Lyme Township

Lyme Township

Lyme township was originally embraced in the present township of Groton, in Erie county, and was called "Wheatsborough," after Mr. Wheat, who owned a large tract of land in it. It was afterwards organized by itself, and called Lyme; many of its first settlers having emigrated from a town of that name in Connecticut.

The general aspect of the township is level prairie, interspersed with ridges, covered with groves of young oaks and hickories. In many places on the prairie cottonwood trees have sprung up. The west part of the township was formerly covered by a heavy growth of oak timber. The soil of the prairies is generally a mixture of black muck and sand, while gravel and clay abound on the timber part.

Quarries of lime stone have been opened in the west part of the township, which supplies stone for building and making lime. A common kind of stone is found in the center for building purposes.

Pipe and Pike creeks arise in the township, which run northward into Groton. Stull brook originates in Sherman and runs a northeasterly course through the township and enters Huron river at Ridgefield. A large creek which arises in Seneca county crosses the south part of this townshhip and enters the Huron river south of Monroeville.

Deer used to roam over the prairies, affording fine sport for the Indians and other hunters, to chase in the fall of the year after the prairies had been burned over, which was done every year. Wolves and bears sometimes troubled the sheep.

The history of the settlement of the west is of constantly recurring interest. The enterprise, intrepidity and self-denial of the pioneers who left the comforts and privileges of their eastern homes and came to the Firelands, then a far-off region, associated in the minds of civilized people with savage wild beasts and Indians, must always command our highest respect and admiration. They endured hardships and privations without number, not for their own advantages merely - for they well knew that old age would steal upon them long before they should enjoy the fruits of their toil - but for their children and their children's children, that to them they might leave a goodly heritage. The most of those truly, but unconsciously, heroic men and women, have long rested from their labors, but the good they accomplished remains, the blessings they secured and transmitted endure, and are now the precious legacy of a happy, prosperous and intelligent posterity.

Scattering settlements had been made in all the townships along the lake shore prior to the war of 1812; but the surrender of Detroit by General Hull, exposed that portion of country to the ravages of the enemy, that a general exodus of the settlers, southward, followed, and it remained almost entirely denuded of inhabitants until the signal victories, on both land and water, of the

The early settlement of Lyme, like that of most of her sister townships, was never very rapid. Much of the land was owned by minor heirs, and entangled with unsettled estates; more had been bought up by speculators and held by them at either so high a figure as to greatly retard immigration, or not offered for sale at all; and besides all this, government land adjoining, so soon as it came into market, could be had for less than half the price generally at which the Firelands' tracts were held.

The first settler was Conrad Hawks, who penetrated the thick woods of Lyme in the year 1808. His location was in the northeast corner of the township on the farm afterwards so long occupied by John F. Adams.

The first building erected was the log dwelling of Conrad Hawks, built in 1808. "The first frame house was erected by Colonel Nathan Strong, in the year 1817, on the Bemiss place. The first brick dwellings were those of John E. Adams and Horatio Long, built in 1827.

The first settlement at Hunt's Corners was made in the southeast part by several families named Sutton, and the locality has since been known as the "Sutton Settlement," or Hunt's Corners. Levi Sutton, a native of Virginia, bargained for the Moses Warren tract, consisting of eleven hundred and ten acres, for one thousand dollars, and came on and took possession in the fall of I811.

In 1818, Asaph, Erastus and Israel Cook came with their father, who settled at Cook's corners near the eastern line of Lyme. They built a large treading mill and dry house for dressing and cleaning hemp without rotting. This business excited considerable interest and was expected to prove profitable to the owners and the community.

The first saw mill was built in the south part of the township on Frink run by Levi Sutton, in 1814 or 1815. Another saw mill was built about 1830, on a creek which drains the prairies in the west part of the township in Bellevue. It was afterwards used for a brewery.

A tannery was built about 1827, by Horatio Long, on a few acres of land purchased by him near the line of Abner Nims and Zadoc Strong. He carried on the business of tanning and shoemaking some ten or twelve years, when he discontinued the business and became a farmer.

Mary Ann Strong, daughter of Francis and Mary Curtis Strong, was the first child born in the township. The date of her birth was August 3, 1817. She became the wife of Isaac D. Collins in 1840, and died a short time afterwards. The pioneer nuptials were those of Burwell Fitch and Susan Hawks, celebrated in the winter of 1816 and 1817. They settled in Sherman township, where they resided until their death. The next marriage was that of Ira Bassett and Polly Hand, which took place in the spring of 1817.

The year 1834 will long be remembered as the one signalized by the first visit of that fearful scourge, the cholera, to this country. On the 20th of August, in that year, the wife of Mr. Sheffield was taken with that fearful disease, and died in a few hours. The old famiy Bible contains a record of her death in his own hand writing. On the 22d he was himself taken with the same disease, and died just after midnight on the 23d.