History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 99

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 99

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

tlement among the Homer people. In the mean- time, and while yet the part of the township which to-day forms the Center, and where the village of Homerville is now located, was an un- broken forest, settlements had been made in the northeastern part of the township by a new elass of people, and of different raee affiliations from their neighbors a little way south. There were several families of German Pennsylvanians, who had come from their home State and had made settlements in this new country. Among the first of these were Eli Garman, Jonathan Holburn and John Miller, who bought traets of land of Samuel Neal, an Eastern land speeu- lator. This was in the year 1833. The first of these settlers, Eli Garman, after having loeated his land and built a log eabin with other ae- eessory buildings, returned to Pennsylvania and soon after returned with his young wife, whom he had left at the home in his native State. Many of their people from the German districts in old Pennsylvania, soon followed these first pioneers in the new settlement. A large area of forest lands was soon transformed into fruit- ful fields, and this German eolony in a short time beeame one of the most populous distriets in the township. Industrious, frugal and thrifty, these Germans have wrested wealth and riehes from the soil, and have grown into one of the most important elements in the agricultural life of Homer Township.

In the year 1833, an effort was made for a separate township organization by some of the settlers of Homer. After the grant had been given by the County Commissioners for a dis- tinct township organization with the regular po- litieal powers, the work was at onee completed with a special eleetion of eivil officers for the new corporation. The election was held in a little log sehoolhouse in the Vanderhoof Dis- triet in June, 1834. There were nineteen voters, and, as near as ean be learned, their names were William Dunean, James Stevenson, Daniel Snively, John Park, John Tanner, John Doug-

las, George Durk, Elijah Wing, Batchelder Wing, Samuel and Isaae Vanderhoof, John and William Jeffrey, Charles and Daniel Perkins, Asa Baird, Webster Holeomb, Solomon Miller and William Jeffrey. The Judges of Eleetion were Batchelder Wing, John Tanner and Asa Baird. The board of township officers eleeted at this first " town meeting" were John Tan- ner, John Park and Batehelder Wing, as Trustees ; Webster Holeomb as Constable, and Isaac Vanderhoof as Clerk. Asa Baird was eleeted a Justice of the Peace, and he served in this eapaeity for a number of years. Several minor offiees were also brought at once into operation. There was an Overseer of the Poor, an "Ear-mark " Recorder, a Fenee Overseer, a half-dozen or more Road Supervisorships, and last, but by no means least, the Tax-Lister. The good people of the infant township man- aged it with sueh taet that about every one of its eitizens filled some sort of a township offiee. But this was all a matter of honorable distine- tion, as there was no money in any one of these offiees. In the spring eleetion of the next year, the total vote had inereased to twenty-seven.

It was about this time that the first settle- ments at the center of the township, where now stands the little hamlet of Homerville, were made. Asa and Osias Baird, the latter of whom had moved up from Big Prairie, in Wayne County, were the first settlers at this point. Another settlement had also been made in the northwest part of the township. Henee, it was deemed necessary that the seat of government should be eentrally located, so the next eleetion was held at the Center settlement, in a little log sehool-building that had been ereeted the year before. This was the Presidential election, in which Martin Van Buren was chosen Chief Magistrate of the Union ; and, if all reports are true, the people of Homer did not take any unusual interest in the national eontest. There were but seventeen voters recorded on the poll- list. At the next spring eleetion for township

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

officers, forty-two voters cast their ballots. From thence forward, more interest seems to have been manifested by the citizens of the town in political affairs. The township now also, from year to year, became more thickly populated. Immigrants eame in from every direction. The first tax-list of personal property, made out by the Township Assessor in 1835, recorded seven horses and forty-two cattle, and the value of personal property was estimated at $1,735. The Medina County Tax Duplicates for 1840 show that the value of lands and buildings in Homer Township was $42,812; the value of personal property, $4,440 ; and the taxes assessed for that year, $693.51. In 1845, the value of lands and buildings had decreased to $33,710, and the personal property had inereased to $11,140 and the total amount of taxes levied for this year was $673.45. In 1850, the value of the real estate in the township had advanced to $127,340, and the personal property to $24,208. The taxes amounted to $947.64. In the next decade, the value of real aud personal property in the township had more than doubled itself, the former being assessed at $287,700, and the latter at $84,722, and the taxes colleeted for that year show a total of $3,042.13. To show the gradual development of the township from its infaney up to the present date, we need but look at the inerease in population from its earliest days. In 1833, there were seventy-two souls in the little eolony ; in 1840, it had reached 653, and in 1850, it had reached a total of 1,102. From that date forward, the town- ship, strange and singular as it may seem in a new and growing country, has decreased in population. In 1860, there were 993 persons enumerated, and in 1870, no more than 886. The census returns of 1880, show a popula- tion of 865 souls. The number of voters, or such of them as practiced their rights of Ameri- can citizenship, which, from nineteen at the township organization in 1833, had gone to forty-two in 1837; and, in 1840, to 132; in

1850, reached 273. Ten years later, the vote of the township stood 231 ; and, in 1870, it was 215. At the Presidential election, held on the 2d of November, 1880, there were 227 votes cast.

An early event of some importance in the young settlement was the birth of a daughter to John Park and wife. This occurred in Au- gust, 1833. The young ehild was named Har- riet. Another event of note, which oceurred several years later-notable from the fact that it was the first of the kind in the township- was the marriage of Charles Atkins and Eliza- beth Campbell. Many social affairs of a simi- lar kind came in quiek succession in the fol- lowing years, as the township had been quite extensively settled by this time. There was plenty of "giving in marriage." Each one of these matrimonial oeeurrenees caused a ripple of excitement in the settlement, as is the usual wont in all localities of the civilized world. Numerous attentions were bestowed upon the young people who had just launched on the sea of wedloek-just as much so then as it is to- day. Generally, these attentions were often of a more forcible than elegant nature. One of the greatest commotions that ever disturbed the equanimity of the Homer people, and one which threatened to create serious disturbances in the colony, was caused by a jubilee indulged in by a number of young people, in honor of a wedding. A young couple had been united in marriage in the summer of 1856. The young men of the neighborhood decided to give them the customary charivari, or " belling." On the night appointed, the "boys " gathered, twenty or thirty strong, arrayed in fantastic dress, and equipped with tin pans, bells, " horse-fiddles," and various other instruments, to make hideous noises. The house of the father of the bride, in which the young couple were. staying, was surrounded by the " bellers " in the evening. After darkness had set in, and the tumult com- menced, shot-guns were fired, and a live goose

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

was thrown into the bridal chamber. The " belling " was done up in " grand and good old style," as one of the participants related. The event would have been forgotten in a short time, and nothing serious would have come of it, if the irate father-in-law of the young hus- band had not sworn vengeance upon the gay and troublesome disturbers. On the next day, the old gentleman had State warrants of arrest issued for all the young men whose names he had learned. Fifteen or twenty of the " bell- ers," some of them mere boys, were arrested under a charge of riot and destruction of prop- erty. Preliminary hearings werc had, and the boys were bound over in bouds of $1,000 each, all of which was promptly furnished by resi- dent property-holders. The affair now assumed serious proportions to the people who had be- come entangled, and there were very few peo- ple who did not take sides one way or another, though by far the larger part stood by the boys, and were bound, cost what it might, to see them safely through. Eminent counsel were employed on either side, and, at the coming session of the Common Pleas Court at Medina, the people of Homer moved in a long caravan, by four-horse teams, with streaming bauners, in vehicles of all kinds, and on horseback, toward the county seat. The trial continued for sev- eral days, amidst the greatest excitement, and ended up with the acquittal of the young men. In long line of procession, the young men, with their hosts of friends, who had accompanied them to the trial, returned to their homes in Homer, singing and shouting. For many days, this affair remained the chief topic of conversa- tion of the Homer people. The plaintiff in this singular case was finally compelled to sell out his estate on account of the expeuses of the case. The cost of proceedings and attor neys' fees amounted to several thousand dol- lars. He quitted the neighborhood and moved out West.

It is not definitely known at what time or by

whose suggestion the town was named. It is surmised that one of the itinerant ministers who visited the colony in its earlier days, pro- posed to the people to name it after the poet Homer, of whom he was a warm admirer. This suggestion was probably accepted by the or- ganizers of the township. It was not many years after the township had been organized and the Center had been quite well colonized, that a petition was sent to the United States Post Office Department, to have the village set apart as a post office. The petition was granted, and an office was established at the Center. By order of the Department at Washington, a bi-weekly mail route was run from Harrisville to the new post office. Milan Beaman was the first mail-carrier between the two points, and he continued in the service for several years, until the mail route was changed, and Homer- ville became one of the stations on the liue running from Wooster to Wellington. Henry P. Camp was the first Postmaster in the village. He was succceded by A. G. Newton.

The first mercantile business was opened by Asa Baird. He brought a small stock of goods, consisting of a small line of dry goods, linen, thread, twine, a few boots, shoes, hats and caps, and a small variety of sugars, teas, coffees and spices. He also established an ashery. In 1845, Henry P. Camp opened a small country store, in a little, new frame dwelling at the center of the village. The next firm in the business world of Homerville was that of Ainsworth & Newton; this was a branch estab- lishment of the business conducted by this firm at Lodi. In recent years, A. G. Newton has been the leading, and, during different years, the sole, merchant in the village. He runs a neat, well-constructed business house, aud it is the village store par excellence. The village post office is connected with the store, with the proprietor as Postmaster.

Scarcely more extensive than the commercial affairs of the township, are its manufacturing

HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

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developments. A water-mill for sawing wood was established as early as 1839, in the south- east part of the town, along Black River. Ed- win Oberlin was the builder and proprietor. He was largely assisted by the settlers, who furnished timber and hauled it to the mill-site. A grist-mill on a small scale was attached to this a few years later. In 1840, John Barnes and James Freeman built a saw and grist mill a few miles east of the Center. Eight years after this, Samuel Stine and Gabriel Moyer had a mill erected on the West Salem road, one and one-half miles south of the Center. In 1850, Henry Camp built the old steam saw-mill now located near the village of Homerville. A few trade and repair shops have been conducted at the village at various times.

The discovery of galena in the river bed in the western part of the township, in 1847, led to considerable excitement among the inhabitants, and this extended beyond and to other parts of the county. The excitement was wrought to a high pitch, and rumor soon had it, that a rich silver mine had been discovered in the town- ship. People came flocking in from every side and the little crystallized cubes in the gray bed-rock of the river were looked upon with wonder and astonishment. A lead and silver mining company was organized forth- with, through the efforts of several of the en- enthusiasts, and a large tract of land leased along the river bottom. Joseph Hibbard, a farmer living in Harrisville, was the real mover in the undertaking, and entered into the enter- prise with all the vim and capital at his com- mand. He was assisted by P. Holt, Leander Baldwin and Samuel Vanderhoof. These four together, formed the company. Digging was commenced at a point, forty or fifty rods above the bridge that spans Black River, on the Lodi and Homerville road. The work was prose- cuted for several weeks amidst great excite- ment ; but nothing more than what is known as " scabs " among the miners of the West, was

found. The enterprising diggers, werc, after awhile, convinced of this delusion in hunting for precious metals in this neighborhood. With this conviction, the work was abandoned. Twenty years later, there was another lead and silver flurry among the people of Homer and Harrisville Townships, but nothing more ex- cept the digging of two or three small holes came of it, and since that time, no more has been said of it. By many of the people in the neighborhood it is considered as a good joke.

The pursuits of the Homer people are strictly agricultural. No railroad crosses its territory, and no effort has ever been made by its people to secure a line.

The soil of the township is highly productive, and the crops, in quantity and quality, that are taken from it, will compare quite favorably with any of the townships in the county. Wheat and corn are the chief cereal products. Stock-breeding forms one of the prominent fea- tures of the farming pursuits of the Homer husbandmen. In later ycars, many of its farm- ers have drifted into the dairy business, which, at the present date, has become a very profitable undertaking. A cheese factory was established by the Vanderhoof Brothers in the winter of 1871, in the western part of the township, on the banks of Black River, and operations com- menced the following year. It is now one of the many factories which are conducted by Horr, Warner & Co., of Wellington. Most of the farmers in the northern part of the town- ship are patrons of factories in Spencer, which also belong to the company above referred to. These factories are run on the creamery plan ; that is, making cheese and butter. The level stretches through the township are well adapted for grazing purposes, and, through this fact, more than anything else, the manufacture of cheese and butter forms one of the most prom- inent parts in the agricultural life of the Homer people.

Some years ago, from 1830 or thereabouts,

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to 1854 and 1855, the North Ameriean passen- ger pigeon made the area of land lying in Ho- merville, Speneer and Harrisville Townships, their annual roosting-plaees in the spring. They eame in large floeks, in countless num- bers, and literally took possession of the woods. They built their nests, a few small stieks put together, and remained in the loeality during the hatehing season, raising their young. In many eases, before the young pigeons had be- come full-fledged, they would tumble out of their nests, and, for a short time, the ground would be literally strewn with them. The fat young birds made a luseious diet for the farm- er's hogs, which were, in those days, rooting out their existence in the woods. In the years from 1850, this area on which the birds were nesting beeame the rendezvous of pigeon-hunt- ers from the East, with headquarters at Lodi. The pigeons were killed by the thousands and shipped to markets in the East. In later years, these birds have abandoned this territory as a nesting-ground, though they stop here now oe- easionally for feeding purposes, but in greatly diminished numbers.

Publie worship eommeneed among the peo- ple of Homer colony with the days when their first homes were established in the new land. Prayer-meetings were first held in the little eabins, by the glimmer of burning logs on the rude hearth. Hymns of praise and devotion were sung with earnestness and holy resigna- tion, by fathers, mothers, wives and children. The home of Isaae Vanderhoof, standing on an open bluff on the bank of Black River, in the west part of the township, was the place where the sturdy pioneers oftenest congregated to offer up their religious eonseerations. As many as twenty and thirty people gathered at times, during the years 1833 and 1834, to par- tieipate in the devotional exereises. Cireuit riders from the Wellington and Black River Circuits ealled at the settlement and conducted these meetings, very simple though they were,

but no less impressive to the hearts of the worshipers than the most ornate and pom- pous ehureh serviees of the present day. Isaae Vanderhoof was the leading spirit in these religious movements. In the fall of 1834, an organization on the broad plan of the Method- ist Episcopal Church creed was effeeted. The first communicants in the colony in this ehureh organization, were Isaae Vanderhoof and his wife, Elizabeth Mattison, Betsey Kelley and Mrs. Roxy Vanderhoof, the wife of Samuel Vanderhoof. Regular ehureh serviees were held from that year on, in the log sehoolhouse which stood in the neighborhood where these people resided. For the first few years after organization, regular meetings were held only onee every four weeks. The Rev. James Kel- lum was the first stated minister of this eon- gregation. This was in the years 1835 and 1836. In 1837, the Rev. Mr. Morey was the visiting minister in the colony. He was fol- lowed by the Rev. John Kellum. From 1840 forward, the Rev. Hugh L. Parish, of Welling- ton, had charge of this ehureh organization, until, in 1843, when he was followed by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds and the Rev. John Hazzard, of West Salem. The meetings were now held every other Sunday, but they continued in the little sehoolhouse in the Vanderhoof distriet until in the year 1861, when the present ehureh edifiee of this society was ereeted at the eenter of the village of Homerville. It now belongs to the West Salem charge of the Wooster Distriet of the Northern Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Religious serv- iees are now held every Sunday. On the church reeord are now given the names of over one hundred members.

Some religious movements were made by the settlers in the northwestern part of the town- ship, immediately after its first settlement. These people belonged to the Protestant Meth- odist Church. James Pennywell and Thomas Alberts were the leaders in these movements.

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

The meetings were held in private houses, aud for a time in the sehoolhouse in that seetion. At irregular intervals, itinerant ministers made calls there, and preached the Gospel to the peo- ple. No permanent organization was ever ef- feeted, and after a few years the meetings were entirely diseoutinued. Some of these settlers and their descendants have joined the Meth- odist Episcopal society at the Center Church.

Some of the settlers in the southwest part of the township, in conformity to the faith of their aneestors, organized in the year 1840, in union with Harrisville people of the same faith, a Presbyteriau Church society, at Craw- ford's Corners, and maintained it separate and distinct for a term of five years. The Rev. Vernou Noyes was the officiating minister dur- ing this time. After that, they disbanded the organization, and nearly all of them joined the Presbyterian society located at West Salem, three miles distant in Wayne County.

The religious belief and training that had been ineulcated in the Germau settlers at their homes in Pennsylvania, manifested itself, in its outward form, soon after their adveut in the new settlement in Homer. The few families that were at first in the settlement, gathered at one of the houses, and worship was held there. This oeeurred regularly from time to time, though at no time did their gatherings reach a larger number than a dozen. The grand old German hymns, in the native tongue of Martin Luther, were suug in earnest tones ; these informal meetings were held at the houses of Eli Garman and John Miller ; and not un- frequently, during the summer days, they were held in a barn or in the open woods. When the first settlement of five or six families had been augmented to fifteen or twenty, by new arrivals, a ehurch organization was effected in the summer of 1837. A plat of ground, where now the church edifiee of this society is located, was leased by Eli Garman and Johu Miller, and in 1838 a little log church was ereeted there-

on. In conformity to the old German eustom of the Vaterland, the churchyard was used as a burial-ground for the deceased members of the ehureh families. The first person buried in this ground, even before a church had been built upon it, was a young son of Eli Gar- man, who had died in the winter of 1837. The Rev. Johan Shuh, located as Lutheran minis- ter iu a German settlement in Orange Town- ship, Ashland County, preached the funeral sermon. After the little log church-house had been ereeted in 1838, regular serviees eom- menced, and were held every alternate Sabbath day. The Rev. Mr. Shuh officiated as the Pas- tor, and the organization joined, as a separate parish, the General Couneil of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The services were entirely conducted in German during these days. The first minister was afterward sueeeeded by the Rev. August Beekerman. The present ehureh building, which is one of the largest in Medina County, was erected in the year 1855, on the site of the old log house which had been removed. Regularly stationed ministers were then retained, and the society grew in prosperity and influence. Over fifty families belonged to the church, aud its mem- bership embraced over three hundred persons. (As infant baptism is one of the saeramental doetrines of this denomination, the young are elassed as regular members.) In 1862, a local sehism broke out in this society and eaused a separation. The seeeding members formed a separate ehureh organization, and eonneeted with the "Joined Synod" of the German Re- formed Church of Ohio. They ereeted a house of worship, one mile west of the old building, and commenced regular chureh services. The members of the new church were Dennis and George Miller, John Shelhart, Andreas Bill- man, John Bennader, Jacob Fursahl, Phillip Rice, John Rice, Adam Koons, Solomon Hei- man, Jacob Nasal, Leonard Hummert and Henry Haulk. The Rev. Carl Wently, of Phil-

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HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

adelphia, Penn., was the first officiating elergy- man of this society. He located in the settle- ment for a number of years. The church serv- ices, which at first were exclusively conducted in the German language, are now conducted in both English and German.

Another church society established in Ho- merville, is the Evangelical (Albrights). It was organized in 1865, by Benjamin Weatherstine, John Herkey, Tobias Heberly, David Frank and Esther Beavelhammer. This is merely an ad- junct of the church society of that name lo- cated in West Salem, and ministers of the latter society are supplied to the Homer society. An edifice was constructed in 1865, at the Center of Homerville, and meetings have been held regularly since that year. Yearly revival meetings are held in this church, and the out- ward signs of religious enthusiasm generally run high.

The society of Dunkards-or "Füswäscher, as they were originally called in Germany, by the originator of the creed, Alexander Maek --- forms a considerable portion of the church history of Homer Township. A few of the members of this faith had settled in the town- ship in the years from 1845 to 1850. The first of these settlers were Samuel Hart and Joseph Rittenhouse, who had come from the Dunkard settlement near Germantown, Penn. Others came and settled with their families near them. True to their faith, they soon evidenced a desire to profess in the regular and accepted formula of their belief. Meetings were instituted at private houses and in barns. Their quaint and peculiar services were conducted in these places for a number of years. During the reg- ularly appointed Pentecostal meetings of this sect, which occur in the spring and fall of each year, these Homer people would journey to a Dunkard settlement near Ashland, and partici- pate in the religious festivities of a love-feast and " feet-washing." In the year 1870, a Dunk- ard meeting-house, very plain in its architect-

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History of Medina county and Ohio, Part 99

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