely, and wandered further away from hab- itation. Their courage did not entirely fail them, and they walked on the whole night, until almost utterly exhausted. When daylight came, they found themselves as completely "at sea" in the wild woods as they had been in the darkness. Fatigued and hungry by their long march, they sank down on the ground and fell to sleep. When they awoke, the sun stood high in the heavens. They started again, but whither, they knew not. They gave out notes of alarm until their voices failed them, but no responsive greeting reached their anxious ears. On they wandered, until the twilight was again gathering. Knowing well that they could not pass another night on foot walking through the woods, they looked about for a lodging-place. A large, hollow tree soon met their eyes. They cleared the vacant space in the bottom of the trunk, of the refuse that had accumulated, and filled it with dry leaves, gathered on the ground, and then took several large sheets of bark and covered the opening in the tree. Into this they crawled to pass the oncoming night. Their hearts had now almost failed them, and they were losing courage. In hapless despair, they endeavored to sleep, but no sleep would quiet their agitated minds. About this time, they heard the report of a gun not far away, and soon another, still nearer. The girls rushed

out and shrieked with all their might. A long- drawn shout came back. The shouting was kept up, a waving light came toward them through the woods, and soou two young pio- neers, with guns and a flickering torch, stood by their side. The girls were refreshed with the provisions the pioneer lads had brought with them, and then the homeward journey was commenced. It was midnight before they reached home, as it was about four miles from the nearest settlement where the girls had been found. Great anxiety had been caused in the settlement by the disappearance of the girls. On the second night, all the men and boys had turned out in every direction, with guns and torches and lanterns, to find the missing girls.

A similar event happened to Anna Wolcott (now the wife of Uncle John McCloud) in the summer of 1820. She was then a young girl of eighteen, and served as a domestic in the family of Samuel McCloud. On a Sunday afternoon she started alone through the woods to visit the family of Belia Spencer, several of whose children were sick. The two families lived about two miles apart. The girl lost the direction and wandered off to the north. Night overtook her alone in the woods, not knowing where she was and whither she was going. After wandering about nearly all night, she sank down exhausted by the side of a hill, giv- ing up in despair. The screech of an owl and the rustle of leaves would start her every little while, intensifying the keen anxiety of her mind. Soon daylight brought encouragement, and she started to find her way out of the wil- derness. Soon the tingle of bells attached to cattle, which then ran at large through the woods, arrested her ear. She was soon near them, and, with her approach, the cattle leis- urely started off. Following close behind them, she soon reached a place of habitation. The cattle had led her home. Her absence had not caused any excitement, as McCloud sup-

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posed that she had stopped at Spencer's, and the latter did not know of her intended visit.

Jesse Perkins, a worthy young man, came into the settlement in the fall of 1818, and was taken sick when living at the house of Mr. John Turner, then in Copley, dying there in April, 1819. His remains were taken hack to Granger, and were interred on the farm of Anthony Low, near the "Smith road." His was the first grave dug in the township.

Nathaniel and David Goodwin moved with their families into Granger a few years after the first colonization of the township had heen made. They had heen living near Strongsville, in Cuyahoga County, for some years, when they purchased tracts in the central part of the new township-lands which are now owned hy Franklin Sylvester and J. L. Green-and made permanent locations on them. The two young men soon hecame conspicuous in the affairs of the settlement hy their industry and persever- ance in cultivating their land and the interest they displayed in all public matters.

Stephen Woodward, who, with his brother, was located at Old Portage, in Portage County, where they together worked a farm, came into the Granger settlement in 1819, and sought the hand of Abigail, oldest daughter of Elizur Hills, in marriage. He gained the consent of the girl and her parents, and the ceremonies took place in November of that year. The young hushand took his wife to his home in Portage County. In September of the following year, he died, leaving his young wife a widow. On the 24th of October, just a month after her hushand's death, she gave birth to a child, now S. B. Wood- ward, a prominent lawyer of Medina. The fol- lowing year she returned to her parents in Granger, and continued to live with them until she died.

The 2d day of August, 1818, proved a very eventful day in the Granger colony. In the forenoon of that day a son was born in the family of Hiram Low, and he was named Ham-

ilton. In the afternoon of the same day, a daughter was horn to Nathaniel Goodwin. These were the first births that occurred in the town- ship.

A resort that became quite famous in its way in the early days of the colony was the Burt house or " lodge," which stood on the spot now covered by the attractive residence of Mr. Ozro Burt, in the little hamlet of Grangerhurg. It affords a picturesque illustration of the life that was led hy our forefathers, who had come out here from their homes in the East with nohle purposes, intent to rear new homes and trans- form the wood-covered regions of the West into fruitful and productive fields. Some of the pio- neers are still in our midst, and they recall, with vivid and joyful recollection, that which to us to-day must seem like a life of toil and hardship.

But a few years after their arrival and loca- tion in Granger Township, the wife of John Burt died and left him a widower. His brother Benjamin, then heing still a young man and un- married, they two together left their first settle- ment, near the southeast line of the township, and moved into the locality where now stands the village of Grangerburg. They erected a douhle log cahin, quite pretentious in its way in those days, heing somewhat in advance in its architectural make-up of the few cabins that were scattered ahout the township. The two together kept hachelor's hall, hut not just in the sense that we understand it to-day-a life of in- dolence and laziness. They followed their oc- cupation of clearing and cultivating the land with industry and perseverance. They were both trim good housekeepers, and, heing of a sociable and hospitahle turn of mind, their lit- tle cahin home soon hecame the rendezvous of the settlers in the township. There was always cheer and entertainment for man and heast at the Burt cahin. The hunter and trapper, and the journeying emigrant who was looking for lands still further West, stopped here to find

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comfort and food. And still nobler purposes than giving mere comfort and social entertain- ment did this little open cabin serve for several years. The building was used for a private day school during the winter of 1821, and Mr. John Burt, an intelligent and enterprising young farmer, taught the young " ideas " of the colony how to shoot. During the same time, Calvin Putnam organized a singing class, which held its session twice a week in the Burt house in the winter months. Itinerant ministers, who were then passing to and fro between the different settlements in Eastern and Southern Ohio, fre- quently stopped here, and religious services were held, at which most of the settlers at- tended. A foot-path, known in the early days of the Ohio settlements as the " Preachers' Path," from the fact that it was used by the ministers in passing from colony to colony, and had been cut through the woods for that purpose, ran a little distance west of the Burt cabin, in Granger Township. It was soon made, after it had become known, a regular stopping-place by the traveling ministers of various denomina- tions who passed through Northeastern Ohio in the pioneer days and dispensed the word of God to all who were willing to listen.

After a few years of bachelor's life with his brother Ben, John Burt remarried, and he brought into the Granger household, to man- age and preside over its domestic affairs, his newly acquired wife, whose maiden name had been Lucinda Hammond, and whose home had been in Copley. The good cheer of the house- hold continued, and, if anything, it rather in- creased with the coming of the pleasant and sweet-tempered young wife. In 1825, the brother Benjamin returned to the old home in New York, where he remained for several years, and, in 1829, was married to Nancy P. Hatch, of Ontario County. The following year the young couple removed to Ohio, and took up their permanent abode in Granger, among their friends and relatives.

Francis Young, with a family of three chil- dren, and Robert Green, with a family of eight, left their home in Columbia County, Penn., in the spring of 1820, and moved into Ohio. They moved in a train of three wagons, drawn by horses. They first stopped at Springfield, which was then in Portage County, where they left their families with their wagons and house- hold goods, and pressed on westward on horse- back to prospect the land and find good loca- tions for homes. The two prospectors passed through the southern part of Medina County into Huron and Seneca and Sandusky, but did not find any land suitable to their desires. On their return journey, they stopped overnight at the Burt house, in Granger. They related their travels, and told of their mission in try- ing to find suitable and well-watered land, on which to locate. Mr. Burt told them that he could, perhaps, accommodate them with just the kind of land they were looking after. He took them out the next morning to show them the tracts of land in the township that were for sale. On the same day the two together made a purchase of 240 acres of land in the eastern part of the township. They then pro- ceeded to Springfield, and, in a few days, re- turned with their families and goods, and at once set to work to build homesteads on the newly acquired lands.

Harris Reed is another of the settlers, who came with his family into the township at an early day. Like most of the Granger people, he came from Ontario County, N. Y. He had first moved with his family to Sandusky County, further west, and had settled there for several years. In 1825, he bought a tract of land in Granger Township, and settled per- manently in a locality in the eastern part of the township, which is now distinguished as Reed's Hill.

During the winter of 1836, a religious revival was in progress at the church near the center of the township, where now stands the town-

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hall. It was conducted by the Rev. Francis Green, a Close Communion Baptist Minister, from Geauga County. He was a peculiar char- acter, a sort of Peter Cartwright, crude, direct and forcible in his arguments and exhortations, and he soon wrought public excitement up to a high pitch. People flocked in from every direc- tion, and the church was crowded daily. Dur- ing the services on a Sunday afternoon, the floor of the church suddenly gave way, and the people that crowded the church were hurled in a mass into the basement below. A scene of confusion and wild excitement followed. There was at first a vast scramble to get from out of the debris, and when all had got out and the interior had been cleared, it was found that there were a number more or less seriously in- jured. Chester Ambler, a young man, had one of his legs broken, and an old lady named Elsa Wilder had an arm broken, and received a contusion on the head. No deaths resulted from this accident. The catastrophe took place while the revivalist minister was in the midst of his "fire and brimstone " exhortations. The pulpit was not carried away with the floor, and remained intact. Viewing the mass of scrambling beings below him in the pit, the minister, at first amazed and horrified, shouted out in the might of his voice, "The great day of His wrath is come, and who will be able to stand it ?" and "Such is a fair sample of the burning pit of hell !" These remarks, and the manner in which he treated the accident, caused an intense feeling against the preacher. The meetings were at once discontinued. Sev- eral years later, the church was destroyed by fire.

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History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 96

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