USA > Ohio > Portage County > History of Portage County, Ohio > Part 59
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CHAPTER XXIX.
RAVENNA TOWNSHIP AND CITY
ORIGINAL PROPRIETORS-THIE PIONEERS-FIRST CABIN-BENJAMIN TAPPAN- FIRST BIRTH AND DEATII-PRIMITIVE MILLS-THE VILLAGE SITE IN 1806-A THRESHING MACHINE-LAYING OUT OF THE VILLAGE-FIRST BUILDING-OLD BURYING GROUND-SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS-FIRST COURT HOUSE AND JAIL -RECIPE FOR CLEARING OFF STUMPS-TWO OLD STRUCTURES-AN INCIDENT OF 1812-PEN PICTURE OF PRIMITIVE RAVENNA-JOIIN BROWN'S FATIIER -JESSE GRANT'S TANNERY-SOME NOTED SETTLERS-SOME EARLY FACTS- TWO NOTABLE RAISINGS-FIRST SUNDAY-SCHOOL-SUNDRY ITEMS-EARLY MERCHANTS-A SCHOOL NEEDED-FIRST SCHOOL MEETING-GROWTHI OF THE CITY - INCORPORATION - INDUSTRIES - BANKS AND BANKERS - PIONEER PREACHERS ON RELIGION-FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CIIURCII, AND REV. C. B. STORRS-METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH-DISCIPLES CHURCH-UNIVERSALIST CHURCHI-CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION-EPISCOPAL CHURCH- SECRET AND OTHER SOCIETIES-STATISTICS.
R AVENNA, Town 3, Range 8, at the original drawing of the lands of the Connecticut Land Company, fell to the lot of the following parties : The south two-thirds to a company at Suffield, Conn., composed of Luther Loomis, Ephraim Robbins and Calvin Austin ; the northern third to Stephen W. Jones, of Stockbridge, and Nathaniel Patch, of Boston. September 2, 1798, Loomis & Co. sold their interest to Benjamin Tappan; November 1, 1798, Patch sold to John Buell, of Hebron, Conn., and October 31, 1799, Jones sold to Ephraim Starr and Stanley Griswold.
In June, 1799, Benjamin Tappan, Jr., son of the principal proprietor, came to Ravenna as agent for his father, and to make a settlement. He located in the southeast part of the township, and built a cabin of unhewn logs, which was fin-
Joseph, Dilling
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RAVENNA TOWNSHIP.
ished by the following January, 1800. This was the first cabin built in the town- ship and stood near the southeast corner on the farm now owned by Capt. J. Q. King. His second house stood on the farm of Marcus Heath, about one mile east of Ravenna. The following summer he went to Connecticut and married the sister of Hon. John C. Wright, and returned with his bride to the unbroken wil- derness to build up a home. After the State was admitted he served in the Second Legislature of Ohio, but in 1809, at the urgent solicitations of political friends in Jefferson County, he settled at Steubenville. where he remained till his death on the 19th of April, 1857. Judge Tappan was a remarkable man in many respects, being one of the most thorough scholars of his day ; he was considerable of a lin- guist, an eminent lawyer. He was Aid-de-camp to Gen. Wadsworth in the war of 1812; Judge of the Fifth Ohio Circuit; United States Judge for Ohio; was the compiler of "Tappan's Reports," and United States Senator from 1839 to 1845.
A man by the name of Benjamin Bigsby and his family came in at the time Tappan came, and assisted him in clearing his place and building his cabin. He remained only a few months, but during this time he lost a son about twelve or fourteen years of age, who died from the bite of a rattlesnake, and was buried in the eastern part of the township, this being the first death. There not being any sawed timber at hand, a log of the proper length was cut and trimmed, and split through the center, then both halves hollowed out, and the corpse placed therein, forming a coffin, rude but secure.
In the spring of 1800 William Chard located on Lot 33, and in August, Con- rad Boosinger, with his wife, sons George and John, and daughter Polly, came in and settled on the Mahoning about one mile and a half southeast of Ravenna Center. He purchased 200 acres of land from Tappan, cleared five or six acres and sowed it to wheat. Shortly after his settlement, he being a tanner by trade, constructed a couple of vats, and as fast as he could obtain hides, tanned them. This was the first tannery. John Boosinger, his son, then a lad of fifteen years, ' moved to Brimfield in 1816, being the first settler in that township. He lived to be over ninety years of age, and left a numerous progeny, his descendants now numbering up into the hundreds.
In the spring of 1801 John Ward and his step-son, John McManus, came in from Pennsylvania, and in the following fall Alexander McWhorter settled on the west side of Breakneck Creek, where, the following year, 1802, he erected a mill, which was the first grist-mill in the township, and was for a long time a great con- venience to the settlers, who had, otherwise, to go long distances to get their little grists ground. There were two other mills in the county, one built in 1799 by Rufus Edwards in Mantua, a hand-mill, and one in Deerfield, built by James Laughlin in 1801.
In 1802 David Jennings, Sr., father of Daniel and David Jennings, came in from Bradford, Mass., and settled on Lot 24, and about the same time came Robert Eaton. Jennings and Eaton, in 1805, erected a mill on the Mahoning, which was the second grist-mill in the township. In this year also came David Moore, William Simcox, one of the Boszors, who afterward removed to Brimfield, and several others.
In 1803 Henry Sapp located on the north half of Lot 21, where he lived till his death, at an advanced age. His wife attained the age of over one hundred years, when she died. About this time a daughter was born to the Mr. Boszor men- tioned above, and she is believed to have been the first white child born in the township. It is said, also, that the first wedding in the township occurred in this year, the parties being Charles Van Horne and Phoebe Herrimon. The first school was opened this year, it being held in a little log-house near Tappan's settlement, and the teacher was his sister-in-law, Miss Sarah Wright. The pupils were children of Boosinger, Ward and Eaton. The school cabin belonged to Conrad Boosinger. The next teacher was David Root, who taught at the house of Robert Eaton in 1806.
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
In 1806 Erastus Carter moved into the township from Johnson, Trumbull County, and settled on Lot 16 with his wife and three children: Ruthalia, Lois and Howard. The latter was born in December, 1799, and is yet living, remarka- bly well preserved in all his faculties, and having quite a vivid recollection of early events. To this old gentleman we are indebted for much of the information herein contained, and who has set right many disputed facts in regard to the days now remembered by scarcely any one else in the county. Where Erastus Carter settled was in the upper part of the township, on the third owned by Ephraim Starr and Stanley Griswold, about two miles north of Ravenna Center. Moses Smith came with Carter to help him put up his cabin, and was so well pleased with the county that he purchased 100 acres of land and moved in the following year, although he had bought 400 acres in Trumbull at the time he and Carter settled there in 1804. In this year, 1807, Howard Fuller, the father-in-law of Erastus Carter, with Anson Beeman, moved in, Fuller buying Jotham Blakesley's place, about a mile southeast of Carter's land.
Not long after their arrival Mr. Carter and his little son, Howard, then about seven years old, came down to the grist-mill on the Breakneck to get a grist ground. They passed over what is now Ravenna City, blazing their way as they went, in order to get back over the same track. The old grist-mill was run by a man named Coosard. The mill had been erected by Mcwhorter in 1802. This old miller, Coosard, lived till he was nearly one hundred and two years old. The mill-stones rested upon cob-work, and a sort of bark canopy, upheld by crotched poles, formed a roof.
RAVENNA CITY.
Early in 1808 Benjamin Tappan commenced the foundation of the village of Ravenna. He laid off a plat of land containing 192 lots, the boundaries of which at present are Bowery Street on the north, Oak Street on the south, Walnut Street on the east and Sycamore Street on the west. The center of this plat is at the intersection of Main and Chestnut Streets. John Boosinger, then quite a young man, the fall previously " underbrushed " about two and one-half acres, the clear- ing comprising the present Court House square and a small space surrounding it. The first building of any kind on the original town plat is thought by many to have been erected by Henry Sapp for William Tappan on a spot now covered by the west end of Mechanics Block, but Mr. Howard Carter, who is, possibly, the best living authority as to the original settlement of Ravenna, says the building was erected by Joshua Woodard about the spring of 1808. At any rate the little log building stood on the spot indicated, and a well dug at the time is now under the building, just a little east of the east foundation of Homer C. Frazer's store. The birth of the first child on the town plat, or rather who the first child was, is also matter of dispute. James Woodard, son of Joshua Woodard, is thought by many to have the honor of first appearing in the embryo town, but Mr. Carter says that David Jennings contended and often told him that David Thompson had a son born before Woodard, and as proof cites the fact that Thompson's son won the prize offered to the first child born on the town plat. . The prize was a lot offered by Tappan, and young Thompson came into possession of it at twen- ty-one years of age. His father built a cabin upon it soon after the child was born. It is the lot where the old water-cure used to be. David Thompson came here from Pennsylvania with his brother and married shortly afterward. His son was born about the spring of 1810.
The first grave-yard was donated by Tappan, and was located at the southwest corner of the town plat, where Mr. William Holcomb's garden now is, and most of the graves were in the southeast corner. Here were buried David Moore, the first Ravenna blacksmith; Mrs. Ruggles and her son; Mrs. Smith, the mother of Mrs. Frederick Wadsworth; Mrs. Patterson, the mother of Mrs. Tappan ; Jared Mason, the first tanner in the town plat ; Epaphras Mathews, who was murdered
523
RAVENNA TOWNSHIP.
by Henry Aungst, in August, 1814, and Robert Campbell, who returned from the war sick and died shortly afterward. He was the last one buried in this grave- yard, and a singular circumstance is connected therewith: The grave-digger dug the grave so that the head lay to the east, but as it was so constructed they would not alter it when the funeral took place. This circumstance served to identify his grave many years afterward, when his relatives sought the spot for the purpose of disinterring the remains and removing them to Campbellsport. Cobble-stones only being placed at the heads of the graves, and no inscriptions, the remains of Campbell could never have been selected from out the others, had the corpse been laid in the usual manner, with head to the west.
The present cemetery was laid off in part in 1813, a plat of land being donated for that purpose by Howard Fuller, Erastus Carter, Moses Smith and Anson Bee- man. Fuller made the suggestion of laying out another cemetery, as the one in the village plat seemed to him to be too close to the daily walks of man. Sluman Smith, a lad of seventeen, son of Moses Smith, was the first person buried in this cemetery. He died June 9, 1813. His grave, being the first in the new ground, was of universal interest, it standing alone for some time. In 1815 Zenas Carter was drowned in Muddy Lake, one-half mile south of Ravenna, and was among the first buried in the new cemetery. Carter and Grear, both heavy men, were trying the floating qualities of a new dug-out canoe, when the vessel capsized, and as Carter could not swim, he sank to the bottom and was drowned.
In 1809 David Jennings, Sr., Erastus Carter and Moses Smith erected a log- schoolhouse about opposite where the residence of the late Mrs. Lois Judd after- ward stood, and they engaged Miss Achsalı Eggleston, of Aurora, to teach the children of the three families mentioned. Her scholars were eight in number : Daniel and David Jennings, Howard, Ruthalia and Lois Carter, and Samantha and Lucina Smith. Ruthalia Carter married Howard Judd, Lois married Lester Judd, Samantha Smith married Richard McBride, and Lucina married Charles Judd. The teacher married Mr. Kent. Miss Eggleston was very tall and stately, and the door of the little schoolhouse was very low, so that, when she entered it for the first time, stooping, she remarked to the proprietors, "I see you have built this for small people, so I will have to bring myself down to their level, or them up to mine, which?" "Up to yours, Miss Eggleston, and we will be satisfied," was the gallant reply. Of all those interested in that school, fathers, mothers, teacher and scholars, there are but two living: Mrs. Lucina Judd, aged eighty-seven, and Howard Carter, aged eighty-four. This school being a success, others wished to share in its benefits, and accordingly a meeting was held which resulted in enlarg- ing the attendance, at the same time deciding by vote that grammar and geogra- phy were unnecessary studies. Another school was taught in the unfinished Court House some time during 1810 or 1811, by Thaddeus Bradley.
In 1814, when Maj. Stephen Mason was Sheriff, he taught a school in a room in the Court House, and when he was off on official business the school was closed. The Major was a man of very versatile talents, and peculiarly well adapted to the times, for in addition to filling one of the highest offices in the county, he could "train" as a Major of Militia, and teach the youth.
The school statistics for 1884 are as follows: Ravenna Township schools -- revenue in 1884, $4,451; expenditures, $3,334; nine schoolhouses, valued at $8,000; average pay of teachers, $36 and $27; enrollment, 162 boys and 126 girls. Ravenna Village schools-revenue in 1884, $27,047; expenditures, $20,161; three schoolhouses valued at $50,000; average pay of teachers, $79 and $72; enroll- ment, 346 boys and 408 girls; number of teachers employed, 15.
In 1810 William and John Tappan completed the building of first Court House and Jail. During this year a number of boys playing ball around the new Court House, discovered a fine buck in the underbrush, when all hands, headed by David Greer, surrounded the deer and captured him alive-the last deer caught or killed. on the town plat.
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
In 1811 Joshua Woodard, who had come in from Geneva, N. Y., constructed a dam about a mile below the old Coosard mill which had then disappeared, at a point on the Breakneck Creek where the stream was wider. Here he erected a saw-mill, grist-mill and fulling establishment. The water set back about two miles, nearly to Ravenna Village, causing much sickness and many deaths. This state of affairs went on for several years, when Woodard was expostulated with by citi- zens, notified by the lawyers, Messrs. Sloane and Lyman, and threatened by every- body, but all to no avail. Heavy damages were even offered him, yet he persisted in keeping his disease-dealing dam intact, when one night a party went with axes and crow bars and destroyed the dam. He moved to Franklin. There was no more malaria after the dam went.
William Tappan had a frame house put up at about where the middle of the Phoenix Block now is. Now, this building was erected before Mr. Tappan came to Ravenna, and as he was here December 5, 1809, when he signed the agreement to erect the Court House and Jail, it looks very much as if his house was erected before the one claimed to be the first, yet it is generally supposed that the house that stood on the Mechanics' Block lot was the first. It is reasonable to presume that the way these buildings came to be in dispute is that one was a frame, the other a log structure, each being the first of its class.
The first frame building in the north part of the township was a barn erected in 1810 by Moses Smith. Over sixty years afterward the same barn was moved by the grandson of the original owner, and it still stands. They put up buildings in those days to last. A little later Erastus Skinner, father of John N. Skinner, the first resident carpenter, raised a barn on the Hotchkiss place, on which occasion Skinner made a brief speech in honor of the important event. Tom Smith and family came in at an early date, and occupied a small building where now stands the First National Bank. He was a hatter by trade, and the hunters would come into his little shop and unload their bundles of coon and other skins. A hat that he made nearly seventy years ago, and worn at a school exhibition, is still in the possession of one of the oldest citizens of the township.
The oldest building in Ravenna City is the one on the southeast corner of Main and Chestnut Streets, and the next oldest is the yellow barn standing on the alley in the rear of Mr. Kinney's house on the corner of Main and Meridian Streets. The first was built by David Greer, who came to the town from Pennsylvania about the time the Court House was erected, put up this building and opened the first tavern. He also opened a small stock of goods, and the writer hereof obtained this information from an old gentleman who in 1812 watched the members of Capt. John Campbell's company purchase powder from Greer, pour it into their horns and march away toward the seat of war on the lakes. This venerable struct- ure stands to-day as staunch, apparently, as any of its more modern companions. The other building was erected by Gen. John Campbell, who at the time was keep- ing a tavern that stood on the four corners of Ravenna, Rootstown, Edinburg and Charlestown. This frame building, afterward painted a peculiar yellow, which made it distinctively known as the "old yellow house," originally stood about where the barber shop now is on the eastern front of the Etna House, and was built with the intention of opening a tavern in it, but, soon after it was completed in 1812, James Haslip, from near Pittsburgh, Penn., rented it and put in a stock of goods, this being the first regular store opened in the township. Greer, also, as has been stated, kept a small stock of goods, but he made no pretensions to being a merchant -- his business was tavern keeping. The building stood upon a ridge running east and west, upon which the Court House, also stood. This ridge fell off abruptly to the north and more gently to the south, and down its northern slope the boys coasted many a winter day. In 1824 the " old yellow house " was moved away and now is used as a barn. It was a grand building in its day, as it stood proudly in front of the Court House, where the county magnates would ride in and
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hitch their steeds around it and across the way at Greer's Tavern ; for a full- fledged store, where you could exchange two bushels of wheat for a yard of cotton cloth, was of no small consequence.
In 1812 a volunteer company was formed in this vicinity, with John Campbell as Captain ; Alva Day, First Lieutenant ; John Caris, Second Lieutenant, and Aaron Weston, Ensign. A more extended recital of Portage County in the war of 1812 will be found in the general history of the county, the following incidents being only given as illustrations of the times. The company raised by Gen. Campbell pitched their tents of homespun linen sheets near the house of their commander, and went into training for a week, the strictest military discipline being maintained., They had no uniform, very poor clothing, and very bad shoes, but every man managed to get a rifle, a tomahawk and a butcher knife. Thus, with their powder horns and their bullet pouches slung about them, they tramped off to meet the highly disciplined and well accoutred regulars of the British. This company was included in the cowardly surrender of Hull, but the following year, one day when George Barnes had a raising, Horace Burroughs suddenly made his appearance among the men, and gave them orders for marching to Cleveland in the morning. They began to make preparations, and the next day left for the scene of war, leaving Erastus Carter, who had a lame arm, to look after the women and children, and to prepare for retreat to Pittsburgh. Then came an alarm greater than the first. The cannonading between Commodore Perry and the British vessels on the lake was heard, and soon a night messenger came riding down through Portage, warning the people to fly for their lives, as the Indians were about swooping down upon the defenseless settlers of this section. All the next day preparations were going on for flight, and still another messenger arrived, warning the people to lose no time in retreating, but during the following night a horn was heard in the direction of Shalersville, and soon a horseman came dash- ing along the road, shouting at the top of his voice, " Hurrah, hurrah ! Perry is victorious !" and the dread of a moment before fled amidst the rejoicings of the happy settlers, who made the welkin ring with their shouts of gladness.
Mrs. Betsy (Eatinger) Ward, widow of William Ward, states that Jacob Eat- inger, her father, came to Ravenna in the spring of 1804, from Poland, Ohio, when Mrs. Ward was thirteen years old. There were here at that time David Jennings, Benjamin Tappan, Robert Eaton, William Chard, Samuel Simcox, the first settler in Brimfield, and his son Benjamin, Conrad Boosinger and son, John Boosinger, John and Robert Campbell, John McMannus, John Ward, Henry Buz- zard, Moses Bradford, Charles Van Horne (son-in-law of Chard), William Lyons, Jack and Thomas Wright, Henry Sapp, Alexander Walker, Robert Bell, David Moore, Jotham Blakesley, David Haines, son-in-law of Simcox, and Polly Boos- inger. Sally Wright taught the first school.
Ten or twelve years later Ravenna presents a village appearance. A man steps into the Seth Day store with wheat, and what does he receive for his twenty bush- els of golden grain ? A package containing ten yards of cotton cloth ! Dr. Isaac Swift is behind the counter compounding a prescription, for on one side of this store of Day & Swift is kept a general stock of goods and on the other, drugs. Mr. Day had moved in from Deerfield, and Dr. Swift, then a fine-looking single gentleman, of twenty-six years, had come in from Connecticut in June, 1815. He married in 1818, and one of his sons, Henry A. Swift, became Governor of Minnesota, besides occupying other important positions. Mr. Day filled many public positions also.
Step out into the road again. There is another store, just opened by Zenas Kent, on the spot now occupied by the Second National Bank. Of this gentleman it is needless to make only mention, as he is so well known that nothing here can add to his fame as a splendid business man and good citizen. Now from your position in the road look across to the southeast corner of Main and Chestnut Streets, and you will see a building that still stands there. It is Greer's old tav-
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HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
· ern, long known as " King's Tavern." A little east of this spot you will notice a. log-building that was put up by Joshua Woodard. Turn plumb around and you will see a little one-storied building, facing you. This is the law office of a man who was afterward known not only in Ohio, but throughout the land. Jon- athan Sloane occupies this unpretentious little building. Darius Lyman, another noted lawyer, has an office here, too. Look up the street, eastward, and you will see the house of Almon Babcock about a block distant on the north side of the way, and a little westward from that point a two-storied frame house painted red, looms up. It was built for Mr. Tappan, by Henry Sapp. But here is a building going up. It is on the spot now occupied by the Empire Block. Salmon Carter, or " Papa " Carter, as he was familiarly known, is building this structure for a tav- ern ; so the one diagonally across is going to have competition. Turn partly around again and look westward and you will see a hat shop on the corner, now occupied by the First National Bank. It was the shop of " Uncle " Tom Smith, and not far from this was where Alexander and William Frazer made harness and saddles.
Face again to the south ; look across the Court House ground to the southeast and you will see a man getting on his horse, evidently in a hurry, in front of a building, a frame, that stands half a block or so south of Main Street. This gen- tleman, a physician and surgeon, who has just been summoned ten miles away to see a patient who had been injured by a falling tree, a few years later performed a surgical operation in Ravenna, which for boldness, skill and success stands unsurpassed, if not unequaled, even to this day, and was considered of so much importance that a scientific record was made of it in the French surgical journals. This was Dr. Joseph DeWolf, and the operation referred to is described in the Western Courier of November 12, 1825. It was a case of strangulated hernia ; the patient, William McLaughlin. The Doctor opened the abdomen, found a por- tion of the intestines gangrenous, cut off eight or nine inches of the same, stitched together the several parts, sewed up the abdomen, and the man was as sound as ever in a couple of weeks.
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