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 53
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 53
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Mr. Simmons, the pioneer, died in Greenfield Jannary 26, 1836, in the sixty-third year of his age.
Luther Ashley with his family of wife and seven children removed from Franklin county, Massachu- setts, to this township, in November, 1817, six weeks being consumed in the journey. Mr. Ashley settled near the east town line on the farm now occupied by Elias Mitchell. He subsequently changed his loca- tion in the township, but eventually removed to Indi- ana. He was taken sick and died while returning to Greenfield in the fall of 1838. His widow died in the township in 1856. There are three children living in the township, viz: Mrs. Beers, Dennis Ashley, and Mrs. Smith, widow of Erastus Smith, Jr.
Worden Ashley, a brother of Luther, and family, came in at the same time, and the two families occu- pied the same house-a double log house-for a few years. Worden subsequently took up his residence a short distance east of the center of town. He died in this township.
Epenetus Starr moved into the township in 1817, coming from the State of New York. He died about the year 1845. He erected the first brick house in the township.
Edward H. Lowther, now living in Greenfield, in his seventy-ninth year, came to Ohio from Delaware county, New York, early in the year 1817. Joseph Crawford and family, who settled in Norwalk, emi- grated at the same time, and Lowther had charge of their goods, which were shipped by the Lake from Buffalo. After working for a time for Esquire David Abbott, Hosmer Merry, Joseph Crawford and others, he came to Greenfield. The first work he did after his arrival in the township was a job of chopping for Eliphalet B. Simmons, in payment of money borrowed of Mr. Simmons at Buffalo, who was then on his way to the Fire-lands. In the fall of 1824 he purchased land of Judge Mills, on lot twenty-one, section one, and in January, 1825, married Miss Martha Lovell, daughter of David Lovell, and commenced married life on his farm in the following April. They occu- pied this place until the spring of 1823, when they
moved to their present residence a short distance east of Greenfield center.
William Lowther, a brother, came to Greenfield from Knox county, Ohio. He married here, and resided in the town some twenty years, and then went to Illinois.
Samuel Spencer and family moved in from Trum- bull county in 1817, and located on the center road. a short distance north of Greenfield center. He died here in September, 1848, aged eighty-four. His wife died the year previous at the age of eighty-three.
William Campbell and family were early residents of the eastern part of the township.
Levi Platt, now residing in Greenfield, in the eighty- fourth year of his age, was born in Fairfield county, Connecticut, and is the fifteenth of a family of . seventeen children, of whom he alone survives. He arrived in this township in the fall of 1818, and the succeeding winter taught the first school at the center of town. The next spring he returned, on horseback, to Connecticut, where he remained until the spring of 1822, when he came back to Greenfield, and settled three-fourths of a mile south of the center, where he now resides. He married, May 10, 1825, Abigail Bodman, formerly of Ontario county, New York. She is now aged nearly seventy-four.
Elder John Wheeler and family came to Greenfield from Richmond, Ontario county, New York, in March, 1818. He made his location on lot twenty- one, section three. Mr. Wheeler was a minister of the Free Will Baptist church, and followed his calling for upwards of forty years, and until the infirmities of age compelled a cessation of active labor. His field of labor, as a pioneer preacher, was very extensive, and he was, of course, away from home much of the time. The management of the farm was necessarily left almost wholly to his wife and children. She died some thirty years ago, and Mr. Wheeler subsequently remarried. He sold his farm some ten or twelve years since, and moved to Greenfield center. where he died in August, 1878, at the advanced age of nearly ninety-one. There were nine children, six of whom are now living. John II., Calvin and Bradford, reside in this township ; Aaron lives in Norwich, Chauncey B., in Kansas, and Mrs. Almira Tucker, in Sandusky. Benoni died in September, 18:6, on the place now occupied by his widow. Asa, the oldest of the chil- dren, and a daughter, the youngest, died many years ago.
James Wilson, Daniel Davis, and a family by the name of Graham, were early settlers in this township.
Ozias Joiner arrived in Greenfield in the spring of 1818. He came from Cayuga county, New York, walking to Buffalo, thence taking passage on a vessel, but disembarked at Erie, on account of head winds. He proceeded on foot to a short distance west of Roeky river, Cuyahoga county, where he remained through the winter, when he resumed his journey to Greenfield. In 1825 he returned to Connectient to purchase his land-two hundred acres-lots thirty-
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
three and thirty-four, to which he subsequently added fifty acres of lot thirty-two, all in section two. He married. in 1838, Philura Newbury, and both are now living on one hundred acres of the original pur- chase. Mr. Joiner is nearly eighty-two years of age.
Dan Lindsey and family removed from Saratoga county, New York, to this township in 1819. They started on their journey in February, and were six weeks and three days on the road. He settled on the place now occupied by Jesse Smith, in the western part of town. He afterwards exchanged this farm with Judge Mills for the farm now occupied by widow Joiner, and built a saw mill on the west branch of the river. In 1832, he took up his abode on the place now occupied by his son Benjamin, the only surviv- ing member of the family. Mr. L. died here in Jan- nary, 1864.
Lebo Blackman arrived from Connecticut in the spring of 1822, in company with Levi Platt. He subsequently married and settled on the farm adjoin- ing Mr. Platt's on the south. He died in Greenfield six or seven years since, and his widow now resides at the center.
The same year Jacob Bliss and family moved in from Massachusetts, and located where Jonathan now lives. He afterwards bought a short distance south of his first location, and lived there the remainder of his life. There are three children living. of whom Jonathan Bliss and Mrs. Dennis Ashley reside in this township.
John Arthur, wife and one child, emigrated to this country from Ireland in 1822, settling in this town- ship, on lot twenty, in the third section. Mr. Arthur is still living, and on his original location, aged eighty- four. His wife died December, 1878, aged eighty- five. He and his two sons, Robert and Wm. H., own some twelve hundred acres of land in this town- ship. There are six children, and all living in Green- field.
Jacob Smith moved, with his family, from Oneida county, New York, to Greenfield in 1824. Mr. Smith came to the township with John Pierce and family in 1817, but remained only a few months. The fam- ily first located a short distance south of where Ethan Lovell now resides, on the west side of the road. A year or two after they "took up" the farm now occu- pied by Aaron F. Kellogg. In the fall of 1833, a son-Abel Smith-purchased the farm on which he now resides, and the family moved there. Mr. Smith died here in November, 1852, aged eighty-one. His wife died a few months previous. There were eight children, two of whom are living. Anna-Mrs. Knight-resides in New York, and Abel in Green- field. A son-George B. Smith-was killed by a well caving in on him, on the farm of Mr. Charles B. Simmons, in February, 1837.
Archibald Easter, from Pennsylvania, settled in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) in 1819. He re- mained there three years, when he removed to the vicinity of Columbus. Three years subsequently he
came to this township and located on the center road, nearly a mile north of Greenfield center, on the farm now owned by Mrs. Arthur. He subsequently moved to the farm now occupied by his son Elias. He died here in 1867. His widow survives, and lives with her son. Two daughters, Mrs. Arthur and Mrs. John McLane, reside a short distance north of the center.
Joseph Noggle settled in the southwest part of town in about the year 1826; Jeremiah Cole about the same time where Lewis Wood now lives. He subsequently moved to the corners, and opened a tavern on the location of the present residence of J. Shourd. He afterwards moved to the place occupied by Captain Lowther, where he died seven or eight years since.
Adam A. Lewis and family emigrated from Jeffer- son county, New York, to this township, in May, 1827, and resided here until 1842, when he moved to Ionia, Michigan, where he died in 1864. His widow now resides there with a son. There were ten chil- dren, five of whom are now living. Alexander, the oldest, lives at Greenfield center. Mr. Lewis, the pioneer, served in the war of 1812.
Stephen Robinson and family moved in from New York in the spring of 1828, and settled where his widow now resides. In 1819, he came to Ohio with his brother Reuben, and brought from the Onondaga . Salt Works about one hundred and thirty barrels of salt, the most of which he sold in Huron county, at five dollars per barrel, and some of it for ten dollars a barrel. He visited Greenfield in the winter of 1824-5, and married February 10, 1825, Emerline Haynes, daughter of Nathaniel Haynes, with whom he returned to New York, remaining there until the spring of 1828, when he purchased land of his father- in-law, and removed to Greenfield. He died Decem- ber 13, 1875, in the eighty-first year of his age. Mrs. Robinson, aged nearly seventy-six, still occupies the primitive log house in which she and her hus- band so long ago began pioneer life on the Firelands. When a girl and living at home, Mrs. Robinson went one evening to a neighbor's to borrow a flax hatchel, and while returning in the dusk of the evening along the road skirted by a ravine, she heard in the path below the steps of some animal. She was near the hollow where the road was intersected by the path. She left the road, and throwing her hatchel away, ran across a clearing to her father's woods, in which she saw a burning log heap, arriving at which she looked back for the first time, and saw the hungry eyes of a wolf glaring at her through the darkness only a few rods away. Seizing a firebrand from the fire, she ran for dear life for home, waving the brand about her as she ran, and finally reached the house in safety. The next morning the hatehel was recovered.
William Smith, of New York State, married Philena Mitchell, a native of Connecticut, and removed to Ohio in 1831, settling one mile north of Greenfield | center, resided there a number of years, when he
222
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
moved to Michigan, where he subsequently died. His widow now lives in California at the advanced age of eighty years. There are six children, as fol- lows: Harrison, who married Caroline Benjamin, and Saloma, wife of Joseph Wilcox, live in the township of Norwich; Marshall, in Canada; Marietta and Hen- rietta (twins), both married and living, the former in California and the latter in Michigan; Lauretta, the youngest, also resides in Michigan.
In the returns of the enumeration of the white male inhabitants, over the age of twenty-one years, in Huron county, in the year 1827, as made by George Sheffield, conuty assessor, the following persons are recorded as such inhabitants of this township:
Cyrenius Starr.
Hiram Starr.
Jeremiah Cole.
Benj. B. Halladay.
John Dimitt.
Hngh A. Campbell.
Orange Starr.
Jona. Leffingwell.
Christian Brewbaker.
Jacob Trnxel.
Jehiel Andrews.
Isaac Groover.
Henry Groover.
John Groover
Philip Lewis.
Adam A. Lewis. James W. McIntyre Robert Evans. James Henderson. Abel Halladay.
Edward H. Lowther. James Mcintyre, Jr.
Archibald Easter.
Willianı Truxel.
Eli Halladay. Moses Smith. John Pierce.
Jonathan Smith.
Harlow Simmons.
Alexander Pierce.
Eliphalet B. Simmons.
Lemnel Brooks. Alder Pierce. William Arthur. Charles W. Miller. Epenetus Starr. Solomon Davis.
James Ashley .
John Wheelor.
Leonard Ashley.
John Call. John Hamilton.
John Easter.
.Robert Easter, Jr.
James Easter 2d.
Joseph Edwards.
Sam'l Spencer.
Hiram Spencer.
Gilbert Ashley.
Sam'l C. Spencer. Seba Mather. Dexter Ashley . Jonathan Bliss. Noah Bliss.
Lnther Ashley. Nathaniel White. Levi Platt. Andrew Long. Robert Inscho.
Lebo Blackman.
Jacob Bliss.
John Inscho.
William Long.
Matthew Long.
Timothy S. Sherman.
Dan Lindsey.
Salmon Lindsey .
Denison Bascom.
Nathaniel Haynes.
Josiah Root.
Robert Arthur.
Thos. Arthur 2d.
Robert Clark.
Richard West.
Nathaniel Warren
John West.
George McFarland.
According to the "enumeration of the white male inhabitants of Greenfield above the age of twenty- one years," as returned to the county clerk by Seba Mather, lister, for the year 1819, the number of such inhabitants was one hundred and thirty. Peru was then attached to Greenfield, and is included in the enumeration.
EARLY EVENTS.
Hanson Read built the first house in Greenfield in the spring of 1811.
Franklin Read, son of Hanson and Elizabeth Read, was the first white child born in this township. The date was April 25, 1812. Mr. Read is now living in Norwalk township, a miłe south of the village.
The first marriage was that of William Smith to Miss Lovina Pierce, daughter of Alden Pierce, in 1812. Erastus Smith, justice of the peace, performed the nuptial ceremony. Mr. Smith and family moved to Illinois in 1831.
The following marriage notice was published in the Sandusky Clarion May 5, 1824:
"POSTSCRIPT-NUPTIAL-EXTRA .- Marriage, on the 20th ultimo, at the house of Nathaniel Haynes, by Thomas Tilson, Esq .: William Davis an African, to Vancy Hunter, a white woman; both of Greenfield.
' Oh dear, what can the matter be? Will no one deign to marry me!
Yes; Cupid kept his shaft not back; He missed the white, but hit a black!'
Communicated."
The first death in the township was that of an in- fant son of Samuel C. and Nancy Spencer, in the spring of 1816. The child was buried on the farm.
Ruth, danghter of David Lovell, was the first per- son buried in the cemetery at Greenfield Center. Her death occurred February 17, 1818, at the age of nearly fourteen.
POST OFFICE.
The first post office was established in 1818 or 1819, and was called Lafayette. The first postmaster was Joseph Cook, who kept the office in his own house, on lot number thirty, in the fourth section. He was succeeded by Hiram Spencer, in 1822, and the loca- tion of the office changed to the center of town. In 1835 the name of the office was changed to Steuben, and has continued since under that name, Calvin Wheeler being the present incumbent.
PHYSICIANS.
Dr. Moses C. Sanders, of the township of Peru, was one of the earliest physicians that practiced in this township. The first resident physician was Dr. Henry Niles, who began the practice of medicine in this township in the spring of 1831. He remained two years and then removed to Clyde, Sandusky county, and subsequently to Adams, Seneca county, where he died in September, 1864. Dr. Samuel McCammon arrived in this township and began the practice of his profession in 1845. He married, in September, 1848, Miss Philena Blackman, and settled where his widow now resides, a short distance south of Greenfield center. Dr. McCammon died in this township August 3, 1870. There were several physi- cians who resided and practiced medicine in this township before Dr. McCammon, and one or two since, but their residence was comparatively brief.
RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.
The first religious meeting in the township was held at the cabin of Erastus Smith, on the first Sabbath in the spring of 1815, on which occasion the Rev. Green Parker, from near Milan, officiated. A church organ- ization was not effected until the year 1822. July 3, of that year, the First Congregational church of Greenfield was formed, the Revs. Lot B. Sullivan and Alvin Coe, missionaries, officiating in its organization. The following named persons were the constituent members: Matthew MeKelvey, Nancy MeKelvey, Lu- ther Ashley. Ennice Ashley, Seba Mather, Cynthia Mather, Olive Mather, Ist, Olive Mather, 2d, Mary Halliday, Polly Ashley, Lydia Spencer, Sally Coe.
Henry A. Smith.
Jacob Smith.
John Arthur.
James Evans. George Evans. Thos. Arthur.
Osias Joiuer. John Lovell.
Lyman Babcock James Earl. James Easter.
William Inscho.
Benjamin Washburn.
223
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
Matthew McKelvey was chosen church clerk, and Hugh A. Campbell was appointed deacon. April 18, 1825. The first pastor of the church was Rev. Enoch Conger, who began his labors in 1824. and officiated one-third of the time for two years. Since Mr. Con- ger, Revs. J. H. Russ, E. P. Salmon, A. Blanchard, J. B. Parlin, Francis Child, Enos Wood, Abram C. Dubois, A. K. Barr, C. W. Clapp, R. S. Lockwood, and others, have officiated as pastors. The present membership is eighty-three. Elias Easter is clerk of the church, and Levi Platt and James Campbell, deacons. The church is at present without a pastor.
THE FREEWILL BAPTIST CHURCH
was formed at the house of Epenetus Starr, January 24, 1829, and consisted of the following members, to wit: Elder John Wheeler, Christian Wheeler, Seth C. Parker, Benjamin E. Parker, Mary Wheeler, Ann White and Sally Ashley. The next day Jane Parker was baptized and united with the church. Elder John Wheeler was the first pastor. The church building at the center was erected in 1843. costing something over a thousand dollars. Elder Cyrus Colton, from Lorain county, preached the dedication sermon. On the organization of societies of this denomination in Peru and New Haven, the membership, which was then quite large, numbering ninety-one in 1841, was thereby much reduced. Under the pastorship of Rer. B. E. Baker, who began his labors in 1867, much dis- satisfaction existed, and a division of the church re- sulted. The church is now weak, having a member- ship of only twenty-two, and is without a preacher. The only preaching now enjoyed by the churches of Greenfield is supplied by the Rev. Mr. Palmer, of Centerton, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, who officiates at the center on the Sabbath, once in two wecks. The two churches unite in their Sabbath school, which is in a flourishing condition. Mrs. Na- than Beers, Jr., is superintendent.
The first school was taught by Miss Annie Mather, in the little log school house on the hill, south of Hiram Smith's, in the summer of 1816. Miss Mather became the wife of David Hinman, who was one of the early sheriffs of Huron county. The following winter the school was kept by a man by the name of Davis, whose given name cannot now be recalled. Miss Abby Harris taught the second summer.
A school house was erected at the center of town soon after, the first school in which was taught by Levi Platt, in the winter of 1818-19.
INDIAN SCHOOL AND MISSIONARY EFFORTS.
Rev. Alvin Coe emigrated from Massachusetts to Ohio some time prior to the war of 1812, and remained in Huron or Vermillion until its close. He then removed to Vernon, Trumbull county, where he sub- sequently married a daughter of General Smith. He entered the ministry, and was licensed by the Presby- tery of Grand river in the latter part of the year 1816, and soon after removed to Greenfield, fixing his
residence at the center. He was commissioned a missionary by the Connecticut Missionary Society, and commenced itinerating among the churches, trav- eling throughout this and adjoining counties in the prosecution of his work. He frequently came in contact with the Indians, whose benighted condition enlisted his sympathies, and he conceived a scheme for civilizing and christianizing them.
To this end he established, in the year 1818, a school at Greenfield center, for the education of Indian boys. He built a house for the purpose, a short distance north of the center, on the west side of the road, and collected about twenty-five or thirty boys, of the Wyandotte and other tribes then in this region, whom he taught, fed, and clothed at his own expense, with such contributions, mainly of provisions, as the presentation of his work prompted his many friends to give. In the spring of 1820, finding the enterprise pecuniarily burdensome, he appealed to the presbytery of Portage, which embraced his field of labor, for a recommendation of his work to the churches for aid in sustaining it, and invited the presbytery, then in session at Lyme, to visit the school, that its members might satisfy themselves as to the success of his experiment. The visit was not made, but the presbytery endowed the philanthropic enterprise, and heartily recommended it to the churches under its charge. Several years after, when the Western Missionary Society established a mission near Perrysburg, on the Maumee, Mr. Coe trans- ferred his school to that point, and carried it on a short time, when it passed under the care of the American Board.
Mr. Coe then began his missionary labors among the various Indian tribes, and spent several years among those on the Upper Mississippi. When he left Greenfield, his wife returned to Vernon, where her parents still lived, and Mr. Coe enjoyed but little of her society, so constantly was he engaged in his chosen work. His sympathy for the condition of the Indians, and his desire for their amelioration amounted almost to a monomania. It is said that during his labors among them he adopted, to some extent, their customs and conditions of living. He would deny himself the common necessities of life to relieve their wants.
He once had occasion, while residing in the Lake Superior region, to go from a mission to a military station which ordinarily required a journey of about three days. He started with a supply of food, but divided it among some destitute Indians whom he met on the way. He was longer on the journey than he expected to be; and became greatly exhausted be- fore reaching his destination. Knowing the Indians' habit of subsisting on the bark of trees to appease hunger, he tried the plan and ate the bark of the oak, which nearly cost him his life. When he reached the military post, he was in a condition of great distress, and it was some time before he fully recovered from the effects of his imprudence.
224
HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
The Indians became greatly attached to him, and regarded him with veneration. He exercised a potent influence for good over them during his association with them, but his mission was unsuccessful in ac- complishing any permanent good. While in charge of the school in this township, the father of one of his pupils came from Sandusky to visit the school. Before returning, he called at the house of Alden Pierce, who was operating a small distillery in the neighborhood. The Indian was offered a glass of whisky, but he refused it at first, saying: "Pappoose say Mr. Coe tell him"good Injun no drink whisky, he go up good place. Bad Injun drink whisky, he go down had place; big burn." And then looking wist- fully at the liquor, added, "Injun-don't-know. May be," (moving the cup slowly to his lips) "Mr. Coe, he lie. "
Mr. Coe was finally prevailed upon to accept the charge of a church in Trumbull county, but con- sented only on the condition that he be allowed to make an annual visit to the Indians.
In 1818, a library organization was formed at the center of Greenfield through the efforts of Eli Halla- day. Bildad Adams, Samuel Spencer, Erastus Smith, Eliphalet B. Simmons and others. The organization was called "The Social Library of Greenfield," and continued in existence many years.
A temperance society called "Steuben Division Sons of Temperance" was organized at the center in November, 1878, with about forty members, and con- tinnes in existence.
The first goods were sold in the township by Mat- thew McKelvey, who kept a small stock in his dwelling on the place.
Joseph White opened the first store at the center, about 1821 or 1822. There are at the present time at the center one general store, one grocery, one drugstore and grocery, one hotel, three blacksmith shops, two repair shops, one shoe shop.
TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION.
The township records prior to the year 1828 have been lost, and the following facts relative to the first election for township officers are furnished the writer by William McKelvey, who was present on the occa- sion and was one of the officers chosen.
The election was held at the house of Erastus Smith in the spring of 1816. Joseph Cook was elected town- ship clerk: Eli Halladay, Bildad Adams and Nathan Warner, trustees; William McKelvey, constable; Eras- tns Smith, justice of the peace. Having no use for a treasurer none was elected.
The adjoining townships of New Haven, Peru and Norwalk were attached to Greenfield for township purposes, and continued so annexed until each con- tained the requisite number of votes for independent organization, when they were detached and severally assumed control of their own affairs.
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