USA > Ohio > Portage County > Portage heritage; a history of Portage County, Ohio; its towns and townships and the men and women who have developed them; its life, institutions and biographies, facts and lore > Part 19
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At Hiram in 1828 the Disciples con-
Eggleston - R. R. Promoter
General Nelson Eggleston, a wealthy land owner in early Aurora, was largely re- sponsible for the building of the Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railroad (now Erie) through northern Portage County. In 1848 he called a meeting in his own home, results of which were published. This resulted in another meeting of interested people from all along the proposed route, held in an Aurora hall. With this encouragement promoters soon were able to get financial support and construction of the railroad followed.
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verted a prominent member of the community, Symonds Ryder. In 1831 Ryder was next converted to Mor- monism by Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith. But when Smith advocated communism of goods and in one of his revelations misspelled Ryder's first name Si-m-o-n instead of Symonds, Ryder lost faith in him, feeling that if the Lord really did speak to Smith, he would spell his name correctly. Ryder led a mob to the house where Rigdon and Smith were staying in Hiram on the night of March 24, 18- 32. The crowd took Rigdon from his bed and tore Smith from the bedside of a sick child, tarred and feathered them and rode them on a rail out of Hiram. They were thrown unconsc- ious in a field. When Smith crawled back to the doorway of his house, his wife Emma fainted upon seeing his bloody face. The former home of Joseph Smith in Hiram is still a shrine to which Latter Day Saints make pil- grimages. But Kirtland replaced Hi- ram as the Ohio capital of Mormon- ism. Ryder became a Disciples preach- er and Hiram an important center of Disciples influence.
FINDS FEW PRESENT
Many of the more struggling Dis- ciples groups in the county were as- sisted by speakers from Hiram Dis- ciple Church and from the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram,
organized 1850 as a result of the Dis- ciples' respect for rational learning as an aid to faith. James A. Garfield told of his mission to Freedom, March 27, 1852:
Attended the meeting of the breth- ren in Freedom. But few (14) at the meeting ... I spoke three quarters of an hour in the afternoon on Di- vine Providence. This is my first attempt to speak away from my own congregation anything more than a mere exhortation.
At least from 1873 to 1877, possibly longer, the Hiram Disciple Church maintained a union Sunday school at Freedom of which Hartwell Ryder was superintendent. Mr. Watson Al- lyn of the Hiram Disciple Church (died March 1, 1903) for many years when the Hiram church service was ended would walk to Hiram Rapids where he kept this former Baptist Church going as a union organization of Baptists, Disciples, and some Meth- odists. After 1903 student preachers from Hiram continued his charitable work.
METHODISTS ORGANIZE
The founder of Methodism in Port- age County was Rev. Henry Shewell, who formed a Methodist class at Deer- field in 1802. Shewell and his physic- ian-preacher associate, Dr. Shadrack Bostwick, carried the Methodist mes- sage 1803-1823 to Mantua, Aurora,
Love Conquers All
In 1808 a marriage occurred in Aurora which united two families that apparently did not get along well together in ancestral England. During the reign of Charles I there, one George Sheldon was beheaded and the rest of the Sheldons immediately left for America. The king's son, Walter Stuart, married Elizabeth Cromwell, sister of Oliver, and the children of this marriage took the name of Cochran. Cochran descendants moved to Aurora in 1805 and associated with descendants of the Sheldons, Aurora's first family. In 1808 Ebenezer Sheldon married Patty Cochran and all feuding ceased.
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Nelson, Rootstown, Edinburg, Frank- lin, and Brimfield. Methodists were disliked by believers in predestina- tion and in a more learned clergy than the Methodists had. The Methodists appealed to others by their teaching of free grace, the need for personal Christian experience, and their en- thusiasm and singing. The feeling a- gainst Methodism is illustrated by the fact that the Ravenna Methodists from their formal organization in a log schoolhouse in 1831 until 1848 held secret love feasts for which tickets of admission were required of members. This was to keep disturbers out of their devotional love feasts in which they prayed, sang, and shouted. Dis- continuance of the tickets in 1848 at Ravenna shows the Methodists were coming to be accepted by that date. Methodist classes were also started at Freedom, 1831, Windham, 1843, Gar- rettsville, 1868.
The first Universalist preacher in the county, Timothy Bigelow, settled at Palmyra in 1814, coming from New Hampshire. He preached a short ser- mon at the scaffold on the occasion of the first execution in the county at Ravenna in 1814. Towns in which Universalist preaching was most fre- quently heard in the early days of the county included Palmyra, Aurora, Nelson, Mantua, Ravenna, Kent, and Brimfield. Universalists were handi-
capped by the feeling of many that Universalism was outside the pale of Christian churches. The Congrega- tionalist clerk at Nelson in 1820 spoke of Universalists as "the forces of Satan."
Universalists, however, resembled other churches in having discipline of members. The Brimfield Universalist Society (formed 1839) required "un- blemished moral character and a be- lief in the Christian religion." When, like Calvinistic congregations, Brim- field Universalists in 1843 expelled an erring brother (their pastor, Freeman Loring), the reason given for expul- sion was "unchristlike conduct." Only immorality of conduct, not creedal er- ror, could be a reason for expulsion, but Christ was the accepted exemplar of the "morality and practical re- ligion" which was the principal ob- ject of the Universalists at Brimfield.
FAITHFUL TO LAST
Kent has had a Universalist Church since 1866. The Ravenna Universa- lists, organized 1837, disbanded in 1912. Their well-known and loved minister, Reverend Andrew Willson, after retiring from the pulpit of the Ravenna Church in 1898, continued as pastor in Brimfield "as long as he was able to ride to its doors." He died in 1911. The Brimfield Universalist Church, which Reverend Willson had
Arvillus C. Larkcom of Freedom, who died in 1883, was a farmer and coffin maker. It is said that during his life time he made and sold 3,000 coffins. In an itemized account book of Chas. A. Dudley an itemized record of a funeral dated March 24, 1878, is the following:
Pd. Arvillus C. Larkcom for casket $ 30.00
Pd. Jas. Kellogg for use of hearse 3.00
Pd. J. B. Wilcox for digging grave 4.00
Pd. Rev. J. C. Burwell for sermon 5.00
Pd. Dr. Seth Sloan for last sickness 10.50
Pd. R. W. Stocker for monument
132.50
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helped organize as a church in 1865, held its last recorded meeting in May, 1922. Existing members united with the Kent church.
The more liturgical churches, Ro- man Catholic and Episcopalian, for many years operated in the county more on a mission than a parish basis. Catholic missionary priests began en- tering the county about 1820. St. Jo- seph Church (1829) in Randolph Township was the first and for many years the only Catholic church and parish in the county. Its parochial school (1832) may be the oldest Eng- lish parochial school west of the Al- leghenies. Ravenna and Kent Catho- lics had a mission status, with the sacraments given in homes, until par- ishes for each town were created in 1863-64 by Father Patrick Brown, largely as a response to the influx of railroad workers. Priests from nearby St. Joseph maintained the mission of St. Peter of the Fields at Rootstown, 1869-98. The mission at Mantua after 1864 did not become the parish of St. Joseph until 1923. St. Ambrose Parish at Garrettsville dates from 1945 and St. Michael Parish at Windham from 1942.
ORGANIZE AT RAVENNA
At Ravenna Episcopal laymen were conducting services by 1816. In 1817
the missionary priest Rev. Roger Searle undertook the organization of twelve families into the parish of St. Luke. When Bishop McIlwaine came to Ravenna in 1833, he found the parish had died out. Grace Church, Ravenna, was founded 1865 by the missionary priest Rev. L. L. Holden. In the meantime the Rev. Alvah San- ford, a missionary of the General Board, had organized in 1835 a parish at Franklin Mills. By 1859 it had 23 communicants. Until 1914 this parish had no resident rector, the services be- ing in charge of ministers from Cuy- ahoga Falls or Ravenna. The opening cf Kent State Normal College in 1913 influenced the sending to Kent in 1914 of the first resident Episcopalian rector, Rev. William O. Leslie.
By the 1870s and 1880s Protestant church discipline of erring members was quietly being dropped. To be- come a member seldom required proof of regeneration. More sumptu- cus church buildings often had such luxuries as organs, upholstered seats, carpeted floors, central heating, gas lighting, and heated water for baptis- tries. The sexes mingled more and stopped sitting apart on opposite sides of the church. Church picnics, sup- pers and various social activities for both adults and children became part
Military Aspect
Gen. Wm. B. Hazen was one of the most important Union military men of the Civil War. Born in Vermont, he came to Portage county at an early age living in Nelson. He was trained at West Point and served in the Mexican and Indian wars. At Missionary Ridge Gen. Sheridan asked him for a written report on a certain aspect of the battle, which Hazen thought everyone knew. He made his report so flippant that Sheridan order- ed Hazen's arrest as a matter of discipline. Hazen was a friend of Garfield. He loved military life and had his home in Eastern Hiram township modeled like a military camp. Trees stood like sentries around the place. Remains of the arrangement can be seen today. There was a headquarters group of trees and other groups for guards, etc. Hazen's widow married Admiral George Dewey.
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Church in Aurora today. A lovely building in a typical old-time setting.
of the new church routine. Older members of the Ravenna Congrega- tional Church distrusted the innova- tion in 1904 of tearing down the horse sheds behind the church and substitut- ing a tennis court. Sunday school libraries, often well stocked and much used, became less important as public libraries were founded. There were fewer revivals, fewer midweek prayer meetings, and fewer and shorter Sun- day services. Discussion of doctrine gave way to social activities within the church and a social service at- titude toward the comunity. As early as 1855 Hiram H. Stillson had left the
Congregational Church at Edinburg because of its Calvinist doctrines of human depravity and because he could not accept Christ as the Supreme Be- ing. Stillson felt that Christ's death was not "the only condition by which God could save any of the race of man; because ... when the soul un- derstands and obeys God's laws, then has commenced the kingdom of heav- en in that soul ... " Stillson's religious liberalism had by 1900 permeated many Protestant churches and ac- counts for the lessening emphasis on doctrines dear to the pioneers. Of course, the change was a slow process,
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and even down to 1920 there probably still were instances of children grow- ing up and rebelling against predest- ination and hellfire doctrines.
FREE THINKERS PRESENT
Father Thein, a Catholic priest at St. Joseph in Randolph, believed in 1902 that only a third of the people of Randolph Township attended any church on Sunday and claimed that the people "are drifting backward more and more into infidelity." As causes he mentioned lack of religion in home and school, and also the or- ganized promulgation of agnostic or atheistic teachings by the Werner Company in Akron, which sold the works of Voltaire in the county. It is difficult to say how much the writ- ings of Voltaire, Paine, and Ingersoll, or the free-thinking magazine The Ohio Watchman edited at Ravenna during some of the 1870s by Lucius V. Bierce, were influential in the county. There were several very ard- ent followers of free-thought. In some instances, recalled by M. Herbert Heighton, the motive for embracing Ingersollism was evil done to them by church members.
Another problem with which the churches had to contend was that of denominationalism. Competition a- mong denominations had been a
prominent part of church life for many years. When the Baptists built their beautiful Greek-revival style church at Streetsboro in 1851, the deciding factor in choosing the site was their desire to face the Presby- terians. There was an old jingle that reflects the rivalries among denomina- tions
'I'd rather be a Baptist, and wear a shining face,
Than be a dirty Methodist, and fall away from grace
To which the Methodist replied
I'd rather be a Methodist, and be- lieve in God's free grace
Than be a hard-shell Baptist, and damn one-half the race.
CHURCHES DROP OUT
In the struggle of denominations some churches went out of existence. Baptists who had had considerable strength before 1870 in the county nearly disappeared by 1900. Baptists gave their beautiful church building in Streetsboro to the Methodists in 1899. It had been deserted for eight years before this. Perhaps population decline in Streetsboro was one factor as well as too many churches. The German language Evangelical Protes- tant Trinity Church at Atwater since 1850 no longer held services after
Organized Mass Hunts
Township or community hunts were popular affairs in early days. Organized men formed a great circle and drove game toward a central spot where it was slaughtered. Some of the results in Portage County were:
Freedom Township, 1818-23 bears, 7 wolves, 36 deer and many small animals. Windham Township, 1818-21 bears, 68 deer, 1 wolf, 1 wild cat, turkeys, etc. Edinburg Township, 1818-7 bears, 5 wolves, 100 deer, 400 turkeys.
Atwater (and part of Edinburg) 1819-21 bears, 18 wolves, 103 deer, 300 turkeys. Streetsboro, 1819-5 bears, 4 wolves, 60 deer and much small game.
Sometimes they were called "ring hunts," or "army hunts."
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1915. Descendents of these Bavarian Protestants in 1951 placed a granite memorial on the church site in At- water to honor their God-Fearing forefathers. Other communities which have had deaths of churches were Randolph, Brimfield, Palmyra, Edin- burg, Mantua Center, Shalersville, and Deerfield. In some cases church build- ings were converted to other uses.
The idea of merging or federating churches of different denominations as a means of solving the problem of denominational relationship and sur- vival began to be a power in the coun- ty about 1912, although even before that there were evidences of this spirit. At Mantua Center as early as the 1870's the Disciples and Free Will Baptists were sharing the use of the same building. In the 1890's at Hiram Rapids the Baptist Church became virtually a community church under the Disciples layman Mr. Watson Al- lyn who would walk to Hiram Rapids from the Disciples church in Hiram after services there. After 1895 for a number of years a Campbellsport Christian Association to which "a member in good standing in some Evangelical Church" could be admitt- ed was closely affiliated with the Ra- venna Disciples Church.
FEDERATIONS COME
In 1912 the Congregational min- ister at Aurora, Rev. R. B. Whitehead, initiated negotiations which led in May 1913 to the founding of the Aurora Federated Church, composed
of Congregationalists and Disciples. In 1916 the United Church of Gar- rettsville came out of the union of Baptist, Disciple, and Congregational churches in that village. The Garretts- ville Methodist Episcopal Church re- tained its separate identity because of opposition to merger by the Metho- dist District Superintendent, although some Methodists went over to the United Church. Members of the Unit- ed Church were allowed to retain their separate denominational affilia- tions and each church within the United Church could support its own denominational missions. Those in the United Church felt relief from the "burdensome struggle" of main- taining three churches, three budgets and three ministers.
MORE FREEDOM OF BELIEF
At Streetsboro from 1899 to 1919 Presbyterians and Methodists kept their Sunday schools apart, but com- bined church services. In 1919 they combined completely at the sugges- tion of the Presbyterians. Since 1919 there has . been no Presbyterian Church in the county. In the 1920's community churches resulting from the merger of various denominations were set up at Charlestown, Wayland, and Edinburg. The United Church of Edinburg came from a union of Meth- odists and Disciples, who then invited the Congregationalists to enter. The first minister of the Edinburg United Church was a Methodist. Here, as at Garrettsville, members entering the
Names Is Names
In the official list of taxpayers in Aurora in 1813 appear the names of Eliakim Bald- win, Bohan Blair, Zardis Kent, Zeno Kent, Epaphroditus Loveland, Libbeus Norton, Able Parker, Appay Riley, Gershow Sheldon, Septimeus Witter, Ebenezur Sheldon, Widow E. Bissell, Widow Rhoda Cochran and Widow Sally Taylor.
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church were allowed their choice as to mode of baptism.
About 1835, German immigrants began to settle in Atwater along the Portage-Stark county line. As their members increased they held church services in their homes and in 1848, a purchase of land was made for the German Reformed church at Virginia Corners, Atwater. The deed was to "The German Presbyterian & Luth- eran United Society of Atwater," but the church was not organized under Ohio law until 1850. Services were held in the German language. When English was generally used in the neighborhood, interest in the church died out. It became popularly known as the "Holy Teinne", Dutch Reform- ed. This may have been the only Ger- man language church in Portage County.
The most recently founded com- munity churches in the county are those at Brady Lake (1926), New Mil- ford, and Palmyra. In the case of the
Brady Lake Church there was no merger of denominations; it arose more out of the desire of people of diverse denominational backgrounds to have church services in the com- munity, but without formal denom- inational affiliation. At Aurora in 1933 the Aurora Federated Church was turned into The Church in Au- rora, with a merger of properties and memberships as older denominational feelings had faded away since 1913. The founding of the Portage County Ministerial Association in the 1920s by the Reverend Isaac J. Swanson, Congregationalist minister at Raven- na, 1909-1929, was another sign of friendly interdenominational rela- tions.
ENUMERATION OF FAITHS .
The federation movement has made, however, only a small dent in the fragmented or denominational character of church life in the county. Neither has improved transportation
Portrait of Joseph Smith
One of the novels written by A. G. Riddle, the Mantua writer, was "The Portrait." The scene of the story is mainly Mantua, but virtually all towns in Portage County enter into it. The characters, many of them, are actual Portage County people of the period. Of these are Prophet Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, Sidney Rigdon, and others. Writer Riddle gives the following character sketch of Smith: "The Prophet was then about twenty-five years of age, and nearly six feet in height; rather loosely but power- fully built, with a perceptible stoop of his shoulders. The face was longish, not badly featured, marked with blue eyes, fair blond complexion and very light yellowish flaxen hair. His head was not ignoble, and carried with some dignity; and on the whole his person, air and manner would have been noticeable in a gathering of average men. He was attired in neat fitting suit of blue, over which he wore the ample cloak of blue broadcloth, which he threw back, exposing his neck and bosom-all with a simple and natural manner."
In another chapter, writer Riddle says: "Joseph Smith undoubtedly had a fair share of the lower elements of wisdom and sagacity which we call cunning. Was fertile in expedients and possessed much intuitive knowledge of the lower springs and motions of human conduct. He was naturally courageous, always cool, and his impudence reached the sublime; and the gambler's faith in luck, with him, was a chronic fanaticism. 'I will become the Mohamet of America', was his oft-repeated declaration to his confidants."
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in recent years made much difference. Yet four churches have consistently shown by far the largest numerical strength in the county:
Roman
1906
1916
1926
1936
Catholic
2,470
4,490
4,699
4,645
Methodist
Episcopal
2,207
3,470
3,971
2,878
Congreg'tional
1,951
1,454
1,766
1,939
Disciples
1,942
1,608
1,962 *1,590
Among the numerically smaller churches there are many which have developed in the county only since 1900. The Trinity Lutheran Church in Kent, United Lutheran, (present building dedicated 1909), has roots as far back as 1877. It has been sup- plemented in Kent since 1933 by Faith Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. The Ravenna American Lutheran Church (St. Paul's) organized in 1927 as a mission of the Newton Falls Church has had resident pastors in charge since 1930. Spiritualists had important centers in Mantua and Brady Lake. Free Methodists started services in Kent in 1902. Amish Trin- itarian Mennonites in Streetsboro since 1906 have had a strong Sunday School attended by non-Mennonites and a saintly and influential pastor, the Rev. Eli B. Stoltzfus, bishop after
1916. He served at Streetsboro from 1909 to 1942. Christian Science Socie- ties were formed in Ravenna, 1908, and Kent, 1911. The Kent Society be- came First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1917, and the Ravenna Society was reorganized as First Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1928.
Separate Negro Baptist and Metho- dist churches first appeared in the 1920s. Eighty-four African Methodists were listed in the 1926 census. Negro Baptists (72) also appeared by the time of the 1936 census. The Negro churches were at Kent and Ravenna.
NEW CHURCHS FORMED
A number of small sects may be treated together as "fundamentalists." Baptists at Silica in 1888 changed their status to United Brethren. In 1920 a new church building was dedi- cated; 1946 the Evangelicals united with the United Brethren, since then the church has been the Silica Evan- gelical United Brethren Church. There is also an Evangelical United Brethren Church at Brimfield, or- ganized in 1937, with a considerable number of members recruited from
*U. S. Census of Religions, 1906, 1916, 1926, 1936.
Building The Temple
When Freedom Congregationalists decided to build a new church in 1843 they hired Ralph W. Shepard as architect and overseer and he thus incurred the jealousy of older carpenters of the area. People said he used a ten foot pole which he measured every morn- ing to make sure it had not shrunk. His pay was eleven shillings a day and board and under carpenters got a dollar a day. Shepard's total remuneration was $414.75, but he turned much of this back into the building fund, and considerable of his pay was in farm products. Church members also helped in the work. The church, finished in 1845, cost a little over $3,000. When the building was completed there were no funds to buy furnish- ings. Thereupon twenty members agreed to share alike in the cost of the furnishings and take unsold pews in payment.
In this church women removed their hats at services and when hymns were sung, the audience arose and faced the choir-except one family who refused to turn. Charles Dudley, with his flute, and Mr. Atwood with his bass viol, were choir accompanists.
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former Methodists. Several Churches of God have arisen in the county since the Great War period. In Ravenna the West Spruce Street Church of God in non-pentecostal and non-millen- nialist, in contrast to the Church of God on East Main Street. The West Spruce Street Church of God arose in 1913 and in 1917 an earlier Edinburg group of the same church merged with it under the Rev. J. A. Overholt. The Kent Church of God is pentecost- al, as is also the Assembly of God in Ravenna, and also the Church of the Nazarene at Kent, Atwater, and Ra- venna. Grace Gospel Chapel arose in Ravenna since 1942 under the Rev. C. S. Hallberg, of the Christian Mis- sionary Alliance. He originally re- ceived his training with the Salvation Army. These churches, and others un- mentioned, have something in com- mon; they are characterized by dislike of creeds, by literal interpretation of certain favorite passages of Scripture, avoidance of social activities, frequent and long church services, and in some cases practice foot washing. The mil- lennialist forces in the county have recently been strengthened by the coming of Jehovah's Witnesses, who in 1954 completed a building in Kent. Baptists from Akron Baptist Temple
have made headway in the county since 1945, - for example, at New Milford, Ravenna, Streetsboro, Kent.
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