PORTAGE COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: PALMYRA (additional)
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Betty Ralph
bralph@HiWAAY.net
March 18, 1999
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About a year ago I transcribed numerous articles on Cuyahoga and Portage
counties, OH, from "Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve"
published under the auspices of the Woman's Department of the Cleveland
Centennial Commission in 1896, edited by Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer
Wickham.  The articles contain many details about the lives of the early
settlers. 
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                 PALMYRA (additional)

Among the earliest settlers of Palmyra township was 
Esther CLINTON, her husband Artemus RUGGLES and their two 
children.  They came from New Milford, Conn., in 1807, 
and settled about a mile from Palmyra Center.

Their daughter Mercy married Dr. Alvah BOSTWICK of 
Edinburg.  Cornelia became the bride of Dr. Ezra GILBERT 
and died early (1824).  Her grave was the first one made 
in the cemetery which her father had donated to the town.  
There was another daughters, Caroline RUB\GGLES, and 
three sons, William, Gary and Noble RUGGLES.  Artemus was 
a veteran of the War of 1812.

Stephen TROWBRIDGE and his wife (Sarah CASTLE) and their 
two children, Carlos and Elvie, came from Litchfield Co., 
Conn, in 1808.  They settled about two miles and a half 
west of the Center.

Carlos married Mary STRONG and remained on the farm.  
Elvie became the wife of Gary RUGGLES in 1818.  Together 
they cleared land of their own in the township.  She was 
an expert in all women’s industries of that day, carding, 
spinning, weaving; she also did beautiful embroidery all 
her life, keeping it up until but a few years before her 
death.  The last use she made of her needle was to piece 
a wonderful bed quilt containing 1200 pieces, and then 
quilted it in beautiful fine stitches.

She lived her entire life after coming to Palmyra upon 
the farm she helped to clear, dying at the age of ninety-
three years and leaving this world much better off 
because of her industry, her helpfulness and neighborly 
kindness.

    Mrs. W.L. DAVIS
         Historian