LAKE COUNTY OHIO - OBIT: Mrs. CADY (d. 1892) *********************************************************************** 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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Deb Breniser rbcobb@ncweb.com January 29, 2000 *********************************************************************** From the Painesville Telegraph, Lake County, OH, Wednesday, 20 July 1892 Mrs. Cady, who died at her home in Madison, Monday, July 11th, was one of the very earliest settlers of Lake County, and Madison's oldest resident. She was born at Willington, Tolland County, Conn., Sept. 29, 1800, and so required but a few weeks to complete her ninety-second year. In 1812 when the war with England was at its height, her father, Mr. Curtis Antisdel, decided to seek a new home in what was then the Far West, and early in the fall of that year the family set out with ox teams and wagons on the long and difficult journey to "The New Connecticut," now the Western Reserve of Ohio. "The roads, if such they may be called, were new and almost impassable. Progress was, of course, extremely slow and long for stops for rest were necessary and frequent. They reached the lake at Erie and finished their journey on its ice covered margin, reaching Madison, their destination, early in the spring of 1813. Here Mr. Antisdel bought of the Connecticut Land Company an tract of nearly unbroken forest, which has since become the Dewey Farm, on the South Ridge. It may be well to notice that Lake County, a part of Geauga at that time, was almost entirely covered with timber. The roads, where any existed, were merely narrow paths through the woods, winding in nearly every conceivable means of the "blazed" trees which lined them. This blazing, as it is called consisted simply in hewing off immense chips from the standing trees. The Indians had been but lately driven westward and wolves and panthers were not uncommon. Ten days before her sixteenth birthday, Sept. 19,1816, Phebe married Mr. Joseph Cady, of New York, and removed to her husband's farm near the West border of Madison Township. For a few years subsequently they lived in Perry and LeRoy, but soon returned to their Madison home and spent there the remainder of their married life, only excepting a year passed with Mr. Cady's aged parents in New York. Mr. and Mrs. Cady lived together over fifty-one years. Mr. Cady's death occurring in 1868. Eight children, seven of them boys, were born to them. Those surviving are Curtis T. Cady of Lansing, Mich. and Oscar H. and Newton J. of Madison. The only daughter Mrs. Sarah A. Merrill, is now living in Nebraska at the age of seventy-five. Of Mrs. Cady's brother and sisters only one is left. Mrs. Mary P. Wymann of Perry. It is interesting to know that five generations of Mrs. Cady's family were living at the time of her death making her a great-great-grandmother. After her husband's death she lived some years at the old home, but later went with her son Newton to live in Madison Village, and several years since removed to Mr. Cady's present farm, one mile east of Madison. Age was unable to rob her of her brightness of intellect or her cheerfulness of temper, and her last years were blessed with good health and the tender care of her youngest son. She gave every promise of living for years and the last few weeks of her life was unusually well, but eight days before her death she suffered a fall which gave her internal injuries from which she could not recover. Mrs. Cady was a woman of great courage and fortitude and endured the toil and privation of a pioneer life with a never complaining patience. She had a most loveable character and was dearly loved by her four generations of children. She was an active Christian and had been a member of the Baptist Church for sixty-four years. She possessed much poetical ability and had she secured educational advantages in youth, would have been a writer of exceptional merit. On her eighty-ninth birthday she composed the following verses which, considering her great age, are too good to withhold from publication: Days of my youth, ye have glided away; Hairs of my youth, ye are frosted and gray; Eyes of my youth, your keen sight is no more; Checks of my youth, ye are furrowed o'er o'er. Strength of my youth, all your vigor is gone; Thoughts of my youth, your gay visions are flown; Days of my youth, I wish not you recall; Hours of my youth, I'm content you should fall. Eyes of my youth, ye much evil have seen; Checks of my youth, bathed in tears have ye been. Days of my age, ye will shortly be past; Pains of my age, yet a while ye might last. Joys of my age, in true wisdom delight; Eyes of my age, be religion your light; Thoughts of my age, dread ye not the cold sod; Hopes of my age, be ye fixed on your God.