OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Gen. Simon Perkins [14]
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
June 21, 1999
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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
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Fourteenth of Series--

    During the years, Gen Simon Perkins and his wife Nancy was concerned
with the educating of his children and establishing them in life. He saw
that they went to the finest schools to learn the important lessons of
integrity, manners, politics, and languages. Important for the boys was
the education in Mathimatics, engineering, surveying, and military
training. The girls were drilled in geography, music, arts and manners,
thought suitable for young ladies of good families.
     In the meantime Simon's concern for the health of his children was
renewed by the death of Anna Maria.  She was now married to John W.
Allen, a young Connecticut lawyer who had come to the Reserve in 1825
and with Simon's help, estabished a practice in Cleveland. In 1828, in
spite of all the care the devoted family could give her, she died of
consumption.
     Olive, married Fredrick Kinsman and they lived in Warren, where
Simon built them a large brickhouse only a few steps from his own home.
Fredrick worked for Simon in his land business. Olive died in 1868, also
of consumption.
     Simon, Junior, who had married Grace Tod in 1832, moved to Akron to
farm and oversee Simon's land interests there. In 1834-35, on a hill
west of the town plat, Simon built his eldest son a large stone house
that overlooked, from the rear windows, the Portage Path, and from its
great, columned front porch, the Ohio Canal. The young man soon gained
prominence in his own right as first a 
Senator and then a Representative in the Ohio Legislature.
     On March 31,1840, Alfred died after a illness he had suffered
several months earlier of fever and ague.
      Then on April 11,1841-- Simon again wrote a melancholy tale about
his family.
" My son Charles, a very valuable young man of 23 years old last
November, died one week ago this day.  He has had a lingering complaint,
but we did not feel it was very dangerous until recently, but he is now
gone. 
   We have had nine children, and 5 are now in their graves and 4 in
good health. Simon,jr. was here this day, Joseph and Jacob are now at
home and Henry is at Marietta.  We think of these we have as of those we
have lost, that they promise well, if they can be permitted to live. But
as Providece directs, we must submit."
     Simon had his four sons near him an the expectation that they would
carry on his affairs.  He lived quietly, writing his letters and
occasionly what he called a political essay to his few friends who still
lived.  Simon still exchanged letters and views with Elisha Whittlesey.
Whittlesey asked Simon to write the history of his time.  This is what
Simon did not do, however he did write partial works to pass on down
family lines. He had numerous diaries of his travels and land sales,
letters, contracts,surveys and etc.
     In 1843, he suffered a slight paralytic stroke that affected his
right side. His boys, now bearded young men, took over the journeys to
other parts of the Reserve where Simon still had lands, contracts, or
taxes to be attended to, but they also took over writing his business
letters.
     He remained in somewhat feeble health, but by November 1844, he had
again taken to exercise he loved, and frequently rode out alone on his
horse.
     He could ride , if he chose, around Warren's Public Square and
remember the days when he had successfully sought to have the first
county seat in the Reserve located there.  He could remember too, his
part in the first court session that met nearby, between Ephraim
Quinby's corncribs. He had then participated in laying out the legal
districts of the Reserve and in determining that a white man should be
tried for the murder of an Indian. And if he looked upon Warren's
courthouse or jail, as he rode past, Simon could know he had a hand in
building them both.
     If he rode east from his old frame house, he could tour his farm
where he had successfully raised cattle, sheep, and a variety of crops.
If he rode west, he could follow the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, which
was close by his house, to its junction with the Ohio Canal, a project
to which he had contributed.  And here too, he could look upon a town
that he founded, now burst out of its original boundries.  Even if he
followed the canal to Cleveland, where the citizens had once violently
rejected his leadership, Simon could look upon lands his sons would soon
develop.  If he rode, in fact, to the four corners to the Reserve, he
could see roads, bridges, harbors, ports, churches, and schools that he
had had a part in building.
     Back home in Warren, he might pass the place on the east side of
Main Street where the Western Reserve Bank first begun its business in
an old store; and then he might pass the building where it had since
1816 carried on its business.  The bank's only sign probably hung on the
door, those days in 1844, with the "Bank Shut" side showing and marking
in Simon's view, the tragic end of that phase of his career.
     On the morning of November 18, Simon could not take his ride.  He
was sick and faint, and the children were sent for, but Jacob, who had
gone to the the county seats to pay taxes, did not reach home in time.
On Tuesday evening about 10 o'clock, November 19,1844, Simon died,
" with his reason unbeclouded and his mind entirely calm." 
     This was the end of Simon's Western Reserve venture.  It was the
end, in fact, of an era. No more would men band together in those
colonizing efforts that had built the United States.  No more would men
band together in private enterprise that had its fabulous dream the
carving of a new state out of 3,000,000 acres of wilderness.
    " My rule through life," said Gen. Simon in his will, " has been to
avoid lawsuits as far as practicable--- and also to decline any and all
commerce with men of reputed dishonesty or of suspicious integrity in
their dealings, and I advise my executors to observe these rules in all
their negotiations so far as my estate is concerned."
     To Nancy, Simon left their house and sixty acres, woodland within
the distance of one mile for fencing and fuel for the house and farm,
and the income from $22,000 worth of Hartford Bank, United States six
percent, and Ohio State stocks.
      The rest of his estate-- valued a year after his death at
$140,000---was equally divided among his four sons.  The bulk of this
property was in notes, mortgages, and land contracts due him.  Of these
debts, Simon said, " I wish my executors to extend a considerable
indulgence to my debtors if they will make their debts secure, pay their
interest when due and discharge the principal in a reasonable time."
     Although, Simon said he was not disposed to dictate where the
children should settle, but it would give him great pleasure if he could
know that some one of them would occupy and possess the farm where he
lived and where he spent the most  and best part of his days.
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Next in Series--Simon's sons