ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY (Part 8) (published 1898)
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HISTORY OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

        GENEVA is three miles from Lake Erie, forty-five miles east of
Cleveland, on the line of the L.S. & M.S. and N.Y.C. & St. L. Railroads.
The P.A. & L.E.R.R. is expected to complete its line to the harbor, three
miles north of Geneva, within the coming year. It is forty-five mile east
of Cleveland. Free gas and free fuel are offered by its enterprising
citizens as inducements to manufacturers to locate here. The Eastern
Division of the Black Diamond Railroad passes through the town.
        NEWSPAPERS: Times, republican, J.P. Treat, editor; Free Press,
Republican, Chas E. Moore, editor. Churches; 1 Congregationalist, 1
Methodist, 1 Episcopal, 1 Baptist, and 1 Disciples. Banks: First National,
P.N. Tuttle, president, L.E. Morgan, cashier.
        MANUFACTURING AND EMPLOYEES.   Geneva manufacturing Co., carpet
sweepers, 12 hands; Eagle Lock Co., cabinet locks, 110; Enterprise
Manufacturing Co., house furnishings, etc., 27; Geneva Manufacturing co.,
hardware, 31; N.W. Thomas, planing mill; Geneva Skewer Co., skewers, 26;
Geneva machine Co., machinists' tools, 75; M.S. Caswell, flour and feed;
Goodrich, Cook & Co., planing mill 13. Among the other industries are
Dickinson's nickel plating works, Anderson's flour and feed mills, Maltby's
extensive apple, jelly and cider manufactory. Waters & Wade's bed spring
factory, Lane & Moreland's steam injector factory, Tibbitt;s machine shop,
Jackman's flour and feed mills, C.R. Castle's fruit basket factory, Cadle's
bottling works, Bedell, Bartholomew & Co.'s lumber mill, Reid's extensive
brick and tile works, Geneva prepared chalk works, and W.P Simmons & Co.,
wholesale florists, growers and importers. Population in 1880, 1,903;
school census in 1886, 577.
        The village of Geneva until the year 1888 had long been the home of
Miss Edith M. Thomas, the noted American poetess, a notice of whom, with
portrait, will be found under the head of Medina county in which she was born.
TRAVELLING NOTES.
        Geneva is a pleasant name and the township has an enduring
fragrance in my memory for within its limits in my original tour over Ohio
in 1846 I passed several most enjoyable days, a recipient of the
hospitality of a man of rare character and usefulness, the late Platt R.
Spencer. The home was a quaint, comfortable old farm house in a level
country, with the surroundings of grassy lawn, orchards and forests, about
two miles form lake Erie. It was in the heats of summer; a severe drouth
prevailed throughout this region, the home well had given out and I
remember I daily rode Pomp, the faithful  companion of my tour, and his
willing burden down to the lake for his drinks. Mr. Spencer was at the time
secretary of the Ashtabula County Historical Society and had collected
nearly a thousand folio manuscripts pages; it was a rare mine, from whence
I took nearly all the historical materials embodied under the head of this
county as well as much elsewhere. Mr. Spencer was born on the first year of
this century in the valley of the Hudson; when a boy of ten, came with his
family to this county and died eighteen years after my visit to his home.
The great work of his life was as a student and teacher of penmanship. For
this art he was born genius. President Garfield, writing of him in 1878,
said; "He possessed great mental clearness and originality and a pathetic
tenderness of spirit. I have met few men who so completely won my
confidence and affection. The beautiful in nature and art led him a willing
and happy captive. Like all men who are well made he was self-made. It is
great to become the first in any worthy work and it is unquestionably true
that Mr. Spencer made himself the foremost penman of the world. And this he
did without masters. He not only became the first penman, but he analyzed
all the elements of chirography, simplified its forms, arranged them in
consecutive order, and created a system which has become the foundation of
instruction in that art in all the public schools of our country." Mr.
Spencer's early struggles to learn writing show the strength of a master
passion. Up to eight years of age he once wrote he had never been the rich
owner of a single sheet of paper; having then become the fortunate
proprietor of a cent he sent by a lumberman twenty miles away, to Catskill,
for a single sheet. When he returned it was after night. Platt was in bed,
when he arose all enthusiasm but could not produce a single letter to his
mind after an hour's feverish effort, when he returned to his bed and to be
haunted by unhappy dreams. Paper being a luxury rarely attainable in those
days he had recourse to other materials. The bark of the birch tree, the
sand beds by the brook and the ice and snow of winter formed his practice
sheets.
        In his twelfth year he for a time enjoyed the privileges of a
school at Conneaut. He then began as instructor in penmanship for his
fellow-pupils. Being anxious to complete his studies in arithmetic he
walked barefooted twenty miles over frozen ground to borrow a copy of
Daboll. On his return night overtook him, when he slept in a settler's
barn, too timid to ask for lodgings in the cabin.
        Mr. Spencer was for twelve years county treasurer; was a strong
advocate of the temperance cause and that of the slave. He was the pioneer
in the establishment of commercial and business colleges. His copy books
have been sold into the millions, and the Spencerian pens are widely
favorites with rapid writers.
        Interesting and strange are often the little minor surprises of
life. We all have them. In conclusion I will relate one to myself. Twelve
years since I happened to be one evening at the home of a lady in
Washington City of whom I had never before heard. Accidentally a book of
exquisitely graceful penmanship from her hand met my eye. I could not help
expressing my admiration, whereupon, she replied, "I ought to be a good
writer, for I am the daughter of Platt R. Spencer. "Ah! I was once at your
father's house - do you remember me?" "I do not - when was that?" "In the
summer of 1846." "Therin," she replied, "you had quite the advantage of me
- got there several years before I did.
        AUSTINBURG, five miles westerly from Jefferson, is a small village
in a locality of fine historic note. Edwin Cowles, the veteran editor of
the Cleveland Leader, was born in Austinburg, Sept. 19, 1825, and of
Connecticut stock. As a journalist he has shown extraordinary force and
fearlessness of character, and has been a leader in many things of great
public benefit, a power in the land.
        The original proprietors of this township were Wm. Battell, of
Torringford. Solomon Rockwell & Co., of Winchester, and Eliphalet Austin,
of New Hartford, Conn. By the instrumentality of Judge Austin, from whom
the town was named, two families moved this place from Connecticut in 1799.
The Judge preceded them a short time, driving, in company with a hired man,
some cattle 130 miles through the wood on an Indian trail, while the rest
came in a boat across the lake. There were at this time a few families at
Harpersfield; at Windsor, southwest about twenty miles, a family or two;
also at Elk creek, forty miles northeast, and at Vernon, forty miles
southeast, were several families, all of whom were in a destitute condition
for provisions. In the year 1800 another family moved from Norfolk, Conn.
Part of these came from Buffalo, by water, and part by land through he
wilderness. During that season wheat was carried to mill at Elk creek, a
distance of forty miles, and in some instances one-half was given for
carrying it to mill and returning it in flour.
        On Wednesday, October 4, 1801, a church was constituted at
Austinburg with sixteen members. This was the first church on the Western
Reserve, and was founded by the Rev. Joseph Badger, the first missionary on
the Reserve, a sketch of whom is in another part of this work. It is a fact
worthy of note, that in 1802 Mr. Badger moved his family from Buffalo to
this town in the first wagon that ever came from that place to the Reserve.
        THE JERKS. - In 1803 Austinburg, Morgan and Harpersfield
experienced a revival of religion by which about thirty-five from those
places united with the church at Austinburg. This revival was attended with
the phenomena of "bodily exercises," then common in the West. They have
been classified by a clerical writer as, 1st, the Falling exercise; 2d, the
Jerking exercise; 3d, the Rolling exercise; 4th, the Running exercise; 5th
the Dancing exercise; 6th, the Barking exercise; 7th, Visions and Trances.
We make room for an extract from his account for the second of the series,
which sufficiently characterizes the remainder:
        It was familiarly called The Jerks, and the first recorded instance
of its occurrence was at a sacrament in East Tennessee, when several
hundred of both sexes were seized with this strange and involuntary
contortion. The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms or
convulsions in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown or
jerked from side to side with such rapidity that it was impossible to
distinguish his visage, and the most lively fears were awakened lest he
should dislocate his neck or dash out his brains. His body partook of the
same impulse and was hurried on by like jerks over every obstacle, fallen
trunks of trees, or in a church over pews and benches, apparently to the
most imminent danger of being bruised and mangled. It was useless to
attempt to hold or restrain him, and the paroxysm was permitted gradually
to exhaust himself was the superstitious notion that all attempt at
restraint was resisting the spirit of God.
        From the universal testimony of those who have described these
spasm, they appear to have been wholly involuntary. This remark is
applicable also to all the other bodily exercises. What demonstrates
satisfactorily their involuntary nature is not only that, as above stated,
the twitches prevailed in spite of resistance, and even more for attempts
to suppress them, but that wicked men would be seized with them while
sedulously guarding against an attack, and cursing every jerk when made.
Travellers on their journey, and laborers at their daily work, were also
liable to them.


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