OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Norwich -- pt 1 *********************************************************************** 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. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 August 7, 1999 *********************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio The Kelley Family Collections Newspaper article, Plains Dealer compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925 And Then They Went West by Darlene E. Kelley 1998 *********************************************************************** Part 1--Norwich-- In the preparations of the following articles access has been had to John M. Niles' " Memoirs." Township number three in range twenty- four is bounded on the north by Sherman township, and the south by Richmond Township. on the east by Greenfield Township, and on the west by Reed and Venice Townships of Seneca County. The surface features are of a general rolling nature. The highest grounds, or crests of the ridges, are all on one plane, with a northward descent. Along the streams, which run about thirty feet below the general level, the surface is more broken and uneven. The bottom lands are narrow, seldom exceeding twenty rods in width, through which the streams flow in a tortuous course. Streams-- Mud Run, the largest in the township, rises in Seneca County. It enters Norwich Township near the southwest corner and flows a generally northeasterly course to lot number forty. It derives its name from the muddy appearance of its banks and the absence of stone and gravel in its bed. Slate Run also arises in Seneca County, flows across the western line of the township on lot number thirty-four, runs northeasterly across section third, and unites with Mud Run on lot numbr thirty-eight. It received its name from the slate rock over which it runs. These streams are tributary to the Huron River. Other small streams exist in the township, but as they are wholly unimportant we omit description. The soil is a clay loam, varying from light clay on the ridges to black loam between them. The whole is well adapted to agriculture. The subsoil is brick clay. A few " cat swamps" of a few acres each, lie in the southeast part of the township. The whole township was originally heavily timbered. " The Township is situated on the outcrop of the black slate rock, and occupies a middle position between the sandstone on the east and the limestone on the west. The slate rock dips to the east and runs under the sandstone, which appears on the surface about five miles east, in the township of Greenfield. The limestone which lies under the slate rises to the surace about five miles west, in the township of Reed in Seneca County. Above the slate rock, for about fifteen feet, the subsoil contains a large quanity of water-worn limestone of the buff-colored variety, containing numerous fossils, such as coral and shellfish of many species. Along the streams are numerous sulphur springs. Sometimes they appear in the bed of the steams, and at others rise to the surface of the bottom lands, forming deer licks. Big lick, the longest in the township, lies near the center of section four and contains nearly an acre." Original Proprietorship-- On the 9th day of November, 1808, the township of Norwich received its name, and was so called, it is thought, in honor of its Connecticut namesake. At the same time it was divided. as were each of the thirty townships comprising the Fire-Lands, into four sections. Norwich was drawn by nineteen persons. Roswell Saltonstall was the principal owner of sections one and four, Joseph Coit of section two, and Russell Hubbard and Gurdon Saltonstall of section three. From the time the grant was made (1792) to the close of the war of 1812, many of the grantees had sold their claims or, at their decease, left them for distribution among their heirs who, in many instances, sold them to speculators or suffered them to be sold for taxes. As early as 1815, Daniel Coit, son of Joseph Coit, had become, by heirship and purchase, the owner of the township of Norwich, excepting a portion of the first section. The proprietors of this were Fredrick and Thomas Kinsman, William Leppenwell, and possibly others. In 1815, Daniel L. Coit sold sections two and three, comprising the north half of the township, to Judge Canfield, of Connecticut, who soon after sold the same to James Williams, Phillip R. Hopkins, and David W. Hinman. In the spring of 1816, Messrs, William Hopkins, and Hinman surveyed the two sections into one hundred acre lots. These were in size one hundred and sixty rods north and south, making five tiers of eight lots each in a section, and numbering from the southeast corner of the sections. Hopkins was the surveyor. These gentlemen also laid out a village. It was named Barbados, and was situated on the west end of lot thirty-eight in the second section, and the adjoining portion of lot six in the third section. The survey was completed in June. The surveying party built a small log house, the first in the township, on lands now at this account was owned by Kinsmen Bowen. The same year, John Williamson put up the walls and roof of a hewed log house on the village platt, near where Durwin Boughton built his house. That was long known as the " village house, " though no other was built on the plat. Williamson neither finished the house nor occupied it; in fact, nothing of his history is known. Indians-- A small band of the Seneca Indians, with Seneca John at their head, sometimes made their camp in the township. John could speak very little English. He was honest and trusty, but others of his tribe were drunken and thievish. Their dead were usually enclosed in a bark coffin, and buied near their camp. There were a few conical mounds in the southeast part of the township when first settled. These were believed to have been burial places for the dead and have long since disappeared. *********************************************** to be continued in part 2.--