HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 275 The Farmers' Bank of Ashtabula was organized in 1847, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. Lemuel Moffit was the first president; Joseph Wheelock the first cashier. Ashtabula's first schoolhouse was a log building built in 1809. In 1816 a building known as Firemen's Hall was constructed, to be used as a schoolhouse, meeting-house, town hall and Masonic hall. A "select school" was opened in 1821. In 1832 the Ashtabula Academy was incorporated. This was the beginning of higher education in Ashtabula. A new building, three stories high, was built for the Academy in 1851. The present public school system was instituted in 1856. Conneaut, the northeastern corner of Ohio, has been del scribed early in the history as the scene of the first landing of General Moses Cleaveland and his party in the Reserve. The Harbor of Conneaut had more natural advantages than that of Ashtabula, and was in use from the earliest days of Reserve settlement. The village, however, grew slowly. Ship /building was an early business in Conneaut; the first vessel, the "Salem Packet," being launched in 1818. About twenty-five vessels, mostly of the schooner type, were built at Conneaut before the Civil War. Conneaut Village was incorporated in 1834. The first mayor was Doctor Samuel L. Fenton. In 1835 the Conneaut Academy was incorporated. It began operations in a frame building, which was replaced by one of brick in 1845. The Conneaut Christian Church was organized in 1818one of the earliest of the organizations of Disciples in the Reserve. This church established itself in a permanent church building in Conneaut in 1825. A Congregational-Presbyterian organization was established in 1819, the indefatigable Joseph Badger being the leading figure in the organization. The Methodist entered Conneaut in 1828, the Baptists in 1831. 276 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO Andover, a pleasant village in the southeastern part of Ashtabula County, is worthy of mention as an early center of abolition sentiment, and as the early home of the Wade family, who came into the township in 1820. Benjamin F. Wade, the great Ohio Senator of war times, will be discussed in the history of the Civil War period. Andover was settled early, but had little growth in the early years. We wish to close this chapter with a brief account of the growth of Jefferson, the county seat, and a biographical sketch of Jefferson's first citizen of national fame, Joshua Reed Giddings. Jefferson's first hotel was in operation during the same year as the organization of the county government, but was burned during the first session of the court. The fire was due to the explosion of a barrel of spirits in the cellar. A new hotel of brick was built shortly after. The village, of course, had a considerable transient population, especially during court sessions, and two more hotels were built in 1821 and 1832 respectively. The Baptists and the Methodists were organized in Jefferson as early as 1811. The Baptist Church was built in 1835. A Congregational-Presbyterian permanent organization wad permanently organized in 1831. The Episcopalian Church organized in 1836. Jefferson was incorporated as a village in 1836. The first officers were Jonathan Warner, Mayor; Harvey R. Gaylord, Recorder; Samuel Hendry, Lynds Jones, Almon Hawley, Benjamin F. Wade and George Brown, Trustees. There was little business in the village, except the county business, in the early days, and there has been little else since. But there gathered in Jefferson, as the result of its establishment as the county seat, a group of remarkable men. We have already introduced the Howells family. Early in the '30s there came into existence the law firm of Giddings HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 277 and Wade. The story of the senior partner of this firm will close the chapter. The Giddings family came into Wayne Township in 1805. Joshua Reed Giddings was then ten years old, having been born on October 6, 1795, at Tioga Point, Pennsylvania. The family were old Connecticut stock, but had lived in Pennsylvania and New York for some years before coming to Ohio. Young Giddings had learned to read before coming to Ohio, but received little formal education in his early years. He grew up a strong, healthy boy, living most of his life outdoors. At sixteen he enlisted for the War of 1812, fought in two small but fierce battles near Fort Stephenson. His service ended after five months, and the boy returned home to find the family fortunes failing. His father's land title failed, and the family sank into poverty. Formal schooling was impossible for young Giddings, but he managed a deal of self-education. At nineteen the neighbors demanded that he teach school. He did not feel himself capable, but did his best, and in the process of teaching further educated himself. His course of self-education led him in the direction of law. In casting about for an opportunity for a legal education, he turned toward the village of Canfield, where lived Elisha Whittlesey, afterward Gidding's immediate precedecessor in the Federal Congress. Whittlesey was conducting a little law school in the early twenties, where he trained a number of young law students who afterwards rose to importance. The question of the admission of Giddings to the bar was argued at length by the examiners, mainly on account of his lack of formal education, but his examination proved his worth, and he was admitted in 1821. Before he had concluded his education he had married a Miss Laura Waters, who made him a faithful and helpful wife for many years. 278 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO Giddings soon rose to a high place in the Ashtabula bar. His oratorical ability, coupled with his comprehensive knowledge of the law, and his impeccable honesty made him a great reputation. In 1831 he formed a partnership with Benjamin F. Wade, the only rival of his later years in national importance. Elisha Whittlesey represented the district in Congress from 1823 to 1839. His service was faithful, but never such as to gain him national fame. In 1839, Whittlesey resigned his seat, and Giddings became a candidate to succeed him. He had previously served a term in the Ohio Lower House. He was elected to the Federal House of Representatives in 1839, and served continuously from that time until 1857. Giddings early became identified with the abolition cause. His whole career in Congress was devoted to it. Representing the strongest abolition center, perhaps in the country, he was worthy of his constituents. He became a follower of John Quincy Adams, and after the death of Adams was the leader of the abolition group, helping to form the Free-Soil Party and afterwards joining the Republican Party at its inception. His militant attitude led him into many conflicts with his pro-slavery opponents, sometimes dangerously approaching actual bloodshed. There is no space here for a detailed account of his various conflicts. They are part of the history of the nation. After retiring from Congress Giddings took part in the Republican Convention at Chicago which nominated Lincoln, in 1860. President Lincoln appointed him Consul-General to Canada in 1861. He died in Montreal on May 27, 1864. He lies buried in the village cemetery of his old home at Jefferson. CHAPTER VI GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES The history of Geauga and Lake counties is so nearly a unit after the separation into two counties in 1840, that it seems advisable to treat them in one chapter up to the Civil War period. While the original settlements came early in Reserve history, their growth was slow, and remained entirely rural—in fact has remained so until the present time, if we are to classify the present principal business of Lake County, nurseries and gardens, as a rural occupation. Geauga County, especially, is the one Reserve county which has never received within its borders any of those great manufacturing developments, or growths of suburban population, which have so densely populated other parts of the Reserve. It is one of the most beautiful of Ohio counties; its rolling hills shelter great flocks of milk cattle, and its maple forests still furnish to a wide-spread trade those delicacies whose sweetness furnished almost the only saccharine element in the food of our ancestors : maple syrup and maple sugar. But what was once a household necessity has now become a rather expensive luxury—and it is pleasant to know that the pocket books of the Geauga County farmers profit thereby. Geauga County, as we have seen, began its separate existence as a county in the year 1806, but the government was not fully in operation until 1809. The county at that time included all of the present Geauga and Lake, except Willoughby Township, which was transferred from Cuyahoga to Lake in 1840. Chardon was chosen as the county seat in - 279 - 280 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO advance of its existence, the location being selected as being approximately in the geographical center of the county. This selection has had the curious result that the formation of Lake County left Chardon in the upper tier of Geauga townships. The general history of these counties before the Civil War has in it two interesting features and one extraordinary episode : the features are the growth of dairy farming, and the beginnings of higher education for men and women; the episode is the Mormon settlement in Kirtland. Before taking up the more particular history of the settlements we shall consider these each in turn. The early farmers of this district, like all other Reserve pioneers, were originally concerned with the business of clearing the land. No large and important streams flow across it. The Grand River cuts across the northeastern corner on a line parallel to the lake shore at about six or seven miles distant until it turns north just above Painesville and empties into the lake at Fairport Harbor. The infant Cuyahoga from its source on the eastern side of Geauga flows southwest to turn north again to Summit County. The Chagrin River on the western side of the county also flows southwest, turns north through Cuyahoga County until it passes through Willoughby Township, to the lake. Between the Grand River Valley on the north and the Cuyahoga and Chagrin valleys on the south is a miniature height of land, at the apex of which Chardon is beautifully situated. The little streams which contribute their waters to these three rivers flow through gorges and rolling hills, making a series of landscapes beautiful to the eye, but not largely adapted to the cultivation of growing crops. This configuration of the land is probably the principal reason why the clearings of Geauga were never so extensive as the rest of the Reserve, larger tracts of timber being left here and there, and the use of the HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 281 cleared areas for grazing becoming more general than in the more level portions of the Reserve. This is also the reason, doubtless, why the rush of city life has passed Geauga by. The first cattle brought into the Reserve came at the tail of the covered wagons of the first settlers and were, of course, not of any particular breeding or excellence. While cattle breeding in Great Britain, Holland, and especially the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark was taking on a scientific aspect even before the Revolution, only George Washington and one or two other Virginia farmers probably took any interest in it. (It is one of the qualities of greatness in Washington not often noted that he was America's first great scientific farmer.) Outside of Geauga County no large amount of evidence is to be found that there was any organized attempt to improve cattle breeds in Northern Ohio before the Civil War. It is on record, however, that Deacon David Holbrook, of Kirtland, and Steven Bassett, of Chester, were importing red Durham cattle into Ohio about 1820. Eleazer Hickox, of Burton, bought a "fine full-blooded Devonshire bull" in Philadelphia about 1823. The bull was driven across the mountains, arrived at Burton in good condition, and was the founder of a line of cross-bred cattle which were a vast improvement over the local stock. Peter Hitchcock, the pioneer lawyer, congressman and judge, was also a pioneer in the business of breeding fine cattle, and one of the introducers of the Durham breed. In 1824 Stephen Ford, of Burton, collected sixty-two yoke of oxen and steers, led by a fine Devon bull in a special yoke, "which excited universal admiration." The "Pioneer's History of Geauga County," from which most of these facts are taken, records the following interesting event : "Lyman Millard, in 1832, purchased, in Onondaga County, New York, a cow and bull calf of Durham, crossed with some other valuable stock, had them shod, and drove 282 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO them to his home in Huntsburg, in person, in the winter time, being six weeks on the road on the account of being detained by snow drifts many times. What does 'Young America' think of such an experience?" (The writer confesses to a curiosity as to the method by which the bull calf was tethered while the shoeing process took place.) Another pioneer cattle breeder, Colonel Erastus Spencer, brought into Geauga "those heavy-quartered, clean-limbed, strawberry-roan Durhams, known as the 'Improved Durhams,' from the Blue Grass region of Kentucky." All this shows an unusual amount of enterprise on the part of the Geauga men. It is not to be wondered at that the Geauga County Agricultural Society was organized in 1823. The first meeting was held at Chardon on February 10th, a constitution was adopted, and officers chosen. The first officers of this pioneer society were as follows: Peter Hitchcock, President; Eleazer Hickox and Samuel Phelps, Vice-Presidents; Ralph Granger, Lemuel G. Storrs and Lewis Hunt, Corresponding Secretaries; Eleazer Paine, Recording Secretary; Edward Paine, Junior, Treasurer; John Hubbard, Daniel Kerr, Vene Stone, Prudential Committee (just what did they do?) ; Warren Corning, Abram Skinner, John Ford, first awarding committee; Jesse Ladd, Nathan Wheeler, Nathaniel Spencer, second awarding committee, Benjamin F. Tracy, S. H. Williams, Augustus Sissons, third awarding committee; Solomon Kingsbury, R. B. Parkman, Asa Cowles, fourth awarding committee. This catalogue of names includes a large portion of the leading citizenry of the county. Here is part of a report of the meeting by the Honorable Lester Taylor. "The writer—was present, and one of the original members of the society. He looks back with pride upon those substantial men assembled at its first meeting, the bone and sinew of the farming community, with their strongly marked HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 283 countenances of mental strength and courage, whose achievements and perseverance in clearing their farms and making improvements were worthy of all praise. The social element was a strong inventive in that enterprise. The courts and trainings had been their principal holidays. Now a fair would give an opportunity to renew old, and make new acquaintances; to see the stock and the samples of productions and home manufactures, were charms sufficient to awaken much enthusiasm, and brought a large collection of both sexes, old and young, to witness the first fair." This fair was held at Chardon, upon the village green,, on October 23, 1823. It was attended by every person in the county who could possibly get there. We think the list of awards is sufficiently interesting to be recorded here : To Eleazer Hickox, for the best bull, ten dollars. To Grandison Newell, second best bull, five dollars. To Edward Paine, best heifer, eight dollars. To Lemuel Punderson's administrators, for the best buck, six dollars. To Eleazer Patchin, second best buck, three dollars. To Edward Paine, Junior, for the best ewe, six dollars. To Edward Paine, Junior, for second best ewe, three dollars. To Mrs. Sophia Howe, for best piece of woolen cloth, six dollars. To Mrs. Sarah French, for second best piece of woolen cloth, three dollars. To Mrs. Catherine Kerr, for best piece of bleached linen, five dollars. To Mrs. Alice Beardslee, for best table linen, four dollars. To Miss Caroline Baldwin, for best grass bonnet, four dollars. To Miss Lucy Baldwin, second best bonnet of straw, two dollars. 284 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO The last five awards are reminders of the fact that not only weaving of wool and flax, but the manufacture of bonnets, were among the home accomplishments of our pioneer women. One of the four "awarding committees" must have judged the bonnets. One may wonder how the women of the county regarded the judgment of these mere men on the sub-. ject of millinery. This Agricultural Society has continued in existence ever since, the oldest county fair organization in the Reserve, a most extraordinary record. In the early days, of course, the dairy business was a local institution. The development of the sale of milk on a wholesale basis belongs to a much later period. Butter was made in large quantities, and sold outside the county, at an early date. But the earliest export business of Geauga County was the business of cheese making. The housewives of Geauga and of other parts of the Reserve early began to make cheese for their own and for local consumption. As early as 1820 the local business leaders began to think of the cheese-making as a possible source of outside trade. To show the scope of this business, we quote a letter from Royal Taylor, of Ravenna, recorded in the "Pioneer's History of Geauga County." "Mr. Harvey Baldwin was, undoubtedly, the first man who carried, cheese to the southern market. From Aurora he took his first cargo of cheese down the Ohio River, in the summer of 1820. He had less than two thousand pounds, hauled to Beaver Point, Pennsylvania, by wagon, and there transferred it to a pine skiff, on which he embarked as captain, supercargo and owner, and commenced his voyage dawn La Belle River, selling his cheese as he journeyed along, at Wheeling, Marietta, Gallipolis, Portsmouth, Maysville, Augusta, Cincinnati Madison and Louisville, Kentucky, HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 285 where he made sale of it, and terminated his voyage, at a good profit above cost and transportation. "My brothers, Samuel Taylor, and Apollos White, united with Harvey Baldwin, and purchased several dairies in Bainbridge and Auburn, in 1825, and sent cheese down the Ohio. In September, 1826, Russell G. McCarty and myself gathered a cargo of thirty tons of cheese in Aurora and Bainbridge and took it to Louisville, Kentucky, where we divided the lot into two parts. McCarty took his lot to Florence and Huntsville, Alabama. I found the market at Nashville overstocked. I hired two six-horse teams, with large Pennsylvania wagons (as they were then called), to haul eight thousand pounds each, over the Cumberland Mountains, to Knoxville, East Tennessee, at two dollars and fifty cents per hundred pounds. "I accompanied the wagons on foot, and sold cheese at McMinnville, Sparta, and other places where we stayed over night; and the teamsters assisted me, cheerfully, in making sales, as they thereby lessened the burdens which their teams were compelled to haul over the rugged and almost impassable mountain roads. The people with whom we stayed over night usually purchased a cheese, called the family around a table, and they generally ate nothing but cheese until they had fully satisfied their appetites, and then the balance (if anything was left), was sent to the negro quarters to be consumed by the slaves. Frequently another cheese would be purchased the next morning to be consumed in the same manner. The people usually inquired where the cheese was made, what it was made from, and how the process of making was performed. Having had some experience in that line, I took great pleasure in explaining to them the process. "My sales in Tennessee and North Carolina, at that time, ranged between twenty-five and thirty-seven cents per pound. The trip was somewhat protracted, as the teams could not 286 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO travel more than ten or fifteen miles each day, and sometimes less than ten, where the mountains were very steep, and the mud deep. On my return to Knoxville, from the Warm Springs, in North Carolina, I purchased a horse, and came home on horse back, via Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, Maysville and Chillicothe, having been absent about six months and a half. "In 1827-8-9 bought cheese in Auburn and Bainbridge. In 1830 Sherburn H. Williams and brother gathered about thirty tons of cheese, made in Parkman, Burton, Newbury and Clairdon, which I sold at Cincinnati, Louisville and Nashville. Continued to do business for the same parties, and sold in the market during 1834-5 to 1841-2, inclusive. During most of these years, some cheese was shipped to New York from the central and northern part of the county in a small way, merchants taking in some on debts. "Until after 1834 the Western Reserve cheese had entire control of the southern markets. About that time the Yankee population, who settled on the Darby Plains, in Ohio, commenced its manufacture, and their cheese came into competition with ours at Cincinnati, Louisville and some other markets, and was sold at lower figures than we had usually sold at, because they were much nearer to Cincinnati, and their transportation was less expensive than ours. The article they offered for sale was equal, if not superior in quality to ours, but the quantity was much less, consequently, they did not greatly diminish our sales. The increase of the consumers at the south and west kept even pace with manufacturers in the north, and hence the enormous quantities now manufactured find a ready sale. I only regret to say that the quality has not improved in the same ratio as the quantity has increased." In 1850 Geauga County produced 424,547 pounds of butter and 2,273,723 pounds of cheese. This production in- HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 287 creased until the farmers found, in the present century, a better use for their milk, selling it direct to the great Metropolitan markets close at hand. But the story of Geauga cheese-making and marketing is a fine example of the business instinct of the early Reserve men, who were able to make a profitable market for a home market in a territory as re: mote then, as regards transportation facilities, as Europe is now. Ohio is the home of colleges. More educational institutions, great and small, for the development of higher learning, exist in the state than in any other in the Union, or in any area of equal. population in the world. The territory embraced in the present Geauga and Lake counties was probably more active in the promotion of such institutions than any other portion of the state. Curiously enough, most of these have either ceased to exist or have moved to other placs, nevertheless, their history is important. It is on record that the Reverend Joseph Badger attempted to persuade the Territorial Legislature to grant a charter for a college in the Reserve in 1801. His request was not granted, but a movement was begun in 1803, when the first legislature of the state passed an act in 1803 creating the "Erie Literary Society." The incorporators were David Hudson, Eliphalet Austin, Henry Champion, John Leavitt, Martin Smith, Ephraim Root, Harmon Canfield, John Walworth, John S. Edwards William Hart, Turhand Kirtland and Joseph Badger. This representative group of citizens of the Reserve raised funds and opened an academy at Burton in 1805, with Peter Hitchcock as the first teacher. The building burned in 1810, and was not rebuilt until about 1819. The academy continued until 1823, when the combination of an epidemic of sickness and an offer from the Presbyteries of Grand River and Portage to finance the institution if removed to some other locality, brought about its closing. It was re- 288 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO opened at Hudson, and thus, became the progenitor of the Western Reserve University. An academy was conducted in Chardon from 1826 to 1840. It was fairly successful, but ceased to exist before the movement for organized schools in Ohio came into existence. An attempt at Painesville was more successful. In 1829 the legislature incorporated the "Painesville Educational Society." The leader of this movement was Doctor Storm Rosa, a famous physician of the early Reserve. This society maintained an academy, supported mainly by voluntary contributions, for many years, discontinuing only on the establishment of the Union School System. During the years from 1816 to 1849, Flavius Josephus Huntington, a nephew of Governor Samuel Huntington also conducted a school in Painesville. This was a one-man institution. The service of Huntington to the community was great. He seems to have behis natural school teacher, and his students long remembered his kindly, if rather eccentric methods. Another institution which in its passing led to greater things was the Willoughby Medical College. This institution was chartered in 1833 and opened for business in a little brick building in Willoughby, soon after replaced by a three-story edifice, also of brick. The institution had a very complete faculty for the times. Its end was due to two causes, the fact that the faculty found a larger opportunity in the beginning of the medical school which is now a part of the Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and an incident which brought about the hostility of the local inhabitants. As nearly everyone knows the obtaining of subjects for dissection in medical schools was a matter of great difficulty in the early days, and nearly all the methods used were illegal, most of them criminal. Every reader remembers the character of Jerry Cruncher, in the "Tale of Two Cities," HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 289 one of Dickens' most admirable comic villains. Students of criminology are also acquainted with the case of Burke and Hare, those practitioners in Edinburgh who developed a fine technique in selecting their subjects while alive, and preparing them for the dissecting table by various methods of homicide. It is only in recent times that the law-makers have seen the necessity of providing subjects for this most necessary business by legal means. In such a small community as Willoughby was then, it was doubly or trebly difficult for medical students to obtain their subjects. The story is rather doubtful, but as we have read it, there was a funeral one day of a woman of some prominence. The not day a rumor was abroad that she had not been allowed to remain in her grave. A committee of citizens went to the cemetery, opened the just filled grave, and found, as they feared, that the coffin was empty. They naturally turned their steps toward the medical college, where they found the corpse being prepared for dissection. The body was reinterred, and public sentiment decreed that the college must go. Another institution which finally departed, to prosper elsewhere, was the Geauga Seminary, established at Chester, in 1841, by the Free-Will Baptist Church. This institution languished when the Free-Will Baptists transferred their support to Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan. The seminary was continued for a while, but had to close due to lack of patronage. After the Mormons departed from Kirtland a normal school was opened, in 1838, in the old Mormon Temple. This institution was named the Western Reserve Teachers' Seminary. It continued to operate until the beginning of the Civil War. For years, first under the direction of Asa D. Lord, it was very successful, but after the resignation of Doctor Nichols in 1853 it began to fail. 290 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO One more institution of learning remains to be mentioned, a most happy and interesting one, but the extended account of it must be withheld to a later chapter, as its usefulness is not ended, and, we hope, will not be for many a year. The Lake Erie Female Seminary, now the Lake Erie College for Women, was incorporated at Painesville in 1856. This college, one of the outgrowths of the work of that great pioneer of the education of women, Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke, has had a far reaching influence for good in Ohio and elsewhere. The Mormon episode in Kirtland, while brief in point of time, is of such interest as to deserve a brief history here. The early years of the nineteenth century saw a multitude of extraordinary religious developments in the United States and elsewhere. Some of these were permanent influences for good, as for instance, the great work of Alexander Campbell and others which developed into the Christian Church, or Disciples of Christ. Some lasted a day or two, some became permanent institutions. Of these movements Ohio had more than her share. The Shakers in Cuyahoga and Montgomery counties, and elsewhere, the Millerites, the converts of the Leatherwood God, whose story William Dean Howells has immortalized, and many others, had their inception and sometimes their conclusion in Ohio. Of all of them none met with more difficulties, none survived more triumphantly, than Mormonism, or, to give them their own appellation, "the Church of the Latter-Day Saints." The history of Joseph Smith, Junior, has usually been written by those who were not his well-wishers. It is probably not possible for one who is not a believer in the faith of which he was the first prophet to tell his story with impartiality. Yet it seems certain that from his birth, at Sharon, Vermont, in 1805, until the time when he became the prophet of Mormonism, the reputation of the Smith HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 291 family was doubtful. Young Joseph showed little tendency to work in his youth, but wandered from one occupation to another, turning his attention in turn to such work as hunting treasure, finding hidden water with a turning rod, and other enterprises of doubtful value. Before he had emerged from his teens, according to his own story, he had a vision in the night. In his own words, as given in the introduction to the book of Mormon : "While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor." The vision, or angel, told him of a place of concealment where were to be found certain gold plates, on which were written, in an unknown language, the story of certain peoples connected with the Tribes of Israel, the whole constituting a new revelation, and a supplement to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. They could only be translated by inspiration, which was to be given to Joseph alone. Under the directions of this vision Joseph found the plates and translated them. After some difficulty he found a helper, Martin Harris, who agreed to mortgage his Pennsylvania farm and use the proceeds to publish this Book of Mormon, or as it is usually called, the Mormon Bible. Five thousand copies were printed and placed on sale, but the converts were few and sales fewer, and the whole enterprise seemed about to fail, when a new figure appeared on the scene. Sidney Rigdon, a Pennsylvanian, became a popular preacher in the early days of the Reserve. He began his career as a Baptist, joining the church in Warren, but shortly after came under the influence of Alexander Campbell, and became a successful minister in the Disciple Church. In 1830 he was the pastor of the Disciple Church at Kirtland. 292 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO How he got to know Joseph Smith is not known. It was perhaps through an introduction by one Parley Pratt, an itinerant tin peddler who was also one of the leaders of the Mormon movement. At any rate, Pratt, with three other followers of Smith, came into the church at Kirtland, one day in October, 1830, and introduced the subject of Mormonism with Rigdon's assistance. Rigdon next went on a visit to Smith at the latter's boyhood home in New York State. The result of this visit was that Rigdon became a preacher of Mormonism, and assumed a position only second to Smith himself. Rigdon returned to Kirtland, and plans were made for the removal of Smith to the field. The prophet arrived in January, 1831, with his family. The Mormons now were established in Kirtland. They made converts in the village and elsewhere, and the little colony grew. From Kirtland missionaries were sent out through all the west—it seemed that Smith, Rigdon and their followers had decided to make no further attempt at converts east of Ohio—and they were successful in many places. They planned a temple, which grew to completion, a huge edifice for the place and times, but without any architectural excellence or charm. They sought a charter of incorporation for a bank, but were refused. They then organized the bank on their own authority, and proceeded to issue currency, in the form of promissory notes. These notes got them into trouble later on, in spite of the fact that they printed in front of the word "bank," in small letters, the prefix "ante," and after it "-ing Co," thus making it "The Kirtland Safety Society and Anti-Banking Company." Other troubles came. "Citizens of Shalersville, Garretsville and Hiram" took Smith and Rigdon from their beds one night and dressed them in tar and feathers. Various court proceedings, civil and criminal, were instituted against HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 293 Smith and others of the faith. Their financial affairs became complicated, and they faced bankruptcy. The time had evidently come to move. During the early part of the Kirtland period several expeditions had traveled into the wild country of Missouri, along the Missouri River. The first attempt at colonization was in the neighborhood of Independence, and met with disaster in the form of armed opposition from the half savage inhabitants of that extraordinary town. The Mormons moved across the river, but were still persecuted. Nevertheless, when the time came to leave Kirtland, Smith and Rigdon moved to the Missouri settlement. This departure really ended the Kirtland episode. The melancholy temple still stands, and a little group sometimes gather there, but the glory of Mormonism departed westward. It is perhaps unnecessary to finish the story in more than a few words. The Mormons, driven out of Missouri, moved to Nauvoo, on the Illinois bank of the Mississippi. Here they seemed to be on the road to prosperity, and became a political power in Illinois. But trouble came to Nauvoo also. Rumors of immorality began to fill the air of Illinois. Joseph Smith was imprisoned, with his brother, Hyrum (the spelling is correct, according to the Smith method) , in Carthage Jail. Here, in the night of June 27, 1844, the Smiths were murdered by a mob. Mormonism did not die with the prophet. Before the Exodus from Kirtland a young man named Brigham Young had joined the colony. He became exceedingly useful, going as a missionary to England, where he was the leader in the work of converting that throng of English working people who so largely increased the membership of the faithful—and to these, to be sure, Mormonism was an escape from the dreadful oppression of the early British factory system to a 294 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO Promised Land. Young became one of the famous Twelve Apostles, and after Smith's death assumed the leadership of most of the flock, and led them across the plains to the fertile oasis around Great Salt Lake. Their further history is none of the business of this book. It may be read in many other works. But in justice to Joseph Smith, Junior, it must be said that none of the darker sides of Mormonism, polygamy, the massacres in the west, etc., are to be laid to his charge. While a study of the Mormon Bible may cause a person of education to wonder how such a jumble of incoherence and evident fraud could ever convert anyone, and while one must feel a doubt as to Smith's own sincerity of purpose, yet the worst crimes he can be accused of are charlatanism, self-seeking and an occasional disturbance of the peace; and he must be given credit for great personal magnetism and a talent for leadership. Peace to his ashes ! We must now give a brief account of the development of the various settlements of Geauga and Lake counties. Chardon has never grown out of the village class. A beautiful town in a delightful location, there has never been any reason for great expansion or metropolitan growth. It early filled with churches; the Methodist Episcopal in 1818, the Baptist in 1817, the Congregational in 1834. Alexander Campbell came to Chardon in 1824 and his preaching resulted in the usual spiritual awakening, but no Disciple Church was built until 1836. A sect which gained a foothold in Chardon was the Universalists, who organized there at an early date, just when we have been unable to discover. There seems to have been a small group of what was known then as "free thinkers" in this neighborhood; a not usual situation among the stern religionists of the Reserve. Very little in the way of manufacturing ever came into Chardon. A tannery, a flour mill or two, and a carding mill HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 295 make up the total, and these did not grow to size in early years. Chardon remained as it started, the prosperous little center of a hard working agricultural neighborhood. Burton, it may be remembered, was a very early settlement, antedating Chardon by at least ten years. During the days of the academy it seemed to have an opportunity to grow into a college town. But the removal of this institution caused Burton to relapse into a placid, comfortable rural settlement, livened once a year by the coming of the crowd to the annual fair. Burton's churches were organized as follows : Congregational, 1808; Methodist Episcopal, 1806; Disciples, 1848. A word may be said about Parkman. Settled first by Robert B. Parkman, of Cayuga, New York, in 1804, it rested in quiet peace for more than a century, until after the World War- it awoke one day to find itself an important place, as the half-way point on the great Federal highway between Youngstown and Cleveland. How it rose to the opportunity may be worth a word or two later on in the history. We would like to pause now to brighten this history with an item from the records of Geauga County : "Parkman Township, February 17, 1818. "This may certify that, on the day and year above written, Abner H. Fairbanks and Nancy McMillen set sail in Hymen's bark. The prospect appeared favorable and the voyage pleasant. I stood at the helm until they got underway. H. E. PAINE, J. P." Painesville became the county seat of Lake County at the time of the division in 1840. The hill region of Geauga and Lake terminates at the edge of the Grand River, so that Painesville stands on the edge of the little plain between river and lake. It must always have been beautiful, and now has a quiet charm, which makes the resident of a smoky manufacturing city long to live there. The pioneer printer, Eber 296 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO D. Howe, gives a description in his "Recollections" of the village in 1822 : "In Painesville the lawyers were Samuel W. Phelps, Stephen Mathews, Noah D. Mattoon, and James H. Paine and Ralph Granger at Fairport. The doctors were John H. Mathews, Storm Rosa, Doctor Holiday. Jedediah Hills was postmaster, justice of the peace and druggist. William Lattimore and Benjamin F. Tracy were the only merchants. The following were then the only families, or nearly so, on the town plat, viz. : on State Street, William Kerr, Robert Moody, Benjamin Knights, Henry Babcock, S. W. Phelps, Gideon Crofoot, George Warner, Clark Blodgett, Solomon Kingsbury, Eli Bond, Abijah Merrill, Mrs. Wheeler, Ira Seeley, Jedediah Hills, William Lattimore, J. H. Mathews, Josephus Huntington, Milo Harris; on Main Street, Joel Scott, William Holbrook, Hezekiah King, Calvin Cole, C. Crofts, Doctor Holiday, G. A. D. Streeter, Sebastian Adams, Squier Spring, Ebenezer Williams, Marvin Huntington, Edward Partridge, B. P. Cahoon, Carlos Granger, Milo Phelps, Milton Armstrong, Harcey Abels, Warren French, E. Champney, F. Billette, Thomas Brooks; on Washington Street, David Hull, James H. Paine. Doctor Storm Rosa, Captain James Beard; on High Street, Hardin Cleaveland; on St. Clair Street, Reverend Amasa Loomis, Simon Russell. "The exports from the county were then mostly destined to Detroit and Mackinaw. Large quantities of maple sugar were received in exchange from the western Indians. This was transported in birch bark boxes, which were called Mococks, and containing from twenty to fifty pounds. This sugar was of the most disgusting character; being so saturated with hair, it was supposed that they cooked most of their game in the sugar kettles while boiling, without ever being skinned. HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO - 297 "There were several distilleries in the neighborhood, which transformed most of the rye corn into blue ruin. One was located on the west bank of the river, a little above the site of the old arch bridge, and run by William Kerr and Robert Moody; and one nearly opposite run by Jacob French. The most extensive one was located under the hill, . . . and owned by Holbrook and Streeter. These appendages to pioneer life receded on the advance of civilization. They, however, left their marks enstamped upon the community for many years. Many of our best citizens fell a prey to the devouring monster. (Note.—In justice to Painesville be it said that the entire Reserve, in fact, all of Ohio, was dotted with these little distilleries in the early days. Whiskey was used as currency in this new country. It was a hard drinking age. It is the writer's belief that the Reserve was freer from this vice than most of the country.) "There was then only one bridge across Grand River in this neighborhood. It was located a few rods below the mill of Mr. Bigler, and was, I think, some five hundred feet in length. It was carried away by the ice the following year. "The first fire in Painesville occurred November 25, 1823. It was on the northeast corner, at the intersection of Main and State streets, destroying two stores and a dwelling-house, the loss amounting to about ten thousand dollars." The village was incorporated in 1832. Lemuel G. Storrs was the first major; Addison Hills the first recorder. Whether more fires occurred before 1841 we have no records to show. Doubtless they did. At any rate, a small rotary hand fire engine was purchased, and a hook and ladder company organized. Painesville's Presbyterian-Congregational Church seems to have been organized as early as 1801. The church became 298 - HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN OHIO Presbyterian in 1841. Congregational again in 1852. A church building was finally completed in 1829. It was repaired, the pews altered and a bell added in 1844. A parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church was organized in the twenties, and a church building completed in 1836. The Methodists were organized in 1820. They built their first church building in 1822. A Baptist congregation moved from Richmond to Painesville in 1842. A church was built in 1848. The Disciples did not effect an organization in Painesville until 1843, and their church was not built until 1853. There seems to have been a strong Presbyterian influence in Painesville from the beginning, which may account partly for the lateness of the arrival of the Disciples. Painesville was early in the banking business. The Bank of Geauga was incorporated in 1831. It had a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, divided into two thousand shares of fifty dollars par value. The original list of stockholders may interest some readers: