USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 49
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There was a Presidential election that year, and the result of the voting in Erie county was :
Benjamin Harrison .8904
Grover Cleveland 7529
For two Congressional elections there was no quarrel among the Republicans of the district, and the result was that Sibley, so phenomen- ally successful in 1892 was twice defeated, in 1894 by Hon. Matthew
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Griswold, who had a majority of 2464, and in 1896 by John C. Sturtevant of Crawford, whose majority was 726. The vote for the national can- didates in Erie county that year was :
William McKinley 11755
W. J. Bryan 8556
The Democrats were successful in 1898, electing Athelstan Gaston to Congress by a majority of 34 over George H. Higgins, but Mr. Gaston was not successful at the next election, in 1900, Arthur Bates winning by a majority of 3,805, and Mr. Bates was re-elected for four terms more in succession thus making his term of service thus far equal to the long- est in the history of the district, Glenni W. Scofield of Warren county having served for ten years. The district that had for many years been the Twenty-sixth, became, in 1902 the Twenty-fifth. The candidates opposed to Bates in the several campaigns were, 1902, Hon. A. B. Os- borne; 1904, - McArthur; 1906, Hon. A. J. Palm; 1908, Hon. J. B. Brooks.
The result of the voting on the national ticket in the year 1900 was as follows :
William McKinley 11816
W. J. Bryan
7281
While there was a gain in the Mckinley vote over that of 1896 of only 61, the decrease in the vote for Bryan increased the Mckinley plu- rality from about 3,200 in 1896, to 4,535. The next Presidential election, however, carried both the vote for the winning candidate and the plural- ity, to the record point in the history of voting in this county-but then it was a Republican record year in the State of Pennsylvania. Roose- velt's plurality in Erie county was 6,848, and the vote in the county was :
Theodore Roosevelt 11951
A. B. Parker 5103
On June 25, 1902, the Democratic State Convention was held in Erie. It was the second time that Erie was so distinguished, due in this instance to the fact that John S. Rilling of Erie was chairman of the state central committee of that party. The convention was held in Park Opera House, Hon. A. B. Osborne of Erie being chairman. Robert E. Pattison was, for the third time, nominated for Governor ; G. W. Guthrie for Lieutenant Governor, and James Nolan for Secretary of Internal Affairs.
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The election of 1908, the latest presidential contest, showed a de- crease in the plurality for the winning candidate, as compared with the result in 1904, being 4655, but it still figured as an increased plurality over Bryan, whose total vote just as steadily decreased. The vote was:
William H. Taft 10,828 William J. Bryan 6,173
PART SECOND TOWNSHIPS AND BOROUGHS
CHAPTER I .- AMITY.
CARVED OUT OF UNION .- THE DONATION DISTRICT LANDS .- THE WORK OF WILLIAM MILES .- RURAL INDUSTRIES OF THE TOWNSHIP.
The township of Amity was created in 1825 and was formed by the subdivision of Union township, the northern half being set off for the new township and the southern moiety retaining the original name. Nearly the whole of Amity township consisted of land of the Tenth Donation District, being lands set apart by the State in the fulfillment of its promise made in 1780, to make a donation "to the officers and privates belonging to this State in the Federal army of certain dona- tions or quantities of land according to their several ranks." But little of the land in the Erie county donation district was taken up on soldiers' warrants, and in the course of time what remained unclaimed after the expiration of the time limit was disposed of to actual settlers. The settlement of Amity, or the area included in what is now Amity, be- gan almost contemporaneously with the first settlements in Erie county. In 1796 William Miles, the founder of Wattsburg, and one of the great men in the beginning of affairs in the county, located 1,200 acres of land on the stream that has no better name than the outlet of Lake Pleasant. He did not choose to settle there, however, but made his home in Concord township. About the same time John Fagan cleared up a piece of land near Hatch Hollow, and immediately he was blessed with a neighbor named McGahan. Mr. Fagan, however, remained only until 1807, when he removed to Millcreek, where he became the founder of an influential family, whose name is still prominent in the eastern end of the township on the lake shore. John Carron is said to be the first permanent settler in Amity, but the date of his coming is not known. Hazen Sheppard and wife came to the township in 1812. In 1816 Benjamin Hinkston moved west from Vermont, and took up land in Greene township. but in 1818 removed to Amity, where he lo -- cated permanently. Early in 1819 Charles Capron moved in from New Hampshire, and later in the same year Seth Shepardson and Timothy Reed came. Capron's father and mother accompanied him. James McCullough and Capt. James Donaldson became residents of the township in 1820, the latter settling near Lake Pleasant. He was from Cumberland county. Others of the early settlers were: In 1829,
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Jabez Hubbell with his wife and sons Hiram and David from Otsego, N. Y., Royal D. Mason and Jacob Rouse; in 1830, the Duncombes, Pliny Maynard, and Elias Patterson; in 1831, William B. Maynard, son of Pliny; in 1833, George W. Baldwin; in 1847, John Allen from Otsego, N. Y.
Amity is distinctively a rural section. There is no railroad within the township and no settlements of importance, Milltown and Hatch Hollow never having attained to the dignity which would entitle them to be called villages. The nearest railway station is Union City. The industries of the township have always been few and unimportant. Not- withstanding the augmented stream of French creek crosses the town- ship diagonally, the east and west branches joining on the northern boundary, there have always been but few mills, and these were lo- cated upon minor tributaries. The first mill was built on the stream which runs through the Hatch neighborhood and empties into the out- let of Lake Pleasant. The second mill, a grist and sawmill combined, was erected by Capt. James Donaldson in 1822 on the outlet of Lake Pleasant. Both of these early mills have long since been abandoned. Later mills were the sawmill on the Hatch Hollow Alder run; a saw- mill and shingle mill. a grist mill and two sawmills at Milltown, these giving the hamlet its name; a sawmill and shingle mill on the McAllister road. The creamery at Milltown was started in 1888, and that at Hatch Hollow in 1893.
The most important industry of Amity for many years has been dairying and raising cattle. There is considerable agriculture, but the character of the country favors grazing, for it is chiefly hilly. Large quantities of butter have for years been made in Amity, and the town- ship has contributed not a little toward the fame of Wattsburg as a butter market.
The Methodist Episcopal denomination established a footing in Amity township at an early day, the beginnings of a church dating from 1831 or 1>35, when a class was formed in the vicinity of Hatch Hol- low. The M. E. Church at that place was dedicated in 1859.
Schools began earlier. The first school, a structure of logs, as most of the houses of all kinds then were, was built in 1825, and stood about half-way between J. Chaffee's and the borough of Wattsburg. A few years later a school was built at Hatch Hollow, which served until the development under the free school laws called for a better building, the latter doing service until the present. A log schoolhouse was built in Baldwin's Flats in 1835. It was built by private contributions, and when it burned down, a few years later. another was built in its place by the same means. That, too, was burned, and now the third build- ing occupies the same site.
No other township in Erie county, perhaps, has more private or family graveyards than Amity. The cemetery at Hatch Hollow was
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
established about 1870, and is the principal burial place of the township. Amity has not had many public men among those enrolled in the service of the county. Two citizens of the county, however, have served in the State Legislature, William Sanborn and Warren Chaffee. Fran- cis Stow was elected county auditor in 1867, and Clark McAllister was a director of the poor.
CHAPTER II .- CONCORD.
FIRST CALLED BROKENSTRAW .- FIRST SETTLEMENT OF WILLIAM MILES. -THE RULE OF SUBTRACTION .- THE RAILROADS, THE CITY OF CORRY AND BOROUGH OF ELGIN.
When the county of Erie was erected in 1800, the eastern pro- jection south of the Triangle was laid out as one of the original town- ships, to which was given the name of Brokenstraw, after the affluent of the Allegheny, which has its rise in a number of small branches in the northern part of the territory included in that township. It is an insignificant stream in its relation to the township, compared with the south branch of French creek, with its tributaries, but appealed when names were being passed around. The name, however, was not so popular with the people after that section came to be settled, so that in 1821, after the township had reached its majority, as might be said, the name was changed to Concord. Five years later another change came to the township. In 1826 it was divided into two parts, nearly equal, the northern section of which became Amity township, while the remainder retained the name of Concord. It is the southeastern subdivision of the county and is said to owe its name to William Miles who was the sponsor of Amity and Union as well as of Concord. The process of reduction did not stop with the setting off of Amity as a separate township. In 1863 Corry was incorporated as a borough, and the land occupied by that new town was taken from Concord. In 1866 Corry became a city, and the additional land required by the new municipality was another draft upon the territory of Concord. Yet again, in 1876, was the territory of Concord drawn upon, this time by the erection into a borough, of Elgin. The process of geographical mathematics that applied division and subtraction to the township came to an end in the year of the National Centennial. There was nothing more to subtract ; there was no room left for division. In the entire township there remained but one village, Lovell's Station, and that was the sole postoffice in Concord township. When the rural free delivery system · came into operation it might be said that subtraction was again resorted to, for the dignity of the only postoffice within the bounds of the township was greatly reduced.
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Concord, in which these various processes of reduction or restriction had been practiced, was, however, measured by the tenure of its occupancy by the English speaking race, as old as any part of the county of Erie. The date of its settlement was 1795, the same year that Erie and Water- ford was first opened up by the pioneers. The first to come into Concord as permanent settlers were William Miles and his brother-in-law, Wil- liam Cook. They came from the Susquehanna Valley, the region that sent the pioneers of Le Bœuf and Washington township. Both these men came into Erie county to find here permanent homes. They did not, however, remain fixed in the localities to which they came in 1795. After a time they moved south of the Crawford county line, into Sparta town- ship, but, returning to Erie county, at length became identified with the beginnings of Union City. No other immigrants with permanent settle- ment in mind came into the township until 1800, when James and Robert McCray, natives of Ireland, took up homes and Joseph Hall, a Virginian, who went to Beaver Dam in 1797. moved over to the present site of Elgin borough. It would appear, from the lack of any record to the con- trary, that for about a quarter of a century the entire population of Con- cord consisted of these three families. In 1823 quite a brisk immigration set in from New York state, among the leaders at that time being Elder Jeduthan Gray, a Baptist minister, with a family of grown-up children, and Deacon Graves. From 1825 to 1835, the settlers included Ezekiel Lewis, Jesse and Heman Heath, Simeon Stewart, William Bugbee, Abner Lilly, John B. Chase, James Crowell, Russell Darrow, Hiram Cook, Paul Hammond, Stephen Hollis, Buckingham Beebe, Elijah Pond, Oliver D. Pier. G. J. Stranahan settled in Concord in 1836, coming from Herkimer county, N. Y. His sons, John D. and P. G. Stranahan, moved to Le Bœuf, the former in 1849, the latter in 1850, from which place P. G. changed to Union in 1859.
Concord is a township of hills, and yet is good farming country. It has few important common roads. The first opened was the Mead- ville and Columbus, which passes through the southeastern corner ; the Union and Corry, which crosses the northern part, passing through Elgin; the Elgin and Sparta, running south through the centre of the township; the Corry and Spring Creek and the Corry and Titusville in the southeast. More important are the railroads. The Philadelphia & Erie and the Atlantic & Great Western were built, the former in 1859 and the latter in 1862, through Concord township, and the Oil Creek road in 1862.
The industries of Concord township came first in the decade of the twenties, when the fresh influx rendered the saw-mill and the grist mill a necessity. The earliest of the mills were Joseph Hall's on Beaver Dam rnn and James Crowell's at Lovells. At the latter place there was, in the early days a machine shop a saw-mill and a planing mill, but they were destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. In 1879 a saw-mill was built
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
by D. J. Crowell. The Caflisch mill on the Erie road at Concord Station was in prosperous operation in the early nineties. At the time of the oil excitement in Crawford and Venango counties in the early sixties con- siderable drilling was done in Concord township. but little oil was found. During that period the industry of baling hay for shipment to the oil regions was an important one in Concord.
The Wesleyan Methodists were active among the immigrants from New York state, and a class was started early by Rev. John Broadhead. The outcome was the organization of a church and the building of a meeting house about 1840. Eventually it was ministered to by preachers of the M. E. church. The M. E. church, near F. S. Heath's, was dedi- cated in July. 1829, with Rev. C. M. Coburn as the first minister.
The first school-house in the township, a log building, was erected about 1823, and stood on the site of the Cook school of later days. The first teacher was Daniel Sackett, and Andrew Aiken and Joseph Gray and wife afterwards taught in the same school building. After the adoption of the free school laws, district schools dotted the landscape. Concord being well provided with facilities for common school educa- tion.
Elgin borough was incorporated in the winter of 1876. It was here that the mills of Joseph Hall was built, and for a considerable period the licthe settlement that sprang up about the mills came to be known as Halltown. In 1856 a general country store was started, but the place did not amount to much until the P. & E. Railroad was built, in 1859. Then its name was changed to Concord Station, and it began to take on activity until in the course of time it boasted of a Methodist church, a school house, a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a barrel factory, two groceries, a general store, a hotel, a blacksmith and wagonshop, a shoe shop and about forty residences. It was enough upon which to build a borough. There had been a Disciple church at Concord or Elgin, built in 1868, but gradually the membership fell away, largely through removals, and at length the organization was abandoned. \ Methodist class was orga- nized about 1854 by Rev. Josiah Flower of the Wattsburg circuit, with S. D. Lewis as class leader. In 1858 it became organized as a church and met in the school house until two years after the Disciple church was built. when that edifice was secured for services.
CHAPTER III .- CONNEAUT AND ALBION.
JONATHAN SPAULDING, PIONEER .- THE FOUNDING OF LEXINGTON. A FAMOUS ACADEMY .- ALBION IN CANAL DAYS, AND WHEN THE RAILROAD CAME.
The first man to penetrate the forest wilderness as far west as the section in the southwest corner of the county of Erie that came in time to be known as Conneaut township, was Jonathan Spaulding, who went in from New York State in 1995. The country was not only an un- broken wilderness, but was remote from any route of travel. The path- finder of the time, however, was well pleased with the location he had discovered, situated as it was in the rather broad valley of Conneaut creek, the largest stream flowing through Erie county into the lake. For years Mr. Spaulding was practically alone, when neighbors did come, being separated from them by miles. But the isolation did not daunt him nor change his purpose of hewing out of the forest a place that was to be his home. He went diligently about it and in a surprisingly short time had a farmstead, comfortable as things went in those days. He was a man of energy, and proved to be a good farmer, so that he succeeded in securing pretty good crops. About three years after his settlement in the county he decided that a change of diet was desirable, and with that purpose set about getting some of his grain to the mill, so that meal and flour might be substituted for crushed corn or hominy. To that end he set about constructing a canoe. He had been a waterman in New York, and he therefore did not experience much difficulty in constructing a good canoe out of a tree-trunk. When he had it ready he loaded it with grain and started down the creek. It is a long distance from Albion to the lake, following the course of the stream, which, flowing northward where he launched his embarkation, after a course of four miles or so turns westward, continuing in that direction about eighteen miles. turns eastward for about eight, and then northward for a mile and a half to its mouth, so that there was a stretch of thirty miles or more of the stream before he reached the lake. From there he had to proceed to the mouth of Walnut creek, more than twenty miles farther to have his grist ground. The long voyage was successfully accomplished. Return- ing he stopped at the mouth of Crooked creek and spent the night with Captain Holliday, and naturally discussed the subject of mills. With
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Capt. Holliday he looked over the ground in the neighborhood, and to- gether they agreed upon an advantageous mill site, which was the same upon which a year or two later Capt. Holliday erected the first mills in Springfield township.
Conneaut was one of the original townships when Erie county was formed in 1800. The name is of Indian origin, and Conneaut is one of the two townships that bear aboriginal names, Venango being the other. Its southern boundary is the Crawford county line; its western the line that separates Pennsylvania from Ohio, and its northern is Con- neaut creek. Originally, however, it extended a mile farther to the north, but in 1835 all the territory north of the creek was ceded to Springfield for the consideration that that township would bear half the expense of building and maintaining bridges over the stream.
As has been related, Jonathan Spaulding was the first permanent settler in that part of the county. Two years later the Pennsylvania Population Company sent Col. Dunning McNair as their agent, who established his headquarters at Lexington, a short distance north and west of Albion on the creek, and he, with a corps of assistants made surveys, laid out roads, and made all necessary preparations for disposing of the land to settlers. The Population Company's road, and the road from Waterford to Cranesville, were among the earliest in the county. In 1798 Abiather Crane and his brother Elihu moved in from Connecticut and located near Lexington. Abiather was one of Col. McNair's sur- veyors. Neither of the Cranes remained permanently, Elihu moving to Elkcreek in 1800 and Abiather to Millcreek in 1809. The dates of the arrival of others of the pioneers are: In 1800 Matthew Harrington from Vermont, George Griffey and Andrew Cole, and Stephen Randall and his son Sheffield from New York State; in 1801 Robert McKee from Cumberland county, Pa .; in 1802 Henry Ball from Virginia, Patrick Kennedy and his son Royal and William Payne from Connecticut; in 1803 Marsena Keep and his son Marsena from New York State; in 180 Joel Bradish and brothers from New York; in 1806 Lyman Jack- son from New York; in 1810 Michael Jackson, son of Lyman, remained a short time and returned to New York, but came back in 1815 and settled permanently. Others who settled at the beginning of the century, most of them from New York. were. Bartholomew Forbes, Howard, John, Nathan, David and Charles Salsbury, Thomas Sprague, James Paul, James Whittington, Thomas Alexander, John Stunz, Giles Badger. Ichabod Baker and Jacob Walker.
Henry Ball was a captain in the war of 1812, and several of the other early settlers served as privates in the American army of defense. Jonathan Spaulding's sons, David, John and George, were born in the township, the first in 1802, the second in 1806, the third in 1816. Wil- liam Harrington, the oldest son of Matthew, was born in 1805. The first male child was Henry Wood, born in 1198; the first female children,
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
were Ruth, daughter of Elihu Crane, and Eliza daughter of Abiather Crane, both born in the same house near Lexington, on the same day, April 20, 1799. Ruth Crane married Isaac Pomeroy, and became the mother of two sons, Alden and Jerome, and seven daughters.
Beginning with 1815 there was a fresh influx, George Stunz and his son E. W. Stunz from Virginia, coming in that year. In 1816 the arrivals were Medad Pomeroy with his sons Nathaniel, Uriah, John, Lyman, James, George and Horace and three daughters, from Massa- chusetts-the family a colony in itself; and James W. and G. Spicer from New York. In 1817 Benjamin Sawdey and Isaac Pomeroy came from Massachusetts ; in 1818, David Sawdey, Abijah Barnes and Samuel Bradish ; in 1819, Noah Kidder and son Francis, Edward De Wolf, Daniel Rossiter and Samuel Sawdey, father of Benjamin and David, with his sons John, Job and Daniel; in 1820, Rodolphus Loomis ; in 1825, Harrison Parks; in 1829, Jonas Lewis; in 1831, Thomas Bowman and family, including Ralph; in 1832, William Cornell and John Curtis; in 1833, Chester Morley and Andrew and Silas Morrison ; in 1834, Christo- pher Cross, Edward Dorrence and Hiram Griffis ; in 1837, Andrew Swap, Daniel Waters and Joseph Tubbs; in 1838, Isaiah and Johnson Pelton; in 1839, Marcus A. Bumpus.
There are evidences in Conneaut township-as indeed there are in Springfield and Girard-that in remote times that tract of country was inhabited by that race or branch of the aborigines that we speak of in these days as the Mound Builders. On the John Pomeroy farm there is a circular earthwork enclosing about three-quarters of an acre. When the country was first cleared up it was three feet in height by six feet wide at the base, with large trees growing upon it. One of these, a large oak, when cut down indicated by the rings of its growth that it was not less than 500 years old. Another circular work of a similar character existed on the Taylor farm, later owned by J. L. Strong. On the Pomeroy farm there is a mound about 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 25 feet high. It stands on the south side of a small stream, upon flat land detached from the adjacent bluff.
At an early day John B. Wallace of Philadelphia located in Mead- ville as attorney for the Holland Land Company. In that capacity he took up tracts in various places, including 10,000 acres in the western part of Conneaut township. In 1825 this property was sold on an ex- ecution against Mr. Wallace and was bought for Stephen Girard of Phila- delphia. It had been Mr. Girard's intention to make extensive im- provements by erecting mills, opening roads, etc., but while his agent was arranging to carry out his plans, news came in January, 1832, of the death of the millionaire. By Mr. Girard's will the Conneaut lands, along with others, were left in trust to the city of Philadelphia as part of a perpetual fund for the maintenance of a college for orphans. After the death of Mr. Wallace, in 1833, his heirs claimed that the Conneaut lands
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
had been wrongfully sold, because the title was in Mrs. Wallace, and not in her husband. Suit was brought in the name of the Wallace heirs to recover the property, and the verdict was against the Girard estate.
The oldest of the settlements in the township was Lexington, given that name when Col. McNair established his headquarters there in 1797 as agent of the Pennsylvania Population Company. He laid out a plat of 1,600 acres at the big bend of Conneaut creek and opened roads, and. being the centre of the Company's operations in the west, Lexington in time came to be a village of no small pretensions. At one period it had a store, schoolhouse, hotel, distillery and several residences. A postoffice was established at Lexington Feb. 24, 1823, with David Sawdey as post- master, and though the village long since went down it is interesting to know that by the Post Office Department at Washington that office still exists but under a change of names, for the record shows that Lexington was changed to Jackson Cross Roads February 23, 1835; to Pomeroy's Corners May 21. 1835; to Jackson Cross Roads, 1831, and to Albion, while O. M. Clark was serving as postmaster, in 1845. However, it is proper to state that Jackson Cross Roads was the original name of Albion. Lexington's name might be lost entirely but for the fact that the Erie & Pittsburg Railroad. by giving that name to a way station or siding, has preserved it.
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