USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. I > Part 4
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Theodore caught this enthusiasm and decided to return with him. His father consented and, having a "proprietor's right" in Hudson township, made him a liberal offer should he choose to settle there. He did not like the heavy timber and clay roads of Hudson, but was not obliged to choose them.
Hudson township, when surveyed, had so many swamps that the Connecticut Land Co., from whom it was purchased,
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granted 10,000 additional acres, the greater part of which was in what is now Norton and Chester townships. He chose Norton.
Mr. Parmelee made choice at first of what is now the Bender farm. He and a cousin built a cabin near the spring there, which was known for many years as the Parmelee Spring. This choice was made because it was nearer to New Portage, which was at that time the head of navigation on the Tuscarawas River, and he felt it would continue to be a place of importance.
"It must not be supposed," says L. A. Lane, in his history, "that the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas Rivers were then the small streams they are now; clearing the land, ditching and other causes have diminished them."
French and Indian traders were accustomed to carry their goods from one stream to the other; hence the word "Portage" from the French port, to carry.
Soon after Mr. Parmelee had commenced a party of surveyors arrived, and he joined them.
When their work was completed his father's allotment ex- tended from the eastern line of Norton township one mile west and one-half mile south. For this reason his cousin took the clearing already commenced and Mr. Parmelee began anew on what is now the Swartz farm and cleared ten acres on the hill -. side sloping east, and in the fall put it into wheat. He made an agreement with John Cahow to harvest this for him; he then returned to Goshen and remained one year.
He taught school during the winter in South Canaan, and found among his pupils one who became his life companion, Harriet Holcomb, a lively, beautiful girl just entering her six- teenth year.
When he came to ask the consent of her widowed mother,
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she said: "She is utterly unfit to become the wife of a pioneer. She knows nothing of housekeeping; I have just sent her to school; I have never put any work on her at all."
"You must teach her, you must teach her," was his char- acteristic reply.
So it was decided that the bride-elect should spend the summer in learning the duties of a housekeeper, and Mr. Par- melee spent his in working his father's farm and learning more fully the duties of a farmer.
November 3, 1813, they were married and left the same day for Goshen, and remained but one week there to complete prep- arations for their western trip.
One, who had been over the route many times, advised Mr. Parmelee to take a stout one-horse wagon instead of a two- horse wagon, as he had intended.
"A one-horse wagon would run between the ruts made by the heavy commercial wagons." Unfortunately, as it proved, he accepted this advice. When their goods were packed there was little room for even Mrs. Parmelee to ride with comfort. Mr. Parmelee made no effort to provide for himself, but proposed to walk the whole distance-six hundred miles. Because of Mrs. Parmelee's cramped position when riding, she, also, walked long distances beside her husband, and along the smooth sands of the lake which she found delightful.
Until they reached Cleveland the weather was all that could be desired. There they were detained two days by heavy rains. The first day they made but three miles, most of the time being occupied in prying the wheels out of the deep mudholes. The second day's experience was of the same sort. So, after going a mile and a half, they turned back to the place where they had stayed the previous night.
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A commercial wagon was there, and Mr. Parmelee secured a seat for his wife in the commercial wagon and rode beside it himself, leaving his wagon and goods until the roads should improve.
At Hudson he bought an ox-team, provisions and the most needful things for commencing housekeeping.
At Northampton he had to get a grist ground, and finding that it would be delayed until night he advised Mrs. Parmelee to go on alone on horseback. This she did. There was then in Akron but one house. Two miles west of Akron she had to leave the Indian trail that led off towards Portage and be guided only by blazed trees. At sundown darkness fell. No longer able to guide her horse, she dropped the lines upon his neck and let him take his own course. He followed a newly opened road across the ledge to a recently erected cabin.
The light of a wood fire streamed out of the open door. As she rode up, a man came out and she inquired if it was John Cahow's. "No," was answered, "John Cahow lives a half mile farther south."
Explaining who she was, she asked to be directed, as her husband would expect to find her there later.
"You cannot find your way," the man answered. "You must just stop here till your husband comes for you. He will come for you when he finds you are not there, never fear." A woman came out and added her invitation to that of her hus- band. And the woman gave her such a welcome as pioneers always give to newcomers.
Supper over, they entertained her with stories of their own experiences, and the time sped rapidly. At 11 o'clock Mr. Par- melee came across the wood with a torch and took her to John Cahows where Aunt Betsy gave her a true mother's welcome- a shakedown before the fire answered for the night.
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The next day a stable just across the road was fitted up as a temporary home and the second night they slept in their own house. The furniture Mr. Parmelee made with his own hands, having brought from Hudson such tools as he could pur- chase. As soon as cold weather had made the roads solid, he hired a man to go for his goods. Unfortunately he found at the tavern the means of gratifying an appetite that had long been suppressed, and he went on a spree, used up his money and then sold the wagon to pay his bill. He put the goods into a passing commercial wagon, returning on horseback. He said the goods were to be left at New Portage on a certain day, but no goods came and weeks went by before they were heard from. A traveler stopping in "the valley" over night told of goods left at a hotel in Canton with no name of owner.
This time Mr. Parmelee went himself that he might identify the goods. He took with him a boy and bought and drove back three cows. The goods were found unharmed.
When spring came crops must be put in and fences built, so the building of a better house was deferred till fall and Mrs. Parmelee had a hard time during the hot weather trying to make butter. The only way to cool the cream was to set the vessel containing it in the ground on the border of the brook, cover it with a heavy plank and lay a stone on top. Then it must be watched for hogs ran at large and sometimes in spite of watching took the cream. But the milk could be made into cheese which made a valuable addition to their food and all they could spare found a ready sale to newcomers. In the fall a better house was provided; this was one which was called a double log house; that is, two lengths of logs used in its con- struction, making two large rooms with a chimney between the two, and a wide, open fireplace in each. In it large logs were burned. First there was put in it each morning a log larger
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than a man could carry, called the back log. This was rolled into the house with the aid of a lever, lifted upon one end and turned over and pried into place; on top of this was placed another log, a little smaller, which was called the back stick. Another as heavy as a man could carry was placed on andirons, that was called the fore stick. On this a fire was kindled and then an armful of split wood completed a fire which would last, with slight additions, twenty-four hours. This, of course, was for winter, and what a magnificent fire it made, lighting as well as warming a large room. In summer, logs were dispensed with. I have heard that some drew these logs into the house with a horse, though I never saw it done.
This house was a few rods south of the public road and between it and Crystal Brook was a lodge of half-breed Indians.
Clarinda Parmelee, his eldest sister, married Rev. Charles Prentice, a graduate of Yale in its second year, and who was pastor of the Presbyterian Church of South Canaan, Conn., for thirty years. She became the mother of four sons and two daughters. Edwin went to California with the forty-niners and in 1850 returned home with the largest nugget of gold yet dis- covered. He said he was going to the World's Fair in London to exhibit it. Instead he met his old love and they were at once married and returned to Sacramento, Cal. Fortune favored them. Her sister married Collis P. Huntington and, they having no children, adopted a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Pren- tice. Another daughter married Henry Huntington, Collis' nephew. When in San Francisco in 1903 there was a brilliant wedding at Nob Hill, the residence of Henry Huntington, when his daughter married Mr. Perkins. The newspapers had sev- eral columns about it. Henry Huntington owned the street cars of San Francisco and was about to purchase those of Los An- geles. Some rumors about an actress led his wife to flee to Japan to live with her daughter, but a newspaper announcement of late that in Paris Henry E. Huntington had married the widow of Collis P. Huntington showed that the family had been reconciled.
ELIZA ANN PARMELEE.
Born December 24, 1818, in Norton, Summit county, O. She was the third child, and was early led to give her heart to God. She united with the Methodist church when 12 years of age. Her father took the anti-slavery paper, The Philanthropist, of Cincinnati, and she heard him discuss slavery with the ministers who were entertained at his house.
In 1844 she graduated from the literary course of Oberlin College and then taught in Martin's Ferry, New Bedford, Fred- erickstown and Circleville, O. Then in Mercer Female Seminary in Mercer, Pa. She had such true faith in the Bible, and the immortal life it teaches, that her efforts were constantly put forth for the conversion of her pupils.
One elder in the Covenanters church told her he did not believe in a change of heart and he forbade his grandchild from attending the meetings she held in the evenings at her home. It was a sad case of truancy and she married a young man from whom she soon got a divorce for alcoholism, only to marry an- other with similar habits. Miss Parmelee accepted the prin- cipalship of Iberia, O., Free Presbyterian College and remained until the close of the Civil war, when it was disbanded. On her return to her native place of New Portage to take care of her mother and aged grandmother, she gave time and money to help organize the High Street Methodist church. It brought into it the farmers and all who desired to have the liquor busi- ness put under a ban. She canvassed for books of interest in order to give some pleasure beside the saloon or the dance hall,
MISS ELIZA A. PARMELEE B. DEC. 24, 1818
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and said, "I meet so many who are glad to see me and tell their troubles; it pays better than any other religious work."
When Barberton was made large by its various kinds of business, the settled pastor wished to have the church go to the new one in the lower part of town, but Miss Parmelee told him, "The membership would not change; it would stay away from church if it did not feel at home." Immediately they made ex- tensive repairs, putting in stained glass windows and seats in a circle, and a room for the Aid Society to have their festivals. They also purchased a parsonage and today it is one of the most active churches in Barberton. When "Rally Day" came last summer they took Miss Parmelee to the church and she shook hands with about three hundred, being then 93 years of age. She had kept up her payments of a dollar a month when she had but a little income. She always wished to give her tenth.
SCRAPS FROM AUNT ANN'S MEMORY
It is fifty years since I opened my eyes upon this beautiful world. I cannot say that it looked very beautiful to me then, or, indeed, that I remember how it looked, or what sort of a house I was introduced to, or what friends first greeted me.
But I know how that room looked a few, very few years later, and I, too, remember a few things that a dear mamma and very dear grandmamma told me about it, and I am going to tell these things to all those little ones who love to hear how people lived, loved, talked, played and worked when they were nowhere.
That home was a double-log house in a pleasant little val- ley. It faced the east, standing back six yards from the public road. Young fruit trees were planted all about it, but they were small yet, and between them the "ledge" could be seen, as the eastern range of hills was covered with scrub oaks, and between these narrow white strips could be traced what was the public road. Two pair of eyes, older than mine, watched that road for the return of papa from town. On this very Christmas night two noses were flattened against the window panes and two pairs of eyes watched eagerly for "good papa," who was to bring Christmas presents for the "light of his eyes and joy of his heart," as he called these two little watchers at the window.
Darkness came down and shut out the "ledge" from their view first and then the bend in the road, which they could just see between the trees, nearer home, and so the little watchers left their perch and drew the wooden cradle up near to the great fire and diverted their thoughts as wise little philosophers,
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by rocking vigorously until mamma had prepared their suppers and then she tucked them away in the little trundle bed drawn out before the bedroom door so that the great blazing fire would keep them company, and bade them sleep and Christmas would find them in the morning and give them something. Two pairs of eyes kept resolutely open for a while and two pairs of ears listened for papa's voice. Somehow, they never knew just how it was, sweet childish sleep shut eyes and ears so suddenly, and yet so softly they knew nothing of it till morning. Then as they peeped through the open door of their little bedroom they saw papa sitting by the great fire and somebody with him.
"I wonder when he came home," said sober little blue eyes, and "I wonder what he has for Christmas," said little black eyes, and they were afraid to ask so they waited for mamma to dress them, but mamma did not and grandma did and both little ones said, as she sat by the fire, "What has we got for Christ- mas?" "Something you will want very much." "Is it a dollar," said little blue eyes, already learning to reckon by the cost. "Oh, yes," said grandma, and then the two jumped and clapped their hands, they were so glad they could hardly stand still for her to dress them or else they would have no present at all. So they tried hard to be still while the long rows of buttons were slipped into their places and the shoes laced up and tied, and then they followed grandma, almost on tip-toe they were so glad. In the great armchair by the blazing fire sat Aunty Crawford with something wrapped up in a little white blanket bound with such a dainty bit of ribbon. She had such a pleasant smile on her face as she drew the bundle out for them to see the little sister that had come to live with them. So there was their Christmas present.
ELIZA ANN PARMELEE.
THE PROGRESS OF TEMPERANCE DURING THE LAST CENTURY
Eliza Ann Parmelee.
We sometimes become quite discouraged with the seeming failure of temperance and rashly conclude that our efforts against this gigantic evil are useless and it will flow on in re- sistless tide to the end of time. Let us look back a little and see if we have made any advance in the last century.
In my childhood my maternal grandmother, Hannah Wells, used to tell of her early life and the customs of her times; she told us of the business of her husband and her husband's father; they were farmers and lumber dealers (doing their own sawing of lumber), tanners and distillers of cider brandy. She never spoke of the latter as less honorable than the former, though in later years she never referred to this latter business at all.
History
Back of the W. C. T. U. stands the Crusade and back of the Crusade stands four factors which may be said to have acted as immediate human causes in producing that mighty outburst of power. First, the publication in 1875 of a pamphlet by Dr. Benjamin Rusk entitled "The Effect of Ardent Spirits on the Human Body."
Second, the organization in various states of societies for the suppression of intemperance.
Third, "The American Society for the Promotion of Tem- perance." In the same year the National Philanthropist was started in Boston; its motto was "Temperate drinking is the downhill side of intemperance."
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Fourth, in 1838 Massachusetts adopted the fifteen-gallon law, which greatly injured the retail traffic. In many other cities many similar laws were enacted.
When my mother, father and oldest sister, who was then twelve, signed the pledge, I was not permitted to sign it, being only seven years of age. I was much grieved at the refusal of my name to the pledge that was to do so much good. Even this moderate pledge was signed by only a few and it required a firm will to keep it intact. Some said, "What good can be accom- plished by this pledge for it will soon be broken?" My father was preparing to raise a dairy-house. He was assured by nearly all of his immediate neighbors that he must furnish whis- key or no one would lift a hand to help him, certainly not enough to raise it. Father replied, "Very well, if my neighbors fail me I will send to Wadsworth; I can get plenty of help there." They knew they would get excellent cider and this was not very abundant at this time, and a choice lunch, so they came in spite of their threats and there was no need to send away for help.
THE WAY OF FAITH
New Portage, Summit Co., Ohio.
Rev. S. P. Jacoby.
Yours of March 13 is received. I thank you for the very frank statement of my shortcomings and wherein I have failed in the past. I shall try to do better in the future; indeed, I have tried already to speak more clearly and earnestly of the way of faith, but how shall I speak of that which I do not know? Our views of truth are modified, I think, necessarily, by our experi- ence, and my experience has been by a gradual development, a growth of the life of faith, though not without epochs.
When God has revealed Himself, as to Moses of old, when
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He put him in a cleft of a rock and caused all his goodness to pass before him. Of these most precious experiences I have ever found it difficult to speak unless in very general terms. For a year or two I have been thinking that this might be a wrong and have been waiting a favorable opportunity to mag- nify God by a fuller relation of these facts in my religious ex- perience. But to make the opportunity or relate them uncalled for would savor of self and not of God's honor.
But to return to true Christian living, do you not think that some previous Christian development may be necessary in many cases before the way of faith, perfect faith, childlike trust, can be perfectly apprehended ?
I sought so long for some remarkable grace or power to be given me by which I might do all things and never fail, and over- looked the arm of the Lord freely offered to supplement my weakness and hold me up in the hour of my need. It is this last great truth that I am ever trying to make of the higher life.
A childlike trust in God's wisdom and God's strength so freely offered to supply all our lack.
Oh, if Christians did but believe that all things work to- gether for good; that no temptation shall overtake them that they will not be able to bear; that it is God's wish that they should cast all their care upon Him. Would not this be for them all the Higher Life?
I observe that late writers use the terms Baptism of Fire and entire Sanctification as synonymous.
I believe that I received this baptism of fire in my twentieth year, though I did not recognize it as such at that time, for I was not praying for it for myself but for another when a flood of light was poured upon me from above. Since that time my joy ever wells up from within, as God's truth is presented to some
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inner sense as if a new spiritual perception had been given to me, and yet, after this was given I waded through a sea of doubt three or four years later, which I can compare to nothing but Luther's struggles when confined in a solitary prison in that fortress in the wilderness. But is not every grace given, tried as with fire? and do we not often mistake this trial for the with- drawal of God's favor? I think this was my case and being un- conscious of any withdrawal of myself from God I was greatly perplexed.
Obedience is the result of faith, so also is love and all Chris- tian graces. Do I believe in Jesus Christ? I believe he is the Son of God and therefore I believe every promise that he has made to those that believe on Him. Henceforth I am His by in- dissoluble bond. If I sin I have an advocate with the Father, I have only to carry my burden to that Advocate to make my confession there, to be sure of pardon, such pardon as flows from Infinite Love.
From this dates my life of faith in distinction from a life of variable moods and feeling in which faith alternates with doubts. But my hour of triumph had not yet come. Perhaps it was necessary that this simple faith in God's word should be long tried.
These doubts had their origin in the failure of my Christian life to come up to the full standard of perfect love, perfect faith and perfect obedience. In a state bordering on despair I lived many months. At last I said: What does God require? Simply believe and obey. All is included in these two words, all else must follow.
It was not till my twenty-fifth year that I reached firm ground and felt my feet immovably fixed on the rock-Christ Jesus.
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And yet, this was more an intellectual than a spiritual tri- umph. I followed Christ from an intellectual belief that he was the Christ, the Son of God. I was strengthened in this position by past religious experience, which, in my sorriest hour of un- belief I had tried in vain to account for on or by some natural law. That baptism of fire, of light, especially, would not come under any law but the divine, revealed by Christ Himself. I was not praying for (though I had often done so previously), was not believing or looking for it, but simply walking with God, Jacob-like, for another. That prayer could not be answered, at least not then, as I wished. But God supplied all my lack and caused me to triumph and to walk in that light for a year or two without a shadow of a cloud. And had I followed all the teach- ings of the Spirit I should undoubtedly have honored God more, and been spared the fierce conflict that afterward followed.
In the winter of '45-'46 I taught school under the manage- ment of a devoted man of God, who put so much spiritual work upon my shoulders that I could not do it unaided or without more light, spirit and power and then I carried my weakness to Him who could supply it with His strength and once more He supplied all my lack.
The Spirit took the things of God and showed them unto me. It was a revelation of truth from His blessed word. But in teaching this word and doing all that was required in humble and constant reliance on Christ, I found at last that flow of light and joy into my soul, that constant triumph in God which I had concluded, when I followed Him only intellectually, was never to be mine. Others might have it but it was not for me, from some peculiarity in the construction of my mind, which must submit everything to reason. I was in this dissecting process to lose all
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the beauty and fragrance of truth. Happy those who accept the flower and inhale its fragrance without the necessity of tearing it to pieces to learn where the fragrance comes from.
Now, I do not feel or see that I have had a perfect Christian life; since that period I have sometimes, indeed many times, brought condemnation upon my soul by giving way to some feel- ing of irritation or anxiety about temporal things or by some failure to obey quickly and unquestioningly the leadings of the Spirit or promptings of conscience. But these are exceptional. Perfect faith in God is the rule of my life, no fear nor doubts now.
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