Wood County OhArchives Obituaries.....Blinn, Nathaniel D. February 18, 1868
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The Weekly Perrysburg Journal.  Perrysburg, Wood County, Ohio. Feb 28, 1868, p. 3.
DIED.

	After a lingering illness, at his residence in Perrysburg, February 18, 
1868, Judge Nathaniel D. Blinn, in the 65th year of his age.

	We copy from the correspondence of the Toledo Commercial, the following 
interesting obituary notice of the late Judge Blinn.

	Judge Blinn was emphatically a pioneer of the Maumee Valley.  He was 
born at Doane's Corners (now East Cleveland) in October 1803.  The families of 
his father and mother were among the first settlers of Cuyahoga county - his 
grandfather, Nathaniel Doane, having settled at Cleveland in 1798, was sent out 
by the Governor of Connecticut to assist in surveying the lands comprised in 
the Connecticut Reservation. In 1823, Judge Blinn's father had a contract to 
open a portion of the road leading from Perrysburg to what is now Fremont.  The 
Judge, who was then 20 years old, came out to assist his father, and remained 
in the Black Swamp about a year, opening a road for the transportation of the 
mail from the East through to Detroit.  Two years subsequent to this he married 
Miss Anna Maria Parker, at Doane's Corners, and five years after his marriage 
he removed to Perrysburg where he has since resided.  He therefore lived in 
this place for a period of over thirty-eight years.  At the time of his 
settlement here, Perrysburg was but a mere mail station, with but a few 
families, and the surrounding country was almost solely inhabited by Indians.

	In 1846 Mr. Blinn was elected an Associate Judge for Wood County by the 
State Legislature, which position he filled until the office was abolished by 
the adoption of the new Constitution.  He has had eight children, but three of 
whom are living - Mrs. Col. Norton, and Doan Blinn, of your city, and a 
daughter living at home.  Judge Blinn was a fair sample of the pioneers of his 
day.  He was trained to use both mind and muscle, and he had a good quality of 
each.  Few men have preserved a reputation as fair as his.  Strictly honest and 
upright in all his transactions, hospitable, kind, and ever cheerful, he won 
the respect and esteem of all who knew him. 

	But what a change in this country since his first visit to it! The 
opening which he helped to make in the woods through the Black Swamp, often 
working in the water up to his knees, is now the line of one of the finest 
macadamized roads in the country.  What was then a vast wilderness surrounding 
Perrysburg, now teems with life and industry.  Perrysburg, from a rude and 
uninviting mail station, has grown to be a handsome town, and Toledo - then 
inhabited by but two or three families - has become one of the greatest grain 
markets in the world! And all this in 38 brief years!  Could the days of the 
Judge been lengthened out to five score years, what a history they would have 
embraced!  Thus silently, but surely are the pioneers of the Maumee Valley 
leaving the scenes of their trial, toils, and hardships.  But comparatively few 
had the requisite powers of endurance to carry them through the terrible trials 
of pioneer life in the Black Swamp, and the few who survived, came out of the 
conflict with shattered constitutions, and are rapidly passing away.  But they 
merit monuments of everlasting praise and gratitude for the willing sacrifices 
they have made to redeem this country from its wild and uninviting state, 
converting it into a garden of fruitfulness and beauty.  Let their successors 
study their characters, and emulate their virtues.

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