USA > Ohio > Portage County > History of Portage County, Ohio > Part 96
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was also Treasurer of the Farmers Insurance Company of Portage County dur- ing all the years of its business transactions. For seven years be was Treas- urer, and three years President, of the Portage County Agricultural Society, and much of its success and prosperity is due to his efficient action and untir- ing efforts in its behalf. Mr. Brainerd has for the past six years been Director and Historian of the Portage and Summit Counties Pioneer Association. In 1870 he entered into partnership with his son, Charles W. Brainerd, under the firm name of E. P. Brainerd & Son, and engaged in a general drug business, which continued until the spring of 1882. Our subject is of the fifth generation from Daniel Brainerd, the common progenitor of all of the name in the United States, who came from England when quite young, and settled in Haddam, Conn., in 1862. He became a wealthy, prominent, and influential man; was twice married, first to Miss Hannah Spencer, of Lynn, Mass., by whom he was the father of seven sons and one daughter. No children by his second wife. Mr. Brainerd has in his possession a manuscript 200 years old, it being the original record of a town meeting in Haddam, Conn., at which the first Brainerd was elected to a township office. The subject of this sketch being a direct descendant of Revolutionary stock. he inherited the spirit of '76 and great devotion to the stars and stripes. In politics he began an old-line Whig, voted the Free Soil ticket, and has been identified with the Republican party since its organization, and was for many years Chairman of the County Central Committee. He has ever been a warm friend of education. For many years before the union school system was adopted he held the position of Director of Common Schools, and later for some years he was President of the Board of Education of Ravenna. He is the father of two children: His son, Charles W., is a druggist in Mantua; his daughter, Mary Adelaide, married F. W. Hurlburt, of Utica, N. Y .- she died October 11, 1878, aged twenty-eight years, leaving a daughter, Florence Adelaide, born June 25, 1875. His wife died March 21, 1880, aged sixty-three years. October 11, 1881, Mr. Brainerd married Augusta L., the only surviving daughter of Ezra and Lydia (Platts) Jones, of Saybrook, Conn., and a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, Mass., in the class of 1859. From the early period at which the subject of this sketch became identified with the interests of Portage County, he has occupied a conspicuous position in busi- ness affairs, in educational interests, public improvements and all that per- tains to the progress and advancement of his town and county. The record of his life will live in the memory of those whose rugged ways he smoothed and soft- ened, after he has passed away.
ISAAC BRAYTON was born at Nantucket, Mass., in 1801. Having early lost his father, he entered the family of a relative, Hon. Hezekiah Barnard, then Secretary of the State of Massachusetts, where superior advantages were given him. As did nearly all Nantucket boys at that period, he early fol - lowed the sea, shipping on board a whaling vessel when nineteen years of age, where his activity and intelligence led to rapid promotion. In 1825 he mar- ried Love Mitchell, who died in 1869, beloved by all who knew her. In 1827 he commanded a ship which conveyed some of the first missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, and upon a subsequent visit he united with the church of Honolulu, and immediately established a family altar and Bible class on ship board. Capt. Brayton abandoned the sea in 1833, and was soon elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts at the time Horace Mann was Superintendent of Public Schools. Coming to Ravenna in 1839, greatly interested in education, he was potent in the establishment of a high school, which then seemed to many unnecessary. He became Associate Judge when Hon. Benjamin F.
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Wade was chief upon the bench. Judge Brayton removed to Newburg (now a ward of the city of Cleveland) in 1853, where he was elected to the Ohio Legislature and was afterward charged with important duties by Gov. Salmon P. Chase. He labored with the Sanitary Commission during the war, being stationed at Nashville, Tenn., and was afterward appointed Superintendent of the National Soldiers' Home while it was at Columbus, Ohio, before coming under military control. He returned to Ravenna in 1873, and has since led a quiet home life in the family of his son-in-law, F. W. Woodbridge.
JOHN S. BRIGHAM, contractor and builder, Ravenna, was born June 9, 1821, in St. Albans, Vt. His father, Pierpont Brigham, a native of Massa- chusetts, came to Vermont, where he married Louisa Conger, who died Sep- tember 30, 1832; he moved to Buffalo, N. Y., and died of cholera September 21, 1852. Our subject while residing iu Buffalo married, September 5, 1844, Miss Frances H. Barker, of Ravenna, Ohio, a native of Palmyra, N. Y., born March 24, 1S28, coming to this place at two years of age with her parents, James F. and Henrietta Barker. Her grandfather, Ira Shelby, was one of the early pioneers of Ravenna Township, this county, and his descendants to-day remain the leading and most influential people of Portage County, Ohio. To Mr. and Mrs. Brigham have been born four children: Henry; Henrietta, wife of Mr. Beckley; Charles J. and Willis J. After residing one year in Buffalo Mr. and Mrs. Brigham settled in Ravenna, this county, where Mr. Brigham has followed his business as builder and contractor. He erected most of the public buildings and the leading private residences which gives Ravenna so much renown for its beauty. Mrs. Brigham is one of the leading members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Brigham is a life-long Republican; he has taken a deep interest in the public affairs of the city.
HENRY F. CARIS, brick manufacturer, Ravenna, was born April 22, 1832, in Ravenna Township, this county, and is descended from a long line of pio- neers of this county. His great-grandfather, Frederick Caris, came here from Maryland in very early times. He had two sons: John, who was a Lieutenant in the war of 1812, and Frederick, who a Captain of militia in the same war. The latter had a large family, of whom John Caris, second, was the eldest son. He married Elizabeth, daughter of the well-known pioneer, Henry Sapp, and of their seven children three are now living: Albert and Mary in Washington Territory, and Henry F. Our subject was brought up on his father's farm and received his education in the schools of the home district. At twenty years of age he began learning the trade of brick-maker. He established a yard of his own in 1853 and he now owns the only brick-yard in Ravenna, where he makes from half a million to a million bricks per annum. Mr. Caris married, June 14, 1860, Miss Julia, daughter of Sidney S. and Julia Allen, of Ravenna, born at Republic, Seneca Co., Ohio, in 1836, and who came to this place at eight years of age with her parents. Mr. Allen was a mill-wright, and he and his wife resided here until their death. Of the five children born to our sub- ject and wife two are now living: Edward C. and Anna A. Mr. and Mrs. Caris are members of the Universalist Church. In politics he is a Democrat.
ERASTUS CARTER (deceased) was born in 1775 in Litchfield County, Conn .; married Miss Lois Fuller, of the same county. They moved to Johnson Township, Trumbull Co., Ohio, in 1805, and settled in Ravenna Township (then a part of the same county) in 1806. Here he purchased 700 acres of wild land from the Connecticut Land Company. They then went to work to clear their domain and redeem it from the wilderness. They raised a family of seven children: Howard, now living in Ravenna Township, this county; Mrs. Tuthala Judd, who died November, 1878, aged seventy-seven; Mrs. Lois
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Judd, who died in May, 1884, aged eighty; Erastus; Miles, who died in 1864, aged fifty-three; Myron, who died in 1836, aged twenty-one, and Ira still liv- ing in Ravenna Township. Mrs. Carter died in 1854, aged seventy-six. Mr. Carter followed her in 1867, aged ninety-two. He was very energetic in open- ing this county and developing its resources. He was an active member of the Masonic fraternity. Being originally a Whig, he supported the Democratic party at Jackson's second election and ever afterward. He was one of the honored pioneers whose memory will be handed down to future generations in connection with the services they have rendered in reclaiming a vast wilder- ness and laying the foundation for a broader and more permanent civilization.
ERASTUS CARTER, farmer, P. O. Ravenna, son of Erastus, Sr., and Lois (Fuller) Carter, was born May 25, 1808, in Ravenna Township, this county. He shared the usual lot of pioneer boys and attended the limited schools of those early days. He married, in January, 1832, Miss Hannah Skiff, who died in May, 1837, aged twenty-five years, leaving three children now living in Iowa: Ira R., Julius E. and Marion H., wife of Dr. J. R. Boyd. Mr. Carter then married, July 2, 1838, his deceased wife's sister, Miss Delia Skiff, born in Litchfield County, Conn., August 20, 1816, and who came to Shalersville, this county, in 1825, with her parents, Julius and Julia Skiff, of whose ten chil- dren but three are now living: Mrs. Abbie Beazell in Ravenna, Frank B. in Iowa, and Mrs. Erastus Carter. Mr. Skiff died May 11, 1852, aged sixty-six; his widow April 10, 1855, in her seventieth year. Since their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Carter have resided in Ravenna Township, this county. Here they own a fine estate of about 500 acres of well-improved land, and to them have been born the following children: Myron H. and Mrs. Ellen Gillett in Ravenna Township, this county, and Addison S. in eastern Iowa. Mr. Carter is a life- long Democrat, having voted for Andrew Jackson in 1832 and for every Demo- cratic nominee for President since.
WILLIAM S. CHURCHILL, farmer and dairyman, P. O. Ravenna, was born June 21, 1841, in Streetsboro Township, this county. His father, Isaiah Churchill, of Chautauqua County, N. Y., came to this county in early man- hood and here married Miss Eunice A., daughter of Newton and Mollie Mor- ris, of Shalersville Township. Isaiah Churchill died October 6, 1851, leaving two children: William S. and John N. in Warren, Ohio, and his widow after- ward married William L. Russell. She died March 1, 1884. Our subject enlisted, August 11, 1862, in Company I, One Hundred and Fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was attached to the Army of the Cumberland, and after three years of brave and faithful service, received an honorable dis- charge, June 29, 1865, at Cleveland, Ohio. He married, January 1, 1868, Miss Louisa E. Towns, and their children are Harry Almon (deceased), Edith I., Lulu Pearl, Orilla Birdell, Jessie A., Winnie J. and Alta B. Mr. and Mrs. Churchill now own the homestead farm of sixty-eight acres where they have resided ever since their marriage. They devote their farm largely to the dairy interests, in which they are very successful. They are consistent members of the Disciples Church. Mr. Churchill is a life-long Republican.
N. D. CLARK, banker, Ravenna, was born in Tallmadge, Summit Co., Ohio, December 14, 1814. He was the youngest son of Ephraim and Ala Clark, originally from Massachusetts, but who settled in Tallmadge, then Por- tage County, in the year 1802, just in time to vote for the first Constitution of Ohio. Ephraim was one of the leading men of Tallmadge, and for many years a Justice of the Peace. He died March 4, 1858, in the eightieth year of his age. He had seven children: Allen I., James A., Miletus S., Newel D., Martha A., Mary L. and Harriet A., of whom three only are now living: N.
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D., of Ravenna; Martha Wait, of Iowa; and Harriet A. Clark, of Kansas. Our subject was reared on a farm. In 1832, after serving his apprenticeship, he, with his two brothers, James A. and Miletus S., under the firm name of 'N. D. Clark & Co., started a carriage and buggy manufactory in Ravenna, and carried the same on successfully for thirty years. He then became connected with the old Portage County Branch Bank, which was in 1863 merged into the First National Bank of Ravenna, of which he was elected President in 1867, which office he has continuously filled to the present time, being again re-elected in January, 1885. He has also occupied various offices of public and private trust, in each of which he faithfully discharged his every duty. He was mar- ried April 9, 1835, to Sarah Rawson, of Ravenna, by whom he had two daugh- ters: Amelia, the eldest (died when only sixteen months old) and Laura A., who was married to Henry Beecher, an extensive dry goods merchant and Director of said bank, in September, 1857, both of whom are now deceased. Mrs. Ala Clark, the mother of N. D., died in Talimadge, October 2, 1833. Mrs. N. D. Clark was born in Ravenna, August 13, 1816.
HIRAM T. CLARK, dentist, Ravenna, was born December 3, 1838, in Ravenna. His father, James A. Clark, came here from Tallmadge (now in Sum- mit County, Ohio,) and married Miss Mary Torrey. He carried on a wagon and carriage shop in partnership with his brothers, Newell D. and Miletus. James A. Clark died in 1852, and his widow afterward married a Mr. Gold- smith. She is now residing in Cleveland, Ohio. Our subject resided in Belle- ville, Ontario, from 1859 to 1867, where he learned the profession of dentistry. He remained in Wadsworth, Ohio, two years, and then located permanently in Ravenna, this county, in 1869. Here, by his scientific skill in his profession, he has built up a large and influential and lucrative practice. The Doctor was married June 6, 1868, to Miss Angeline Gilbert, of Belleville, Ontario. They have one son-James Gilbert. Dr. Clark is the only dentist in Ravenna, hav- ing obtained a certificate from the Ohio State Dental Society. He is one of the leading members of the profession in northeastern Ohio.
QUINCY COOK, proprietor of Ravenna Mills, Ravenna, was born April 28, 1833, in Elmore, Lamoille Co., Vt. His parents, David and Betsey (Conant) Cook, were natives of the same place, where the former died and the latter now resides. Our subject's grandfather Cook was a soldier in the war 1812, and lived to the advanced age of ninety-six. Our subject learned the trade of stone-cutter in his native place. At twenty years of age he came to Ohio, and assisted in the construction of the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad for one year. He then worked three years in the construction of the Cleve- land & Mahoning Railroad. He then spent one year in Watertown, Wis., and eighteen months in Rochester, Minn., in the livery business. He then returned to Ohio and married, October 5, 1859, Miss Charlotte R. Battles, of Weather- field, Trumbull County, and to this union have been born three children: Helen, Martha B. and Edward D. He remained two years on a farm in Trumbull County, then from 1862 till 1870 he held the position of foreman of masonry on the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad. In 1866 he purchased a farm in Ravenna Township, and there his family resided. He was Inspector of Masonry for the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1870, and in 1871 foreman of a force of men for E. W. Ensign, contractor on the Lake Shore Road. In 1872 Mr. Cook formed a partnership with Wanzer Holcomb, in taking contracts for various railroads and city corporations. In 1881 he built the Ravenna Mills on Main Street, and the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad, and he now devotes his attention principally to the management of this industry. The mill is for custom work, complete in all departments, and enjoying a very extensive patron- age in the surrounding county. Mr. Cook is a life-long Republican.
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JOHN CUTLER (deceased) a native of Windham County, Conn., came to Ravenna Township, this county, from Rensselaer County, N. Y., in 1819. Here he married, October 6, 1825, Miss Sallie G. Sutliff, daughter of Giles and Betsey Sutliff, who came to this county from Litchfield County, Conn., in 1817. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Cutler settled on their Jarm of 101 acres of well-improved land, situated in the western part of Ravenna Township, this county, where they have ever since resided. Their children were Mrs. Almira White, Florilla J., Mrs. Miranda S. Law, John Warren and Mrs. Lucvette Braden, all now living, and four who died in child- hood. Mr. Cutler died October 16, 1865, in his sixty-sixth year. He took an active interest in public affairs, having held the positions of Township Trustee and Township Assessor. In politics he was a Democrat. Warren Cutler now lives on the homestead with his widowed mother and his sister Florilla.
LUTHER DAY, deceased, ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, was born in Granville, Washington Co., N. Y., July 9, 1813. His paternal grandfather, Noah Day, was of the Connecticut family of Days, and did service under Washington in some of the hardest battles of the Revolution- ary war. Soon after the war he moved from Killingly, Conn., and settled on a farm in Granville, N. Y., and, being a blacksmith by trade, carried on both the business of farming and blacksmithing. He reared a large family, who, like himself, were Puritans in religion, and most of them good farmers and mechanics. David Day, the father of Luther Day, was a skilled mill-wright. On June 1, 1812, he married Rhoda Wheelock, of Tyringham, Berkshire Co., Mass. Her father was also a soldier of the Revolution. Her mother was Hannah Warren, a kinswoman of Maj .- Gen. Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill. The subject of this sketch attended the common schools until twelve years old, when he began an academic preparation for college, which he pursued for a year, when, his father having purchased a farm and saw-mill, he left the academy and worked at home on the farm for a year. He then returned to school, but in a few days after he received a message that his father had been killed in the mill. His father died much involved in debt, and it was thought that all he had saved would be sacrificed in the settlement of his estate. But, under the advice of an uncle, he resolved to save the family from that calamity. For six years-from fourteen to twenty-he labored on the farm and in the saw-mill, and with the help of his younger brother, the debts of the estate were paid and a home was saved for his mother and the younger children. Those are six valuable years to a young man desiring to obtain a liberal education, and the loss in that regard could never be regained, but great as the loss was to him and hard as the struggle was, he never looked back to those days with regret, but ever recurred to them as associated with the chief success of his life. Having at twenty years of age accomplished the desire of his friends and the ambition of his boyhood regarding the home of his family, his desire for an education returned, and working his way by teaching school, he resumed his preparatory course for college, and in 1835 entered Middlebury College, Vermont. During the junior year he taught the grammar school of Cambridge- port, Mass. At the close of the school year in September, 1838, his mother and family having in the meantime removed to Ravenna, Portage Co., Ohio, he went there to visit them, intending to return and complete his collegiate course, but owing to his limited pecuniary circumstances, he abandoned the idea, and began the study of law under the tuition of Hon. Rufus P. Spalding, then a resident of Ravenna, whose kindness to him during the two years of his preparatory study he ever gratefully remembered. On October 8, 1840, he was admitted to the bar. It was his good fortune to have a partnership offered
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him by Hon. Darius Lyman, an old practitioner of high standing at the Ohio bar. This partnership continued three years. In 1843 he was elected Prose- cuting Attorney of Portage County and served one term. While reading law he had made the acquaintance of Miss Emily Swift Spalding, eldest daughter of Hon. R. P. Spalding, to whom he was married July 24, 1845. Her mother was Lucretia Swift, daughter of Hon. Zephaniah Swift, late Chief Justice of Connecticut. Her father was afterward a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and for three terms a distinguished member of Congress, from the Cleve- land District, Ohio. Mr. Spalding having in 1840 moved to Akron, Mr. Day went there after his marriage and formed a partnership with him, remaining nearly a year, when, because of the ill health of his wife in that locality, he returned to Ravenna, where he resided during the remainder of his life. In 1848 our subject was again elected Prosecuting Attorney and served one term. In 1850 he was nominated by the Democratic party as a candidate for Con- gress, but the district having a large Whig majority, he was defeated. In the fall of 1851, at the first election of Judges under the Constitution of the State adopted that year, he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the district composed of the counties of Portage, Trumbull and Mahoning.
In February, 1852, while on a visit to her father, Judge R. P. Spalding, who had then become a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, his wife was taken sick. She died April 10, following. On April 26, 1854, Judge Day was married to Miss Ellen I. Barnes, of Lanesboro, Berkshire Co., Mass., a highly educated and estimable lady, and the union was most fortunate, both on his own account and of the three young children left him by his former marriage, by whom she has ever been most worthily esteemed and loved. Her kindred have for several generations been distinguished for their culture and high standing in the learned professions. Judge Day, at the expiration of his judicial term, in 1857, resumed the practice of his profession, and had a large and lucrative business in the counties of his former judicial district and adjoining counties. When the war of the Rebellion broke out, he ceased to act with the Democratic party, and at once identified himself with the Union organization. In Janu- ary, 1862, Gov. David Tod, who had in the fall before been elected Governor of Ohio by the Union party, appointed him Judge Advocate General on his staff with the rank of Colonel, but soon after, by reason of previous profes- sional engagements, he was reluctantly forced to resign the position. In the fall of 1863 be was elected by the Republican party to the Ohio Senate, from the district composed of Portage and Summit Counties. Having been in the fall of 1864 elected Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for the term of five years, he resigned his position as Senator after one year's service. In 1869 he was elected to a second term as Judge of the Supreme Court. In 1874 he was again nominated by the Republican party for the same position, but the State going largely Democratic that year, he was defeated. In 1875 the Leg- islature created a commission consisting of three persons, to revise the statute laws of the State. In April of that year he was appointed by Gov. William Allen, who had been elected Governor by the Democratic party, one of the Revising Commissioners. In the fall of 1875 an amendment of the State Constitution was adopted, creating a commission in aid of the Supreme Court in the disposition of the large number of cases pending in that court. On February 1, 1876, Gov. R. B. Hayes appointed our subject a member of that commission. Accordingly, he resigned his membership of the Revising Commission and entered upon the duties of the Supreme Court Commission, where he remained three years, when the commission expired by constitutional limitation. While on the Revising Commission he aided in the collation of the statutes, which
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were fragmentary and scattered through many volumes, and rewrote a portion of them, which were afterward embodied in the Revised Code, and enacted as part of the laws of the State. While connected with the Supreme Court he was four years Chief Justice and one year Chief Judge of the Supreme Court Commission. The results of his judicial labors appear in fifteen volumes of the Ohio State Reports, where his published opinions, measured only by their real merit, will remain for him a sufficient memorial of his judicial ability. After the expiration of Judge Day's judicial service, he returned to the practice of the law.
The children of his first wife were Emily L., William R. and Edward L. Of these Emily L. married George E. Fairchild and is settled in Ravenna. William R., who is a graduate of Michigan University, resides in Canton, Stark Co., Ohio, and is a prominent member of the Stark County bar. Edward L., a boy of bright promise, died of diphtheria at the age of twelve. By his second wife he had six children: Mary E., the eldest of these, a most lovely child, died when five years of age; Charles F. is a graduate of Williams Col- lege, Massachusetts, and is about to enter the legal profession; David B. is in his junior year in Adelbert College of the Western Reserve University, Ohio; Robert H. is in the preparatory department of the same institution, and Anna B. at home attending the Union School, of Ravenna; John L., the youngest child, died in his infancy. During the war for the preservation of the Union, Judge Day took an active part in the recruiting service, and few civilians rendered more efficient aid to the Union cause. During those years he con- tracted a slight throat trouble, from which he never recovered, occasioned by too much out-door speaking. More than a passing mention of his services is due to this memorable period, which witnessed the most active portion of his whole life. A life-long Democrat of the Jackson school, prominent in the councils of his party, and a fearless and judicious leader, he ever acted with those who sustained the integrity of the Union. The first gun that was fired on Sumter lifted him to a higher arena. Abandoning party affiliation and, true to the traditions of the patriotic ancestry from which he sprung, he devoted himself to the Union cause with a zeal and enthusiasm that knew no abatement until the Republic won its imperishable crown at Appomattox. In raising and organizing the Ohio Union forces, Govs. Dennison, Tod and Brough respectively sought his co operation, and he entered into the work with charac- teristic ardor and devotion-day after day, night after night, speaking, encouraging and inspiring those that took their lives in their hands, and those who sent their sons to the scenes of conflict and danger. Having urged the assignment of Gen. Garfield, the President of Hiram College, to the command of a regiment, he joined him in the work of its organization, and the meeting in the church of Hiram, addressed by Judge Day, was a memorable occasion, when the young men of the college and vicinity volunteered to form the first company in the old Forty-second Regiment of Ohio, whose first leader was destined to a transcendant historic fame. Throughout this entire period the demands on Judge Day for his services on public occasions of every kind were almost unlimited, and the fervor of his public addresses roused men to action at home, and sent encouragement to those in the field. For himself, permitting no reward, and asking no honor, he devoted the whole energies of his being to the success of the cause. Born among the hills of eastern New York, and spending his academic years at Castleton, Bennington and Middlebury, Vt., he ever had an enthusiasm for the mountains that nearly amounted to poetic inspiration, and when worn with overwork he was accustomed to resort to them for rest and reinvigoration. Judge Day was a member of the Methodist
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