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CHAPTER XVII.

CHATHAM TOWNSHIP—A PILGRIM COLONY—PIONEER REMINISCENCES—A. FLOURISHING TOWN-
SHIP—A GLORIOUS WAR- RECORD—ITS CHURCH AND SCHOOL HISTORY.

THE light of freedom and civilization which landed with the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock. and thence spread over New England, has passed into the broad and vast domain west of the Alleghanies, and now sheds its luster far and wide, over country, town and city. Every church bell tolls forth the onward march of the spirit of that Pilgrim band. Cottages and hamlets now dot the broad, green land of our country, and happiness and comfort reign within them. Little do we of today know of the hardships, struggles and privations that has made this possible. The trials and sufferings that were experienced by the Pilgrim fathers after their landing on the rocky New England coast, have been met again and again in the unbroken wilds of the West. Many of the first settlers of Chatham Town ship, tracing their ancestry back to families which came over in. the Mayflower, cherish their memory as a priceless heritage. Like. their venerable forefathers, these settlers found their lot in many respects similar to that of their Pilgrim ancestors, and how well they accomplished their task, is attested in the picturesque farm lands and the thrifty homes that are sprinkled over the township.

Chatham Township was set apart under the Connecticut Land Survey, as Township No. 2, of Range 16. Part of the township lands near its southern limit, was given under the provision of the Connecticut Land. Com

*Contributed by Charles Neilpany to the settlers of Harrisville Township adjoining on the south,

to compensate for the swamp lands that are contained in the latter township. The geographical borders of Chatham Township, extend to Litchfield on the north, Spencer on the west, Harrisville on the south, and La Fayette on the east. Its area corresponds with that of the other townships of Medina County. The general level of the township is much below that of the three which lie east of it. There is a rapid fall from the center road to the west, amounting to nearly 200 feet in the three miles to the east branch of Black River. The Cuyahoga shale is exposed on Gray's Creek, which flows along the western border of the township, and empties into Black River near the east-and-west center road in Spencer. The upper stratum is a very hard, shaly sandstone, quarried for foundations. The gray, soft shale is much like that on Rocky River, below Abbeyville, in York Township, and contains similar lenticular concretions of iron, but the limestone concretions are here very few. The fossils are not well enough preserved in this shale to be of value as cabinet specimens. The under surface of the thin layers of shaly sandstone, which occur every few inches in these beds, show abundant tracings of fossil forms, but none of them are distinctly marked. A bowlder estimated to weigh eleven or twelve tons, can be seen in the bed of Gray's Creek, two miles west of the center of the township.

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fast growing into a large colony. A civil organization had already been effected by its in-habitants. A purchase of the land already described was made by the newcomer, of the resident land agent, Mr. Joseph Harris ; and. leaving his wife and two children with the family of Mr. Bishop, a resident settler in Harrisville, Mr. Parsons started with two of his boys, a yoke of oxen and a span of horses; for the 1 tract of land he had bought, to make a clearing and erect a place of habitation. They ascended the bluff on the east side of the East Branch of Black River, from the village of Lodi, and cut their way through the woods northward. They kept along the river bank as well as the surface of the ground would permit. and, when their point of destination had been reached, they selected a spot on an eminence close to the little stream, on which they placed their stakes for a new home. A clearing was commenced, trees chopped down, logs were rolled together. and the building of a little log cabin was at out* put under progress. Industriously they kept at work, and, within four weeks the primitive structure was completed. The logs had been put together in quadrangular shape, the crevices had been patched up with sticks and mud. and a covering of heavy sticks and branches had been put overhead, an opening in one of its sides, overhung by a blanket, served as a door to afford ingress to the space within. After this work had been completed, Mr. Parsons with his two boys cut a winding roadway through the woods down to the Harrisville settlement, and then removed his entire family with all of his effects into the new locality. Small patches of land were cleared by the new settlers with all the diligence at their command. and put under immediate cultivation by putting in corn, oats and potatoes. By the on-coming fall, they were then enabled to gather a small crop of grain and potatoes for their own sustenance. For several years they lived here alone, almost entirely isolated in their habita-

The first settlement on land which now belongs to Chatham Township, was made by Moses Parsons in the year 1818. He bought a tract of several hundred acres of land, located about three miles north of Harrisville Center, and which had gone under the control of Samuel Hinckley, of Massachusetts, and was then known as the Hinkley tract. It was in the month of April, 1818; that Moses Parsons, with his wife and four children—three sons and one daughter—arrived from the East in the Harrisville settlement. Originally from Massachusetts. having been born in the town of Palmer, of that State, be had, shortly after his marriage to Elizabeth Craft, also a native of the Bay State. removed to New York State. His wife was the daughter of Maj. Edward Craft, a soldier in the Revolutionary army. and for a time doing service on the staff of Gen. Washington.

In the month of February, 1818. Mr. Parsons started with his family from his home near the town of Middlesex, which is now Yates, in Ontario County, N. Y.. with two yoke of oxen and one span of horses, westward. Their scanty supply of household furniture and necessary provisions, with a small lot of farming implements and tools, was carried on sleds, about the only kind of conveyance in vogue at that time among the emigrant movers. It is partially from this reason that these emigrants selected the winter months, when the ground was covered with snow, for their journeys into new lands. They traversed, after having left New York State, the northern part of Pennsylvania, and entered Ohio on its northeastern border. In the course of seven weeks from the time they had left Middlesex, and after the many tedious and laborious advances from day to day, they finally, in the middle of April, reached their destination in the Harrisville settlement, in Medina County. The settlement in which Mr. Parsons with his family landed, was al-ready quite extensively populated, and was then

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tion. The Harrisville people were their nearest neighbors. They kept up communication with their neighbors on the south, and on different occasions journeyed thitherward to do a little shopping, get a supply of powder, nails. cloth and such necessities as they stood in need of in their agricultural life, to exchange greetings, and talk over the common affairs of life. Wolves and bears at that time roamed through the woods, and they were both a terror and an annoyance to the settlers.

It is related by Mr. DeForest Parsons. a son of the first settler, now a retired minister of the Gospel living in Harrisville, that at one time. when he was a lad thirteen or fourteen years old. while walking from the Harrisville settlement, to which he had been sent by his father, he encountered a pack of wolves in the woods. He was then nearly a mile from home, and became terribly frightened. But it seems the beasts were as much taken with fear as the pioneer lad, for they disappeared quickly at sight of him in one direction, while he with equal dispatch widened the space between himself and his carnivorous friends in the other. A great event occurred in the Parsons family in the summer of 1S20. It was the birth of a male child. It was named Holden by the family. and the father, after the name of this newborn child, the first in the colony, baptized the new settlement Holden. By that name it was known until after the political organization of the township,. when it was called Chatham, after the town of that name near London, in England.

Considerable advances had now been made by the settlers in the clearing and cultivation of their lands. From ten to fifteen acres were yearly put into crops, and their harvests increased in quantity. The raccoons, ground-hogs and other small wild animals that abounded in the entire region of the country, were a great deal of trouble to them in the way of destroying their crops. The injury done by these animals was the more vexatious to the farmers, asthey could not invent or avail themselves of any means to stop the rapacity of these pilfering beasts. The farmers stood in far more dread of these animals than they did of the bears and wolves which prowled about. It was not difficult to the settler to administer a dose of well meant and direct advice to these, in the shape of powder and lead, to remain in the distance, and this admonition was quite generally well observed by these larger animals.

In the fall of the year 1820, Nathan Hall. afterward known in the settlement as Deacon Hall. removed his family from Connecticut out West, and settled on the Hinckley tract, in Chatham, one and one-half miles west of the Parsons. place. It had been but a few months prior to this that a young fellow named Henry K. Joline, from New York State. had made his advent at the Parsons home. His mission to the new country soon became apparent. He had not been in the settlement a month when. the announcement of his impending marriage to Eleanor A.. eldest daughter of Moses Parsons, was made known. It was the result of a tender affection that had sprung up between the two young people during their residence in New York State. The young lover had followed the choice of. his heart to her new home in Ohio, and had asked for her hand in marriage from her parents. Their consent was readily given, and the two were made one.

Out of this little romance grew the first marriage in. Chatham Township. The wedding ceremonies took place at the Parsons home on a July day. Erastus Parsons, a brother of the bride, was dispatched to the Sullivan settlement, in Huron County, fourteen miles distant. to secure the services of Esquire Close, of that locality, to tie the legal bonds of the marriage union. The messenger piloted the magistrate through the woods to the Harrisville settlement, both going afoot, and thence they made their way to the Parsons home. The ceremonies were conducted in very simple style ;

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there were but a few guests from Harrisville aside from the different members of the family, and there were no cards. The two young pea pie stood up in the middle of the narrow little cabin, arrayed in their best homespun apparel, and joined hands together, while the legal functionary pronounced the usual wedding formula. Congratulations, plain and simple and heartfelt, were extended to the newly united couple. A frugal wedding feast had been prepared, and was then partaken of by all present, amidst the happiest and best of good feeling all around. The day's festivities closed with a bridal tour down to the Harrisville settlement. Two choice pair of oxen were yoked to a sled, which had been filled with clean straw, over which had been spread bed quilts to prevent the straw from sticking to the bride's wedding dress of flannel and the groom's linen trousers. Two of the brothers of the bride guided the horned team, while the young couple, in company with the sedate Squire occupied the sled in comfortable glee. Their arrival in the Harrisville colony created quite a commotion among the people there for the time being. Toward evening, the young couple returned to the home of the old folks. Squire Close remained with the people in Harrisville overnight, and, on the next day, returned as he had come, afoot, to his home in Sullivan. Henry Joline, with his young wife, took up his abode for a short time in the cabin of the old folks, while a new one for their own use, on a tract of land a little to the northwest, which the young husband had bought, was put in course of construction. The little cabin was completed, with the assistance of Mr. Parsons and his sons, in a very few weeks, and the young couple then moved into their new home, and made things as comfortable for themselves as they possibly could under the circumstances.

By persistent and industrious application, Mr. Parsons had, with the assistance of his sons, by this time, placed a large share ofhis farm under an advanced state of cultivation. He had planted an acre or so of ground with young appletrees, which, in the course of six or eight years, began to bear fruit His grain fields grew in size from year to year, and it was not many years after he had made his settlement that he had turned a considerable patch into a growing meadow-field..

In the year 1821, Amos Utter, with his family, settled in the neighborhood. They located on a tract of land about a mile west of Mr. Parsons' farm. A few years later, that part of Chatham Township in its northwest corner, which was for some time known as New Columbus," was colonized by Virginia settlers. Among them were Phineas and Truman Davis, Isaac Vandeventer, William Foltz and Orrin Parmeter. These people settled on the low lands near Black River, in the northwest corner, and they held but little or no communication with their neighbors, four miles southeast They formed a colony among themselves. 'Their culture was of a manner distinctly different These people lived in a "happy-go-easy" style, varied with a touch of indolence that is characteristic 'of all classes in the South. They erected shanties for their families, but made no particular nor very great productive progress in the clearing and cultivation of the lands. Within the first few years of their presence in this new country, one of its members, Phineas Davis, put up a little " pocket" grist-mill, to which he shortly added a small distillery. Most of these people removed from this section in the course of time, casting their fortunes in• other localities, and there is today no trace of these people left in the township, except what can be recalled from memory by the older inhabitants. In the meantime, another addition had been made to the number of inhabitants in another part of the township—in the southwest Several families had come from Massachusetts, among them being Nebediah Cass, William Goodwin and Pleasant Feazle. They all settled

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in the immediate neighborhood of the Parsons settlement. There were now by this time, about in the year 1826, ten families permanently located on the Hinckley tract, which comprised the entire southern half of Chatham Township. The entire northern half was under control of Wadsworth Brothers, of Massachusetts, and was known as the Wadsworth tract.

In the month of November, 1832, Ebenezer Shaw, with his wife and family of three children, arrived in the settlement and took possession of several hundred acres of land on the Hinckley tract, for which he had traded his farm near Cummington, in Massachusetts. Mr. Shaw was a classmate of William Cullen Bryant in the public schools of their native town of Cummington, Mass. Young Shaw was also, like his chum, Willie Bryant, quite a hand at verse-making; during their school days. He has, in after years, always fostered a love for the metric art. In their early school years, he had become even more distinguished among. his friends and schoolmates for his talent in making verses. than his friend Bryant. Young Bryant removed to Williams College, from thence to New York and into the temple of fame ; his friend, Ebenezer Shaw, married and settled and cultivated a farm, and joined the pioneer band that transformed the unbroken forests of the West into bright and glowing fields. In company with Shaw and his family, came Barney Daniels, with wife and five children. and Joel Lyon and wife and three children; all of whom came from the town. of Plainfield, only a short distance from Cummington, both towns being located in the county of Hampshire. The three families together journeyed. by wagon. to Troy, N. Y., and from there took passage on a canalboat on the' Erie Canal to Buffalo, and thence sailed on a little lake craft to. Cleveland. Their journey from. that point to Medina was made in wagons, arriving at the latter point within two days after they had left the lake port This was on a. Fridayafternoon. Remaining overnight at the little tavern that was then serving the public, they proceeded the next morning for the Harrisville settlement, going by the way of Chippewa Lake and Morse's Corners, reaching Lodi on a Sunday afternoon. They were received with open hospitality by the Harrisville people. On the next morning (Monday) they moved into the new settlement. These people had to encounter all the difficulties that attend a pioneer location. The first thought was a place of shelter for man and beast. In many instances, the settler merely erected for the time being a " brush hut," erecting four corner-posts, and with cut poles and brush covering the top. This would generally serve them until a more substantial structure, with inclosed sides and a fireplace, could be erected. Winter was close at hand when these three Massachusetts families arrived in the Chatham settlement, and they experienced severe discomfiture in locating, on account of the blustering. storms of the season. Ebenezer Shaw located with his family in a log cabin that had been erected by Moses Parsons, several years previous to the arrival of the newcomers. The first experiences of these families in the approaching winter days were, therefore, of a less trying nature than that of their companions, who were entirely left to their own resources to provide themselves with a place of habitation.

The arrival of these several families was followed in the next spring by other Massachusetts people. John Shaw and wife, with two grownup daughters, and Randall Dyer, with a family of five children, made their appearance in the settlement, and squatted in contiguous places to their predecessors.

In the course of this year, the number of families in the colony was increased by a dozen or more new arrivals. among them being the Packard families. who occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of the township. There were Iram, Amansa, William. Francis. Josiah, Jonathan and Phillip Packard, with their different

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families. Lemuel Allis, Gideon Gardner and Daniel Richards were also among the newcomers. They had all come from the Bay State by the same circuitous route that had been taken by their friends before them to Troy, thence by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, Lake Erie and Cleveland, and then by slow stages and wagons into the interior settlement Every accession of new colonizers was greeted with joy by the older settlers. For days the new arrival entertained his new neighbors with news from his old home, and his adventures of travel on his way hither. In return, he was repaid with wellmeant advice and substantial aid to start on his way in making a settlement.

A number of young men from Wooster made annual hunting incursions into Chatham Township in the first years of the settlement, having a little brush cabin in the northern part. and remaining there for days at a time. Their presence and hunting of wild game did not particularly annoy the Chatham settlers ; but it was during this time that many of their hogs, running wild in the woods, very mysteriously disappeared. They entertained suspicions that the Wooster hunters were the guilty parties. So one night a few settlers armed with guns, pitch-forks and axes, and led by Uncle Dan Prickett, surrounded the hunters' camp and demanded that a search should be made of the premises to learn if there were not some fresh meat concealed among their traps. A parley ensued which grew very hot, and put both sides in belligerent attitudes. Bob Ewing, the leader of the Wooster hunters, drew a line of demarcations around the camp with the butt of his gun, and with his rifle at cock declared " that the first Chatham man who stepped over these bounds would be a dead man." Finally the Wooster men submitted to a search of their camp, and, as no signs of pork were found, the whole affair ended in a mutual good-feeling, and the hunters thereafter continued their sport unmolested.

One of the difficulties that beset the pioneers in new lands was that of roadways. The Chatham people experienced a great deal of 'trouble in this line for a number of years. It was several years after Moses Parsons had settled in the township, when, by an act of the Legislature. a road was built from north to south, running from Elyria, in Lorain County, to Wooster. The construction of township roads did not begin until the year .1834. These roads were built by order of the County Commissioners. The first one completed was the West River road; diverging from the Elyria-Wooster road at a point one and one-half miles north of Lodi, and leading into the low lands . along the banks of Black River, which had by this time been well settled; going along the stream, it passed into Spencer Township. Several years later, the Center road, passing through the township from east to west, was constructed. At the present date the township is well provided with roads, making all points within its confines easily accessible.

Of no less serious and perplexing annoyance than that which was caused the settlers by the absence of roads, was the scarcity of a circulating medium of exchange. "These were terribly tough times with us," as one of the surviving settlers expressed, "we could not get money of any kind. Could not sell anything, only in trade. What little we saved from our crops above our own subsistence, we' took to Elyria and there sold it for half in trade and half money. and none of us would scarcely ever return with more than $5 or $6 in coin. This would sometimes have to do us for a year or more." Speaking of the postal arrangements in the township in these days, the venerable gentleman gave the following information: "Our letters arrived at the Harrisville Post Office, and were directed ' Township 2, Range 16.' Every letter we received cost us 25 cents, and it went quite hard with us many times to draw our letters for want of sufficient funds. Many letters remained in the

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post office for months, because the owners did not have money enough to pay for the delivery."

On the 5th of December. 1833, a separate political organization of Chatham Township was effected. forming Township 18. in the succession of organization in Medina County. The first Board of Township Trustees elected at the first town election, consisted of Nebediah Cass, Iram Packard and Joel Lyon. In the spring of 1833. Orin Shaw was elected as the first Justice of the Peace in the township. With the separation into a civil organization, the inhabitants of the colony became inspired with a new life. They were dependent now, in more ways than one. of their neighbors on the south—the Harrisville people. who had then had a civil organization for more than fifteen years, and who had. in the few years gone by, been very apt to look upon their Chatham neighbors in a sort of patronizing way, and had considered them merely as a political appendage. During the succeeding years, Chatham has served as a quite prominent factor in the political history of Medina County. During the Abolition movements in ante bellum days, some of the citizens of this township became noted for their active and decisive support of this famous cause. That the predominant sentiments of the people of Chatham is strongly anti-slavery, is evidenced by the township election statistics during the last thirty years. Out of an average total of about two hundred and fifty voters for the last twenty years, about one hundred and seventy-five have taken sides with the party that abolished slavery and suppressed the rebellion. It is one of the " stalwart" townships in the "stalwart" county of Medina.

A few years subsequent to the formation of the township, the families of Luther and Levi Clapp and Alvan Thayer moved in from the East, settling on the Wadsworth Tract, in the northern half of the township. This half, which had not been so early colonized as thesouthern part, was now also rapidly becoming settled. Emigrants were coming in fast, and the open spaces in the woods made by the pioneer's ax, were growing in numbers. It was about the year 1838, after the east-and-west road had been . located and cut through, that several houses, of somewhat more imposing shape than most of the little farm cabins that were scattered over the township, were erected at the Center. The general interests of the township gradually drifted toward the geographical center of the township. The elections and " town " meetings were held in a log schoolhouse that had been put up at the Center, and which also served the purposes of a Union Meeting-house for the different denominations who were residents in the township.

An event that marks an epoch in the history of the township, was the bringing in of an assortment of general merchandise and the establishment of a country store. This occurred in the fall of 1839. Previous to that the " trading " of the Chatham people had been done at Lodi. whose local mercantile affairs had grown into a flourishing state of development, even before the sister township on the north had been opened up with highways. The arrival of the goods in Chatham caused great rejoicing among its inhabitants. Mr. Josiah Packard was the man who had invested his capital and energy in the enterprise. He had started in the summer with two ox teams for the city of Pittsburgh, taking with him a cargo of grain and produce. After an absence of several months, he returned with a full supply of " store " goods. His return had been anxiously looked for by his neighbors. A little frame structure had been erected at the corner of the La Fayette road, one mile directly south of the center, and in this Mr. Packard located his goods after his arrival, and opened up a regular "country" store. 'Two years later Eli Goodell opened a small store at the Center. A short time later than this, an ashery and small grocery store

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was established 'in this same locality, by the firm of Webster & Packard. In 1843, Randall Dyer & Son located a general village store at the Center," being yet at this date in operation under sole control of one of the sons.

A post office was established here in the year 1844. Mr. William Jordan was the first appointed Postmaster, and he discharged its functions for a number of years. The mail route extended from Lodi to the village, Caleb Edson carrying the mail afoot, once a week, between the two points. In later years, Chatham has formed a station on the Wooster and Elyria mail line, and there are now two daily mails.

In close connection with the mercantile affairs of the township, is the growth of its industries, though it forms no very prominent part in its history. Jonathan Packard erected the first saw-mill, in the western part of the township. The frame-work of a saw-mill that had once been conducted at the town of Seville. in Guilford Township, was removed, by Horatio Lyon; in 1845, and was put up at a short distance southeast of the center of Chatham, on the Branch River. In 1868, Mr. D. P. Fellows erected a cheese-factory—the largest establishment of its kind in Medina County—near the Center. He conducted it for several years, and was then followed by Allan Lewis, for two years, ,then Alfred Ballou, and it is now under control of Maj. W. H. Williams. This factory forms one of the most prominent factors in the agricultural-industrial pursuits of the township.

As has already been stated, the people of Chatham Township, have stood out prominent among their neighbors in sister townships. for their patriotic zeal and the interest they have generally manifested in the National affairs. Many of its sons joined the ranks of the Union army, and bled and died for their country. The historian can point with pride, upon the part the Chatham boys took in the great National drama. A grand recognition for the services rendered by its sons to the county has beenmade by the people in the township in the Soldiers' monument that stands erected in the public square of Chatham Tillage. On the strength of a legislative enactment, passed in the winter of 1865, by the General Assembly of Ohio, the project of a monument to the memory of the soldiers of Chatham Township, which had been promulgated, even prior to the passage of the act, by the leading citizens of the township, was brought to completion in the summer of 1866.

The Chatham Monumental Association was formed in the fall of 1865 at the Congregation-al Church in the village. At the first meeting held, Luther Clapp was chosen President. Edward Talbott, Treasurer, and A. W. Richards, Secretary. The Board of Directors elected at the first meeting, consisted of the following gentlemen : Jonathan Packard, J. E. Vance. J. M. Beach, Thomas S. Shaw, S. C. Ripley, T. R. Martz, D. Palmer, Luther Clapp and S. H. Mc-Connell. Subscription books were at once opened and voluntary aid solicited by the properly appointed committees, for the furtherance ! of the patriotic scheme. The people of Chat ! ham gave with open hands and free hearts. Before winter had passed away, nearly $1,600 had accumulated in the hands of the Treasurer of the association. A committee. consisting of Luther Clapp. Jonathan Packard, S. C. Ripley, Edward Talbott and A. W. , Richards, was elected to purchase a monument and select a site on which it should be erected. A contract was entered into with a Cleveland firm and, by the 20th of June, it stood completed on its present site in the center of the village. The dedicatory services were held on the 4th of July following, and it formed a day worthy of remembrance in future ages. A vast concourse of people gathered to participate in the festivities. People came in procession from different directions. The exercises were opened with an invocation by the Rev. William Moody, which was followed with patriotic airs by the

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Chatham Glee Club and the martial bands in attendance. Col Allan W. Richards read the " Declaration of Independence," and an oration was delivered by the Rev. G. S. Davis. A recess for a. grand Fourth of July dinner was then taken, after which the dedication services proper, of the monument, commenced. The dedicatory prayer was delivered by the Rev. DeForest Parsons, after which the Hon. Harrison. G. Blake gave the oration that he prepared for the occasion. It was a fete day that will cling to the memory of the Chatham peopie as long as the shapely mass of stone that commemorates the noble deeds of her sons stands in its midst. The monument stands up-on an octagon-shaped mound ; its foundation is of solid Berea stone, the sub-base is a marble block four feet square and three feet high. Upon this stands the marble shaft, which is surmounted by the American eagle, cut out of Parian marble. On the four sides of the shaft the names of the soldiers who enlisted in Chatham Township are engraven, with the date of enlistment and their commands.

The church history of Chatham Township begins at a date which records its first settlement. The Parsons family were earnest and devout Methodists, and, from the first day of their life in the new country, they continued to render homage to the God on high in family worship and prayer. At various times, Mr. Parsons journeyed with his family to the Harrisville settlement to attend the divine services held there. by itinerant ministers who had commenced to pass through that locality at regular intervals. After the addition of several more families to his own, Mr. Parsons secured the services of different Methodist circuit-riders to call at the colony and conduct regular worship. Among the first of these, were the Rev. James Gilroof and Rev. Anson Brainard.. Services were held sometimes in the log cabin, and sometimes in the open barn. This continued for several years, until 1832, when aregular church organization was effected, and Chatham was added as a regular station to the Wellington Circuit. Regular church meetings were now held every four weeks. The Rev. Mr. Harris, of Black River, at a later day a Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, was for a time one of the riders who called at the Parsons home regularly. In connection with these early church matters, we must record part of the life of one of the sons of Mr. Moses Parsons, the Rev. DeForest Parsons, at present a retired minister of Genesee (N. Y.) Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He had been apprenticed to a trade by his father in 1823, when he was twenty years of age, in Painesville, some miles east of Cleveland. While in that town, a " revival " had been put in progress, in which the young mechanic joined, and he was so affected by the religions movement that he finally abandoned his trade and returned to New York State, where had been his former home, and commenced the study of the ministry of God. In the course of four. or five years, he was ordained and given a charge in the church. He now made several visits of an indefinite length of time at his father's home ' in Ohio, and while there preached to the people. The meetings which had at first been held in private houses, took place after the organization at the log schoolhouse two miles south of the center of Chatham, and were continued there for a number of years. Another. Methodist Church society was formed by the settlers in the northern half of the township about the year 1838. They held meetings and had divine worship. In 1850, the two societies joined together and built a church edifice at the center. The Rev. Ralph Wilcox was officiating minister when the union was formed. The society has now about 120 members enrolled on its church book.

The First Congregational Church of Chatham is today the largest in number and the most influential of the church organizations in the

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township. It was formed on the 1st of May. 1834, under the union plan, and joined to the Presbytery of North America. The following were the first members : Gideon Gardner, Philip Packard, Gaylord C. Waner. Orrin Shaw, Joel Lyon, Amasa Packard, Barney Daniels. Iram Packard, Ebenezer Shaw, George Packard, Jacob Packard, Eleanor Joline. Celia Richards. Martha Waner, Sarah P. Shaw, Mehitable Lyon, Abigail Packard, Mehitable Daniels, Nancy Shaw, Miss Sarah Packard and Miss Vesta Richards. The form of .admission. 'with articles of faith and covenant and welcome of 'the Presbyterian Church, was unanimously adopted at the time of organization on May 1, 1834. In 1835 thirteen more members joined the church, and its number increased from year to year. In 1842, a split occurred in this society, and the church was reorganized on. the Congregational order of faith the year following. The Rev. Caleb Burbank was called to preach to the new congregation, and he continued the resident Pastor of the church for eight years. Steps for the building of a new church edifice were taken in the spring of 1844. The building was completed in the fall of 1846, when the pews were sold, and worship in the new house commenced. From that date on. meetings have been held by this society regularly on succeeding Sabbath Days. The membership of the church has increased until it now numbers about 300.

The Dunkard Society of Brethren commenced public worship in the township, after the large meeting-house erected by them in the spring of 1871, on the farm of Tobias Hoover, near the banks of Black River. had been completed. Rev. Joseph Rittenhouse and Samuel Garver are the officiating ministers of this and the .adjoining Homer Church, of this denomination. The meetings alternate in these two churches from Sunday to Sunday. The followers of Alexander Mack form one vast brother-hood, and the lines in the local organization in this religious denomination are but indistinctly drawn. Simple in their form of faith, they worship as one single organization.

The history of Chatham Township would be quite incomplete without a proper and full reference to the origin and growth of its public schools. A private school was taught by a Mrs. George Cook, living at that time' in Litchfield Township on the north, in the summer of 1827, in the few log cabins that were then scattered through the township. She had but six scholars. The year following. the first attempt at school teaching in the colony was supplemented by the effort of Miss Vesta Richards, who taught a private school for several years in succession. at different private dwellings. After the organization of the township a little log school hut was put on the north-and--south road, two miles south of the center. A subdivision of the township into school districts was made by the Board of Trustees on the 6th of March, 1843. In many of the townships of the Western Reserve counties, select schools, for the instruction of children. which-were subject to special tuition fees. were instituted. This was done in Chatham Township in 1858, and from that time on annual sessions have been held regularly. In this connection, an effort was made in 1867 by the people of. the township to have a large school or " academy " building. for special school purposes, erected. The effort soon assumed definite shape, and at the township election in the spring of 1867, the project was submitted to a vote of the people. It was carried by a small majority. The work of building a new schoolhouse for such purposes as had been designed, was by law vested in the Township Board of Education. A building committee was appointed. and, at the board meeting held on May 4. the following contract was submitted by them to the board :

Your committee beg leave to report, that, pursuant to authority given by the board, they have advertised for and received proposals to build a Central or High

HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY - 579

School house according to the plans and specifications adopted by the board, with such alterations in said plans and specifications as your committee were authorized to, and deemed necessary to make, and have executed a contract with Silas C. Ripley and W. G. Tilley for the building of the same for the sum of $4,846 (the lowest accepted bid); said house to be completed on or before the 15th of August, 1868, and your committee would respectfully ask that they be authorized, on or about the 15th of March, 1868, to make an estimate of value of labor and material furnished to that date by said Ripley & Tilley, and if this committee shall find it to be in accordance with the terms of said contract, that they be authorized to certify the same to the Township Clerk, and your committee would further ask that the Township Clerk be instructed that on receipt of said certificate, he return an order to said Ripley & Tilley upon the Township Treasurer for the sum of $1,211.80.

J. D. Whitney,

Chairman.

This report was adopted by the board. The construction of the new building was then put in progress, and continued during the year. It was nearing completion in. the spring of 1868, when, through the strenuous opposition that had been. made to the project by some of the citizens of the township, the contract then existing between the Board of Education and the school-building contractors was declared null and. void by a vote of resolution by the board. Suit was brought by the contractors against the township. After many heated and lively discussions upon this topic that was then engrossing the attention of the citizens of Chatham tothe exclusion of almost everything else, the matter was satisfactorily adjudicated by arbitration. To finish the building, then, a special tax levy had to be voted for, and this caused one of the fiercest contests known in the annals of the township. The proposition was carried by a small majority, and the building was thereafter soon completed. A special term of school was opened in the new structure by T. B. Randall, in the spring of 1870. He was followed in the next year by J. D. Stoneroad,. who rented it for a term of several years.

The township is today subdivided into eight school districts. The school enumeration, taken on the 1st of September, 1879, shows 132 male and 115 female children between the ages of six and eighteen, in the township, making a total of 247 school children. The following abstract is taken from the Township Clerk's statement :

Balance on hand, September 1, 1870.................$1,160 26

State tax ...................................................................................488 00

Irreducible school funds.......................................................28 07

Township tax for schools and schoolhouse

purposes ................................................................................1.224 44

Making a total of...........................................................$2,860 7T

The spirit of the people of Chatham Township is in accord with all the movements of popular education, and its educational affairs rank equal with those of any township in the county.