USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > The pioneer families of Cleveland 1796-1840 Vol. I > Part 2
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When the surveyors left Conneaut late in October, 1796, on their re- turn to the East, the Guns were left in charge of the storehouse-dubbed "Castle Stow"-a large, low structure of unhewn logs, and thatched with wild grasses and sod.
This spot was on the north-easterly boundary of the Western Reserve. The following May the Guns left-a month before the surveyors' return -and proceeded to Cleveland, whether by boat or on foot, no record can be found. They occupied the company's cabin on the river bank north of Superior Street, then built one of their own on River Street. The preva- lence of malaria and mosquitoes drove them finally to a farm out on Broad- way, afterward called the "Rhodes Farm."
The family consisted of Mr. Elijah Gun, his wife, Anna Sartwell Gun, and at least four children, perhaps six. No mention of these children in connection with their sojourn in Conneaut or arrival here is made in any history of the city, but, nevertheless, one of the daughters was sixteen years of age at the time, and she was not the oldest child.
Elijah Gun seems to have been a valuable citizen while in Cleveland, for we find his name among those serving the community by holding small and unremunerative offices.
He was born in Deerfield, Mass., 1759, and died in Defiance, O., at the age of 96. One or more of his sons were living there, at the time, and he had been making his home with him for several years. Whether Mrs. Gun also died there cannot be learned, nor the date of her death.
Mrs. Anna Sartwell Gun, wife of Christopher Gun, was given 100 acres of land by the Connecticut Land Company as a recognition of her services rendered it. It was valued at $150. The deed was recorded in 1803, as
"100 acre lot number 457."
In 1804, she sold 50 acres of it to George Kilbourne, and in 1805, the other half to Samuel Huntington. See map on page ..
During her residence in Cleveland and Newburgh, she was best known as a competent nurse, who went in and out of fever-stricken homes, min- istering to the needs of the sick and dying, attending to the dire necessity of young mothers and their little ones, or relieving the bereaved of the last sad offices of their dead. And all of this freely bestowed without money and without price.
Mrs. Gun had a large family of her own, and many household duties while thus holding herself in readiness, by day or night, to respond to the call of duty or mercy.
It is to be hoped that this good woman had a far easier life in her declining years than was accorded her in her younger days. She was 38 years old when she came to Cleveland.
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GUN
The children of Elijah and Anna Sartwell Gun:
Christopher Gun, m. Ruth Hickox, Horace Gun, m. Anna Pritchard. daughter of Abram Hickox. Elijah Gun, Jr., m. Elenor Grant.
Charles Gun, m. Betsey Mattocks.
Philena Gun, m. Capt. Allen Gay- lord.
Minerva Gun, m. Mr. Hull, and died of consumption at the age of 21 years.
Christopher Gun lived near the foot of Superior Street, and ran the ferry between the east and west side of the river. Residents of the hamlet facetiously dubbed him Christopher Pistol, then docked the name to "Pistol"-one that clung to him the rest of his life. He lived on a farm in Nottingham for some years, and afterward removed to Toledo, Ohio.
At least three children were born to Christopher and Ruth Hickox Gun. They were Orsena, Hannah, and Solon Gun. Probably there were others.
Charles Gun, who married Betsey Mattox, removed to Maumee, O. His death occurred only three weeks after that of his wife.
Their children, so far as can be learned, were Lucien, Elliott, Edward, and Minerva Gun.
Christopher and Charles Gun were twins. After Charles died at his home in Maumee, Christopher visited his late brother's children in that town, and so closely did he resembel his twin brother that the Indians in that locality fled at his approach, thinking it was the ghost of Charles Gun.
Horace Gun, who married Anna Pritchard, daughter of Jared and Anna Baird Pritchard, lived in Cleveland the most of his life. He moved to a farm in Brunswick, O., for a time, but returned and died here. His children were:
Mary Gun, m. Samuel Snover Arm- strong.
Sarah Anna Gun, b. 1820; m. Ste- phen Francis; 2nd, Samuel Arm- strong, widower of her sister, Mary.
Minerva Gun, d. of consumption, un- married.
Sophia Gun, m. John Allen. They moved to Kansas.
Elijah Gun, m. Laura Wiesner. She d. in 1886.
Lucinda Gun, m. Andrew Stubbs. Moved to Illinois.
Almon Gun, m. Catherine Cummins. He d. as a soldier in the Civil War.
Mrs. Gun was never a strong woman; at last she succumbed to her large family and many cares, dying in 1843.
Horace Gun married, secondly, Mrs. Jane Germain Draper.
Elijah Gun, Jr., and Elenor Grant Gun lived in Maumee, Ohio.
They had at least four children-Catherine, Lucretia, Henry, and Julia Gun.
It is claimed by some of the Gun descendants that after the death of Elenor Grant Gun, Elijah Gun, Jr., married Mrs. Dorcas Hickox Watter- man, widow of Eleazur Watterman; but members of the Hickox family think this to be a mistake.
The Gun family records remaining in Cleveland are very incomplete, and it was with much difficulty that the above data-a partial one-was secured.
14
UNION
STREET
100-acre
lot of
Mrs. Job Stiles
448
449
AVE.
HILLS
WOODLAND
457
WTE
S
HARVARD
STREET
.
100-acre lot of Mrs. Elijah Gun
BROADWAY
464
465
Sketch shows approximate location of streets (Not drawn to scale) DONATED BY CUYAHOGA ABSTRACT CO.
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456
1797
CARTER
Major Lorenzo Carter has justly been called
THE PIONEER OF THE PIONEERS,
for it is doubtful if many of the earliest settlers would have survived the periods of great deprivation they experienced but for Major Carter.
He was their leader and protector. His courage sustained and forti- fied them in days of trial and danger. The skillful use of his rifle often saved them from starvation or from the terrors of wild beasts. His sturdy presence held in check any hostile demonstration of the Indians. Moreover, his continued residence in the hamlet-seventeen years in all- encouraged later settlers in remaining and living down the malaria that had driven the Stiles, Guns, Hawleys, Kingsburys and Edwards to the heights now outlined by Woodhill Road.
He must have been a striking figure even in those days of picturesque, half-Indian attire; six feet in height, erect, with black hair that hung in length to his shoulders; and with an alert, resolute bearing that betok- ened the born leader.
We learn that he was honest and generous, as well as brave and capa- ble. It was a common saying that "Major Carter was all the law Cleve- land had. He was kind to the poor and unfortunate, hospitable to the stranger, would put himself to great inconvenience to oblige a neighbor, and was always at the service of an individual or the public when a wrong had been perpetrated."
It is not the purpose of this history of the Cleveland pioneers to dwell upon their American ancestry. But, as Lorenzo Carter was so unique a personage and filled for so many years so prominent a place in the hamlet, it seems proper to touch lightly upon his forebears, in order to explain him -- to account for his intelligence and unusual traits of character.
Rev. Thomas Carter was educated at Cambridge, England, and (1) there took his degree of M. A. He came to America in 1635, and seven years later was ordained at Woburn, Mass. He became minister of the Congregational church in that town, and continued so for forty-two years.
(2) Thomas Carter, Jr., cultivated a large farm near Woburn, but resided in the old homestead, built in 1642, a part of which is still stand- ing. He married Margery, daughter of Francis Whittemore.
(3) Thomas Carter 3rd, born in Woburn, removed to Litchfield, Conn. His wife was Sarah Gilbert, a descendant of Jonathan Gilbert, Hugh Welles, James Rodgers, and other early lights of Colonial days. Evidently he was a man of considerable property, as he deeded a generous amount of land to each of his six sons. These sons all served their coun- try in the struggle for American independence.
(4) Lieut. Eleazer Carter enlisted in the Continental Army. His company was disbanded temporarily, and he returned home, to die of small-pox, in his thirty-seventh year, leaving a widow and six children, the oldest of whom-Lorenzo Carter-was but eleven years of age.
Elizabeth Buell Carter, wife of Eleazer, was the granddaughter of Ensign William Buell, of Windham County, Conn., and a descendant of the Griswolds, of Winsor, and the Collins, of Hartford. An educated woman, well-fitted for the years of trial and struggle that lay before her, she was
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capable of instructing her children when other opportunities of education failed them.
Warren-the small village of Litchfield County, in which they lived- possessed an unusual library for that day, and her children were taught to use it freely. The list of books drawn by Lorenzo from that library, and later from one in Cleveland, witness to his good taste in literature and frequent indulgence in it.
About 1783-the close of the Revolutionary War-Mrs. Carter mar- ried, secondly, Major Benjamin Ackley, who took her and her. children, together with some of his own, by a former marriage, to Castleton, Vt., where her brother, Major Ephraim Buell, had recently settled.
At least three more children were born to her, all of whom lived to be very aged. They were John A., Eleazer, and Orange Ackley. The former was once well known in Cleveland, as was his son, John M. Ackley, late of Brewton, Ala., to whose courtesy the writer is greatly indebted for valu- able data concerning the family.
In 1789 Lorenzo Carter married Rebecca Fuller, and settled down on a small farm in Castleton. But not for long. He soon became dissatisfied with the old circumscribed life of a poor farmer, his imagination became fired by glowing descriptions of "New Connecticut," and in company with another man he came West, either in the fall of 1795, or very early the following year, to investigate for himself the future site of Cleveland.
He returned to Vermont, and in the late fall of 1796, in company with Ezekiel Hawley, Lucy Carter Hawley, his wife-who was Lorenzo's sister and their young child, the Carters started for their new home in the wilderness.
They had three children at that time, Alonzo, Laura, and Rebecca, aged respectively six, four and two years. When the party reached the little hamlet of Buffalo, N. Y., it seemed expedient not to proceed any farther on the journey that season. There were no accommodations for the two families there. Buffalo was simply a store-house and a log-hut or two, so the party crossed over to the Canadian side of the Niagara River, where, at the close of the American Revolution, thirteen years previous, a settle- ment had been made by Tory refugees, chief of whom was John Clement, formerly of Schenectady, N. Y .- one of Butler's rangers in the dreadful warfare carried on by Tories against the patriots of the Mohawk Valley during the struggle of the American Revolution.
December 13, another child was born to the Carters-little Henry, who ten years later was drowned in Cuyahoga River. Mrs. Carter engaged a young Canadian girl to assist her in the care of the babe, by the name of Chloe Inches, who had an admirer in William Clement, a son of John Clement, the ranger.
She accompanied the family to Cleveland, but two months afterward was followed and claimed by her lover, and they were married the follow- ing July. A full account of this wedding will be found in the pages of this volume.
At what date the Carters and Hawleys resumed their journey is not ascertained, but they reached here in May, 1797. As there were young children in the party, including a babe five months old, and as the weather in this latitude is often at freezing point in the early part of April, it is
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probable they delayed starting until later in the month, which would bring them to their destination after the middle of May.
Mr. Carter bought lot 199, which was on the river bank west of Water Street, and nearly at the foot of St. Clair Street. It contained nearly two acres, and cost $47.50. The contract with and description of it from the Connecticut Land Company is still preserved.
Upon this lot he built a large log-house, containing two rooms, with rough puncheon floors. They must have been furnished in the most primi- tive fashion, as the only household effects that could be transported from the East at that early day were bedding and the simplest cooking utensils. One iron kettle and a skillet often served for half a dozen purposes in preparing a meal, and frequently only part of a family could eat at a time for want of sufficient dishes.
This first log-house, on the side of the hill and close to the river, was the center of many pioneer activities. It was a dwelling, Indian trading-post, store, and headquarters for all the settlement. Here, in 1801, was cele- brated the Fourth of July, ending in a dance, participated in by about a dozen women and fifteen men. The only refreshment served, it is said, was whiskey and water, sweetened with maple sugar. But as the report of this social affair was written by a man, it may have been biased by his own taste in the matter of refreshments-the hot drink probably remem- bered, the food that appealed to the women forgotten.
Timothy Doan's eldest daughter, Nancy, aged fifteen, was one of the party. She had arrived the previous April with her parents, and was visiting her uncle Nathaniel at Doan's Corners. She was escorted by a young man living transiently in Newburgh, named Bryant. He wore a gingham suit, and his hair-queued-was tied with a yard and a half of black ribbon. It had previously been greased and sprinkled with flour as thick as it would stick. He wore a wool hat and heavy shoes. By means of the latter he hoped to make a fine clatter in his "pigeon wings" while dancing the Fisher's Hornpipe or "Hie Betty Martin."
Doan's Corners was four miles east from the Carter home, and two miles or more north of Newburgh, and Bryant went for Nancy on an old horse along the road now known as Woodhill Road. "He alighted by a stump near the Doan cabin, and Nancy mounted the stump, spread her under-petticoat over old Tib's back, secured her calico dress from the mud- splashes sure to assail it, and mounted behind him." It is reported that they had a good time.
In 1801 Mr. Carter added to his possessions by acquiring more city property. The deed and description of it is still retained in the family. It began at the north-west corner of Water (W. 9th) and Superior streets, . and embraced all the lots between that point and lot 199-the one he was occupying.
Upon the corner he built a large frame-house-the first one in the settlement-which, when nearly finished, was set on fire by children playing with the dry shavings left on the floors. It must have been a serious loss to the family, as well as a great disappointment. However, another one was soon erected, but this time of hewn logs.
There is some dispute regarding the exact year in which this last house was finished, but the oldest son of the family was thirteen years of
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CARTER
age at the time, and his testimony should have due weight. He says it was in 1803. The house consisted of a large living room, kitchen and two bedrooms on the ground floor, and several small rooms in the half-story above.
A large chimney stood in the center of this primitive structure, in which were two fire-places. The one in the kitchen had an iron crane, upon which Mrs. Carter hung venison, wild turkey or other meats to roast, while the few vegetables obtainable were cooked either in the hot ashes or in iron pots and skillets set close to the fire and requiring con- tinual turning to secure an even heat within. The baking-oven was built in the chimney.
The oldest daughter of the family-Mrs. Laura Miles Strong-stated that the furniture in this log-cabin was all made by a Cleveland carpenter out of lumber brought from Detroit.
Mrs. Carter was fully in sympathy with her husband in all his plans for the future. There were many strangers constantly arriving to inspect the new settlement, with a view of joining it, and these were freely and generously invited to partake of the hospitality of the Carter home. Finally it became apparent that a public inn was necessary, and Mr. Carter made his new log-house a tavern.
Although the cares of this house, of strangers, and of her children required an immense amount of labor, Mrs. Carter was ever ready to comfort or aid any suffering neighbor by sympathy, tender nursing, or by supplying daintily prepared food for the helpless. Her intense re- ligious nature, combined with her early training, led her to be among the first to assist in the organization of a religious society, which held its early services in Carter's tavern before a "meeting-house" was built.
It is a great satisfaction to the writer, and will be to the reader, that so much of this representative pioneer woman has been preserved. It is due to the loyalty and zeal of her great-granddaughter-Miss L. Belle Hamlin, of Milford, Conn .- a genealogist of our day, whose researches secured knowledge of her ancestress that otherwise would have been unattainable.
Rebecca Fuller Carter was the daughter of Amos and Mercy Taylor Fuller, who, with several neighbors, removed from Lebanon, Conn., to Carmel, a beautiful little village of Eastern New York. But during the War of the American Revolution, fifteen years later, that locality became so unsafe that after innumerable hardships the family were compelled to return to Connecticut, and Mr. Fuller, then nearing sixty years of age, was obliged to found a new home. This he did in Warren, a little village in the mountains of Litchfield County. It possessed, for that period, an unusually good library and an excellent school.
Here also lived the widow Carter and her children, and the Ackleys. Abel Fuller, Rebecca's brother, was in love with Roxanna Ackley, after- ward the step-sister of Lorenzo Carter. Two years after the marriage of Mrs. Carter to Roxanna's father, and the removal of the families to Castleton, Vt., Abel followed them, and Roxanna Ackley became his wife.
In time Rebecca Fuller visited her brother in Castleton, and a friend- ship that had existed between Lorenzo Carter and herself was renewed.
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It matured into strong affection, and they were married in January, 1789. She was twenty-two years of age.
No pioneer woman of Cleveland was more illy fitted to endure the dangers, deprivations and toil which existed for all those first settlers than was Mrs. Carter, whose shy, timid, imaginative temperament created unnecessary terrors, and whose physical frailty made the struggle for existence difficult.
The surrounding Indians were a source of continual anxiety, for she possessed none of that fearlessness so characteristic of her husband, and she suffered greatly from an unconquerable dread of their approach. The common occurrence of one peering into the house with face pressed close against the window-pane would cause her to run away screaming with terror. Or, did they appear in the house when her husband was away, she would lock herself and children in another room, or would hide in the woodpile until they disappeared.
This fear of them was apparent to the Indians, and, perhaps in resent- ment of it, they seemed to enjoy tormenting her.
Once, knowing that Mr. Carter was away hunting, an Indian came into the house, and ordered her to cook a meal for him, and, growing ugly at some delay, he raised his arm threateningly and started towards her. She ran through the open door and circled round and round the woodpile, closely followed by her pursuer.
The aspect of this scene was suddenly changed by the appearance of her husband standing with gun leveled at her tormentor, and, while she fell breathless to the ground, almost paralyzed with fright, the Indian skulked limping away, carrying with him a stinging and personal knowl- edge of Lorenzo Carter's skill as a marksman.
Mrs. Carter had five more children born to her after she came to Cleveland, making nine in all. Her little Rebecca, who came with them from Vermont, died the fall after their arrival, and in 1808 she lost two more children-Cleveland born-in less than two months. Three years later her ten-year-old son Henry, the one born in Canada, was drowned in the river.
But she had yet to face a greater sorrow, one that demanded her uttermost fortitude. Lorenzo Carter, in the very prime of life, was smit- ten with that dreadful and fatal disease-cancer. It appeared upon his face, and he went East to consult the most eminent physicians, but returned, knowing that for him life was short. Brave and daring as he had shown himself hitherto, he could not resign himself to his fate. As the disease gradually disfigured his countenance, he grew morbidly sensi- tive, refused all visitors, and retired to an upper room to avoid friends and strangers alike.
There were days when, tortured by pain and his own thoughts, he would pace his room, furiously raging at his hard fate.
His gentle wife would then endeavor to pacify him in every way that love prompted, but often-so impatient and desperate was his mood-he would drive her away. Then she would sit down on the stairs near his door and pray to be taught how to comfort him.
That he appreciated her devotion and reciprocated her affection, is evi-
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dent in his will, in which careful directions are given for her future welfare.
Lorenzo Carter died in February, 1814, and was buried in Erie Street Cemetery, to the left of the main drive, and close to the front entrance. Beside him lies his wife, Rebecca Fuller Carter, who survived him thirteen years and died at the age of sixty-one.
The births, deaths and marriages of the Carter children were copied from the family Bible and kindly furnished as data for this work.
Alonzo Carter, b. in Castleton, Vt., 1790 ; m. Julia Akins.
Laura Carter, b. in Castleton, Vt., 1792; m. Erastus Miles, and (2d) James Strong.
Rebecca Carter, b. in Castleton, Vt., 1794; d. Sept., 1797.
Henry Carter, b. in Niagara, Ont., Dec., 1796; d. Sept., 1806.
Polly Carter, b. in Cleveland, 1798;
m. William Peets, and (2d)
Rebecca Carter, b. in Cleveland, 1800; d. Aug., 1803.
Lorenzo Carter, b. in Cleveland, 1802; d. Sept., 1803. Mercy Carter, b. in Cleveland, 1804; m. Asahel Abels.
Betsey Carter, b. in Cleveland, 1806; m. Orison Cathan.
Soon after his arrival in Cleveland, Lorenzo Carter bought a large farm on the west side of the river, most of it lying directly opposite his home- stead. This he either gave or sold to his eldest born and only son Alonzo, who lived on it and cultivated it for many years. His house, painted red and always mentioned as "the red house," stood where it was conspicuous from Superior Street, being directly opposite the foot of it.
Alonzo Carter married, in 1815, Julia Akins, who was the daughter of George and Tamison Higgins Akins, who had come from Haddam, Conn., in 1811, and settled in Brooklyn on the farm where the City Infirmary has stood for so many years.
In the red house Alonzo and his wife entertained the traveling public, and their tavern was as well-known a stopping-place as, for fifteen years, his father's had been. The Buffalo Land Company bought the farm some time in the '30s, and erected one of the finest hotels in the West, either on it or close at hand. But the grand hotel proved less profitable than the small pioneer tavern, and eventually fell into ruin, after many years of base usage as factory and slum tenement.
Alonzo Carter had the distinction of being
THE FIRST TREASURER OF CLEVELAND.
He was unanimously elected to that office in June, 1815, when the village of Cleveland was incorporated, and probably it was a tribute to the well- known Carter honesty.
The marshal chosen in that election of 1815 was John A. Ackley, the half-brother of Lorenzo Carter.
Alonzo seems always to have been held in much respect. He was associated with leading citizens of the town in various enterprises. He inherited the kind, generous qualities of his parents. This was exemplified in an incident which will be found in Johnson's History of Cuyahoga County, p. 417.
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After the sale of the farm he removed to the vicinity of Broadway and Miles Ave., where his sons also lived and died.
Children of Alonzo and Julia Akins Carter :
Rebecca Sarter, m. 1835, Joseph Lorenzo Carter, m. Eunice Brock- Few, of New York State. way.
Laura Carter, m. 1844, Stewart Rathbun.
Julia Carter, m. 1845, Dr. Charles Northrup, of Olmstead Falls, O.
Amelia Carter, m. Corydon Rath- bun.
Edward Carter, m. Margaret Stew- art, widow of Augustus Stewart.
Charles Carter, m. Anna Rock.
Henry Carter, m. Julia McNamara.
Alonzo Carter died in 1872, and his wife ten years later.
Laura Carter, the oldest daughter of Lorenzo and Rebecca Carter, was a tall, straight, black-eyed girl, and, like her father, courageous and fearless. Her remembrance of the long journey from Vermont to Cleve- land was but slight, but some of her recollections of events that transpired after the family reached their destination remained vivid through life, especially that of the Indians crowding into their cabin and sometimes filling the living room with their numbers.
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