Florence was organized as an independent township April 7, 1817. The first election for township officers was held at the log schoolhouse one mile south of Florence Corners. The number of votes polled was seventeen.

The first settlement was made by Ezra Sprague and family, in May, 1809, They came to the mouth of the Huron River by water, and then went to Florence through an unbroken wilderness. Mr. Sprague was the first justice of the peace in the township, and afterwards held the position of associate judge of the Common Pleas Court. He died in 1856, survived by only two of his seven children.

Although the pioneers never actually starved, yet they were compelled to live in the plainest manner. Hominy, potatoes and milk were the only articles of food they had for weeks at a time. They gathered wild onions on the river bottoms, and other hardy and edible vegetables were also to be found. All kinds of provisions were high during the early years. Pork sold for $20 per barrel, flour for $16, tea $2.50 per pound, and salt $10 per barrel. Joab Squire once carried 200 pounds of maple sugar to Sandusky, which he exchanged for two barrels of salt ; the trip requiring three days. At another time he went to Huron and bought twenty-five pounds of bacon at 25 cents per pound, and lugged it home on his back.

There was scarcely any money in circulation, and trade was principally by barter. The first specie currency which circulated in Flor-

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ence was what was called "cut money." A silver dollar was cut into ten or twelve pieces that passed for shillings. The first paper money that the settlers were unfortunate enough to possess was the notes of the Owl Creek Bank, in denominations of 6 1/4, 12 1/2, 37 1/2, and 50 cents.

The bank failed, and those who held its money recovered nothing.

During the War of 1812 the settlers were in almost constant fear of massacre by the Indians. In 1811 they joined in the erection of a block house. It was used as a dwelling by Mrs. Clark and her family, but whenever a report of the approach of Indians reached the settlement the settlers would move their families to the block house, where they would remain until the alarm subsided. On one occasion, while a man was going with his family to the block house, a young man, was sent some distance ahead to keep a lookout for Indians. When within half a mile of the block house the report of a gun was heard, and the young man came running back with the intelligence that he had seen two Indians, one of whom shot at him, at the same time showing a bullet hole in his coat. The alarm spread rapidly, and all the inhabitants collected at the block house, and made" every preparation they could for an attack which, they expected, would be made that night. The women and children were sent into the room above while the men with guns, pitchforks and clubs, awaited below the expected assault. During the night the alarm was given by the occupants of the second story that Indians with fire-brands were approaching. No one in the house showed any disposition to sleep, except the individual whose coat had been pierced by a bullet the evening before. As the morning dawned it also began to dawn upon their minds that they were the victims of a cruel hoax, and that the said individual had shot the bullet through his coat himself, to give the appearance of credibility to his story. The "fire-brands" were sparks and cinders carried by the wind from a burning log heap. What they did to the joker is not recorded.

The first birth in the township was that of Caroline, daughter of Ezra Sprague, May 13, 1810. She became the wife of H. F. Merry, of Sandusky.

The first marriage was that of Thomas Starr and Clementina Clark. They were married in the spring of 1814 by Esquire Abijah Comstock. The ceremony took place at the residence of the bride's mother, in the old block house. It is said that everybody in the township attended, and the house was not crowded either. The next couple married was John Brooks, Jr., and Adaline Squire. They were married by Rev. Nathan Smith, the first minister in the place. The date is lost in obscurity ; probably in 1815 or 1816.

The first person that died in the township was the mother of Judge Meeker, the date of which is not known. She was buried on the bank of Chapelle Creek.

The first burying ground was on Uriah Hawley's place, where he buried his wife, in 1818. Ten or fifteen persons were subsequently buried there, but as there was no road leading to the ground, another burying place was selected and the bodies removed to it in 1825.

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY - 53

The first blacksmith shop was started by a man named Wolverton. He fastened his anvil on a stump and rigged his bellows between two trees. It is claimed that this is the origin of a story that has been told all over the West. A traveler, riding along the wilderness road, lost a shoe from one of his horse's feet. He inquired of a man he met for a blacksmith shop. "Stranger," replied the man, "you're in it now ; but it is three miles to the anvil."

The first schoolhouse was built at Sprague's corners, on land owned by John Brooks. The first teacher was Ruth Squire, and the school was supported by subscription ; the parents paying in proportion to the number of children sent. This schoolhouse was afterward taken down and rebuilt on the south side of the road. The second schoolhouse was built half a mile west of Birmingham, ailed the school first taught by Rhoda Root. A certain individual objected to her custom of opening the school with prayer, so that a school meeting was called to consider the matter. The teacher was sustained.

JOB FISH

As a teacher no man has exercised a larger influence on the life of Erie County than Job Fish, who in his eighty-eighth year is enjoying hfe quietly in his comfortable home in Florence Township. Hundreds of men and women find a special pleasure in referring to that portion of their school days spent under the instruction of this venerable teacher. In the biographies of Erie County citizens found in this work, repeated reference is made to Job Fish 's school ; and the subjects of these biographies have taken particular pride in referring to that important influence in their early lives.

Job Fish, son of Elias Hicks Fish and Betsey Van Wagner, was born March 17, 1828, in Hartland Township, Niagara County, New York. He traces his ancestry back through Elias, Job, Joshua, Thomas, Preserved and Thomas-all Quakers-to that Thomas Fish who was living in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1643.

In 1836 Elias Hicks Fish moved with his family to Auburn Township, Geauga County, Ohio, where Job attended the district school winters from 1836 to 1844. Good fortune gave him, among his teachers, Joseph W. Gray, later founder and editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and his older brother, Charles Lounsbury Fish, who became an eminent admiralty lawyer of Cleveland. In the summer of 1843, at the age of fifteen, he made two round trips on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Albany as driver on the towpath. He attended the Western Reserve Seminary at Chester, Geauga County, in 1845 and in 1846 ; and Doctor Lord's School, at Kirtland, Lake County, in 1846 and 1847. He studied law in his brother Charles' office in Cleveland during the summers of 1850 and 1851. From 1848 to 1854 he contributed numerous articles to newspapers of Cleveland, Buffalo and Columbus. At the age of seventeen he organized a debating school in his own district and took an active part in its proceedings. Its membership soon included middle-aged men, some of whom, including Oliver Brown, a half-brother of John Brown, the martyr, were from outside districts. From his youth to the present day Mr. Fish has

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been a diligent student and a great reader. For example, he learned to read French, German, Spanish and Dutch after his fiftieth year—the last after his eightieth—and he is almost as familiar with the best literature of France and Germany as with that of his mother tongue.

JOB FISH'S SCHOOLS

Years  Schools and Locations

1845-48. Auburn Township, Geauga County, Ohio.

1849-51. Select School, Auburn Center.

1851-52. Geauga High School, Chardon.

1852-53. Select School, Auburn Corners.

1853-54. Geauga High School, Chardon.

1854-55. Potato 'Hill, Berlin Township, Erie County.

1855-59. Berlin Academy, Berlin Heights.

1859-61. Berlin Heights High School.

1861-62. Select School, Birmingham, Erie County.

1863-64. Select School, Berlin Heights.

1865-80. Berlin Heights High School.

1880-81. Select School, Florence Township, Erie County.

1881-83. Berlin Heights High School.

1883-98. Florence High School.

In 1848-49 Mr. Fish gave lectures and addresses in various places in Northern Ohio. In 1852 his parents moved from Auburn to Florence Township, and this led him to come, in 1854, to Erie County, where all his subsequent teaching was done. In 1862-63 ill health' prevented his teaching, and in 1864-65 he was on a farm in Burr Oak, Michigan, whither his parents had moved in 1864.

Mr. Fish also conducted a "Teachers' Class" for the training of teachers. Each session of the Teachers' Class continued for two weeks. The years and places of holding the sessions are given below :

JOB FISH'S " TEACHERS ' CLASSES"

Time   Place

1859. Spring. Berlin Heights.

1859. Fall. Berlin Heights.

1860. Spring and fall. Huron.

1861. Spring. Huron.

1861. Fall. Huron.

1862. Spring. Birmingham.

1862. Fall. Berlin Heights.

1863. Fall. Berlin Heights.

1864. Spring. Berlin Height

1866-80. Berlin Heights.

Mr. Fish was engaged as instructor in several county teachers' institutes, as follows : One held at Chardon in 1851, two at Berlin Heights, one at Sandusky, one at Vermilion and four at Milan. He also served as county examiner of teachers in Geauga County in 1851-54, and in Erie County in 1857-64 and 1881-91.

Mr. Fish's pupils came not only from every township in the county,

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY - 55

but also from adjoining and distant counties. It was frequently the case that his pupils from a distance outnumbered the resident pupils.

Two of Mr. Fish's pupils have written some impressions of Mr. Fish. and his teaching which are given below :

"His aim from the beginning of his teaching to the end was to develop his pupils' minds. He forced nothing, but only furnished exercise for the pupils' mental faculties ; from the first he saw that the brain like the body loves and demands exercise, and it is a fact that his students were as intent on the inspiring exercises in the school room as they were on the games out of doors. In his youth he was an athlete ; he joined his scholars outdoors and in, and a winter in his school was one continuous merry-making. It is no wonder that the children in the lower schools looked forward to the great day when they could attend his school, nor that youths from a distance were happy and content with any plan which would place them among his pupils. And the best part of it was that what they found in the school was better and more wonderful than their anticipations.

"Certainly he had every qualification for a teacher. He was a natural-born mathematician, and if he had had no other gifts, he would, by devoting himself to mathematics, have risen to a high place. He had a still greater gift in language, not in mere words of which he had all, but in the language that is true and fitting; and he had a still greater gift in philosophy, and not in that visionary philosophy of which there are as many kinds as there are visionary philosophers, but in the philosophy of reality of which there is but one kind in the universe. But beyond these giftg, he was a lover of everything beautiful in nature, art, literature. He was deeply moved by music, and if he has admired and studied men who were great in other things he has gone through life as if hand in hand with the great poets.

"It seems sometimes a pity that his work could not have had a wider field, that he could not have directed an educational system to cover a great territory, but Antonius Stradivari was not at the head of a factory, but made his violins with his own hands. There are two other gifts that he has always had in the highest deg1-ee : one of them is memory, such a memory as people had when there was no printing and they had to remember. To this day he will easily tell you the names, the surnames, the given names and the nicknames of nearly every one of his scholars—from 1845 to 1898. He will tell you as if the school they attended were only out for evening—yes, as if it were only out for noon. The other gift was humor and love of wit and humor, and with this went and still goes the grandest, biggest, most contagious laugh that ever made a merry world. No wonder that so' complete a human being took the fullest interest in all other human beings."

"His aim, from his first school to his last, was to develop his pupils' capacities for thinking, rather than to burden their minds with mere information. Owing to his wide and thorough knowledge of the subjects which he taught, and a facility of diction which enabled him to choose his words' with precision, his expositions to his pupils were both clear and luminous. His extensive reading and the habit of thinking on what

56 - HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

he read, coupled with an exceptionally retentive memory, enabled him to enliven and enrich his teaching with a wealth of allusion and illustration. All his life his greatest interest has been in human beings. His heart went out to each and every one of his pupils ; and so manifestly genuine was his desire to help them make the most of themselves that all their natural timidity and reserve vanished before him, and they freely and unconsciously unfolded to him their better natures which were thus in the most favorable condition for development. By his comments on the lives of great men whose characters he opportunely portrayed, and by his uniform impartiality, straightforwardness and friendliness toward his pupils, without regard to their characters or aptitudes, he gave to high principles of gonduct in life such alluring aspect that every pupil felt impelled to adopt them. Without punishment, threat, preaching, or exhortation, Mr. Fish made his school room the scene of diligence study and alertness in recitation. Great numbers of his pupils gave him their affection ; and many then and in after life opened their minds to him more fully than to their parents, making him their confidant and counselor."

Although Mr. Fish retired from teaching seventeen years ago, tokens of reverent regard and affection continue to pour in upon him in an' undiminished stream from old pupils near and far, and from the friends, relatives and descendants of pupils.

On May 2, 1853, in Auburn, Job Fish was married to Anne Elizabeth Peabody. She was the eldest child of George Alvin Peabody and Ann Spencer. Her ancestry is given in the Bowler Genealogy and in the. Peabody Genealogy. She was born in Newport, Rhode Island, August 8, 1834. She came with her parents in the fall of 1847 to Auburn, Geauga County, Ohio, where they settled. She was sent to the Geauga High School at Chardon. Among her teachers there, wer.e Alfred Holbrook and Thomas W. Harvey.

In 1851 she returned to Newport, Rhode Island, where she remained until her marriage, the greater part of the time with her grandparents.

Nature endowed Mr. Fish with talents of high order, and he never showed these more clearly than in choosing Anne Elizabeth Peabody for- his life companion. She was distinguished for good cheer, amiability" and gentleness ; for kindness, unselfishness and generosity ; for industry, , painstaking and deftness ; for calmness, self-possession and force of character; for intelligence, nice discernment and sound judgment ; and for high ideals of justice, truth and beauty. It was, therefore, only natural that she should be idolized by her family, to whom she was wholly devoted... She continued to share fully their interests after they had left home for college, and after they had entered upon their chosen vocations. She died April 5, 1904, at their home in. Florence, where they had lived since 1873. She is buried at Auburn Center, in Geauga County.

THE CHILDREN OF JOB AND ANNE ELIZABETH FISH

Fletcher, eldest child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born February 15, 1854; died August 29, 1854.

Florence, second child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was horn

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY - 57

July 12, 1855, in Florence Township. She taught for several years ; later spent three years at Oberlin College ; and after some further time spent in teaching in a small college at Galesville, Wisconsin, attended the University of Wisconsin, from which she was graduated in 1897. Since that time she has been professor of English in the Western College for Women at Oxford, Ohio.

Williston, third child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born at Berlin Heights, January 15, 1858. In 1877 he was appointed to a cadetship in the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was graduated in 1881. As second lieutenant in the artillery he served with the army in the East and in the West. He resigned his commission in 1887 and went into business. He was admitted to the bar in 1897. His home was for many years in Chicago, where he is best known for his important connections with the city traction interests. He was assistant to the president and attorney for the South Chicago City Railway Company from 1892 to 1899, and with the Chicago Union Traction Company from 1899 in 1908. From 1908 to 1912 he was assistant to the president, and in 1912 became vice president and general manager of the Chicago Railways Company. He became vice president of the West Penn Traction Company, with offices in Pittsburgh, in 1914, and so continues. Outside of Chicago and Pittsburgh his name is most familiarly associated with literary authorship. Had lie never written anything but "A Last Will," which has been published and republished in many forms and editions, his fame as an author would probably still be recognized as long as the English language is read ; but he has also contributed a large amount of prose and verse to magazines, and is author of a book called "Short Rations," a collection of short stories of army life, published in 1900. He was married September 22, 1881, to Mary Gertrude, daughter of Dwight Foster and Frances Norris Cameron of Chicago. They had five children : Cameron (born July 31, 1884), who is a graduate of the law department of Northwestern University, and a lawyer in Chicago ; Alexander Hamilton, born September 17, 1885, died July 25, 1886; Gertrude Cameron (born August 30, .1888), a graduate of the University of Chicago ; Josephine (born June 26, 1890), who is a student in music and a talented violinist ; and Margaret, born January 15, 1892, died May 7, 1892.

Josephine L., the fourth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born in Berlin Heights, January 15, 1858. She graduated at Oberlin College with high honors, and for several years taught Greek and Latin in the high school at Greenville, Michigan, and later gave private instruction in the classics. She is now and has been for some years connected with the public charities in Cleveland.

Nicholas, fifth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born March 1, 1861; died March 23, 1861.

Matilda, sixth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born March 1, 1861; died March 29, 1861.

Mary Sophia, seventh child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born April 21, 1863, in Berlin Heights. She was graduated from Oberlin College in 1886; taught one year in Kinsman, Ohio ; two years in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, in a private school, and in 1892 she went to the

58 - HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY

Walnut Lane Preparatory School for Girls in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where she taught mathemathics and science until 1907. She then became connected with the Stevens' School at the same place. In 1909 she left educational work to be with her father.

Job, Jr., eighth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born in Colon, St. Joseph County, Michigan, May 2, 1867. On graduating at Oberlin College in 1888, where he distinguished himself in the classics and in athletics, he at once took a position with the Crane Elevator Company of Chicago ; and when that concern was consolidated with the Otis Elevator Company he was made superintendent of the larger concern. For a number of years he has been manager of the company's works at differenteplaces, and is now located at Buffalo. He married, September 18, 1890, Ruth B. Hall, daughter of Judge Theodore and Lucy M. Pierce Hall of Ashtabula, Ohio. Their only child, Julian Lounsiniry (born January 13, 1893, in Ashtabula), was graduated in 1915 from the University of Illinois, among the first in his class.

John Charles Lounsbury, ninth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born June 8, 1870, in Townsend Township, Huron County, Ohio. He attended the Oberlin Preparatory School in the winter and spring of 1886 ; was assistant to the city civil engineer of Sandusky, 1886-88, and assistant engineer on location and construction of the railroad from Sandusky to Bellevue (now part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system) in 1891. He was graduated from the department of civil engineering of Cornell University in 1892, and served as instructor in the' department 1892-93. At Stanford University, in California, he was assistant professor, 1893-98; associate professor, 1898-1909, and has been professor of railroad engineering since 1909. He was resident engineer, 1905-07, and division engineer, 1907-09, on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (now New York Central Railroad—line west of Buffalo) on construction of the railroad from Franklin to Brookville, Pennsylvania. He is author of "Earthwork Haul and Overhaul,", "Engineering Economies," and a number of other books and of papers and articles on professional subjects. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and of the American Railway Engineering Association. He has been president of the board of health or health commissioner of Palo Alto, California, since 1901. He was married at Laporte, Indiana, July 31, 1894, to Ethelwyn R. Slaght, daughter_ of Nathaniel and Frances Wallace Slaght of Greenville, Michigan. Their children are : Job (born at Palo Alto, October 9, 1895, died at Corsica, Pennsylvania, November 6, 1907) ; Lbunsbury Slaght (born at San Fran'. cisco, December 30, 1899) ; and Frances Cecilia (born at San Francisco, February 3, 1901).

Anne Elizabeth, tenth child of Job and Anne Elizabeth Fish, was born October 2, 1872, in Townsend Township, Huron County, Ohio. She graduated at Oberlin College in 1895, and taught in a private school in Lakewood, New Jersey. She was married June 22, 1899, to Dr. Charles Francis McClure, who was born April 29, 1872. Their children are : Albert Nathaniel, born at LaGrange, Illinois, June 17, 1901; Mary Sophia, born December 23, 1903. They have resided in LaGrange since 1900.

Albert Elias, eleventh and youngest child of Job and Anne Elizabeth

HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY - 59

Fish, was born in Townsend Township, Huron County, Ohio, October 2, 1872. He pursued his later studies in Oberlin and in the University of Wisconsin, and for a number of years taught school in Florence and Berlin townships. He was married April 12, 1910, to Anna Sophia, daughter of Boardman Henry Packer and Mary Annie Hanson Packer of Greenville, Michigan, and later of Chicago. Their only child, John Boardman, was born December 29, 1910, in Chicago. They live on their fine farm on the bluffs overlooking the beautiful valley of the Vermilion River, about one mile south of Birmingham, Erie County, where they are enthusiastically engaged in agriculture and horticulture.

These children, eight of them, are college bred. But now mature men and women all of them, they know that at the old home, under the careful training of their mother when they *were' children, and later in their father's school of all schools, they received all the vital part of their training.

The Fish home is of some historic interest. It is situated in Florence Township near the western line thereof, and on the old State Road which for a century has been a thoroughfare—in the earliest days carrying a procession of settlers' moving wagons, many of which were drawn by oxen; later the regular stage coach shuttling travelers to and fro, and now an automobile route between Cleveland and Toledo. The land upon which it is situated was bought in 1824 by James Clark Judson of Connecticut, a mechanic and land surveyor, noted for sound sense, good heart, industry and rectitude ; an excellent companion, a first-rate teller of stories, interspersed always with flashes of his own humor, who in 1828 erected on the place the substantial house greatly in advance of the times for that locality in its character and furnishings, and set out an apple orchard which flourished for more than fifty years and disappeared only with the fall of the last tree in a summer storm of 1915.

Churches of various denominations have been founded at different times. The first religious meetings were held at the house of Eli S. Barnum, at Florence Corners, at which itinerant preachers officiated.

The first church organization was the Congregational. The meeting was held at the Barnum house by a missionary named Loomis. This society included members from Vermillion, Wakeman and Clarksfield. The present Congregational Church was organized January 7, 1832, by a committee of the Presbytery of Huron, consisting of J. B. Bradstreet, Xenophon Betts and Samuel Dunton. It had at that time seventeen members, and Uriah Hawley was chosen clerk. A church building, costing $2,012, was completed in 1842. The lot was donated by Jessup Wakeman. For several years this church had to depend upon preachers from neighboring towns. In 1842 Rev. Eldad Barber was called as its first regular pastor. He remained until 1871, and was followed by Hubbard Lawrence, who remained until 1878. Rev. Mr. Hale served from April until August of that year, being succeeded by Mr. Wright.

The First Congregational Church of Birmingham was originally Presbyterian. It was organized in 1838 by a committee consisting of Philo Wells and Xenophon Betts, of Vermillion, and Joseph Swift, of Henrietta. In 1845 the church adopted the Congregational form, but continued under the care of the presbytery until 1874, when it with-

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drew. Eldad Barber was the first preacher. Reverend Messrs. Goodell and Carlisle followed him, and he in turn succeeded them. The next preacher was C. C. Creegan, of Wakeman ; after a time services were abandoned, and the building taken over by the Methodist Episcopal Society.

The Methodists first held their meetings in the old log schoolhouse one mile south of Florence Corners as early as 1816 or 1817, at which Rev. Nathan Smith usually officiated. This denomination has grown in the township, and another of their churches has been organized.

A Baptist Church was organized in 1818 by Rev. John Rigdon, from Richland County. At the same time another Baptist Church was organized in Lorain County, and meetings were held in the schoolhouse about a mile east of Birmingham. The Baptists from Florence finally united with these, and in July, 1837, by resolution of the church of Henrietta, a branch was organized at Birmingham consisting of nine members. The society was called the Henrietta and Birmingham Baptist Church. In May, 1840, this branch organized into an independent church.

For many years a Second Adventist Church existed at Birmingham but no services of that denomination have been held for many years.

The Church of the Disciples was organized at Birmingham with forty members in 1845. It prospered and increased its membership to about seventy when one of its preachers became a convert to Mormonism, and drew away with him about half of the number. The same year in which the society was organized a building was erected costing $1,200. For many years services have been discontinued.

The Evangelical Church was organized about 1849, with a membership of about twenty. In 1866 a house of worship costing $900 was built.

In the summer of 1809 the Ruggles brothers, in fulfillment of a contract with the proprietors of the township, erected a grist mill on the Vermillion River, near the south township line. The mill was no sooner put in operation than a sudden freshet swept mill, dam and everything away. In 1811 the brothers erected another mill on Chapelle Creek, near the north line, which was completed the next year. They subsequently added a sawmill. A number of years afterward the mills were bought by Harley Mason, who also built another sawmill on the same stream, a short distance above. The first sawmill in the township was built by Eli S. Barnum, on Chapelle Creek, in the summer of 1810. Another sawmill was built on this creek at an early date by Job Smith.:

The first postmaster was Eli S. Barnum, with the postoffice in his residence at Florence Corners. Cyrus Butler was the first postmaster at Birmingham. The first store was opened at Birmingham by Erastus Butler, and in 1826 he was the only trader mentioned in the tax reports. His capital at that time was $1,800. Two years later he was joined by Cyrus Butler, with a capital of $500. Cyrus Butler, also, while owner of the old mills at Birmingham, manufactured bar iron for several years. The ore was obtained from Vermillion. The mills were carried away by a freshet. In 1829 Ferris & Wood, of Florence Corners, were assessed on $750, J. V. Vredenburg in 1830 on $600, J. L. Wood on $600, and Charles P. Judson on $700. An ax factory was also located at Birmingham a short time.