USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 100
USA > Ohio > Huron County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 100
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PHYSICIANS.
The first physician who settled in Norwich town- ship was Dr. Hurlburt. He located on lot number forty, in the second section, in 1825. He practiced in the township until his death, in 1828.
The present medical staff of Norwich township is composed of M. Tompkins, James Henderson, James Hutchinson, and E. V. B. Buckingham.
INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS.
In 1834, Peter Brown put in operation the first grist mill in the township. This was propelled by horse power, and it is said did a good business. In 1830, Benjamin Moore built a saw mill on Slate run, on the west end of the farm afterwards owned by G. H. Woodruff. Two years later, Thomas Bennett, erected another saw mill on the same stream, and in 1840, Ira Wood built a third mill on the same stream. These mills were all eventually carried away by the high water.
In 1842, Miner Atherton built a steam saw mill on the fourth section. James L. Couch built another steam saw mill in the same section, a few years later. In 1846, John Idler built a steam saw mill at Center- ton. This was burned in 1856, and rebuilt in 1857, by Messrs. Idler & Hester. It was again burned in 1859, and rebuilt the same year. At this point John Miller has a steam saw mill and barrel heading man- ufactory. At Havana, Lester Gregory has a steam
saw mill, and H. V. Owens a machine and repair shop.
ROADS AND MAIL ROUTES.
The first road opened to the township was that made by General Beall and his army, in 1812, leading from Wooster to Fremont, through New Haven and Norwich. The trail came into the township at the southeast corner and ran northwesterly by the village plat, and left the township on the north side, about one and one-half miles east of the northwest corner. Hopkins made a survey of the trail, and located the present road, leading past the residences of Wesley Robinson and John S. Hester.
The first post route through the township extended from Tiffin to Fitchville. It was established in 1827. Adam Hance carried the mail.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
CHARLES T. HESTER.
The subject of this memoir was the oldest of six children, and only son of John S. and Lucinda Hes- ter, and was born in Norwich, Huron county, Ohio,
.
April 17, 1843. His youth was spent on the farm of his father, with an attendance of a few months in each year at school in the neighborhood. At the age of fifteen, he became a student of Baldwin University, Berea, Ohio. A year later the writer, a year his senior, became a student at the same college, and a member of the same class, and for a time was his room-mate. Charles was a young man of excellent
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
parts. His mind was active, his thought comprehen- sive, and he readily acquired the mastery of any sub- ject with which he grappled. He ranked among the very best in his classes. So mature was his mind that he found his most congenial associates in those of his fellow students who were older than himself, and in more advanced studies. He had equal facility in the mastery of the various branches of study, whether mathematics, the classics, or the sciences. Unosten- tatious and unassuming, he always commanded the respectful attention of his companions, whenever he engaged with them in conversation, and his opinions were those of sound judgment and wise discretion, and were wholly free from narrow-mindedness. In- deed, Charles Hester was as promising a young man at the time he left his alma mater as any whose voice had ever resounded in echoes from the walls of Bald- win University. Intellectually, he had no peer among his fellows, while socially he was genial, fond of the humorons, if it did not smack of the low and vulgar. His was an affectionate and generous nature, and he loved his friends with a feeling of the warmest attach- ment.
The fall of 1863 was the last term in which he at- tended college. The following winter he taught school in his father's neighborhood, and in the spring of 1864 went to Cleveland to attend a course of com- mercial instruction, where, as usual, he made rapid progress. He left school to enter the one hundred days' service, and to do what lay in his power for the success of that cause theu so dear to every patriot heart-the vanquishing of the rebellious South, and the consequent establishment of the Union upon the firm foundation of equal rights for all. He enlisted in Company H, of the One Hundred and Sixty-sixth Ohio National Guards. While the regiment was sta- tioned at Fort Richardson, near Washington City, he was taken ill with typhoid fever, and being subse- quently removed from the camp hospital to the gen- eral hospital at Fairfax Seminary, Virginia, he died there on the 17th day of August, 1864. The care and attention which he needed during his illness seemed to be inadequately provided. But the writer spares comment on so painful a subject. His remains were brought to the home of his sorrow-stricken parents in Norwich, and his funeral was largely attended by relatives, neighbors of the family, and school friends of Charles. The memory of that sad day is vivid in- deed. A quiet little church filled with a people whose faces were grave and whose hearts were sympathetic; a father and a mother bowed in the agony of grief at the loss of their only son, and sisters mourning bitter-
ly the loss of their only brother; the preacher, the deceased's alma mater's president, whose words sought to administer consolation; and then Charles T. Hester was taken to the quiet cemetery and covered from sight, amidst a silence most solemn and impressive. broken only by the sobs and cries of grief which could not be repressed.
Charles had always been a dutiful son, and his
father found in him, in the later years of his life, a wise and prudent counselor. His mind had reached such maturity and had so accustomed itself to inde- pendent and original channels of thought, that he was enabled to render his father much service in matters requiring counsel: while to his sisters, he was not only a companion, but a protector and a loving, kind and considerate brother. None knew Charles Hester, but to admire and love him. Had he lived, his career must certainly have been one of distinction. He possessed every qualification-ability, learning, a hatred of wrong and wrong-doing, a love of the right and of right-doing, warm attachment to his friends, habits of thought and industry, a nature generous, a character unblemished and a name untarnished.
JOHN S. HESTER.
Martin Hester, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Greene county, Pennsylvania, where he was born September 6, 1787. When twenty years of age he removed with his parents to Ohio and settled in Columbiana connty. Two years afterwards, March 30, 1809, he married Mary M. Stough, daugh- ter of Rev. John Stough, a Lutheran clergyman, who came to Columbiana county with his family in 1806. She was born in " The Glades " (now Maryland), Feb- ruary 15, 1789. In 1814, Mr. Hester and family set- tled in Orange township, Richland (now Ashland) county, where he entered a quarter section of govern- ment land. They resided there until 182?, when they removed to Bronson, Huron county, Ohio, and settled on the farm now owned and occupied by the son, Martin M. Hester, where the father and mother spent the remainder of their days. Mr. Hester died Jann- ary 31, 1870, and Mrs. Hester June 25, 1863. They were pioneers in that true sense of breaking up the native forest, removing the obstructions to. and pre- paring the way for, the march of civilization, and in establishing society on a sound basis. In the estab- lishment of schools, religions societies, and all those institutions tending to promote the general welfare of society, none were more zealous and efficient than they. They reared a family of five children, whom they lived to see settled in life and who are still living. John S. Hester, the subject of this notice, and the oldest of the family, was born near New Lisbon, Col- umbiana county, Ohio, November 8, 1810. In the acquirement of his limited education he enjoyed only the advantages of the rude common schools of the time. At eighteen he began work for Mr. Aro Dan- forth, of Bronson, to learn the carpenter and joiner's trade and continued thus engaged for three years, for which term of service he received one hundred and fifty dollars and his board, furnishing his clothing himself. "He then began work at his trade on his own account, which he followed for several years and a portion of the time was employed in the building of
WILLIS T. LAWRENCE.
MARY M. RICHARDS.
MRS. CLARINDA LAWRENCE.
EBENEZER LAWRENCE
RESIDENCE OF EBENEZER LAWRENCE, NORWICH TP, HURON CO., OHIO.
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
lake vessels at Huron. In April, 1836, having deter- mined to settle upon a farm, he made his first pur- chase of land, which consisted of one hundred acres of lot number thirty-eight in the third section of Norwich, but which he exchanged, before making set- tlement, for the farm on which he has since resided. October 13, 1836, he was united in marriage to Jane S. Pancost, of Bronson, who died a few months after -May 15, 1837. He married for his second wife. April 6, 1842, Lucinda M. Hildreth, the oldest of nine children of Benjamin and Susan (Colegrove) Hildreth, and who was born in Tompkins county, New York, August 21, 1816. The family removed to Fairfield township, Huron county, in the year 1833, where the father died September 20, 1852. Mrs. Hildreth died in Franklin, Tennessee, March 16, 1855.
They were for many years members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and one son of their seven surviv- ing children, Rev. T. F. Hildreth, is a distinguished minister of the church, now resident of Jackson, Michigan. To Mr. and Mrs. Hester were born five children-one son and four daughters, as follows: Charles T., born April 17, 1843, of whom a biograph- ical sketch is elsewhere given; Eliza W., born March 21, 1846, married January 16, 1873, S. R. McConnell, and now resides at Burlington, Iowa; Snsan H., born October 27, 1847, died November 5, 1853; Julia, born August 15, 1851, married William Dougherty, of Mansfield, October 6, 1869, and at present resides at Newark, Ohio; Hattie R., born October 10, 1856, re- sides with her parents. Mr. Hester united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1835, and since his settlement in Norwich he has continuously filled some office in the church. His parents were members of the same society for many years and until their death, and all their children, children-in-law and some of their grandchildren are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Hester is a man of thought, settled convictions and progressive ideas. He has given each of his chil- dren a liberal education, one of whom, Mrs. McCon- nell, graduated at the Ohio Wesleyan University, ladies' department, in the summer of 1866. The writer of this sketch was well acquainted with this lady during her school days. She was an exception- ally bright and attractive young lady, and one of the aptest scholars he ever knew. Much superior was she, in this regard, to her classmates of her own sex,-for at Baldwin University, Berea, Ohio, where, previous to her graduation at Delaware, she was for several years a student, the classes were represented by both sexes. She excelled, especially in mathematics, and in scholarship usually outranked the best minds among her gentlemen friends and classmates.
Mr. Hester, in having thus been a liberal patron of a higher education, gives proof, not only of his ap- preciation of the advantages which a careful and systematic training has for the mind, but also of the loving generosity toward his family which has ever
characterized him. And in all this he is most heartily joined by Mrs. Hester.
Mr. and Mrs. Hester, in their declining years, are enjoying the quiet happiness which should come to those who have ever lived at peace with men and in the fear and favor of God. They continue to reside in the comfortable farm dwelling in Norwich, a view of which may elsewhere be seen, and which Mr. H. erected with his own hands-dug the cellar, drew the stone, and assisted in laying the foundation walls, hewed and hauled the timbers, planed, mortised and fitted the doors and windows, helped to erect the frame and lay the roof. Their daughter, Hattie, an interesting young lady, resides with her parents -- their only child and companion. May a ripe old age be attained unto by each of them.
EBENEZER LAWRENCE.
The subject of the following sketch is the only one of the pioneers of Norwich township now living. He was born December 8, 1808, in Westford, Chittenden county, Vermont, and is the third of a family of five, the issue of Wilder and Roxanna Woodruff Lawrence, (for further data of whom, see Norwich history). He was eight years of age when he came with his parents to live in their wildwoods home. His education was derived, principally, in the little log school house, in what is now district number eight, of Norwich township. .
His life has been that which usually falls to the lot of a pioneer, one of hardship and labor. He has chopped, alone, one hundred and twenty-five acres of heavy timber, and assisted in logging some six hun- dred acres more. The farm in lot thirty-three, in the second section, which he now occupies, is the same his father began improvements on in 1819, and is in a profitable state of cultivation.
Mr. Lawrence was married, October 15, 1843, to Clarinda, danghter of Rouse and Mary Barney Bly. She was a native of Springfield, Richland county, Ohio. The children of this marriage are two-Willis T., who was born July 11, 1844; he married Francis Richards. Mary M., who was born October 5, 1847; she married Edgar Richards. Both children reside in Norwich, but a short distance from the old homestead.
Mrs. Lawrence, some eleven years since, united with the Congregational Church in Greenfield town- ship, and continues to the present a consistent and worthy christian. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence, and also their children and wives, are members of Live Oak Grange, No. 747, P. of H. Politically Mr. Lawrence is an old time Jackson Democrat. He has seen what few can boast of, a dense and howling wilderness gradually disappear and be made to " blossom as the rose."
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
Rouse Bly, father of Mrs. Lawrence, was born in Herkimer county, New York, in 1794. He came to Ohio in 1817, and located in Richland county. He married Mary Barney of New Haven township, Huron county, Ohio. Four children were born in Richland county-Mary, Lysander M., Semantha, and Clarinda. In 1825, he removed to, and permanently located in, New Haven township, where three children were born -Matilda, Mary and Alvin. Mrs. Bly died on March 5, 1829, aged twenty-five years, and he married Mrs. Sophia Coe, by whom he had six children, two only alive. She died in September, 1852. Mr. Bly died September 4, 1866.
JAMES H. DAILEY.
The subject of this sketch was born in Shawangunk township, Ulster county. New York, July 16, 1817. His paternal ancestors were of Irish and German ex- traction, and those on his mother's side were origin- ally from England and Holland. His parents were Thomas and Sarah (Terwilliger) Dailey, who had a family of nine children, of whom James was the eld- est. In the fall of 1822, Mr. Dailey removed with his family from Ulster to Cayuga county, and the follow- ing spring to Livingston county, New York, where he located in the township of Mount Morris. He purchased a squatter's right on what was called the Indian reservation, the land not then being for sale. He resided there four years, when he moved to the west side of the Genesee river in the township of Lei- cester, where he settled. In the fall of 1833 he came to Ohio to select a location for settlement, and pur- chased of Henry Terry, of Bronson, the whole of lot number twenty-four and the west half of twenty-three in the third section of Greenfield township, Huron county, Ohio, to which he removed with his family in the spring of 1834. He continued to live here un- til his death, which occurred May 28, 1864, at the age of sixty-seven years, surviving his wife four years, who died at the age of sixty-three. The youth of the subject of this memoir was spent in the hard work of farming at that early period, and he enjoyed but few opportunities for the acquirement of an education. With the exception of one term at the Norwalk Sem- inary, subsequent to his arrival in Greenfield, he ob- tained his education at the common schools of Mount Morris, New York. From 1839 to 1847 he taught a country school during the winter season, working upon the farm through the summer. October 16, 1843, he was united in marriage to Esther Howard, daughter of Hosea and Heppy Howard, of Oneida county, New York. She was born January 15, 1819, and emigrated with her father to Ohio in 1836. The children born of this marriage were two sons, Henry K. and Lewis C. Dailey, who were born, the former June 12, 1845, and the latter October 11, 1847. His
wife died December 27, 1860, and he married for his second wife, January 2, 1862, Elizabeth J. Thomp- son, who has borne him two children, viz .: Ida, who was born March 31, 1865, and died October 1st of the same year, and Benjamin T., born October 22, 1866.
After his first marriage, Mr. Dailey settled on forty acres of the old homestead in Greenfield, where he continued to live until 1870, when he moved to the village of Havanna, in Norwich township, having the year previous purchased of Seymour W. Owen his residence, together with about twenty acres of land. This change of location was made in order that he might, in a measure, be released from the care and labor of the farm, and that better educational 'advan- tages might be had for his children. In 1870 he bought the grain warehouse of Joseph Hayes, and also the building in which, in connection with his brother, John L. Dailey, he opened a general store in the fall of 1828. and which they continue to carry on.
Mr. Dailey has added to his original purchase of forty acres of land, until he now owns two hundred and sixty acres, lying in Greenfield and Norwich townships. While farming has been his chief occu- pation, yet his enterprise and industry have been man- ifested in other undertakings. He was a stock dealer or drover for several years, and, as before stated, is now engaged in merchandise and also in the grain business at Havanna.
In 1838 he embraced the religious tenets of the Disciples' denomination, and a few years after united with the church at North Fairfield, and continues a consistent member. In politics he is a democrat.
A. B. GILSON,
of Norwich, Huron county, Ohio, traces his lineage back to a goodly origin. His grandfather, Joel, and grandmother, Sarah Adams Gilson, were married Oc- tober 3, 1771, and the dates of their respective births were 1748 and 1751. Joel Gilson was a collector of continental money, and when congress passed the law repudiating it, he had in his possession about forty thousand dollars in this currency, which he lost.
The children of Joel and Sarah Gilson were: Joel, Jr., Seth, Sarah, Jonas, John, Jesse, Asa, Rhoda, Nahum and Anna.
Nahum Gilson, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Saratoga county, New York, April 27, 1793, and in 1819 moved to Norwich township, beginning as a single man the hard life of a pioneer, and succeeding in hewing from the forest a home, which, in his later years, was a very pleasant one, and contained but little to suggest the privation and toil by which it had been secured. He sowed the first. wheat in the township. His wife, Sally Ormes Gil- son, was born in Northumberland, Massachusetts, January 12, 1792, and she was married in February, 1819, and immediately came with her husband to his
JAMES H. DAILEY.
MRS. JAMES H. DAILEY.
STORE & WAREHOUSE OF DAILEY BROTHERS, HAVANA.
RESIDENCE OF JAMES H. DAILEY. HAVANA, HURON CO.,O.
JOHN BOWEN .
MRS. JOHN BOWEN.
RESIDENCE OF JOHN BOWEN , NORWICH TP., HURON CO., OHIO.
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
newly found home. They were the parents of seven children.
Nahum Gilson, in 1830, became agent for Hon. John W. Allen, of Cleveland (where the latter is still residing, in the seventy-seventh year of his age), for the sale of some two thousand acres of land, situated in Norwich township. Mr. Allen had purchased the land at one dollar per acre, and authorized Mr. Gilson to place it in the market at two dollars per acre. This Mr. Gilson did, disposing of the last lot to Mr. James Robinson. Mr. Allen speaks in very high terms of praise as to the straightforward, business like manner in which this trust was executed.
A. B. Gilson was born in Norwich township, April 23, 1827, and grew up enjoying the usual advantages and suffering the usual disadvantages of the farmer boy. He secured a common school education, and at the age of eighteen began teaching, being examined by and securing his first certificate from Judge Stick- ney. His first school was in the village of Havana, and the amount of his wages was eleven dollars per month, he finding his own board. He taught thirteen succeeding winters, with the exception of one season, and his last school was in the district in which he re- sides. There was something of a disparity between the remuneration at the beginning and the end of this long term of school life; for his last school teach- ing was paid for at the rate of two dollars per day, and the teacher boarded. He began teaching music, also, when he was eighteen years of age, and has taught almost continuously, in one form or another, ever since. He is now president of the Huron County Musical Association.
When the war of the rebellion broke out, Mr. Gil- son patriotically devoted his best energies to the sup- port of the Union cause. In the fall of 1863, he raised a company of one hundred and fifteen men. He was elected captain, and received his commission from Governor David Tod. On the occurrence of the re-organization he was made major, but the force being consolidated with other regiments he was retired and came home.
He is the oldest man now living in Norwich, who was born there. Mr. Gilson is an active, stirring man, now, as he ever has been-a man of affairs, and one who labors for the general good, as well as for personal success. He is both liberal minded and lib- eral hearted.
He married Miss Eliza, daughter of Mr. Chauncey Baker and Mrs. Rhoda (Webster) Baker, of Granger township, Medina county, born February 20, 1842. The marriage ceremony was performed in Cleveland, February 8, 1862, by Prof. Samuel Foljambee. This couple have one child, Ada B., a beautiful little girl, born December 25, 1875.
E. W. Gilson, brother of A. B., was treasurer of Huron county from 1874 to 1848. He was also jus- tice of the peace in his own township for thirteen years, and held the office of township clerk for fifteen
years, possessing the confidence of the people to such a degree that ren of both parties gave him their cor- dial support.
JOHN BOWEN.
John Bowen, only child of Constant and Agnes Bowen (whose maiden name was Parker), was born in Salem county, New Jersey, March 11, 1805. When about a year old, his parents started on a jour- ney to the distant west, as Ohio was then called. His mother died during the journey through Pennsyl- vania, and was buried at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains. The father, with his infant child, re- mained in Pennsylvania about a year, when he re- moved to Columbiana county, Ohio, and worked in a furnace at New Lisbon for a few years. He then re- moved to Coshocton county, where he continued to reside until 1821. He subsequently resided in Rich- land county a year, and a few years in Crawford county, and then removed to Scott township, Marion county, where he made his first purchase of land and settled. He married his second wife (Sarah Hill) in 1819, by which union there were born nine children, only one of whom survives-a son, now living in In- diana.
The subject of this notice married, in Marion county, Ohio, March 11, 1832, Christena Robinson, daughter of William and Lucretia Robinson, who was born March 11, 1813. It will be noticed as a some- what singular circumstance that the birth of Mr. and Mrs. Bowen, as well as their marriage, occurred on the same day of the same month. About eighteen months after his marriage, Mr. Bowen settled on the place where he still resides. He found the land still heavily timbered, and by no means easy to bring under cultivation, but he was strong of heart and sturdy of limb, and the labor and hardship necessary in the acquisition of a home in the woods possessed for him no insuperable difficulties. Indeed, he was offered by his father the gift of a farm in Indiana if he would remove thither and abandon what seemed to him a hopeless task; but he declined, preferring, rather, to remain where he had "stuck his stakes," and with nothing to begin with but his axe, his own strong hands, and the assistance of his efficient wife, get a home out of the woods.
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