Harrisville Township

Harrisville Township

The following narrative of the first settlements ma le in the township of Harrisville was compiled by Dr. E. H. Sibley, who had made it a point of interest and duty to call personally on Joseph Harris and other old pioneers and learn from them the perils and privations consequent upon first settlements. Though collected and compiled in November, 1858, it may be truly styled pioneer history. Some of the actors then named are since deceased.

Relating to the Early History and Settlement of Harrisville township, Medina county, in the State of Ohio, being No. 1 in the 19th Range of Toivnships of the Western Reserve.

In 1807 the Connecticut Company made a division of their lands west of the Cuyahoga River Township. Number One in the Sixteenth Range (Harrisville,) was drawn by sixteen corporates, viz : Nehemiah Gay lord, John and Jabes Gillett, Sol. Rockwell and brothers, Hczekiah Huntington, William Battell, Russel Burr, Job Curtis' heirs, Thomas Huntington, Royal Tylec, Wright and SutlifF, Joseph Haines, Martin Kellogg, Burr and Loomis, Joseph Battell, and Eliphalet Austin, known by the name of the Torringford Company - together with two. thousand acres in township numbe: One, the Fifteenth Range, to compensate for the swamp land in Harrisville township. In 1810, the township was surveyed into lots of one hundred acres each, and a road was, during the year, established by the Company of Portage county, through the number One, from the Franklinton road in Norton, west through the center to the east line of Huron county. The Legislature also, during this year, established a State road from Mansfield to Cleveland, through the township, and appropriated eight hundred dollars toward opening the same. It was during this year that the Torringford Company made a subdivision of their land in Harrisville, and made Joseph Harris their agent to effect sales. The price was established at two dollars per acre, Mr. Harris having the privilege of selecting two hundred acres as a pioneer settlement location, to be deducted from his undivided portion. It was in this year, viz: In 1810, that Mr. Harris made his selection and built his house. On February 14, 1811, Mr. Harris moved his family into Harrisville, consisting of himself, wife and one child then about two years old, together with James S. Redfield, then a lad about eleven years old.

Their nearest neighbors were at Wooster, seventeen miles south on the Killbuck river. The location selected by Mr. Harris, had been the favorite hunting grounds of the Wyandot and Ottawa Indians, and many of their wigwams were standing near the spot he selected for the site of his present residence - and in a good state of preservation. While once making excavations for his cellar, many of the bones of their ancestors were found. Still, although the social relations that subsisted at this time between Mr. Harris and these denizens of the forest, were of the most friendly and reciprocal character, yet true to their national characteristics they preferred retirement from the proximity of the pale faces, abandoning their lodges, and building new ones from two to six miles distant. In June of this year, Mr. George Burr and his wife in company with Russell Burr, came out from Litchfield county, Connecticut, and settled on the lot adjoining Mr. Harris, and in the following September, the Messrs. Calvin and Lyman Corbin, from the city of Boston, Massachusetts, purchased and settled on the farm now owned by George Burr. No important event occurred in the settlement from this on until aboufc the first day of July, 1812, when a messenger arrived from Randolph, in Portage county, bringing a newspaper containing the declaration of war, also a letter warning the settlers of their danger, as it was not then known in whose interest the Indians would enlist, and urgently soliciting them to return to tho older settlements, A consultation was held in the evening, which resulted in the conclusion that under existing circumstances it would be safer to repair to the settlements .until something more decisive could be learned in relation to our affairs on the then extreme, north-western frontier. Accordingly the next morning Mr. Harris, Russell and George Burr, with the Corbins, loaded their most valuable furniture and household goods on wagons, and with seven yoke of oxen, started for Randolph, George Burr's wife having gone there some weeks previous. Almost at the outset, unfortunately one of the wagons was overturned, throwing Mrs. Harris and the child from the wagon - but quite undaunted, although badly bruised, she insisted on going forward, and that the journey might be expedited she was mounted with her child on the only horse in the settlement, and accompanied by her husband on foot reached their friends in Randolph the next morning, having been obliged to lie out over night in the woods, on account of having lost the trail when within a mile or two of the settlement. The settlers in leaving 'their homes, of necessity had to abandon their crops, and as the prosperity of the settlement depended on their being secured, Mr. Harris, on the following Monday morning mounted his horse, shouldered his trusty rifle and accompanied only by hip, faithful dog, wended his solitary way back to Harrisville. As he approached the settlement, he discovered that some persons had been in the vicinity during his absence. On examining the track, he discovered that some had been made with shoes and some with moccasins. Dismounting his horse and muffling the bell (an appendage by the way which all the early settlers were in the habit of attaching to their "Equine" domestics,) he silently and cautiously proceeded to examine the Indian trait leading from Sandusky to the Tuscarawas, and no appearances of Indians having passed along it, he soon came to the conclusion that some white person must have been in the vicinity during his absence.

On entering his cabin, appearances indicated that a number of persons had passed a night there, having used some of his iron ware for the purpose of cooking. It was afterwards ascertained that the Commissioners who were appointed by the legislature to establish a road from Mansfield to Cleveland, passed a night at Mr. Harris's house cooking their supper and breakfast there. Mr. Harris finding that his wheat was not yet fit for harvesting, set about hoeing out his corn and potatoes. After having been here about ten days, Russell Burr and Elisha Sears came out and harvested the crops belonging to the Burrs, which occupied about five days, and then returned to Randolph. Mr. Harris^ remained about five weeks, his dog being his sole companion during the whole time, except the five days that Burr and Sears were with him ; his only bed being an old wagon board, each end of which was so supported that it had a sort of spring motion, which Mr. Harris says he is quite certain had as sure an influence to induce quiet repose to him at that time, as would one of " Howe's improved Eliptics" to the most elite and fastidious of modern dandies.

On the return of Mr. Harris to Portage county, he first learned of the surrender, by Hull, of Detroit, to the British, and at a call from General Wadsworth the militia on the Reserve turned out en mass, and Harris with Burr and others were out in the campaign some three weeks, in and about the vicinity of Cleveland. About this time the Corbins sold out, and Russell Burr returned to Connecticut, leaving only Harris and Geo. Burr with their families, of all that remained of the infant settlement. Arrangements being made for returning to Harrisville, they left Randolph about the first of October, 1812,. and again arrived at their homes in the wilderness in safety, finding everything quiet and unmolested. Being almost entirely isolated from the busy world around them, and away from post roads and post offices, they could of course know little or nothing of what was transpiring outside of the settlement, and necessarily lived in that uneasy state of uncertainty, which to be fully realized must be experienced . Yet nothing occurred to disturb their quiet until sometime in the latter part of November, when in the early part of the evening was heard what was supposed to be the shrill whoop of an Indian easily discerned to be in an easterly direction, and supposed to be about a half mile distant. Mr. Burr, whose house was the nearest the point from which the whoop seemed to come, hastily siezed his rifle, and taking hisavife and child instantly started for the Harris' giving Harris' old horse, which was quietly feeding in the woods; a sufficient fright^ to send him on a keen run towards Harris' house, rattling his bell as though Old Nick himself was at his heels, thoroughly rousing the Harrises together with the old dog, who barking and bouncing through an old slashing, met Mr. Burr and added to his excitement by not appearing in his own colors, having been transformed into a snowy whiteness by some flour Mr. Harris had been shaking from his meal bags in order to fill them with grain, to be taken the next day to Middlebury. In the mean time Harris had not been a disinterested spectator. At almost the same instant the whoop was heard, and before its echoes had died' away in the distance, he had seized his gun examined its condition, extinguished the light in his cabin, and saHying out in the dark proceeded at once up the trail in the direction of the Burrs, whom he soon met, when all returned to Harris' house, where the women remained while the men posted themselves at the corners of the house, to await further developments. In the mean time the whooping had ceased and everything remained quiet and still as though the angel of death had really reigned over the scene. Presently footsteps were heard in the distance ;. they approach nearer ; the little band are all eyes and ears, expecting every moment to see spring out of the dark forest the still darker foe. Soon the dreaded apparition of some one in human form was dimly seen through the darkness, approaching the house, and when it was in hailing distance, Harris drew up his rifle and hailed. The response was, "Why, God bless you, don't you know Billy Thornington !" while all admitted that a better denouement could hardly have been given to the everlt.

inches. Severe cold weather set in and continued without loss of snow, until the 27th of February. - On the night of the 6th of that month, a man arrived at the house of Mr. Harris and informed him that Mr. Henry Chittenden, in charge of five teams loaded with forty barrels of flour, being forwarded by Norton and Adams," contractors at Middlebury, to General Perkins' camp, on the Huron River, were detained by the deep snow, in the wilderness in the neighborhood of the Chippewa, and were entirely destitute of forage and provisions, having been five days out from Middlebury, and urgently soliciting Mr. Harris to proceed at onco to the camp and relieve them. Food for the men was immediately provided by the ready and willing hands of Mrs. Harris. Then saddling his horses and taking on a bag of corn for the teams, with the food so kindly provided for the men, Mr. Harris, accompanied by the messenger, started about midnight for the camp, where they arrived at about four o'clock in the morning.

The reader can better imagine than pen can describe their reception at the camp. Suffice it to say, the courtly rules laid down by Lord Chesterfield wjere utterly discarded, while gratitude and thankfulness were heartily manifested in a manner more compatible to pioneer life. They were now only thirty-two miles from Middlebury, and had yet to travel forty-five miles through an unbroken wilderness, to reach the camp of the American army on the Huron river, with over-loaded and under-fed teams. Their only reliance seemed to center on Mr. Harris, his being the only settlement on the. route. Mr. Hrrris, therefore, furnishing provisions for the men and forage for the teams, and lessening their loads by taking a portion with his own, started the next day for the camp at Huro'n, which they reached at the end of eight days, having camped out eleven nights in going and returning. Mr. Harris made the return trip in four days. The teams from Middlebury and Cuyahoga Falls continued the transportation of stores to Perkins' camp until about the 20th of February, making their trip much more expeditiously after a road had been cut through and a path well beaten. The time of the drafting militia at Huron having expired about the first of March, those from the counties of Wayne and Knox, together with other south-eastern counties, were obliged to pass through the settlement at Harrisville, in returning to their homes. Mr. Harris often entertained companies of from ten to twenty at' a time, and furnished them the best his scanty board afforded.

About the first of April, 1813, Jesse and Theophilus Cross came from Randolph to Harrisville to make inquiries, and search for their father, who, with his son Samuel, left Randolph sometime in the preceding December, with two loads of oats, drawn by six yoke of oxen, to dispose of them to the Pennsylvania volunteers. They learned at Canton that their father had disposed of his oats on condition that he would deliver them at Mansfield ; and as he did not return, his friends at Randolph supposed he had gone on with the troops to Fort Meigs. Subsequently learning he had not gone in that direction, they on inquiry found out by Mr. Crawford, the landlord at Wooster, that they had staid with him over night on the 31st of December, and on New Year's morning started for Harrisville with seventeen head of cattle, which he purpoped to feed during the winter on the corn he had purchased of the Corbins.

On the next morning after the arrival of the Crosses, they, in companywith Mr. Harris and Geo. Burr, proceeded to search for the missing man - having strong suspicions that they must have been in the neighborhood, from the fact that sometime during the month of the preceding January, some three or four head of stray cattle had come into the settlement. While prosecuting the search, and coming to the little Killbuck near the present site of James H. Moore's factory, they found where two yoke of cattle had been chained to saplins. At one place was found a yoke and chain, at the other the chain only ; the cattle having probably managed to free themselves. Continuing the search in a south-easterly direction, to the vicinity of where Levi Chapman now lives, they found one yoke of oxen dead in the yoke. Appearances indicated that one of the oxen must have survived his mate sometime, having evidently drawn him about by the yoke a great distance. Here were also found the dead bodies of five or six head of cattle. At a little further beyond this point, appearances indicated that some one had evidently attempted to kindle a fire, small dry sticks having been collected for that purpose. Here was also found an overcoat, recognized aa belonging to the unfortunate Cross, with fragments of other clothing, also a skull bone. The remains were brought into the settlement and buried. The supposition in relation to this sad calamity, was, that coming up from Wooster through the wilderness, he got benighted in the neighborhood of the Little Killbuck ; that he there chained up a part of his cattle and undertook to come into the settlement, but being unacquainted with the location", and a severe snow storm prevailing at the time, he lost his way, and perished from cold and exposure, together with his son, and were mangled and devoured by beasts of prey.

icut, and located themselves in the* immediate vicinity of Mv. Harris ; and in the month of March, James S. Rcdfield returned to Harrisville, being then about fourteen years of age, making his home in the family of Mr. Harris. In April, 1814, Timothy Munson, from Vermont, and Loammi Holcomb, from the State of New. York, with their families,. settled in the west part of the towoship on the Black River. The township now began to receive a considerable number of permanent settlers. Among those who arrived in 1815, were Timothy Burr, Alvia Loomis, Collins Young, and Job Davis, with their families; and in 1816, Carolus Tuttle, Isaac Catlin, Nathan Marsh, Elisha Bishop, Perez and Nathaniel Rogers, and James Rogers, who drove the first loaded team over the site of Medina County seat, and whose wife was the first white woman that saw the site that was located for the old Court House. During this year also, Charles Lewis, David Birge, Josiah Perkins, and William Welch, moved their, families into the settlement. In 1817, Noah Kellogg, Jason Spencer, Noah Holcomb, Thomas Russell, Isaac Rogers, Orange Stodart, Daniel Delvin, Henry K. Joslihe, Cyrus and Arvis Chapman, Jonathan Fitts, David Rogers, Cyrus Curtis, Geo. Hanna, and Doctor Wm. Barns, who built the first mill in the township, combining in himself the three professions of miller, doctor and preacher. The township was organized in 1817, being composed of the territory now included in the townships of Harrisville, Westfield, Lafayette, Chatham, Spencer, Huntington, Rochester, Troy, Sullivan and Homer. Isaac Catlin was elected the first Justice of the Peace ; 'Carolus Tuttle, the first Constable ; Timothy Burr, the first Township Clerk, and Joseph Harris, Loammi Holcomb, and Isaac Catlin the first Trustees.

Jn the spring of 1817, a small log school house was erected on the farm of Timothy Burr, near the center of the township, and a school was taught during the summer by Miss Diadema Churchill, which was probably the first school taught in Medina county, and the gem of our present elevated and flourishing Common Schools. Miss Churchill was soon after united in marriage with Mr. David Birge, being the mother of four children by this marriage. Mr. Birge died in 1825. Subsequently Mrs. Birge married a Mr. Gardon Hilliard, of Wadsworth and moved to Canada. The first church was established on the 3d and 4th of October, 1817, by the Congregationalists. on the old union plan, in accordance with which plan it soon united with the Presbytery. It was formed by the aid of the Reverend Messrs. Luther Humphrey, of Burton, Geauga county, and Amasa Locmiis, a missionary sent out by the home missionary society of Connecticut. The organization took place in the little log school house already mentioned, and consisted of twelve members, viz. Isaac Catlin, removed to Michigan and died in 1856.

Universalist orders often held meetings in the township, as early as 1810. In 1818, Somer Griffin, with his wife, six sons and one daughter, moved into the township, also Reuben Chapman with his sons Levi, Perrine and Leonard, Captain Ed. Harris and family, David Sausman, Mordica Tracy, Stephen Harrington, with his sons Reuben, Benjamine and Weava Harrington. The first death in the township occurred in the person of a child of George Burr in 1817. Doctor Barnes preached the funeral sermon, being the first funeral service performed in the township. The first adult that died in the township was Hulda the wife of Stephen Harrington. She died in 1818. The first birth in the township was a daughter to George and Mehetable Burr, in the spring of 1815. The first male born in the township was Alpha, son of Justus Burr, now of Illinois.

The first wedding in the township was celebrated in November 1816. The parties to it was Levi Holcomb and Laura Marsh. There being no clergyman or Justice of the Peace in the township to solemnize the marriage contract, Mr. James Rogers, who still lives in the township distinguished now as then for his dis-. interested philanthropy in matters of that kind generously volunteered his services to procure the so much needed official dignitary. Setting out on foot, like Japhet in search of his father, he bent his course towards Wadsworth. Arriving there he made application to Esq. Warner, who readily assented to come out the next day and legalize the ceremony. It being near sundown Mr. Rogers, at the request of Mr. Warner, consented to tarry over night and accompany him to Harrisville the next day. But alas ! how precarious are all human calculations, for during the night Esq.

Warner was taken so severely ill, that it was quite impossible for him to fulfil his engagement. Here was a dilemma. The wedding was set for that very night, and no one yet seeured to perform the ceremony: But Mr. Rogers, whose perseverance was only equalled by his philanthropy, true to his purpose as the needle to the pole, pushed on to Esq. Van Heinani in Norton township. The Esquire, who as»it would seem, must have been a lineal descendant of Nimrod, was out on a deer hunt, and did not return until night, when he very ungallantly informed Mr. Rogers that he was not at his service. This to most men would have been a settler. Not so to Rogers, these reverses and backsets only stimulated his zeal the more, for on learning that there was a Justice of the Peace in Coventry, he immediately proceeded thither, secured the services of an Esquire Heathman, and arrived at Harrisville the next day after the wedding - should have been. - However the affair was closed up that evening, and the parties are now living in Michigan. This is supposed to have been the first wedding in the county.

The first frame building in the township was a thirty by forty foot barn, erected by Russel Burr, in 1816, and soon after, in the same year, L. Holcomb built another in the west part of the township.

James S. Redfield brought into.the township, in 1820, the first stock of dry goods and groceries. In 1826, Redfield and Chapman sold goods in company. In 1828, a store was opened by Barker and Siza, and in 1830, another by Archibald Miles and Charles R. Deming. Since that time, J. Higbee and the Ainsworths have been the principal merchants at the center of the town.

oeive that the life of a pioneer caiiiiot be one of entire idleness and inactivity. Roads have to be opened, farms cleared up, buildings erected ; all this requires energy and perseverance. So it was in Harrisville. Roads had to be opened leading to Medina, Wooster, North, to Elyria, East to Middlebury. Some were done by legislative appropriations, and some by voluntary donations. Tire road leading to Medina was a state road, for the opening of which the Legislature made an appropriation. James S. Redfield, in the spring of 1816, took the job of chopping out the road from the center of the town to the south west corner of Medina, and for making fifty-seven rods of bridges and causeways, and finished it about the first of September. Mr. Redfield says that the first loaded teams that passed over the road were those of Josiah Perkins and Titus Stanly, then moving into Harrisville.

The early settlers experienced much trouble in protecting their hogs and sheep from the ravages of bears and wolves, which infested the woods in great numbers, and many are the anecdotes related in relation to their encounters with them. James S. Redfield caught, in a period of a very few years, one hundred and twentytwo wolves, on which he received a bounty of dollars each. Wolves, as Davy Crocket would say, are naturally a .sneaking cowardly varmint, seldom attacking persons unless compelled by hunger. Mr. Redfield relates that having caught one in a steel trap by the end of the toe, and fearing that in its struggles it would get its foot out of the trap, he pounced upon it, put the foot of the wolf into the trap and carried it into the settlement. This wolf it would seem, was almost as passive as was old Put's, when he applied the torch to its nose, for it offered no resistance, nor manifested any vieiou-nes? except growling and snarl- ing whenever Kedfield set him down and attempted to make him walk, which lied field says he very soon made him shut up by cuffing his ears. Judge Harris relates that being in company with Loammi Holcomb, about Christ-mas, in 1817 or '18, and in the vicinity of Campbell's Creek, in the township of Westfield, he there counted twenty-seven wolves in one drove. In 1818, a grand wolf hunt was projected by the townships of Westfield, Lafayette, Chatham, Spencer, Homer, Montville, Guilford and Harrisville, for the purpose of destroying and driving out those troublesome beasts, but as it is reported that no wolves were captured, the inference of the writer is that the benefit that accrued if any, must have been in the driving out process. However there is no doubt but that while no wolves were caught, many deers were, which with the excitement attending festivities of that character fully, reimbursed the hunters for the fatigues of the day. Many of the early settlers are still living in Harrisville, among whom may be mentioned Judge Harris, George Burr, James S. Redfield, Timothy Burr, Albert Harris, who was a small child some two years of age, when his father settled in the township, also, Carolus Tuttle, James Rogers, Lomer Griffin, Levi Seva, Perrin and Leonard Chapman, Ebenezer Munson, Willis and Ralzmund Griffin. One notable fact of all others, and one which I am led to think has not a parallel in the history of many townships, is tha,t of the four persons which constituted the first family in the township, all at the end of nearly half a century are now living in the township. They are Joseph Harris and wife, Albert Harris and James Redfield.

Harrisville Statistics Personal Property

If to the above be added the value that yearly results from clover and grass-seeds, oats, potatoes, garden and orchard products, the yearly amount of all would be about $175,500.

If the amount originated from the operation of mills, tannery, foundry, and other industrial establishments could be added to the above, the yearly amount would be largely increased.