Ripley Township

Ripley Township

Ripley township was so named after the Rev. Hezekiah Ripley, of Connecticut, who was one of the "sufferers," and who located land in the third section.

Ripley is township number one in range twenty-two. It is bounded upon the south by Richland county, east by Greenwich township, north by Fairfield and west by New Haven.

The first settlement in the township was made a little earlier than 1826. Some of the first settlers were advised to not settle in Ripley on account of the ther wild and unbroken forest, inhabited only by a few wandering Indians. But the lands in time were cultivated and is now an industrious and prospering community. The whole township was formerly covered with a thrifty growth of timber, or in the lower parts with swamp bushes. Most of the timber was maple and beech but there was a great abundance of the other varieties of wood, including oak, ash and walnut.

The great abundance of maple trees made this part of the county a favorite camping place for the Indians. They were accustomed to come regularly in the spring and make maple sugar. For a number of years after the whites came, the red man carried on this harmless and not excessively laborious occupation, the nearest approach to anything like industry that they ever undertook. Scme of their bark sap troughs were found in the woods as late af 1830. The Indians also hunted here, but their principal object in visiting what is now Ripley township was to make maple sugar. There were other and better hunting grounds farther east, and their tribes often passed through upon a trail which led to the Black river country, where game was more abundant. The game consisted of deer and occasional bear, and the various smaller animals common to the northern part of Ohio and the entire west. There were wolves, too, and "shack hogs" - both great annoyances to the first settlers. The remains of their habitations found by the early settlers, and the dams still existing, indicated that beavers were quite numerous. Mo remarkable stories are told of experience with the Indians or adventure with wild animals.

There was a settlement in the southwest part of Ripley township, in 1820. Seth Foster, a man by the name of Decker, and another by the name of Jaralman, and a son of the latter, lived there in the year mentioned. Foster and Decker, who were from New York state, returned there after a short residence in the new country. Jaralman died, and his son moved away. Nothing is known in Ripley of those few men, who were its transitory pioneers. The first permanent settlement was made by the families of Moses Inscho, D. Broomback, and James Dickson, in 1825, and the following year. Broomback took up lot thirteen, in section four. He did not remain long in the township. Dickson settled upon lot ten, near Broomback, but not long after moved into the eastern part of the township.

Rev. Joseph Edwards, a native of Connecticut, who had been for two years a resident of Greenfield, came into Ripley in 1828, and bought a tract of land which consisted of about nine hundred acres. His home was upon lot twenty-eight in the first section, where he remained until his death. He was a Presbyterian minister of the old school, a man of large ability.

Abraham Stotts, of Virginia, came into the township in the fall of 1825, and purchased land in lot twelve, section three. John Stotts, his son, came in the spring of 1826, and located on lot eleven, in the same section. Another son of Abraham Stotts, William, came a little later, and still another, Isaac Stotts, arrived a number of years later, and located in section two, lot twenty-one.

The first mill was built about the year 1828, southwest of Delphi, upon a small creek, in which there was usually insufficient water to turn the wheel.

The Rev. Joseph Edwards was the first ordained minister who preached in the township. He preached in 1827, to the first audience gathered for religious instruction, and consisting of twenty persons, representatives of seven families. This meeting was held at the house of Abraham Stotts.

Mrs. Harriet Russ, formerly Miss Harriet Edwards, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Edwards, then living in Greenfield, taught the first school held in the township, in the year 1827, for the sum of fifty cents per week, paid not in money, but labor at clearing land. This school was in the southwestern section of the township. The first school meeting was held also in 1827. A school house was erected in 1832, near the northeastern corner of the township, principally through the efforts of Daniel C. Barker. Sallie Fowler was the first teacher at this school.

The first practitioner of medicine known in the township, was Dr. Moses Saunders, of Peru. He, for a number of years, had the whole of what little practice there was in the settlement. Afterwards, Dr. William M. Ladd, of Fitchville, and Dr. Morton, of Greenwich, practiced in the township. The only resident physician of any note, in Ripley, was Dr. Cyrus Paine, who began here in 1833 and continued in practice for about five years.

For a number of years after the first settlement was made there was but one road in the township upon which travel was possible. This was the one running east and west through the center. The timber had been chopped along the line, but the road was unimproved, and it was only with difficulty that vehicles could be moved over it. The road cut through the township for Harrison's army to pass through, was grown over with bushes and small timber, and it was allowed to remain in this condition for some time after the settlement was commenced. Many of the early settlers cut their way into the township through the primeval

There was a mail route through Ripley before the township was settled, upon which a man went once a week, between Mansfield and Norwalk. The first eastern mail was carried from New Haven through Ripley, Greenwich, Ruggles and Sullivan. For a few years the settlers were obliged to go to the older settled townships for their mail; but about 1830 a postoffice was established at the locality now known as Edwards' Corners, and the Rev. Joseph Edwards was made postmaster. When Delphi begun to be a place of trade, the postoffice was removed there, and designated as Ripleyville.