ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY [Part 1] (published 1898) *************************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. *************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Gina M. Reasoner AUPQ38A@prodigy.com February 23, 1999 ************************************************************************ HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D, 1898 ASHTABULA Ashtabula was formed June 7, 1807, from Trumbull and Geauga, and organized January 22, 1811. The name of the county was derived from Ashtabula river, which signifies, in the Indian language, Fish river. For a few miles parallel with the lake shore it is level, the remainder of the surface slightly undulating, and the soil generally clay. Butter and cheese are the principal articles of export and in these it leads all other counties in the amount produced. Generally not sufficient wheat is raised for home consumption, but the soil is quite productive in corn and oats. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 129,992; in pasture, 150,152; woodland, 62,223; lying waste, 3,700; produced in wheat, 234,070 bushels; corn, 382,238; oats, 677,555; apples, 587,385; pounds butter, 1,04,613; and cheese, 354,400. School census 9,441; teachers, 543. Area 720 square miles, being the largest county in Ohio. It has 191 miles of railroad. TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS 1840 1850 Andover 881 1,168 Ashtabula 1,711 5,522 Austinburg 1,048 1,208 Cherry Valley 689 698 Conneaut 2,650 2,947 Denmark 176 697 Dorset 613 Geneva 1,215 3,167 Harpersfield 1,399 1,116 Hartsgrove 553 798 Jefferson 710 1,952 Kingsville 1,420 1,621 Lenox 550 820 Colebrook 956 Monroe 1,326 1,459 Morgan 643 1,223 New Lyme 527 893 Orwell 458 973 Pierpont 639 1,046 Plymouth 706 780 Richmond 384 1,011 Rome 765 668 Saybrook 934 1,384 Sheffield 683 688 Trumbull 439 960 Wayne 767 835 Williamsfield 892 974 Windsor 875 964 The population in 1820 was 7,369; in 1830, 14,584; in 1840, 23,724; in 1850, 31,789; in 1880, 36,875, of whom 1,274 were employed in manufactures and 2,814 were foreign born. This county is memorable from being not only the first settled on the Western Reserve, but the earliest in the whole of Northern Ohio. The incidents connected with its early history, although unmarked by scenes of military adventure, are of an interesting nature. On the 4th of July, 1796, the first surveying party of the Western Reserve landed at the mouth of Conneaut creek. Of this event, John Barr, Esq., in his sketch of the Western Reserve, in the "National Magazine" for December, 1845, has given a narrative: The sons of revolutionary sires, some of them sharers themselves in the great baptism of the republic, they made the anniversary of their country's freedom a day of ceremonial and rejoicing. They felt that they had arrived at the place of their labors, the - to many of them - sites of home, as little alluring, almost as crowded with dangers, as were the levels of Jamestown, or the rocks of Plymouth to the ancestors, who had preceded them in the conquest of the seacoast wilderness of this continent. From old homes and friendly and social associations they were almost as completely exiled as were the cavaliers who debarked upon the shores of Virginia, or the Puritans who sought the strand of Massachusetts. Far away as they were from the villages of their birth and boyhood; before them the trackless forest, or the untraversed lake, yet did they resolve to cast fatigue and privation and peril from their thoughts for the time being, and give to the day its due, to patriotism its awards. Mustering their numbers they sat down on the eastward shore of the stream now known as Conneaut, and, dipping from the lake the liquor in which they pledged their country - their goblets some tin cups of no rare workmanship, yet every way answerable, with the ordinance accompaniment of two or three fowling pieces discharging the required national salute - the first settlers of the Reserve spent their landing-day as became the sons of the pilgrim fathers - as the advance pioneers of the population that has since made the then wilderness of Northern Ohio to "blossom as the rose," and prove the homes of a people as remarkable for integrity, industry, love of country, moral truth and enlightened legislation, as any to be found within the territorial limits of their ancestral New England. The whole party numbered on this occasion, fifty-two persons, of whom two were females (Mrs. Stiles and Mrs. Gunn, and a child). AS these individuals were the advance of after millions of population, their names become worthy of record and are therefor given, viz.: Moses Cleveland, agent of the company; Augustus Porter, principal surveyor; Seth Pease, Moses Warren, Amos Spafford, Milton Hawley, Richard M. Stoddard, surveyors; Joshua Stowe, commissary; Theodore Shepard, physician; Joseph Tinker, principal boatman; Joseph McIntyre, George Proudfoot, Francis Gay, Samuel Forbes, Elijah Gunn, wife and child, Amos Sawten, Stephen Benton, Amos Barber, Samuel Hungerford, William B. Hall, Samuel Davenport, Asa Mason, Amzi Atwater, Michael Coffin, Elisha Ayres, Thomas Harris, Norman Wilcox, Timothy Dunham, George Goodwin, Shadrach Benham, Samuel Agnew, Warham Shepard, David Beard, John Briant, Titus V. Munson, Joseph Landon, Job V. Stiles and wife, Charles Parker, Ezekiel Hawley, Nathaniel Doan, Luke Hanchet, James Hasket, James Hamilton, Olney F. Rice, John Lock, and four others whose names are not mentioned. On the 5th of July the workmen of the expedition were employed in the erection of a large, awkwardly constructed log building; locating it on the sandy beach on the east shore of the stream and naming it "Stow Castle," after one of the party. This became the storehouse of the provisions, etc., and the dwelling-place of the families. The view was constructed from a sketch on the spot taken by us in 1846, altered to represent its ancient appearance. The word Conneaut, in the Seneca language, signifies "many fish," and was applied originally to the river. The spot where the above described scene took place (there is a picture in the book: Conneaut, The Plymouth of the Reserve in July, 1796) has much altered in the lapse of half a century. One of the party, Amzi Atwater, Esq., living in Portage county in 1846, then described it from recollection: It was then a mere sand beach, overgrown with timber, some of it of considerable size, which we cut to build the house and for other purposes. The mouth of the creek, like others of the lake streams in those days, was frequently choked up with a sand bar so that no visible harbor appeared for several days. This would only happen when the streams were low and after a high wind either down the lake or directly on shore for several days. I have passed over all the lake streams of this State east of the Cuyahoga and most of those in New York on hard, dry sand bars, and I have been told that the Cuyahoga has been so. They would not long continue, for as soon as the wind had subsided and the water in the streams had sufficiently risen they would often cut their way through the bar in a different place and form new channels. Thus the mouths of the streams were continually shifting until the artificial harbors were built. Those blessed improvements have in a great measure remedied those evils and made the mouths of the streams far more healthy. -more to follow- ==== Maggie_Ohio Mailing List ====