OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 24 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 05 : Issue 24 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Tid Bits - Part 9 ["Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <07b401c53647$ddbce810$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits - Part 9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 11:47 PM Subject: Tid Bits - Part 9 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley Feb 21, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Art & Literature and The Perkins family written by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - Part 9 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ More of the Perkins Family Relations. The year was 1840 and the son of General Simon Perkins, the founder of Akron, was on his way to the State Legislature hoping to follow in his father's footsteps; to found a county, from three existing counties. Simon Perkins, Jr., a member of the State Senate, knew he would have to draw on every bit of his considerable powers of persuasion to achieve his goal. There was plenty of resistance from the citizens of Medina County to the west, Portage County to the east, and Stark County to the south. Firstly, the townships preferring to be part of the new county wanted to break from the counties in which they resided. Medina, Portage, and Stark. Secondly, the three counties preferred to see this abundant tract of land remain available to them. Senator Perkins had other ideas. His impassioned pleas to the State legislature reached just enough of his colleagues so that, on Feb 28, 1840, the formation of a new county was narrowly approved. The Governor signd it into law on March 3, 1840. The new County would be called " Summit " recognizing its high point alng the canal route. The controversey did not end in Columbus. A county seat needed to be named. It came down to Cuyahoga Falls or Akron. A suggestion was made to create a neutral town to be called "Summit City " that would serve as a county seat. That suggestion was quickly dismissed. Akron was finally designated as the county seat, when General Perkins, father of Simon Perkins, ended the dispute by donating a parcel of land on which a courthouse would be built and this is the very site where the County Courthouse stands today. Akron became the County Seat. With its advantageous location along the canal system, Summit County experienced rapid growth. The County would become a leader in a variety of industry, farm impliments, cereal, matches, pottery, paper products, wool, boat construction, and of course, rubber. Rubber industry carried the local community for over 90 years. Simon Perkins, Jr., married Grace Ingersoll Tod on Sept 23, 1832. She was the daughter of Judge George Tod and the sister of David Tod, the twentieth Governor of Ohio. They were born at Youngstown, Ohio. Grace was born around 1811. David Tod, her brother, was born in 1805. His education was principally obtained through his own exertions. He set about the study of law most vigorously, and was admitted to practice in 1827. He soon acquired popularity through his ability, and consequently was financially successful. He purchased the Briar Hill homestead. Under Jackson's administration, he was postmaster at Warren, and held the position until 1838, when he was elected State Senator by the Whigs of Trumbull district, by the Democrats. In 1844, he retired to Briar Hill, and opened the Briar Hill Coal Mines. He was a pioneer in the coal business of Ohio. In the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad, he was largely interested, and was its President after his father' s death. He was nominated, in 1844, for Governor, by the Democrats, but was defeated. In 1847, he went to Brazil as Minister, where he resided for four and a half years. The Emperor presented him with a special commendation to the President, as a testimonial of his esteem. He was also the recipient of an elegant silver tray, as a memorial from the residents of Rio Janeiro. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which met in Charleston in 1860. He was Vice Preisdent of this Convention. He was an earnest advocate for Stephen A.Douglas. When the Southern Members withdrew, the President, Caleb Cushing, going with them, the convention adjourned to Baltimore, when Mr. Tod assumed the chair and Douglas was nominated. He was an honest worker in the cause, but not disheartened by its defeat. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, he was one of the most vigorous prosecutors of the war, not relaxing his active earnestness until its close. He donated full uniforms to Company B, of the nineteenth regiment, and contributed largely to the war fund of his township. Fifty-five thousand majority votes elected him Governor in 1861. His term was burdened with war duties,and he carried them so bravely as Governor that the Preisdent said of him " Governor Tod of Ohio aids me more and troubles me less than any other Governor." His death occurred at Briar Hill during the year 1868. [ NOTE*** Our David Tod Perkins-- Charles C. Perkins father, was named after this Uncle. ],,, Grace Ingersol Tod Perkins, wife of Col Simon Perkins, Jr., along with her sisters Mary Tod Evans and Julia Tod Ford, established the Ladies Cemetery Association, an important Gilded Age organization committed to the beautifcation of the Akron Rural Cemetery. Col Simon Perkins, Jr. was President. Until her death, she continued to support this Association, by helping to raise funds to beautify the Akron Rural Cemetery in sponsoring entertainment in form of concerts, picnics, and other social events to raise money for a cememtery groundskeeper and erected a residence on the property, a house for him to live in. Mary Ingersoll Tod Evans ( 1802-1869 ), Grace Tod Perkins' sister, a pioneer in philanthropic service to the Akron area, was said to be decades ahead of her time. She was born in Youngstown in 1802. She married twice. Her marriage to John McCurdy of Warren produced three children. McCurdy died in 1830. She then married Dr. Dana D. Evans of Akron. He died in 1849. Mary Evans became a leader and role model in 1851 through her involvement with the Young Men's Association, Women's Committee. A year later in 1852, she served on the Ladies Committee of the Fireman's Festival. During the Civil War, she was active in the Soldier's Aid Society, although never an officer in the organization, affiliated with Cleveland's Sanitary Commission: the Akron's Soldiers Aid Society contributed literally thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to soldiers away fighting the civil war. These Akron women spent evenings knitting mittens and socks for soldiers. They also packed food and other goods to be used by the Army hospitals that cared for the wounded. This was located above a store on the South Howard street. The food and goods were shipped to the Clevelands's Sanitary Commission and then onto the hospitals that cared for the wounded. In addition, the organization raised much money by holding " dime parties." socials and dinners. Mary Evans also served as the matron of the Northern Ohio Hospital for the insane, as well as helping her sister's, Grace and Julia, in the Cemetery Association. Julia Tod Ford (1807-1885), Grace Ingersoll Tod Perkins sister, also played a key role in Akron's development. She was born in Youngstown in 1807. She married James Ford, who was a Judge in the Akron area. She too, played a instrumental role in the continued development in the Ladies Cemetery Association. In 1874, she turned her attention to the Temperance Movement. She signed the call for the rally for temperance in 1874. That meeting led to the now famous Temperance Crusade of 1874 where Akron women visited saloons and prayed in the streets in an attempt to close down the liquor traffic in the city. She continued to serve the Akron community until her death in 1885. If only one woman's name could be associated with the founding of Mary Day Nursery and Children's Hospital, that name would be Mary Rawson Perkins. It was Mary Rawson Perkins who had the vision to establish a day care facility for the children of working women in the city of Akron, Ohio. It was this nursery and the women associated with it that would lead to the development of Children's Hospital in Akron. Mary Folger Rawson was born in 1843, the daughter of Levi Rawson, mayor of Akron in 1847. Levi Rawson later moved to Cleveland and went into the mercantile shipping. Her brother, Charles Rewson, remained in Akron and married Maria Perkins, daughter of Col Simon Perkins and Grace Ingersoll Tod Perkins in 1863. Two years later, Mary Rawson married into the Perkins family as well. She married George Tod Perkins, also the son of Col Simon Perkins, who had just returned from the Civil War. The newlyweds moved to Perkins Hill. George Tod Perkins became an industrialist, establishing the Akron Steam Forge Works. They had two daughters; Grace, who died as a toddler and Mary Perkins, who married C.B. Raymond, an executive at B.F. Goodrich, and became a community leader in her own right. When George Tod Perkins died in 1910, Mary Rawson moved in with her daughter, Mary Perkins Raymond and donated the family's large home to the Sumner Home for the Aged. For the remainder of her life, Mary Rawson Perkins continued distributing the family wealth to health and welfare organizations in the city. In 1914, she provided funds to build a Nurses home on High street, adjacent to the Children's Hospital. She also gave sufficient funds to funish the entire home. She died at her daughter's home in January, 1916. Mary Perkins Raymond ( 1871-1948 ), continued the legacy of service to the Akron community that her mother, Mary Rawson Perkins and her Paternal grandmother, Grace Tod Perkins began. Born amd raised in Akron, she married Charles Raymond, a vice-chairperson on the board of B.F. Goodrich, and raised four children. Following marriage,she soon learned that she was one of the last surviving members of the Perkins family in Akron. In order to keep the Perkins name alive, she identified herself by both her maiden name and married name. Although she was born into a family of community philanthropists, Perkins Raymond discovered her own passion for giving in the Mary Day Nursery. She continued the work her Mother had started and contributed her life's work wth the children in Akron. She served as President of the Mary's Day Nursery for a total of six terms. She was also a menber of the board of trustees. She died in 1948 at Akron, Ohio. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Literature and the Arts Probably the first exhibit of consequence was the Art Loan exhibition held in Cleveland in 1893. The purpose of the exhibition was to raise money to alliviate sufferings incident to the panic. Artists from all over the United States sent canvases with the result that the amount of money raised was most gratifying. In 1894, the exhibition was repeated with special attemtion paid to loan exhibits of statuary and Napoleonic relics. A newspaper reporter, remembering these early days of the beginning of art in Cleveland with affection, described the Cleveland School of Art as an institution with a leaky roof that dripped impartially upon instructors and students. Other Ohio cities were not far behind Cleveland and Cincinnati in their art apprecition. The Columbus Art Association was formed at the home of Mrs. Alfred Kelley in October, 1878. This group accumulated a small library of books relating to art and raised its first money by sponsering a course of lectures given by Francis Sessions, director of the Chicago Art Institute. A Pen and Pencil Club was organized in 1897. In 1887, two organizations, the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts and the Columbus Art Association, merged with the latter assuming control until 1923 when further changes in jurisdiction were made. In Akron, Miss Fannie Fuller organized the art department of Buchtel College in 1891, funded by an endowment from the Simon Perkins family, upon the plan in operation at the Art Students' League of New York City. The Toledo Museum of Art, The Allen Art Mueseum at Oberlin, The Dayton Art Institute, The Montgomery Art Association and at Canton, The Academy of Fine Arts came later with the latter presented to the city by F.E. Case in 1928. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ To be continued in part 10. ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:19:17 -0500 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <07ba01c53648$0fd91f80$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits- part 10 -A Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:07 PM Subject: Tid Bits- part 10 -A File Contributed to USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley Feb 23, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West by Darlene E. Kelley Geneology by Byron Williams Tid Bits -- Part 10 A +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Geneology of Byron Williams of Clermont Bryon Williams wrote to Grandmother Eva Adelaide Kelley regarding the tracing of the family to see if she is a candidate for GAR qualifications. In his reply he called her a cousin. The reply is in Arthur Kelley's binder, written in a beautiful penmanship. Since then I have sent for and received two books written by Byron Williams. The below is from his book on Clermont and Brown Counties # 2 which gives the geneology of some of the residents of those counties. This is his geneology, compiled by Byron Williams. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ BYRON WILLIAMS A portrait and sketch of John Williams, of Williamsburg, Ohio, is to be found in Rockey and Brancroft's History of Clermont county, but as that work has been largely taken away from the county, some review of that worthy pioneer is proper. The traditions of his ancestry cross the ocean to Cromwellian times in Wales; whence, after the Restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne, in 1668, and the ensuing persecutions of the " Old Ironsides," four brothers of the Williams name, with a faith " In a State without a King and a Church without a Bishop " sought physical and religious freedom in America. For, they were classified as " Nonconformists" and " Malcontents." whose bodies were restrained to compensate for the independence of their souls. One of these brothers went to North Carolina. With a faith then persecuted in Massachusetts Colony, the other three accepted the scant toleration of a forest obscurity back from Long Island Sound. One of the three, Matthew Williams, a Welsh Baptist preacher, or " Gospeler." as Calvaliers scornfully called them, among few or many children, had Thomas, who was the father of Timothy, each of whom was also elected by their " Associations" to preach the Gospel. Matthew lived to be one hundred and three, Thomas, one hundred and two, and Timothy nearly one hundred years old. When very old and when the favor seemed to imply a cruel death to all, Thomas was permitted by the Indians to go from a captured block house with the women and children whom he guided to safety. The family register brought to Ohio begins with Timothy and Hester Williams, whose children were Jonas, Ruth, Peter, Robert, Mary, Isaac, Lydia, Benjamin and Thomas. Jonas was born December 26, 1751, and, in boyhood, was captured by the Indians, who bound his ankles so tightly with thongs that his feet froze while the captors slept. Yet, he managed to escape, and, wrapping his feet with his clothing, got back to his friends; but, when healed, in appearance and effect, he was club-footed for life, while otherwise strong and very active. Because of his lameness he became a currier in New York City, and then a miller, and, to fill the waiting hours while grinding, a shoe maker. He too was chosen to preach the saving ordinance of immersion, the futility of infant baptism, the virtue of close communion, and to practice the austere simplicity that had made Cromwell's " Ironsides" the founders of modern civil and religious liberty. Although his descendant writing these lines is a careless Gallio concerning much ancestral doctrine, he is not forgetful of the fadeless glory of such political service for humanity. Jonas Williams married Eleanor Ward, who was born at or near New York, Novemebr 11, 1748, and was the youngest of the five children of Timothy Ward. whose other children were Phebe, Zebina, Sarah, and Susannah. Rebelling through life against his crippled feet Jonas and Eleanor went from the Jersey side of New York to be a part of the Wyoming Enterprise, to which he was probably persuaded by his Connecticut relatives. He built and operated one of the several mills in the valley and there, on May 23, 1776, their first child, Zebina, was born. The second child, Robert, was born June 19, 1778. Two weeks later, while at dinner, a horseman rode by crying, " The Indians are coming." Unable to reach the fort and be a soldier, Jonas ordered his brother Isaac, then seventeen, to yoke the oxen and haul their boat below the dam, while he got the mother and babes with a bed and a sack of flour and bacon aboard to row away and hide under the willow covered banks. A neighboring woman on a visit there rode hastily away for her own home, but was quickly shot and scalped. After the band had hamstrung the animals, burned the buildings and hurried on, Isaac ventured forth and found that the woman had been stunned by a bullet which glanced from her metal comb, so that through his timely help she was restored to a mutilated life. Young Isaac went into the Revolutionary Army, was captured and died in a British prison in New York. After their ruin at Wyoming, the family went to Orange County, New York, where Jonas, Jr., and Isaac Jr., were born. Having gained a little, Jonas again went to the fontier in that direction in Cayuga county, New York, and built and ran a mill by Lake Cayuga, where is now the town of Genoa. On January 28, 1798, Zebina Williams, who became an expert wheel and mill builder, married Mary Cooley, who was born September 29, 1781, and joined his father at Genoa, where his oldest child was born August 24, 1800, and named John Cooley Williams. Mary Cooley was a daughter of John Cooley, who lived in Lower Salem, West Chester county, New York, which is now a part of New York City. He was one of the notable Cooley family, of Connecticut, which furnished more than a score of the name for the Revolutionary army. John Cooley, of Lower Salem, was commissioned as adjutant of the Third New York, often called " The Manor Regiment " under Col. Pierre Van Cortlandt, and, besides much other duty, Adjutant Cooley served as such a decisive charge at Saratoga, that brought Burgoyne's surrender. The other children of Zebina and Mary Williams, born in Cayuga county, were Ambrose, Ezra, Warren and Phoebe. In 1810 Zebina Williams, in partnership with John Perin, came down the Alleghany and Ohio, to Columbia. After some residence at Red Bank, where his son, Charles, was born, November 17, 1812, he came two years later for a partnership in milling with Samuel Perin, but living where, in 1819, he built the second brick home in Stonelick township, which is yet a substantial home one mile west of Stonelick creek, on the pike to Milford. About 1815 Jonas Williams came to Clermont with the rest of his family, but soon went to Indiana, where he was the first settler on and gave his name to the principal branch of White River; and there and about Connersville, his name and line are worthily continued. As soon as possible, Robert Williams was among the first in Iowa as a pioneer of Louisa county; and the descendants of other branches have gone beyond the Pacific coast. Through more than two centuries, this family has been on the front edge of pioneer enterprise with the reputation of honorable, useful, capable, and practical people, who have a goodly record of success as farmers, lawyers, judges, writers, teachers, and business men. The younger children of Zebina and Mary Williams and born in the home on the East Fork were Ann, Vesta, Ira, and George. About 1827 Zebina Williams sought relief from the early plague of malaria by moving to the northern hills of Stonelick, yet he died of an acute fever, August 31, 1845, while his father lived to December 7, 1845, and Mary Cooley lived till April 28, 1852. John Cooley Williams had such early reputation that he was sent before he was twenty " down the Mississippi " as supercargo of a boat load of valuable produce. Such a trip occupied the boating season of a year, and he made nine such trips, mostly for Samuel Perin, the commercial master of Clermont. During those trips, John Williams handled the produce and money that largely constituted the commercial life of Northern and Central Clermont from 1820 to 1830. In that business, his duty was not only clerical, but he was often required to act as principal in large transactions, where an error was a failure. Amid the good opinion afterwards accorded, little was valued more than the high respect of the keen old master for his young supercargo. Because of impaired health that boded a decline, he left the " river trade with a reputation for fine judgement and fair dealing that was never tarnished." Yet, his physique was fine an he excelled in wrestling and other pioneer sports and especially so in one. Standing exactly six feet tall clear of all, and weighing less than a score short of two hundred pounds, he gave the unique performance of all such entertainment, by standing erect between two men holding a taut cord so that he could move his head freely without touching the cord. Then taking one step back, with a single springy effort, he could and did jump over the cord without any other apparent effort. This feat has rarely been equalled in the story of athletics. He passed the grades of militia preferment to the rank of colonel, but he eschewed titles and rarely used his middle name. On November 14, 1830, he married Rachel Copeland Glancy, who was born January 6, 1813, and was the eldest of the ten children of John and Elizabeth Shields Glancy. Elizabeth Shields was born in Maryland, November 12, 1795, and was the youngest of the ten children o Thomas and Elizabeth Clark Shields, who came to Columbia in the spring of 1795, and to northern Clermont two years later. John Glancy, born Novemeber 30, 1786, was the second child of Jesse and Rachel Copeland Glancy, who came to Williamsburg, December 23/24, 1804, from York county, Pennsylvania. Jesse Glancy was the son, some say grandson, of a Scotch-Irish immigrant, who came with cash in a little trunk still preserved, that enabled him to leave a considerable estate. The lining of the trunk is printed with the date 1726. Jesse Glancy was born in 1756, and died September 1, 1831. His gravestone declares that he was a patriot soldier, and tradition affirms that he was in the battles of Brandywine, Monmouth and Yorktown. Rachel Copeland Glancy, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, died January 3, 1829, in her seventieth year. Tradition traces her line through a Quaker branch of the family of William Copeland, who married Mary, the second daughter of John and Ruth Alden Bass, and Ruth Alden was the third daughter of John and Priscilla Mullins Alden, of the Mayflower fame. After a life marked with strong mentality, John Glancy died December 29, 1874, in possession of much of the large tract midway between Owensville and Goshen, that his father had taken seventy years before. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Continued in part 10-B. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V05 Issue #24 ******************************************