228 - HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PIONEERS OF PORTA GE COUNTY-THEIR HEROIC PERSEVERANCE AND PRIVATIONS-NEW ENGLAND TRANSPLANTED ON THE CONNECTICUT WESTERN RESERVE-THE FIRST SETTLEMENT MADE WITHIN THE LIMITS OF PORTAGE COUNTY-FIRST SETTLERS OF MANTUA, RAVENNA, AURORA AND ATWATER TOWNSHIPS-ATWATER HALL, THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN 1N THE COUNTY-FIRST SETTLERS OF PALMYRA, DEERFIELD, NELSON, ROOTSTOWN, RANDOLPH, SUFFIELD, CHARLESTOWN. HIRAM, FRANKLIN, SHALERSVILLE, EDINBURG, WINDHAM, PARIS, BRIMFIELD, FREEDOM, STREETSBORO AND GARRETTSVILLE TOWNSHIPS-THE PORTAGE-SUMMIT PIONEER ASSOCIATION.
LESS than one hundred years ago there was not a single white inhabitant a permanent settler throughout the length and breadth of the State of Ohio; less than eighty-seven years ago there was not a single white person in Portage County. Could, those who only see this country as it now is, borrow the eyes of those who helped make the transformation, their amazement could not be depicted by words. In place of the now smiling fields and comfortable homes, naught but a vast wilderness of forest would greet the sight. The true story of the first settlement of Portage County has never been told. Those early pioneers were not seeking fortunes, nor fame; they were intent only on making a home for their children, and from that laudable impelling motive has arisen the splendid structure of Western civilization we see all around us. It is astonishing how rapidly accurate and reliable information concerning the pioneer days is perishing. The traditions of those early times have been very carelessly kept, and whoever seeks to collect them finds much difficulty in doing so. Yet, what does remain has been carefully and cautiously collated keeping ever in view the unreliability of certain sources, but gleaning the rich kernels from out the debris of shells. The present generation can form no just conception of the trials, tireless labors, sacrifices and privations to which the first settlers heroically submitted. These men whose industry, enterprise and perseverance wrought from out nature's wilds the great prosperity which in to-day's sunlight, from every hillside and glen, looks up to smile upon us, have, in the benefactions they have bestowed upon their children, by leaving this to them for an inheritance, proved th-emselves greater heroes, because their achievements were nobler and better, than if they had laid the trophies of a blood-bought conquest upon their escutcheons. Courage upon
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the soil of carnage wins the wreath of laurel that evanescently bedecks the brow of victory, but true, manly courage upon life's broad field of battle should bestow a more brilliant and fadeless diadem than ever pressed the warrior's brow, for the peaceful conquests of as and plow are more fruitful of benefits to mankind than those of the sword and the mere scorn of death.
From the time that the Connecticut Land Company put their lands upon the market, exaggerated reports of the wonderful richness of the Connecticut Western Reserve, or New Connecticut, as it was called, were in circulation. Single individuals, parties and companies made their way to the far-off wilds, nearly all of whom either returned with or sent back to their homes glowing accounts, the result of which was an exodus to and a rapid settlement of this section. The new comers were at first almost exclusively from Connecticut and Massachusetts. They brought with them their religious ideas and prejudices, their virtues and social customs, their peculiarities, and above all, their New England thrift, and to such an extent that for many years the inhabitants of Portage County. as well as the entire tract of territory known as the Connecticut Wsstern Reserve, so closely resembled their ancestors in their modes of life and veins of thought, as to be but a transplantation of, or an enlargement upon, the land of the "Pilgrim Fathers." The two upper tiers of townships, especially, were peopled from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and a native of any other State was rarely to be found. The pioneers of the two southern tiers of townships, however, were from New England and Pennsylvania, with here and there a Virginian, a Carolinian, or a Marylander. Many Germans came in later, bringing with them their hardiness of constitution and industry, and bringing up the land upon which they settled to the highest point of fertility. In he eastern portion of the county many of that sturdy race, the Welsh, have settled, and in one township largely outnumber the purely American population.
In those early days the entire community were producers—every man, woman, boy and girl had their duties to perform. They lived in comparative social equality, and the almighty dollar did not form a barrier between the rich and the poor; a man was esteemed not for his money bags, but for actual merit. All aristocratic distinctions were left beyond the mountains, and the only society lines were to separate the bad from the good. Rich and poor dressed alike, homespun being almost universal, whilst the primitive cabin was furnished with the same style of simplicity. Bedsteads often consisted of forked sticks driven in the ground, with crosspoles to support the clapboards or cord. We have grown older, in many respects, if not wiser, and could not think of living on what our ancestors lived. But this is an age of progress and improvement, and these observations are made by way of contrasting the past with the present. The pioneers who endured the hardships, and ofttimes the dangers from wild beasts and still wilder men have, with few exceptions, passed to their final account, and all that remains for their descendants to do is to keep bright the recollections of such names and such events as have come down to them, for the memory of their deeds should be "written in characters of living light upon the firmament, there to endure as radiant as if every letter were traced in shining stars,"
The first settlement within the bounds of what is now Portage County was made in the fall of 1798, in Mantua Township, on Lot 24, by Abram S. Honey, who erected a log-cabin, made a clearing, and put out a small crop of wheat, which was harvested the following season by his brother.in-law, Rufus Edwards, who owned the land, but who had sent Honey in advance to prepare the way. A man by the name of Peter French is said to have been at the point
230 - HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
where Edwards settled, as early as Honey, but he made no permanent settlement and may have been simply a helper of the latter. William Crooks wag the next permanent settler to come in after those named above, and he built a cabin and made a clearing on the southwest part of Lot 29. He remained a resident of Mantua till 1854, dying at the age of eighty-five. Elias Harmon arrived at the clearing Honey had made on the 12th of June, 1799, where he remained a short time, and then proceeded to Aurora, where he had engaged to make some improvements on the land of Ebenezer Sheldon. Harmon came in company with three other men who have had considerable local notoriety: Benjamin Tappan, Jr., of Ravenna, afterward a resident of Steubenville; David Hudson, of Summit County, and Jotham Atwater, of Euclid. Mr. Harmon was for a number of years one of the leading citizens of the county and left many descendants. He was the first Treasurer of the county.
In June, 1799, Benjamin Tappan, Jr., son of Benjamin Tappan, of North, ampton, Mass., one of the principal proprietors of the present territory known as Ravenna Township, set out from his home in the East to make a settlement on the land of his father. On his journey, Mr. Tappan fell in with David Hudson, at Gerondaquet Bay, N. Y., whom he took in his boat and assisted on his way to what is now Summit County. In company they overtook Elias Harmon in a small boat with his wife, bound to Mantua. At Niagara they found the river full of ice, which compelled them to convey their boats to some distance around and above the Falls. Proceeding on their dangerous way vast bodies of floating ice impeded their progress, and they had to get out upon the shore and drag their boats along with ropes till they were clear of the stronger current running to the Falls. When they arrived at the mouth of the lake they also found it full of floating ice, and had to remain there several days before proceeding. Off Ashtabula County their boats were driven ashore in a storm, and that of Mr. Harmon stove to pieces, the latter traveling thence by land to his destination. Tappan and his companions sailed along the shoreline till they arrived at Cleveland, which consisted at that time of one log•• cabin. Entering the Cuyahoga River and following its sinuosities, but knowing nothing at all of its depth, they soon found that they would have to erther abandon their boats or drag them over the frequent rapids in the river. After much difficulty, however, they passed safely onward, and, judging from the dis- tance traveled, thought that they were in about the latitude of the township of which they were in search. They landed at a point where now is the town of Boston, in Summit County, where Tappan left all of his goods under a tent with a hired man, and taking Benjamin Bigsby with him commenced to cut out a road to Ravenna. They built a sled and with a yoke of oxen Mr. Tappan had bought in Ontario County, N. Y., conveyed a load of his farming utensils to his settlement in the southeast corner of the township, where, owing to delays, a cabin was not finished till the first of the folldwing year, 1800. He subsequently erected a house about one mile east of Ravenna on the Marcus Heath farm. Returning for a second load, he found that his effects had been abandoned and partly plundered, and to make it still worse, one of his oxen became overheated and died. From a sketch of Hon. Benjamin Tappan, published in the Democratic Review for June, 1840, we extract the following:
The death of one of his oxen left him in a vast forest, distant from any habitation, without a team, and what was still worse, with but a single dollar in money. He was not depressed for an instant by these untoward circumstances. He sent one of his men through the woods, with a compass, to Erie, Penn., a distance of about one hundred miles, requesting from Capt. Lyman, the commandant at the fort, a loan of money. At the same
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time, he himself followed the township lines to Youngstown, where he became acquainted with Col. James Hillman, who did not hesitate to sell him an ox, on credit, at a fair price—an act of generosity which proved of great value, as the want of a team must have broken up his settlement. The unexpected delays upon the journey, and other hindrances, prevented them from raising a crop his season, and they had, after the provisions brought with them were exhausted, to depend for meat upon their skill in hunting and purchases from the Indians, and for meal upon the scanty supplies procured from west- tern Pennsylvania. Having set out with the determination to spend the winter, he erected a log-cabin, into which himself and one Rigsby, whom he had agreed to give one hundred acres of land on condition of settlement, moved on the first day of January, 1800, before which hey lived under a bark camp and tent."
During the spring following the removal of Tappan into his first cabin, which stood on the Capt. J. D. King farm, several other settlers came into Ravenna, among whom were William Chard and Conrad Boosinger, the latter coming in August, and bringing his wife, eons George and John, and daughter Polly. Boosinger settled on 200 acres of land about one and one-half miles southeast of the present town of Ravenna, made a clearing and sowed it in wheat. Chard located on Lot 33. Boosinger being a tanner, constructed a couple of vats soon after he came, which was the first effort in that direction, and the first public enterprise in the way of manufactures in the county. The privations of these early settlers of the Western Reserve cannot now be described or realized, and why a young lawyer like Benjamin Tappan, Jr., surrounded with all of the comforts of an Eastern home, would venture out into an unknown wilderness, seems to us now something wonderful.
During the same month in which Benjamin Tappan and his party arrived in Ravenna, Ebenezer Sheldon, of Suffield, Conn., came into Aurora Township, and with the assistance of Elias Harmon and his wife, made a settlement on Lot 40. After the erection of a cabin and making a small clearing in the primitive forest, Harmon and wife moved to Mantua Township, where they ever afterward resided. Sheldon then returned to Connecticut, and in the following spring, 1800, came out to his new home, bringing his wife, four sons and two daughters. They rode the entire distance in a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen, and leading a pair of young horses. They came safely as far as Warren, which at that time consisted of a few log structures, but after leaving there a storm overtook themin the woods and they were very near perishing from falling trees. They managed to avoid all accidents, however, but were literally penned in and had to remain in the woods all night, only being released the next day by getting assistance and cutting a road out. One of the daughters of this sturdy old pioneer, the year following their arrival, married Amzi Atwater, of Mantua, one of the surveyors who accompanied Cleveland in the survey of the Western Reserve, and who afterward became one of the Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and a leading citizen of the county. Ebenezer Sheldon and his family were the only inhabitants of Aurora for three years after they arrived there, but in 1803 quite a number came in, among whom were Samuel Forward and his family, from Granby, Conn. The next year came James M. Henry, John Cochran, Jr., David Kennedy, Sr., Ebenezer Kennedy, Samuel Ferguson and several others. Within a year or two afterward came Moses Eggleston, father of Gen. Nelson Eggleston; also Joseph Eggleston, brother of Moses, together with Capt. Perkins, Col. Ebenezer Harmon, Isaac Blair and others from Massachusetts and Connecticut.
232 - HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
Early in April,1799, two months before any settlers had arrived in Ravenna or Aurora Townships, and only six months after Honey had made his clearing in Mantua, six persons made their way into what is now Atwater Township. They came from Wallingford, Conn., and were Capt. Caleb Atwater, Jonathan, Merrick, Peter Bunnell, Asahel Blakesley and Asa Hall and his wife. This party, headed by Atwater, surveyed the township into lots, and in the fall all of them, with the exception of Hall and his wife, returned to their homes in the East. From the time of the arrival of this first settler till the spring of 1801-two years—Hall and his wife were the only persons in the township his nearest neighbor being Lewis Ely, over in Deerfield Township, who had come out with others shortly after Hall's arrival. Although having a lonesome time during those two years in the wilderness, an incident happened within Hall's household that was calculated in a measure to relieve the tedium of whilst it imposed additional cares upon, the life of this pioneer couple. The incident" was a child born to them in the spring of 1800, which w promptly and appropriately named Atwater Hall, and had the honor of being the first white child born in Portage County. Hall was considerable of hunter, and as may well be supposed, had ample opportunity and game to gratify all his taste in that direction, but he eventually got tired of his lonesome life and moved in 1801 to near the Deerfield Township line, where he could more easily reach the settlements in that township. About the timst Hall moved from his first location, David Baldwin. Jr., came in from Walling, ford, Conn., and settled about two miles south of the Center of Atwater Township. These two families for the next three years were the only persons in the township, but after that period settlers came in rapidly, most of whom were from Connecticut and Massachusetts, but about 1807 quite a number of persons from South Carolina settled here, among whom were Enos Davis, whose son Isaac, then a boy of ten years is still living, nearly ninety years of age; also, from the same State, came William Marshall, John Hutton and John Camp; bell. Among the arrivals shortly before and about the year 1806-07 were Jeremiah Jones, Josiah Mix, John H. Whittlesey, Caleb Mattoon, Asahel Blakesley and Ira and Amos Moree. David Baldwin, Jr., was the agent of Capt. Atwater, who owned. not only the entire township, but several others and portions of other on the Reserve, he being one of the original members of the Connecticut Land Company. Maj. Ransom Baldwin, now residing, at the advanced age of eighty-two years, on the original land located by his father, is the son of David Baldwin, he being born in 1802, the second male child born in the township of Atwater. The settlement of this portion of the county was very rapid, as the land was considered by most of the early comers to be better in the southern than in the northern portions of the county.
The first settler in that division of the county known as Palmyra Township was David Daniels, who left his home in Grattan, Conn., in the spring of 1799, and arrived there in June, locating on Lot 21, about one and a half miles south of the Center. At the drawing of the Connecticut Land Company, Palmyra Township fell to the lot of eight persons, Elijah Boardman being the principal owner, and these gentlemen, as an inducement to its settlement, gave Daniels 100 acres of land to go there, make a clearing and build a cabin, which he accordingly did. He put in a small crop of wheat, which was duly harvested the following season, and after threshing his crop carried a bushel of the grain on his shoulders to Poland, about thirty miles away, had it ground and returned with it to his humble cabin. Daniels was a soldier in the Revolutionary Army and died in 1813, having been highly respected. He was the first Justice of the Peace of Palmyra Township after its organization. Not
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long after the settlement of Daniels, Ethelbert Baker came in and located about half a mile south of the Center on the west side of the road, and the next year, 1800, in the spring, William Bacon arrived and located one and a quarter miles south of the Center. In 1802 came a son-in-law of Nehemiah Bacon—E. Cutler—who located two miles south of the Center, and in 1804 James McKelvey, of Pennsylvania, and Amasa Preston arrived. In 1805 quite a delegation came in from Connecticut, among whom were David, Silas and Asahel Waller, John Tuttle, Jr., and Capt. John T. Baldwin; the latter, who was from Litchfield County, Conn., bringing his wife and three sons, one of whom, Squire Alva Baldwin, still resides upon the farm originally owned by his father. Capt. Baldwin for many years kept a tavern at the Center of Palmyra. In 1806 Truman Gilbert, Sr., also, from Litchfield, Conn., arrived and settled west of the Center. He brought his wife, seven suns and one daughter, the latter still living at the age of eighty-six.
In the spring of 1799 Lewis Day and Horatio Day, of Connecticut, came to their purchase of land in Deerfield Township. They came through in a wagon drawn by horses, selected their locations, made a clearing and put out a crop of wheat. The first actual settler, however, was Lewis Ely, who came in July, bringing his family and settling down to business at once, while the Days in the fall returned to their homes in the East. Ely located on Lot 19, just east of the old grave-yard. The following year, 1800, was marked by the arrival in Deerfield of several men who afterward became prominent in the history of the county. In February Alva Day, John Campbell and Joel Thrall started from their homes in Connecticut and walked the entire distance, arriving here in March, after an exceedingly rough time, as the mountains over which they had to pass were covered with five or six feet of snow, subjecting them to much suffering from the cold. Provisions were exceedingly scarce at this time, and Lewis Ely and Alva Day were compelled to make a trip to the Ohio River to procure some bacon and meal. They constructed a canoe from a log, floated it down to the Ohio River, and at a point opposite Steubenville, procured what they needed and brought it back with an ox team. James Laughlin also came this year from Pennsylvania. In July Lewis Day returned bringing out his wife and six children: Horatio, Munn, Seth, Lewis, Jr., Solomon and Seba Day. During the next three or four years following 1800 the township filled up very rapidly, many of the settlers coming from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Ephraim B. Hubbard, of Connecticut, came about this time, and in 1803 Daniel Diver and his family. Noah Grant, the grandfather of Gen. U. S. Grant, is supposed to have settled in Deerfield about 1804-05, where he opened a tannery and followed shoe-making. Noah brought his wife and little son Jesse, aged about ten years, father of the now illustrious Gen. U. S. Grant, to whom the country owes so much, for to him is largely due the conception of the proper mode to cruel out the modern python of armed secession. Rev. Shadrack Bostwick, son•in-law of Daniel Diver, came in 1803. This gentleman was one of the early circuit-riders of the Methodist Church, and was a physician as well.
In the spring of 1800 there arrived in Nelson Township, from Becket, Mass., Delaun, Asahel and Isaac Mills, sons of Deacon Ezekiel Mills. The first two were married and brought out their families; the latter was single. They came in covered wagons and several weeks were occupied in the trip, during which time their money bad dwindled down to less than 25 cents. Falling in with Urial Holmes, the principal proprietor of Nelson Township, the brothers engaged with him to serve as ax-men to the surveyors, who were under charge of Amzi Atwater. After finishing their job, Delaun settled on a lot of 100
236 - HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
acres which had been donated to him by Holmes. It was on the north side of the road just west of the Center. Asahel settled on a 100 acre lot on the north and south road. Delaun, or Capt. Delaun Mills, as he was afterward known, was looked upon as the Daniel Boone of this section, and a full account of him will be found in the sketch of Nelson Township. For nearly three years the two brothers, Delaun and Asahel (Isaac having returned to the East) and their families were the only white inhabitants of Nelson Township; but in the spring of 1803 seven families came in, hey being Stephen Baldwin, Benjamin Stow and two sons, John Bancroft and four sons, Daniel Owen, two Stiles brothers, William and Thomas Kennedy and Asa Truesdell. In July, 1804, Col. John Garrett, who founded Garrettsville, or rather built a mill at that point, and for whom that enterprising little town is named, came into Nelson, and about the same time Abraham Dyson and a German named Johann Noah, all coming from the State of Delaware. In the following year, 1805, came John Tinker, Nathaniel Bancroft, Martin Manley and Daniel Wood.
Ephraim Root., principal proprietor of Rootstown Township, in compa_ny with a young man named Harvey Davenport, came out in the spring of 1800 to survey his land, which was done, he returning in the fall, but leaving his companion in the wilderness, the unfortunate young man having suddenly died. In the spring of 1801 Mr. Root again came out, bringing his brother David, and they together made a settlement in the northeast corner of the township. They erected a two-story log-cabin not far from where now is Campbellsport. Nathan Muzzy, of whom frequent mention is made in several of the township sketches, came to the county about this time, and did the carpenter work for the Roots. Muzzy discovered the little lake which has ever since borne his name. Poor old Nathan! His life-story was a romance: A graduatelof Yale,brilliant young minister, crossed in love, reason dethroned, a wanderer in the West, decrepit and penniless, buried by the hand of charity. In 1802 Henry O'Neill, an Irishman of fine education and a pioneer Justice of the Peace, and Samuel McCoy came in and together erected a cabin on Lot 3, but McCoy, also an. Irishman, afterward moved to Lot 28. In the fall of this year Michael Hartle and Frederick Canis, originally from Northumberland County, Penn., and the following year John Canis came in, also Arthur Anderson. In 1804, in addition to a number of others, the Chapmans made a settlement on Lot 4. Jacob and Abraham Reed settled on the southwest ̊or, ner of Lot 15. In the fall of 1805 Beman Chapman, brother of Ephraim, arrived with his wife and brother Nathan. Stephen Colton came about this time, and Gersham Bostwick in 1806.
Bela Hubbard and Salmon Ward, natives of Middletown, Conn., in the year 1802 removed with their families to Randolph Township, from Jefferson County, N. Y., where they had resided since 1799. These two old pioneers made a halt about half a mile west of the Center, and the first night camped under a large tree, but the next day built them a cabin. Ward was taken sick, and upon recovery returned to his Eastern home. He, however, made three other trials at settling here, and as many times gave it up. The last time he started for the East was the last ever heard of him by his friends. For six weeks Hubbard was the solitary inhabitant of Randolph Township, and a lonely time he must have had of it, but in July came Arad Upson, originally from Ply? mouth, Conn.; also Joseph Harris, from the same State. In the fall came Calvin Ward and John Ludington. In the spring of 1803 Josiah Ward, wife and sin children moved in, and during the summer Jehiel Savage and Timothy Culver arrived from Atwater, where they had at first located. In the fall Salmon Ward, on his third return trip, brought with him Aaron Weston, Levi Davis
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and two young men named Carey and Smith, the latter two simply coming to trade with the Indians. In November, 1804, Ebenezer Goss, and in December following Eliakim Merriman, the first from Plymouth and the last from Wallingford, Conn., came in. July 17, 1805, Oliver Dickinson and family, from East Granville, Mass., arrived. He was a blacksmith by trade, and one rof the most useful members of the first settlement. During this same year Isaac Merriman from Connecticut, Archibald Coon from Pennsylvania, John Goss, and Jeremiah Sabin and bis son Abel located in the township. In 1806 came Hiram Raymond, Thomas Miller, Nathan Sears and son Elisha, and Rev. Henry Ely, all of Connecticut, William Thornton from Pennsylvania and Daniel Cross from Vermont. In 1807 Deacon Stephen Butler and Caleb Wetmore moved in from Connecticut, but removed to Stow Township in a few years. Dr. Rufus Belding, from Cattarangas County, N. Y., settled here this year, where he practiced his profession for nearly thirty years. Among the leading names of settlers in the few years succeeding the last date are those of Nathaniel Bancroft, Sylvester Tinker and Deacon James Coe.
In the southwestern corner of the county a settlement was made in May, 1802, by Royal Pease, a native of Suffield, Conn., who owned a considerable portion of the land comprised in the township now known as Suffield. Pease settled on what is now known as the Kent Farm, and made a clearing, built a cabin and put out a crop of wheat. This old pioneer remained alone at his settlement for nearly a year, but the following spring after his arrival Benjamin Baldwin made his appearance, and soon after him David Way and family. In 1804 John Fritch, a Pennsylvania German, located at the little lake that has since borne his name. In this year also came from Connecticut Daniel Warner, Ezekiel Tupper, Bradford Waldo and Champlin Minard. In 1805 Martin Kent and family and Jonathan Foster came in; also, Samuel Hale and his sons Thomas and Orestes. During the neat few years settlers were quite numerous, and among he most noted was Moses Adams, from Massachusetts. Many Germans have from time to time settled in Suffield Township, and form a large portion of its present population.
In Charlestown Township a man by the name of Abel Forsha, from Maryland, about 1803, squatted on a piece of land afterward known as " Farnham's Hill," where he lived for a short time, afterward removing to Ravenna; but the first permanent settler was John Campbell, who moved here from Deerfield Township in 1805, and remained throughout his life one of the leading citizens of the county. A company from Blanford and Granville, Mass., composed of thirteen families, gave the township an impetus in 1809.
Hiram Township, which originally comprised the territory now known as Hiram, Mantua, Shalersville, Freedom, Windham and Nelson, received its first settlers in 1802, when Elijah Mason, Elisha Hutchinson and Mason Tilden came in and settled respectively as follows: Mason, who was from Lebanon, Conn., selected the west half of Lot 23; Hutchinson, who was from Herkimer County, N. Y., also selected a portion of Lot 23, and Tilden, from Connecticut, selected Lot 22. In the fall they all returned to their homes in the East. John Fleming came about the same time, but remained only one year. In 1803 the three first-named persons again came out and made improvements on their land. Mason cleared twenty-two acres, built a cabin, and put out a crop of wheat. They all then again returned to their homes. Three men whom Mason and Tilden had in their employ, liking the country, remained. These men were Richard Redden and Jacob and Samuel Wirt, all from Pennsylvania. In 1804 William Fenton and Cornelius Baker settled on Lot 38, the first on the east half of the west half, and the other on the
240 - HISTORY OF PORTAGE COUNTY.
"Some of you will remember that on the 10th of February, 1874, seventy-three persons met at the residence of the venerable Samuel Olin, in Streetsboro, mainly by invitation of his sister, Mrs. J. B. Stratton, and her venerable husband. The primary object was to enjoy a social reunion of " Old Folks," and partake of Father Olin's generous hospitality. At that meeting Christian Cackler, being the first white boy that ever crossed the Cuyahoga River here, invited all those present and many others to meet at his pleasant home in October following to enjoy his hospitality. At that meeting an organization was effected that has enlarged into the grand proportions of your present organization. There have joined up to this meeting 620 persons, and out of this number (up to the fall of 1882) 112 have died. Comparatively few of those present at the organization remain. Another decade will evidently witness the departure from earth of the last of the original members. The society, since it extended its borders, has rapidly grown, including as it now does in its territory all of Portage and Summit Counties. All above sixty years of age are permitted to become members."
The annual meetings of the association are occasions of much interest and enjoyment, as many as 5,000 to 6,000 persons being in attendance. Eloquent addresses are delivered, music by the Pioneer Band discoursed, and a sumptuous dinner served at the beautiful grounds selected in the village of Rent. This is as it should be, for the people of to-day scarcely realize or appreciate how much they owe to the large-hearted pioneer fathers and mothers, who, 4 with their children, braved the perils of the wilderness; who reared their families in the fear of God, and implanted within them many of the virtues necessary to the welfare of humanity, then passed from the scene of action, leaving to their descendants an inheritance that should ever be cherished and kept in sacred remembrance. The history of Portage County would be incomplete without fitting notice of those pioneers who, by reason of their limited sphere of action, could not become conspicuous in the great drama of life, but whose busy hands and conscientious regard of duty made them necessary factors in the establishment of the solid foundation upon which our republican form of government is embedded. It is a little thing to preserve their names in the pages of history, yet it is all that is left to do, for their lives were much alike; they met the stern necessities of the hour, and were content in the consciousness of duty well done.