50 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY came to the lower part of Trumbull County in 1796 this was the year Kingsbury was at Conneaut. He began his settlement, calling it Youngstown. He removed his family, wife and two children to the new house in 1799. That year a son was born to them, William, and in 1802 a daughter, Mary. His oldest son, John, says : "In 1803 our mother, finding the trials of her country life there, with the latch-string always out and a table free to all, too great with her young family, for her powers of endurance, our father, in deference to her earnest entreaties, closed up his business as best he could and returned with his family to Whitestown and to the home and farm which her father had provided and kept for them." He therefore spent but seven years in the town which bears his name and which is known throughout the United States as a great industrial center. He, however, returned occasionally for a visit, probably the last time in his own sleigh in 1814. It is supposed that Mr. Young's brother-in-law, Philo White, and Lemuel Storrs were equally interested in the land purchased. However, the contract with the Connecticut Land Company was made alone to Mr. Young. James Hillman was early at Youngstown. Three different stories in regard to the friendship of Young and Hillman are in existence. The most common one is that Hillman was on the river in a canoe and seeing smoke on the bank of the river landed and found Mr. Young and Mr. Wolcott. He visited with them a few days (people were not in such a frantic hurry as they are now), and then he persuaded them to go down to Beaver, where his headquarters were, to celebrate the Fourth of July. This they did, and upon their return Mr. Hillman came with them, and from that time they lived in close friendship. Another tradition is that Hillman brought Young up the river from Pittsburg and that Hillman was induced to take up his residence with Young. Still another, that Young stopped at Beaver on his way west for supplies or rest, and that Hillman, whose business was transporting passengers and trading with Indians and frontiersmen, carried Young up the river, and that from their acquaintance came a friendship which resulted in Hillman locating there. The first story seems to be the generally accepted one. HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 51 The first house erected as a settler's dwelling in the Mahoning Valley was Young's. This was in the neighborhood of Spring Common, probably on Front street. Mr. Young also erected a cabin back of the residence of Mr. Charles Wanamaker on South Main street, in Warren. In this neighborhood the Indians had cleared land and here he sowed a crop, and when it was harvested he put it into this cabin and left it until the snow came, when it was easily transported by sled. Roswell M. Grant, the uncle of Ulysses Grant, under the date of September 7, 1875, sent a letter to the Pioneers Association of Youngstown for its celebration on September 10th, which contained some facts in regard to James Hillman. He says that Hillman was a native of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, although his father lived on the Ohio river. James was in the Revolutionary war and was captured at Georgetown. "After his return he went to a corn-husking, where he met a Miss Catherine _______ . After dancing with her for some time he proposed marriage. A squire being present, they were married the same night. I have heard Mrs. Hillman many a time say she never had a pair of shoes or stockings until after her marriage, and I have often heard them both say that she had neither shoes nor stockings when they were married." Mr. Grant then tells a story of Mr. Young being carried up from Pittsburg by Hillman. "Mrs. Hillman went with them. After they arrived at Youngstown, John Young offered Mrs. Hillman her choice of six acres, any place she would choose it in the town plot, if she would remain. She did so. Mrs. Hillman took her six acres east of the spot where William Raven's house stood. James Hillman helped John Young to lay out the town. He understood the Indians and they understood him. When trouble arose between the white and the red man he would volunteer to settle it provided he could go alone to do it. In this way he did efficient service to both, and did for the pioneer what no other settler seemed able or willing to do." The first settlement in present Geauga county was at Burton in the year 1798 when three families came from Connecticut. As we have seen, Job Stiles and his wife and Edward Paine spent the winter of '96 at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. The next year James Kingsbury and his family were there, together with Major Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Holley and their families. In 1798 Rodolphus Edwards and Nathaniel Doan and family. came. The early manuscripts show that it took Mr. Doan ninety- 52 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY two days to make the journey from Chatham, Connecticut. The fever, and fever and ague, were if anything worse during this year of '98 than in '97. The Doan family consisted of nine persons, and only one of them had strength enough to bring water to the others. This was Seth Doan, a boy of thirteen. The fever and ague which prevailed in Trumbull County in the '50s and '60s was intermittent. Chills would occur every other day for a stated period, and then cease, beginning again on their every-other-day schedule at the end of a certain interval. But among the Cleveland people a patient was considered fortunate if he had only one attack a day; some had three. At one time none of the Doan family could leave the house and they had only turnips to eat. It was about this time that Judge Kingsbury and his family did great good in nursing and caring for the sick. The Carter family did not seem to suffer as much as did the family of Mr. Doan. Howe says, "destitute of a physician and with a few medicines, necessity again taught them to use such means as nature had placed within their reach. For calomel, they substituted pills from the extract of the bark of the butternut, and, in lieu of quinine, used dog-wood and cherry bark." Probably because of this malarious condition, and because of the severe winds, the colony at the mouth of the Cuyahoga did not grow, and from January, 1799, to April, 1800, Major Carter's family was the only one living there. The others had moved back onto the hills and into the country. When John Doan came west he had six children, the youngest three years old. They separated at Buffalo, the father and one son taking the Indian trail and carrying part of the goods on the backs of the horses and oxen. They followed the first road made along the lake shore, but there were no bridges. "The mother with the other children made the trip from Buffalo by water. She was accompanied by an Indian and several white men who had been engaged to assist her on the journey. They came in a row-boat propelled by oars at times, and again by a tow-line carried on the bank. Besides their furniture and household goods, they carried a box of live geese, which were declared to be 'the first domesticated birds of the kind ever brought into Ohio.' At the mouth of the Grand river the boat was overturned, throwing mother, children, goods and box overboard. By good fortune, the water was shallow, and while the red men carried the children ashore, the white men and Mrs. Doan saved the goods. The geese floated out into the lake, but in some way HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 53 became freed from their prison and, swimming ashore, were recaptured. At Grand river Mr. Doan met them, and the boat was taken on to Cleveland without further adventures. Mrs. Doan, however, had no further desire for marine travel and came by land." One of the very first settlers in old Trumbull County was Abram S. Honey, who came to Mantua in 1798. He erected a log cabin, cleared a spot of ground, put in a small crop of wheat which was next year harvested by his brother-in-law, Rufus • Edwards. He was about midway between the Cleveland and Youngstown settlements. Elias Harmon arrived at the clearing which Honey had made, in 1799. He, however, did not stay long, but moved on to Aurora. He suffered great privations on his trip (see Hudson's Story) and this continued until he had been in Aurora some little time, when conditions were made easier for everybody. When Portage county was set off he became its first treasurer. Among the first to settle in these northeastern Ohio forests was Amos Loveland, who had been a soldier in the Revolution, and was engaged in surveying on the Reserve as early as 1798. He selected a piece of land in what is now a corner of Trumbull County, and decided to locate upon it. He returned to Vermont in the fall of the year, and in December started westward with his family of seven, and all his worldly goods packed on two sleds, each of which was drawn by a team of horses. They traveled days and encamped at night when better accommodations did not offer. They crossed the Susquehanna river on the ice, and when the snow disappeared soon after, the sleds were traded for a wagon, for the rest of the journey, which occupied altogether four months. It was April before they arrived at the piece of woodland which he expected to transform into a farm. James Kennedy in his "A History of the City of Cleveland" says : "Jacob Russell came from Connecticut to Cleveland with an ox-team, his wife riding their only horse. Leaving her, he returned for their children, and one of these, in recently relating their adventures, said : 'Our journey was attended with the greatest suffering. My youngest sister was sick all the way, dying three days after her arrival. Father then was taken down with ague, so our house was 54 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY built slowly. With the greatest difficulty mother hewed with an adz the stub ends of the floor boards and put them down with the little help father could give her. We moved in, towards the close of November, our house possessing neither door nor window. At that time two of the children were sick with ague. Father worked when the chills and fever left him through the day, putting poles together in the form of bedsteads and tables.' "The Morgan family came in a covered wagon, drawn by a yoke of oxen and a span of horses. A girl eight years of age rode one of the horses, and guided the lead team the greater part of the way between Allegheny and Cleveland. The road was simply a trail through the woods, the underbrush between the trees having been cut away sufficiently to allow a wagon to pass. Three months were consumed in this journey, including a two weeks' stop because of sickness." The first to settle in what became afterwards Ashtabula county were Alexander Harper, William McFarland, Ezra Gregory. They established themselves and named the new home Harpersfield. They left (Harpersfield, Conn.) the 7th of March and arrived the last of June. Their trip was one of the most tedious ones of which we have record. Why they did not at several different points turn round and go home, we cannot see. The following winter, that of '98 and '99, they suffered great hardships, and came near perishing from hunger. At times they only had six kernels of parched corn for each person. However, Colonel Harper had two strong, willing boys, James and William, who went to Pennsylvania for bags of corn, carrying them on their backs. Once the ice broke through, wetting the provisions and themselves, but William rescued the grain, carried it into the woods where he had ordered his brother and friends to precede him and build a fire. When he reached them with the provisions, his clothes stiffly frozen, he found they had succumbed to the cold and were lying down, asleep. He built a fire, aroused them, dried the grain and himself, and all reached home safely. "Thomas Montgomery and Aaron Wright settled in Conneaut in the spring of 1799. Robert Montgomery and family, Levi and John Montgomery, Nathan and John King, Samuel Barnes and family came the same season." Howe tells us that HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 55 twenty or thirty Indian cabins were standing when the settlers arrived. If this were true, they were built in the winter of '97, because none of the surveyors mention any buildings except those constructed by the company. Howe also tells the story of an Indian girl saving the life of a young white man prisoner by pleading for him as he was tied to the stake. She not only pled, but paid furs and a small sum of money as well. He observes, "An act in the lowly Indian maid which entitled her name to be honorably recorded with that of Pocohantas among the good and virtuous of every age." The author is inclined to believe that this visionary tale was exactly like that of Pocohantas. In May, 1799, Joel Thorpe and his wife Sarah came to the Reserve from Milford, Connecticut. They came in an ox cart, and cleared a bit of ground in a very rich valley. Like all the other emigrants of that year, they fell short of provisions, and the father started for a settlement about twenty miles distant in Pennsylvania for food. The oldest Thorpe child was eight years old, and there were two younger. Mrs. Thorpe dug roots, upon which they subsisted for a time. The oldest son, Basil, having seen some kernels of corn between the logs, spent hours of time trying to secure them, without success. Mrs. Thorpe opened up a straw bed, and the few grains of wheat she found there she boiled and ate. She had learned to shoot at a mark, and it was well she had. Standing in the door one day in utter despair, she saw a wild turkey flying near her. Procuring her gun, she quietly waited until the bird began wallowing in the loose dirt of the potato patch, when she crept over logs until she was near it. Raising her trembling arm, "she fired; the result was fortunate; the turkey when cooked saved the family from starvation. Mrs. Thorpe married three times." As society believed in the early days that women who were not married were disgraced, we conclude that Howe, the historian, added this last sentence to show that she received her reward of merit. One of the earliest settlers of old Trumbull County was Hon. Benj. Tappan, who arrived in June, 1799, and settled where Ravenna now stands. A Mr. Honey, as we have seen, had preceded him, but there were few others. On the way from Connecticut he fell in with David Hudson, and they came on together to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river. They went up that river as far as Boston. Mr. Hudson stayed at Hudson. Mr. Tappan 56 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY left his goods and his family at Boston, and cut a road through to his new home. With the man who accompanied him he built a dray, yoked on his oxen, and took part of his goods from Boston to his camp. When he went back for the second load The man who had been left in charge of the tent had joined Mr. Hudson's party. Mr. Tappan had all sorts of discouraging things happen him. The weather being warm and wet, one of his oxen died from fly bites, he was left with his goods in the wilderness, and he had no money. One of his men went to the commandant at Fort Erie, a hundred miles distant, to get a loan of money. He himself did what most people did who lived in this part of Trumbull County, went to James Hillman, at Youngstown, with his troubles. Hillman encouraged him, sold him an ox on credit at the usual price. All this made such delay that he had not time to plant a crop. He therefore had to depend upon his own gun for meat, except as he bought some of the Indians. He had to travel to western Pennsylvania for his supplies. He lived in a sort of a bark house until his log cabin was finished, which was January 1, 1800. Mr. Tappan proved to be not only a good citizen for Ravenna and vicinity, but to the state as well. His later biography is given under Bench and Bar. Mr. Hudson and his party, traveling by water, had a serious time. The Niagara river was filled with ice and their boat had to be pulled by ropes by men on shore to keep it from drifting down with the current. The lake was also dangerous from large cakes of ice. He had fallen in with Elias Harmon, and when the party was off the Ashtabula shore their boats were driven in and Mr. Harmon's badly damaged. They, however, repaired this, put baggage and supplies in it, and the party, including Harmon, Tappan, and Hudson, arrived in Cleveland June 8, 1799. The river was so low, because of the drought, that they had to drag their boats over shallow places. The surveyors had described the water near the Hudson purchase to be the depth they had found the water of the Cuyahoga. So when they began dragging the boat they thought they had reached their land. The party went ashore, tried to locate lines, and after wasting nearly a week, found they were a good ways from their destination. The cattle belonging to Tappan and Hudson came overland. They got out of their way, and instead of going direct to Hudson, went south to the Salt Spring tract, but, after many narrow escapes in their wanderings, reached the Cuyahoga, at HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 57 Boston, where the boats were left. While they were fixing yokes for the oxen, and making a primitive road, the Indians stole part of their provisions from the boats. This gave Mr. Hudson grave fears of their being able to get through the winter. He therefore turned about, hoping to meet his man who was coming with stores, and did find him, on July 2nd, "lying at his ease near Cattaraugus." He got back to his party in time to save them from suffering. His own account of that summer in old Trumbull County, of his returning east for his family in the damaged boat which he had purchased of Harmon, and which was so leaky that it had to be bailed all the time it was on the lake.; of his reaching his home, getting his family and his party, and returning the following year, reads like the most interesting romance. He was the founder of Hudson, had much to do with the Western Reserve College, and was a strong, able, honest man. He has direct descendants residing in Hudson now. His daughter Maria married Harvey Baldwin, both of whom were vitally interested in the college which lately became the Western Reserve University at Cleveland. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin married Edwin Gregory, who was an educator of a good deal of prominence, being principal of the Rayen School of Youngstown for many years. David Daniels, of Salisbury, Connecticut, ought to be mentioned in this list of pioneers, since he came to Palmyra in 1799, and made preparation for his family, which he brought the following year. Ebenezer Sheldon, like Daniels, came in 1799, and prepared the way for his family. They started from Connecticut in the early spring of 1800, and came, as did most of the settlers of that year, in a wagon drawn by oxen. They led their horses. They had no special adventures in the beginning, but were overtaken by a storm in the woods west of Warren and miraculously escaped death. Timber fell all about them to such an extent as to hem them in. They had to stay all night in the woods and were not released the next day until they got assistance to cut the road. One of the Miss Sheldons became the wife of Amzi Atwater, whom we remember was one of the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company. Hon. John Walworth, a native of New London, Connecticut, who had spent several years in travel, was small of stature and supposed to have tuberculosis, visited Cleveland in 1799. He was then living in the neighborhood of Cuyuga lake, New York. 58 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY Upon his return, he went to Connecticut, and bought 2,000 acres of land in number 11 in range 8 (Painesville). Late in February of 1800, he started for his new home. Others joined him, so that the party filled two sleighs when they reached Lake Erie. They drove on the ice, stopping on the shore at Cattaraugus creek for one night. They reported that women and children and all had a comfortable night. Just how this could have been in the wind and the snow, we do not understand. Leaving his family at Erie, he went back to Buffalo for his goods, and all came safely to their new home. Judge Jesse Phelps, Jared Woods, Ebenezer Merry, Charles Parker and Moses Parks were living in Mentor. It was about the 1st of April when the family was settled and General Edward Paine, who had made his headquarters at Cleveland, took up his residence there. One of the earliest townships settled was Atwater. Early in the spring, April, 1799, Capt. Caleb Atwater, Jonathan Merrick, Peter Bonnell, Asahel Blakesley, and Asa Hall and his wife arrived in Atwater. In the fall all of them except Hall and his wife returned to the east. For two whole years these people were the only white people in Atwater. Their nearest neighbor, Lewis Ely, lived in. Deerfield. In the spring of the following year a child was born, Atwater Hall, who was the first child born inside of the present Portage county. The first actual settler in Deerfield was Lewis Ely, who came with his family in July, 1799. A few months later, Alva Day, John Campbell and Joel Thrall walked from Connecticut, arriving in March of 1800. They suffered many hardships going over the mountains in the snow. It does not seem possible that they could have walked all that distance at that season, but they did. John Campbell did not know that his hard experiences were soon to be forgotten in his joy. In that very year he married Sarah, the daughter of Lewis Ely. This was the first marriage among white people recorded within the present limits of Portage county, although at that time it was in Trumbull. There were no ministers in that neighborhood, and Calvin Austin, of Warren, a justice of the peace, was asked to perform the service. Now, it happened that Justice Austin did not know any set form for marriage. Calvin Pease offered to teach him a proper service. They did not sit down by some good fire and prepare for this wedding. Somehow the people of this time had to do so much walking they continued it when they did not have to. So these two Calvins walked together through the woods in drear HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 59 November twenty-odd miles, one teaching, one reciting as they went. Now, as we will see in the chapter on Bench and Bar, Calvin Pease had a great sense of humor and was a tease with all. When, therefore, Mr. Austin had in a dignified manner repeated this service, concluding with "I pronounce you man and wife, and may God have mercy on your souls," the assembled guests were astonished, and Mr. Pease suppressed his laugh, too, with great difficulty. Her great-granddaughter remembers this bride when she was nearly eighty. She was tall, straight for her age, wore a dark brown frontpiece of hair under her snowy cap and a dark brown delaine dress with pink roses, a fichu-like cape of the same material was about her shoulders, with something white at the throat. She was rather sober of face and never held or kissed this great-granddaughter. But people did not show inward love in outward expression then; besides if she had held and kissed her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren she would have had no time for anything else, for the age of race suicide had not begun. It was the intention not to mention in the list of "the first settlers" any one arriving after 1800, but the family of Mills, which came very early in that year, have been so identified with the early settlement that exception is made with them. Three brothers, Delaun, Asehel, and Isaac, came in covered wagons, the usual way. The trip was more expensive than they expected and they had less than twenty-five cents among them when they arrived. At that time the northern part of Portage was being surveyed under Amzi Atwater, and these men engaged to work as ax-men under the surveyors. Isaac was not married and after a time went back to the east. Delaun and Asehel settled on the road running west from the center of Nelson, now Portage county. All the old diaries of early travelers who went to Burton, Painesville, etc., have this statement, "Stopped at Mills for dinner," or "Fed horses at Mills," or "Stayed several days at Mills." Delaun received the title of captain and was a great hunter, of both animals and Indians. He was the Daniel Boone of old Trumbull County. Wonderful, indeed, are the stories told of his adventures. His children were Methodists, and it is not hard to close your eyes and hear the rather sweet voice of Albert Mills leading the Sunday school with "There'll be something in Heaven for children to do." The son Homer still lives on the old home farm. CHAPTER X. HOW THE FIRST SETTLERS CAME.-CARRYING CHILDREN IN APRONS. THE BABY 2S CRY.-SEEDS AND PLANTS.-CHESTNUT STUMPS AS STOVES. - FIRST OVENS. - FIRST LAUNDRIES. - EARLY HOUSES.-WINTER EVENINGS.-DISHES.-BRIC-A-BRAC.- CHAIRS.-FINANCIAL DEPENDENCE.-BOOKS.-FIRST SCHOOLS.- PIES. - CLOTHING.-BIG FAMILIES.- WOMEN 2S SHOES.-HORSEBACK TO CHURCH.- SLEEPING ON HUSBAND 'S GRAVE.-BREAD- MAKING.-BEARS.-WHISKEY. Before we proceed with the history of Trumbull County after 1800, let us take a look at the home life of the people who lived in New Connecticut in the first early days. There were no steam cars, street cars, automobiles or coaches. No large boats came this way, since even on the lake there were no natural harbors to admit them. Men who had the most money and had therefore bought large tracts of land arrived during the summer days, located their land, cleared a spot for the house, and returned home. If they were very wealthy they left a man or two to stay through the winter to construct the cabin and care for a few domestic animals. The following spring they brought their families and began a new life. Such cases were few, because a small number of emigrants were rich. Most of the travelers came in family or neighborhood groups, with an ox cart for the baggage, and a horse or two. There was seldom place for all to ride and they took turn about. A large percent came by horseback. Sometimes a woman would ride, carrying a baby and utensils for cooking, while the husband would walk, leading another horse on which was piled the baggage. Often a husband and wife, newly married, would ride horses, or one horse, to the new home. Sometimes men used boats as far as streams were navigable, walking the rest of the way. Sometimes men walked all the way. Sometimes women - 60 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 61 came in pairs without men, walking the entire distance. Sometimes women carried babies on their backs while the husband carried the provisions on his. When it came night they would sleep on the ground, with no covering if it were pleasant, under the trees or large pieces of bark stuck on poles, if it were rainy. Record is given of women who came alone (except as they would fall in with parties now and then), carrying a baby or leading a child. In this latter case the trip was exceedingly hard. In the beginning she was in civilization, where she could easily find shelter and lodging. However, as she proceeded, and grew more weary and more lonesome, hamlets were farther apart, until houses almost disappeared. It is recorded that several women carried their babies in their aprons all the way from New England. The apron was worn almost as much as the dress, colored cottons for hard work, white for home dress-up, and among the wealthy silk for visiting. They were used for many purposes for which we would never think of using them today. When women came alone it was usually because they were exceedingly poor and had inherited land in the new country, or because the husband had preceded them to prepare a place for them. Many a pioneer mother, when she reached the spot of land belonging to her or to her husband, saw the wild country, remembered her abiding place "back home," covered her face with her hands, sat down on the fresh hewn logs, or made her way into the forests, and gave way to her feelings in floods of tears. As soon as this first disappointment was over, she turned her attention to her duty. If any women, anywhere, in all the wide world, ever did the courageous things, the right things, it was the women who came to New Connecticut and -helped to transform it from a wilderness to one of the most prosperous spots of the world. As there were some women who came in rather comfortable ox-carts, so there were some women who had homes awaiting them, but this percent was so small that it is hardly to be considered. Mr. Ephraim Brown, of North Bloomfield, one of the early wealthy men, came one season, left men here to build his house, while he went back for the winter. There were no women in that neighborhood. One Sunday morning in June of the following year as his men, with some neighbors, were sitting in the sun in the opening about the house, they heard a sound. They all listened. They recognized a baby's cry. One of the men 62 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY said afterwards, "That was the sweetest sound I ever heard in my life." Of course, he did not mean that the distressed baby's voice was so pleasant, but he knew that where a baby was, a mother was, and where a mother was a real home would be. Great traveling preparations were made by the emigrants. One woman in Connecticut baked her oven several times full of bread, dried it, .rolled it, and packed it in sacks that it might serve for food on the journey. Upon arrival, families sometimes slept in the ox-cart, but more often slept under bark roofs, keeping their clothing and provisions near by in hollow trees. One of the first things these pioneers did, if they came in the early spring, was to clear a little patch and start a garden. Men struggled for a chance to make garden then as boys and men struggle now not to make them. Almost all of them brought seeds, and so carefully did they have to plan not to have heavy baggage, nor to be burdened with small bundles, that apple seeds were sometimes brought in the hollow cane which they used for a staff. The second act was preparing logs for the house. Some of these buildings had no chimney, no doors, no windows. It is surprising to find in how many cases this was true. Women cooked meals at the side of chestnut stumps for weeks and months at times. In many cases men were so occupied in other directions that they gave little attention to domestic conveniences of any kind. Record is had of several women who, in despair, made ovens of clay and mud in which to bake bread. Before that, they had had to stir their bread on a fresh hewn log and wrap it around a stick or a corncob. Their children were set to holding it and watching it as it baked and browned. Children, in those days, were like children in these, and some of them carefully watched the bread, baked it evenly, while others who dropped it in the ashes or burned it were chastised for their carelessness. The result was the same in those days as now : the careless child did not grow any more careful, and the careful child did most of the bread-baking. One of the sturdy foremothers in Trumbull County, a Farmington woman, who had a poor fireplace in her dingy cabin and who loved to prepare good things to eat for her family, became desperate because her husband procrastinated in building an oven for her. She said she had baked bread and done all of her cooking in one big iron kettle and she was tired of it. She, therefore, fashioned some bricks of mud, burned them in HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 63 some way, and constructed an oven which was such a success that people traveling her way stopped to see it. Men and women, by temperament and environment, were the same in that day as they are now, and some husbands were thrifty, loving, temperate and just, and some were quite the opposite; some women were clinging, tender and childish, while the majority were not. The forefather was really the monarch of the family, and when the food was low it was he who braved the storms and the cold to bring provisions from Pennsylvania; nevertheless, he was neglectful of the smaller things. On many farms, in Trumbull and adjacent counties, until within a few years, there were no cisterns. All water had to be caught in tubs as it fell from the roof on a flatboard leading into barrels and tubs. These receptacles naturally must stand near the house, and the mosquitos hatched therein were conveniently near their feeding grounds. Women carried their clothes to the nearby creeks and washed them, laying them on the grass to dry. The well was often far from the house. If there chanced to be a spring, the stable was often put nearer to it than the house. Within the recollection of the writer, a farmer who kept five men and whose wife did the work, either thoughtlessly or purposely neglected to keep her supplied with sufficient wood. Several times the housewife threatened to get no dinner unless wood was brought for her. This threat was not effective. She knew and the men knew that there was plenty of cold food in the pantry with which they could satisfy themselves. One day when the husband came to dinner with the hired hands he was obliged to step over two rails of his choice fence which were sticking out the doorway, the other ends being in the stove furnishing fuel for the dinner. As this rail fence was his pride and as rail splitting was hard work, he always thereafter delegated one of his men to keep the wood box full. We have seen that most of the log houses had no doors or windows. Blankets and quilts often served the places of doors. Bears sometimes walked in under them ; wolves sometimes ventured so near that if there was a loft and the men were away, women took their children and climbed into the loft. Sometimes they built fires in front of these blanket doors, or stood outside and waved pieces of burning wood, or set fire to a little powder, to frighten these dangerous animals. Indians were especially attracted toward the quilt doorways. As we 64 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY know, they walked very quietly, and many an early housewife has been badly frightened as she realized that Indians were examining her quilt from the outside. It was not possible, often, to finish a house immediately. Sometimes the roof was not on for a long time in summer. The time in warm weather was precious and a settler could build his house when he had nothing else to do. As soon as possible they hung the doors. After a time they made windows, but not of glass,—only greased paper. The chimneys were usually built outside and, under certain climatic conditions, smoked badly. After a time there was a floor, and women and children, on winter evenings, helped to stuff the cracks between the logs with anything suitable that they could procure, while the father, and sometimes the mother, smoothed with the adz the inside of the logs. As a rule, this primitive log house had but one room. Poles were stuck in between the logs and furnished the bedstead, while the cord for the same was made of strips of elm bark. Ticks were usually filled with straw. As soon as it was possible a loft was made, and here, in summer, and sometimes in winter, the children and the hired men slept. In reading of the early self-made men of this country, it is almost universally stated that when children they used to wake in the morning to find snow on their bed. Access to these lofts was had by ladder usually; occasionally by rude steep stairs. As a rule, there was a hatch door to keep the cold from the room below. Sometimes when there was no loft, a corner of the cabin was screened. off by cotton curtains. Dishes were often of wood. However, each foremother seemed to find a way to bring something to her new crude home which she loved. The early German women, and the New England women as well, often brought a favorite bulb or a cutting from a plant at home, and these they nursed and nourished, and by exchanging with each other had some lovely gardens in this wilderness. A woman of Champion had some peonies which have bloomed in that town for seventy years. Sometimes they brought a few pieces of silver, or a picture. One of the plainest women in Portage county, who was a fore-mother, brought a looking glass. This her granddaughter still cherishes. They struggled to make the interior of their dingy cabins look homelike. Rude shelves were put over fireplaces, and upon these they set their pewters, which, despite all other HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 65 hard work, they faithfully polished with wood ashes. They had no rocking chairs. The stools were made with three legs, since it was easier to adjust them on the rough floors. They could work at nothing in the evening which required close attention, since the flicker of the log or small tallow dip furnished meager light. However, every evening was full of duties, for they dipped candles, plaited straw for hats, shelled corn and cracked nuts. They also spun, sometimes far into the night. As Hon. Thomas D. Webb, of Warren, observed his wife spinning one evening, he made a calculation of her steps, and when she had finished he told her she had walked as far as from Warren to Leavittsburg and back; that is six miles. Most of the pioneer mothers who really clothed and fed the people of the Western Reserve had to beg for all the money they had, and the forefather took great pride in thinking how well he supported his wife. He did not know it, but the Yankee settler, when he married a young, virtuous, strong, capable woman, made the best bargain any man ever made. Sometimes a woman, inheriting a strong feeling of independence from her independent father, stood up, in what seems to us now, a feeble way, and demanded a small part of what was due her. Such a woman was said to "wear the breeches," and her husband was termed "hen-pecked." Next to drunkenness and infidelity, the women who first lived in greater Trumbull County suffered more from financial dependence than from any other one thing. The pleasures were visiting, church-going and house-raising. There were no undertakers and no nurses. The housewives knew the medicinal value of herbs, and when left alone did good service. The community was like a great independent family, one man ingeniously making ax helves, while another pulled, or rather screwed out the teeth with a turn-screw, and each helped the other when in trouble. If a man was sick, his neighbors raised his house or gathered his crop. A pioneer who had nursed the sick and shared the sorrows of his friends in the early days, died at extreme age, and some of his young neighbors could not leave plowing to go to the funeral. In the old days it was friendship first, money afterwards. People were baptized in streams when the ice had to be cut. Books were few and reading not indulged in to any great extent. In fact, it was considered• almost wicked to waste day-light in study. Occasionally, a boy who had determined t become a professional man did most of his studying winter Vol. I-5 66 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY evenings by the light of the log fire, and hunted the neighborhood for miles around for the worn and tattered volumes which were there. When the schoolhouses began to appear, the smaller children attended in summer, and most of the smaller ones, and the older ones, in winter. They walked miles to school, wore no woolen underclothing, the girls cotton dresses, the boys no overcoats. They carried their dinner in a pail or basket, and often ran most of the way. They studied or not, learned or not, got whipped or not, as they cared to and deserved, but at noon they ate their half-frozen dinners in front of the blazing logs. The only thing the early settlers of Trumbull County had was plenty of firewood. Neighbors would sometimes gather in schoolhouses where the men held debates. No one any more thought of asking a woman to debate a question than they would have thought of urging her to become a candidate for governor. In some communities these debates were on a religious subject. The question of atonement, fore-ordination, sprinkling, immersion and like topics were debated to such a degree that friendships were broken and communities divided and disturbed temporarily. Other questions less serious were "Which is the worst, a scolding wife or a smoking chimney?" or "How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?" And here in this new country, where all started nearly equal, some men became leaders, others were lost sight of. Some accumulated property and assumed a certain superiority (as most moneyed men are bound to do), while others, struggle as they might, never held to that which they bought and died owning nothing, or worse, owing much. Stories are told how some of the original land owners became rich by pressing hard men who owed them, and how the same bits of land came back to them, time after time, with improvements, because payments could not be kept up, The people of old Trumbull County were better than their Connecticut ancestors, in that they did not bring the whipping post and the ducking stool, did not burn witches, and did not torture, physically, heretics, but in the matter of money they followed closely their progenitors. One of the early settlers writes that the members of his family were great readers and, being unable to procure many books, read those which they had through repeatedly. He himself read "Pilgrim's Progress" twice without stopping. HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 67 In the beginning they had few pastries and pies. Joshua R. Giddings says : "The first mince pie I ever ate on the Reserve was composed of pumpkin instead of apple, vinegar in the place of wine or cider, bear's meat instead of beef. The whole was sweetened with wild honey instead of sugar, and seasoned with domestic pepper, pulverized, instead of cloves, cinnamon and allspice. And never did I taste pastry with a better relish." The pie soon became a necessity in the household. In the early winter the housewife would bake fifty or more mince pies and put them in a cold room where they would often freeze, and then they were brought out as occasion needed and warmed. The woman who made the oven of bricks once had it full of pies, cooling, when the Indians came in .the night and carried them off. Cooking was interfered with in the early time in the spring by the leeks, which rendered the milk almost undrinkable. The remedy for this was the serving of onions at meals, since one bite of an onion disguised the taste of the leek. Women not only were the cooks and housekeepers, as we have seen, but they spun cotton, occasionally mixing it with a linen which they always spun for summer clothes. They not only spun the flax, but hetcheled it. They carded the wool, spun it, wove it, and made it into garments. Some of the early men and boys wore suits of buckskin which, over a flax shirt, made up a full-dress suit. One writer says that once when a pair of scissors was lost, his mother cut out a buckskin suit with a broad-ax. Another woman cut wool from a black sheep, carded, spun, wove it, and made a suit in three days for a sudden occasion. There were three occupations open to women, and even these were not open practically the first few years of pioneer life here. They were teaching, tailoring, and housework, and the remuneration was exceedingly small. One of the earliest teachers (all were paid by the patrons of the school) received, in compensation, calves, corn, a bureau, the latter being still preserved by her family. One man paid her in a load of corn, another by carrying this corn to Painesville and exchanging it for cotton yarn, while the third, a woman, wove the yarn into a bedspread. This spread is preserved with the bureau. Women were good nurses and in many cases they worked side by side with a doctor. Again and again do we read of women walking through snow and cold to be with other women at the birth of children or to encourage them during the illness 68 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY of members of their family. These women often rode miles horseback; sometimes they were so helpful that the doctor begged them to help him and carried them behind him on his horse. There are authentic cases of women not only going in the cold on horseback, but swimming streams and arriving at the destination with frozen clothes. Occasionally, a woman would be more capable or more ambitious than her husband or her neighbors, and by extra hours of weaving would pay the taxes on the property, or make a payment on the principal. Girls of fourteen and fifteen sometimes became expert spinners and weavers. One in particular was able to weave double coverlets at that age. There were no poorhouses, nor hospitals, and women, suddenly bereaved of husbands, were taken into other families, while men, losing wives, were looked after by the women of the neighborhood. Children left alone were cared for in the families as if they belonged there. Hardly a family existed which did not have attached to it a dependent or unfortunate person. Some women, feeling that they had a right to a certain percent of the earnings, demanded a calf or a sheep, which as it grew gave them a little revenue ; or asked for a small portion of a crop from which they had their "pin" money. In 1814 it took seventy-two bushels of corn to buy a woman's dress. Under the hardships and exposures, with the long hours of work and the large families, women died early, and most men had two wives. Occasionally a father and mother would both die and leave the children to care for themselves. Several cases are given in early records and letters of girls who reared their little brothers and sisters in their primitive cabins. One such girl, eleven years old, kept house for three younger children and was herself married at 'sixteen to a boy aged nineteen. The community watched over these young folks and called them "the babes in the woods." They had six girls and seven boys. Families were large in those days, but, although people had many children, the percent which grew to mature years is so small as to be startling. When churches began to be built women contributed in work, not only in furnishing but even in raising the building. One woman solicited small donations of wool from people of the vicinage and wove a carpet for the church. Although women spun and wove the clothes which they and their families wore, even to the men's caps, they did not make HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 69 shoes. Therefore, when shoes wore out, they sometimes went without them. In any case, they were careful of them. In the "Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve" many times shoes are mentioned as being most desired belongings. Women who walked to Warren from Howland put theirs on under the elm tree in front of Harmon Austin's residence. Those who came from Lordstown, if they came to market, stopped on the bank of the river for this same purpose, and if to church, they sometimes waited until they got nearer the meeting house. In one township we read that it was not an unusual thing to see women sitting on the church steps putting on their shoes and stockings. In another place we read : "We always put on our shoes in the preacher's barn." Sometimes a woman would have two pairs of shoes, or two or three dresses, in which case she gladly loaned them to her less fortunate neighbor. A woman in Mecca, who was exceedingly enterprising, raised silk worms and spun silk to get extra money. Many of the women were devoted Christians and traveled many miles on Sunday by horseback, sometimes taking two children with them, to attend services. These same women allowed little or no work to be done on Sunday. Cows, of course, must be milked. and stock fed, but no cooking was permitted. Beds were aired all day and made up after sundown. Although people did their duty, there was more sorrow then than now, more discomfort then than now, less freedom then than now. There was less open expression of love, and more repressed feeling of all kind. Women were tired and worn out, and, in many cases, scolded. Men were sometimes overbearing, sometimes drunken, and occasionally cruel. A very nice woman living in the early days of old Trumbull County, when quite young, lost her husband. She continued to reside for a little time in her lonesome cabin, but later was induced to marry a man of the neighborhood who had several children. After a time he became very abusive and she was afraid he would take her life. Because of superstition he was afraid to go into a graveyard after dusk. The only place, therefore, that she was absolutely safe was in the cemetery, and many a night she slept in peace on her first husband's grave. Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Frank E. Hutchins, in writing of the early life, says : "The principal recreations for men were hunting, fishing and trapping. while for the women—well, poor souls, they didn't have any." 70 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY Mr. H. K. Morse, of Poland, says he has a feeling of sadness every time he thinks of the women pioneers. His stepmother, of whom he was very fond, was the hardest worker they had on the place, and when he tells what the men did each day this is a strong statement. His grandfather and his father were energetic, resourceful, enterprising and diligent men. Mr. Morse tells of their every-day table reaching clear across the room, twenty-five people sitting down at the first table, while sometimes it was half filled the second time. The mother had help, of course, but what were two or three pairs of hands with one head, to manage such a party as this. He says they ate their breakfast about four o'clock and their supper late. Often the women were still at work at eleven o'clock at night. Another gentleman, two years younger than Mr. Morse, in making a speech at a. pioneer reunion, said he never remembered going to bed as long as he lived at home that his "mother was not working, and no matter how early he arose she was always at work ahead of him. A dozen men's voices shout: Here! Here! Here! The first comers among women suffered cold, hunger and loneliness. Their followers had more comforts, but work was increased. Even the third generation put in long, laborious hours. One ambitious woman who wanted to make a rag carpet and whose duties kept her busy all daY, used to rise at three o'clock and go quietly onto the porch, where she sewed an hour and a half before the men of her family (she had no daughters) bestirred themselves. In the afternoon she again had about an hour and a half on three days in the week, and at this time in summer she sat in an entryway. but nearby she kept a camphor bottle which she was obliged to smell now and then to keep herself awake. As she sewed great balls of cherry colored rags which were to be striped with darker red and black, she would say gently, "I must be getting old I'm so sleepy." Eighteen hours of work and six hours of sleep day after day might have explained it. As finished, the carpet was beautiful, and when the men of the family walked thereon with muddy boots she would upbraid them. The husband would say, "Well, it beats things all hollow the way mother jaws about that carpet. A person might think it cost something." Cost something! Among the early troubles of the housewife was the getting of the material for bread-making. Mills were far distant; at HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY - 71 first, in Pennsylvania, then Youngstown, Warren and Cleveland. Many families utilized a hollowed stump with a long pole from which a stone was suspended for grinding corn and grain. The hand mills which came later required two hours' grinding to supply one person with food for one day. Sometimes wheat would get wet, or was not properly harvested, and bread would run despite the greatest efforts of the housewife. Baking powder was unknown, and sour milk and saleratus was used for light-breads; the latter was made by the housewife herself from ashes. The bread was that known as "salt-rising" or "milk-rising," and required no hop yeast. This would ferment too long and spoil, and the empties would have to be made again. As cows became more numerous, the churning and cheese-making grew heavier. There was no ice in summer, and churning would sometimes occupy half a day. Cheese was made in huge tubs or hollowed logs on the floor, and we wonder how women ever could stoop over and stir curd by the hour as they were obliged to do. They dried the wild berries, and later the apples, peaches and other fruits; they rendered their lard, dried and corned their beef, put in pickle their pork, and when winter closed down, after 1800, almost every cabin had provisions enough to keep the family from want, and most of this had been prepared by the housewife. Bears were very plenty in this country up to 1815. After that their numbers lessened. They were probably the least ferocious of any of the wild animals here, and yet so long have we thought of bears as devouring people that almost everybody who has ever written anything of Trumbull County has related bear stories in connection with the pioneer settler. These animals loving berries and honey, occasionally carried off pigs, but as a rule ran away from men, women and children. Children were always afraid of them, but some women were not. Margaret Cohen Walker, of Champion, seeing a bear near the house, chased it to a nearby tree, when it jumped into the hollow. Quickly she returned to the house, got a shovel of coal, built a fire, and burned both bear and tree. A woman in Braceville working in her kitchen, was greatly startled by seeing a bear jump into her room and run under the bed. It was being chased by some farmers from Nelson. The free use of liquor was more or less distasteful to all early women and to some men. We know of some early belles who deplored the fact that some men were so drunk at balls that 72 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY they could not dance. In isolated spots the women took a stand against whiskey and wine as early as 1805. A man, at the solicitation of his wife, determined to do away with whiskey at a barn raising. When the husband gave out the word, the men who were ready for work declared they would do nothing without liquor. The wife promised them coffee and an extra meal, but it was no use. The husband was just about to give in when the wife said : "Just as you like, gentlemen ; you can go -without whiskey or we can go without the barn." They went away. A few days later part of them, with others, raised the building without whiskey, and consequently without a fight or accident. Wine was always served at weddings. The first women who refused it on those occasions were considered as insulting to the hostess, and they "were treated rather coldly by their convivial friends." Soon a few men realized how harmful the habit was becoming and refused to serve it. One of these men was Mr. Morse, of Poland ; another, Ephraim Brown, of Bloomfield ; and Jas. Heaton, of Niles. These men had to endure much harsh criticism. So the shacks of bark became the log hut ; the but became the cabin, the cabin had two stories, and later was covered with clapboards and painted red or white. The chestnut stump was supplanted by open fire inside, 'the fireplace then had a crane, later came the brick oven, followed by the stove with the elevated oven, and then the range. The laundry was moved from the creek to the porch or the back room, and now the windmill pumps the water, and the windmill or electricity runs the washing machine. The men went to the woods for meat, while now the meat man takes it to the most isolated farm in Trumbull County, while in the towns it is brought to your kitchen ready for the coals. Then, people after weary miles of travel camped alone in the wilderness, or at hamlets as the blowing of a horn heralded their approach the entire settlement turned out to welcome them, while now farmers can ride their bicycles over fine roads to nearby railway stations, go to the county seat and pay their taxes, sell a crop and be back for dinner. Then women longed for a few hours of visiting; now, they can have conversations over their own wire without having to exert themselves at all. And who knows how much of the prosperity of our time is due to these frugal, courageous forefathers and foremothers who sowed so carefully ? CHAPTER XI. EARLY SETTLERS OF WARREN.-QUINBY.-STORER.-MCMAHON.- COST OF PARK.-LANE.-CASE.-KING.-LEAVITT.- FAMILIES OF THESE MEN.-ADGATE.-EARLY HOUSES.-COUNTY WITHOUT LAW.- FORMATION OF COUNTY. We have seen how, in the two years following the appearance of the surveyors, people came into the Western Reserve making homes and really blazing the way for the army which afterwards was to follow in squads, companies, and battalions. We can no longer follow personally these settlers, but must begin to take up the communities, the embryo towns. The settlements in the northern part of the region did not grow very fast. Although pioneers were at Youngstown and Cleveland early and about the same time, the latter did not grow at all and the former grew slowly. In 1801 Warren was by far the largest settlement on the Reserve. We will therefore take up its story. In 1798 Ephraim Quinby (his grandson, George Quinby, now resides in Warren) and Richard Storer, residents of Washington county, Pennsylvania, having heard of the new territory opened up to purchasers, came on horseback to "have a look." It was fall, the creeks were swollen, and the trip a hard one. They speak of Yellow Creek in Poland, the woods beyond Salt Springs, more dense woods, and then number 4. As we have seen, people had been at Salt Springs, traders had passed back and forth through number 4, Indians had cleared spots of land there, but no white settlers were yet established. A hale old fellow of about sixty years, known as old Merriman, lived in close companionship with the Indians, but he was in no sense a resident. James McMahon was a "squatter." He had a wife, two or three children, and lived in a sort of a shack which stood where the Second National Bank now stands. Early settlers do - 73 - 74 - HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY not seem to have respected him very highly. As, related in the last chapter, John Young had built a cabin back of the present Wanamaker residence at the south end of the present Main street bridge, and here Quinby and Storer took up their residence. They were not the first to occupy this place when Mr. Young was absent. Men who were trading with the Indians and the whites at Detroit, planned to stay all night, or several nights in this building, going and coming from Pittsburg. There were several clearings here then, one covering about twenty acres where the lower part of the present "Flats" is, and some sixty acres on the land so long known as the Fusselman farm. Although this was not a very pleasant part of the year the two men seemed to be well satisfied and each decided on the purchase of property. Mr. Quinby selected 441 acres of land in Lots 28 and 35. This really included a goodly part of what is now Warren, running south and west. For this he paid $3.69 per acre, so that our present court-house yard cost him about $16.00. Mr. Quinby and Mr. Storer went home for the winter, and returned about the middle of April, 1799. This is the real date of the settlement of Warren. Aside from Mr. Quinby and Mr. Storer, William Fenton, wife and child, Francis Carlton and his children, John, William, Margaret and Peter, came with them. We presume Mrs. Carlton accompanied Francis, since it is not at all likely that he would bring his children into the wilderness without a mother. Her name is not mentioned. William Fenton and his family lived in the cabin where McMahon had lived, the latter moving into the southwest corner of Howland. As no streets were laid out, as the whole level of the land has been changed, it is not absolutely certain whether this cabin stood where the Second National Bank now stands, or on the river bank back of the present Byard & Volt store. At any rate, it is not far distant from either. Wherever it stood, it was the first building erected in what is now the business portion of the town. Mr. Storer put up a cabin on the old Fusselman ground, and Mr. Quinby erected a log building about where the Main Street Erie Station stands. This dwelling had two rooms, bedroom and kitchen. A third room was raised during this first summer but it was not furnished until the next year and was used as a jail. Ephraim Quinby was born in New Jersey in 1766; married Ammi Blackmore of Brownsville in 1795; settled in Washington county and founded Warren in 1799 as above stated. He was a man of great integrity, interested in the prosperity of the new