Nelson, Ohio

In the spring of ISOO, three sons of Deacon Ezekiel Mills, of Becket, Mass., started out to seek their fortunes in the "Western Reserve. They were Delaun, aged twenty-four, who had married at the age of sixteen, and had three children; Asahel, who had been married two years, and had one child; and Isaac, nineteen years of age and single. These three men with the two wives and four children started out in two covered wagons, each drawn by a yoke of oxen. Several weeks elapsed before they reached Youngstown, then a very diminutive hamlet, containing only a few log-cabins. By this time the money of the brothers had dwindled down to less than 25 cents, so they had to seek employment, and, as luck would have it, Urial Holmes, the principal proprietor of Nelson, happened to be on his way to his land for the purpose of having it surveyed, so the brothers were engaged as ax-men to the surveyors, who were led by Amzi Atwater, afterward one of the most noted citizens of the county, and Roger Cook. Leaving their families at Youngstown, the brothers went forward to their work, and returned in the following September. Delaun immediately removed his family to a cabin on 100 acres of land given to him by Holmes as a reward for his settling thereon, which land was on the north side of the road, just west of the Center; Asahel remained in Y'oungstown till the following spring (1801), and then settled on 100 acres on the north and south road, which, it is thought, was also a gift from Holmes; Isaac returned to the East. Asahel in after years became a Methodist preacher and died in Deerfield. Delaun had an extremely adventurous life, and some of his exploits and experiences will be given in this sketch further along. He was a man of not only great physical strength, but of unusual sturdiness of character, as brave as a lion, and perfectly fearless of consequences, having withal a coolness of temper that to a foe was exasperating. It is said that one of the blandest of smiles would overspread his features when drawing a bead on some cowardly savage who had waylaid and missed him. He was a man of little education, but possessed of extraordinary common sense and correctness of judgment.

Passage source: History of Portage County, Ohio, published 1885.

Delaun and Asahel Mills and their families were the only inhabitants of the township till the spring of 1803, when quite a number arrived from MasiP sachusetts and Connecticut and made settlement. Among those were Stephen Baldwin, Benjamin Stow and his two sons, Daniel and Caleb, John Bancroft with four sons, Rudolphus, JohD, Artemus and David, Daniel Owen, two brothers, Stiles and William, Thomas Kennedy and Asa Truesdale, making seven families in all, which constituted the entire population of Nelson in 1804. In this year came Isaac Mills, the father of Mr. Albert Mills, of the Center, who is now seventy-eight years of age, and well preserved in all his faculties. The old gentleman has been a great singer in his day, and led the sieging in bis church for over forty years, having only within the past two or three years ceased to do so. Isaac, in company with a friend, Origen Adams, both being single men, made the journey on foot from Connecticut, but the former, doing quite well the first year, returned to Connecticut and on November 27, 1805, married his pretty little sweetheart. Miss Polly Adams, a damsel of only fifteen years. It was a fearful undertaking for the child-wife to come to this far-distant wilderness, but of such stuff were some of the women of those days made, that the little girl became a splendid pioneer wife, equal to all emergencies, content and happy, a blessing to all who knew her, and the mother of stalwart sons and buxom daughters.

Passage source: History of Portage County, Ohio, published 1885.

As soon as the surveying party under Atwater arrived in Nelson, they set to work and erected a log-cabin for their use whilst in the township. It was, of course, a rude affair, built of unhewn logs, and stood just east of the present house on the land afterward donated to Capt. Mills. This was the first human habitation in Nelson, and was erected in the early spring of 1800. "When Delaun returned with his family in the fall, he made considerable improvements in the surveyors' cabin, and put it in the best condition possible for wintering his wife and her three young children. Capt. Mills afterward erected a double log-cabin, quite a commodious affair, and it was the admiration of the whole settlement. Asahel Mills erected the next cabin after his brother, and was soon followed by many others. But one of the most noted events of the time was the erection by Thomas Kennedy, about 1811, of a frame house. It was located about three-fourths of a mile north of the Center, and when it was finished some of his neighbors 'said that Thomas was getting too proud. The father of Thomas Kennedy was William Kennedy, who was ninety years of age when he came. The old gentleman was considerable of a drinker, and on one occasion came to his son and told him that the spring back of the bouse was not water but Santa Cruz rum.

Passage source: History of Portage County, Ohio, published 1885.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Nelson Township - it names this place 5 more 5 times.