Orwell, Ohio

These original proprietors did not long retain their possession, which fell to them by lot, and Daniel L. Coit and Christopher Leffingwell became the grantees thereof. If the original owners placed too low an estimate on its value, their successors evidently did not make this mistake. The lands were held at five dollars an acre, a figure much in advance of prices at which lands equally good in neighboring townships could be purchased, the result being to retard the settlement of the township some eighteen years beyond the time when the adjoining township of Windsor was opened for settlement. Leffingwell caused the township to be surveyed into lots each of one mile square, and gave it the benefit of his name, and up to the time of its organization - in 1826 - it was known as and called Leffingwell. Despite the advantage which one would suppose this beneficent act of Mr. Leffingwell would have secured for it, it was many years after the survey before immigrants could be induced to take up their abode in it. What was known as a woods road, leading through the forest from Austinburg through Rome and Orwell, had been opened nearly twenty years before the time of settlement in Orwell, and hence a stream of emigration had passed through the township for many years prior to the coming of permanent settlers. During a number of years Leffingwell was attached to Rome for purposes of organization, many years elapsing after the arrival of the first settler before there was a sufficient number to enable the pioneers to effect a township organization. This, however, was accomplished on the 4th day of July, 1826, by the employment of means whose legality was of a questionable kind. In order to effect organization the law required an enrollment of ten electors. There were but eight residents entitled to a vote in the township. These old settlers were fertile in resources in times of emergency, and in this case an expedient was at hand. Two men, most likely residents of Windsor, were at work on a bridge that was then in process of construction across Grand river, and these were pressed into service, and thus the requisite quorum was obtained and the organization legally effected.

Passage source: History of Ashtabula County, Ohio, published 1878.

The first white settler in Orwell was A. R. Paine, who emigrated from Stillwater, Saratoga county, New York, in October, 1815, and, after visiting other portions of the Reserve, finally settled in this township on the 1st day of April, 1817. He had purchased of D. L. Coit, through Coit's agent at Warren, a tract of land in the southwestern part of the township, - lot 4, section 19. Here he erected his log cabin, which was considered rather a superior dwelling-house for those days, as it could boast of a floor made of sawed boards , while most other houses of that day had to content themselves with split-puncheon floors. It was ' a building sixteen by twenty-four feet on the ground, with cobble-gables and a roof of long split-shingles, and must have been quite a respectable building for those times. Mr. Paine is also entitled to the distinction of building the first barn in the township. This was a log barn, sixteen by twenty feet. To Mrs. Paine belongs the honor of giving birth to the first white child of the township, - a daughter, born on the 6th of February, 1820, called Lucinda, - and Gates Chandler, son of Solomon Chandler, was the first male child born in the township, being born on the 6th day of January, 1824. Both the Chandlers are now residents of Plainfield, California.

Passage source: History of Ashtabula County, Ohio, published 1878.

At the time Mr. Paine settled in Orwell his nearest neighbor lived in Bloomfield, three miles distant, and north of him to the nearest log cabin it was six miles. Mr. Paine had laid in a goodly stock of provisions during a temporary stay at Painesville, paying for flour fifteen dollars per barrel, pork twenty-five cents per pound, potatoes one dollar per bushel, and tobacco one dollar per pound. The father and two brothers of Mrs. Paine resided with Mr. Paine during the first winter.

Passage source: History of Ashtabula County, Ohio, published 1878.

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 Orwell Township - it names this place 15 more 15 times.