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Source:
Early History of Cleveland
 by Col. Chas. Whittlesey -
Publ. Cleveland, O.
1867
 

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  LOT SANFORD
Statement of A. W. Perry, his son-in-law, and of R. W. Perry, a grandson.
Shoreham, Vt. November 21, 1859.
     We have consulted with Lot Sanford, who was not in the surveying party of 1796, but in that of 1797.
     He was born September 5th, 1773, and was one of the party who went out to survey the Western Reserve.  Amos Spafford was the chief surveyor of this party.  No particular incident happened on the outward journey, except the accidental death of David Eldridge.  He undertook to swim his horse across Grand river, although strongly advised to the contrary, and the animal proving unequal to the task, Eldridge was drowned and his body carried on to Cleveland, and buried on the banks of the Cuyahoga.  Sanford assisted in digging his grave, thus performing the office of sexton to the first white man who was buried in Cleveland.
     The company arrived and established their head quarters building a log house, and enclosing a garden for the purpose of raising their vegetables.  Sanford laid a fence around this garden, being the first fence ever built in the town.
     There had been a log hut built at this place the year previous, by the same party.
     Seth Hart, the agent of the company, was left in charge of the head quarters.  No incidents are mentioned while the party was out surveying, except the death of Minor Bicknell, who was taken sick with fever, and was carried through the woods fifty miles before he died.  He was buried near the Cuyahoga, probably about thirty miles from the present site of Cleveland.
     Soon after arriving at the head quarters, two more of the party - Andrews and Washburn - died, and were buried by the side of Eldridge.  Several members of the company are mentioned, among whom are Samuel Spafford, (son of Amos), and Oliver Culver, who were chainmen; Andrews was a flagman, and Sanford - the subject of this sketch - went as axman.  He, with eleven others, left Cleveland the 12th of September, 1797, and returned to Orwell, Vermont, where he then lived, arriving the 3d of December.  In April, 1804, he removed to a farm which he had purchased in Shoreham, Vermont, where he has since lived, being now in his eighty-sixth year.
     The two Barkers, Alpheus Choat, David Clark, Oliver Culver, the two Nyes and Amos and Samuel Spafford were from Vermont; the two Giddings were from Connecticut.  Sanford  and Samuel Spafford chopped four acres of timber in Euclid, the first ever chopped for settlement duties.
     About eight or ten years ago Job Stiles died in the town of Leicester, Addison county, Vermont.  My brother has heard Stiles boast of putting up the first house in Cleveland.  Sanford retains his mental faculties in a good degree, but is infirm from a paralytic stroke he had about two years since, and therefore he cannot write you, but I send you his autograph, written before.  He feels a lively interest in the historical articles published in Cleveland, which are read to him.  You cannot better compensate him and his wife, who still lives, than by sending him such articles."
     Mr. Sanford died at Shoreham, April 20, 1860, on the farm he had cultivated sine 1804, being eighty-six years and seven months of age.  Here there acquired a competence, living for more than fifty years in communion with the Congregational church, of which he was a liberal supporter.  His wife died in June, 1865, at the age of eighty-two.
Source: Early History of Cleveland  by Col. Chas. Whittlesey - Publ. Cleveland, O. 1867 - Page 323
  JOHN SHERWIN, banker, b. Cleveland, O., May 24, 1868, s. N. B. and Lizzie (Kidder) Sherwin.  He has two children, John, Jr. and Francis M.  Mr. Sherwin is president of the First National Bank, Cleveland, First Trust and Savigns Company, Cleveland, Wigmore Realty Company and the Euclid Square Realty Company.  He is chairman of the board of directors of the Bishop-Babcock-Becker Company and director in the following corporations:  Cleveland Telephone Company, Central Union Telephone Company, G. C. Kuhlman Car Company, the Lennox Company, Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Company, Forest City Live Stock and Fair Company and the Garford Manufacturing Company. He is a member of various clubs in and around Cleveland, including the following:  Union, Cleveland Athletic, Tavern, Country, Roadside, Mayfield Country, Chagrin Valley Hunt and the Willowick Country.  Mr. Sherwin's devotion to Cleveland is emphasized by the fact that nearly every corporation with which he is associated is a Cleveland enterprise, and he takes active part in the management and development of each and every one.  He is a carefully trained and shrewd banker, who possesses the absolute confidence of a wide community.
Source: Early History of Cleveland  by Col. Chas. Whittlesey - Publ. Cleveland, O. 1867
  AMOS SPAFFORD.
BY JUDGE HOSMER.
     My Dear Sir: -   Of Major Amos Spafford I have been able to learn but little.  He emigrated from Vermont to Cleveland in 1800 or 1801.  He received the appointment of Collector for the District of Miami, and of Postmaster, in 1810, at the commencement of which year he moved from Cleveland to the foot of the rapids, and built a small log house under the table of land, which forms the present site of Fort Meigs.
     His first return to the Government shows that the amount of exports from this district, at the expiration of the first quarter, was three thousand and thirty dollars.  It consisted of three thousand dollars worth of coon, bear and mink skins, and thirty dollars worth of bear's oil.  Major Spafford cultivated a piece of land, including Fort Meigs, built several out houses, and acquired considerable property here previous to the war.  He was a man very much esteemed by the American and French inhabitants, was indeed an adviser and friend to all the early settlers.
     At the time the war broke out, there were sixty-seven white families living on the twelve mile square Reserve, and some nine or ten families in the immediate neighborhood.  The first actual notice the settlers had, that hostilities had commenced after Hull's troops and marched through to Detroit, was the appearance of about forth Delaware Indians and as many British, at the foot of the rapids one bright morning in July, 1812.  The Indians, under command of their war chief Sacamanc, by direction of the British, entered every house on the north side of the river, and after a friendly salutation, took all articles of any value which they could find, loaded them into the canoes, pirogues and flats belonging to the settlers, and then passed over to the south side.  They met Major Spafford in his cornfield, and were about to subject his house to pillage but were prevented by a salvo of twenty dollars, paid them by the Major, which was all the money he had.
     With the exception of their chief, Sacamanc, and four other Indians, they together with the British, left with their plunder by water, for Malden.  The Maumee river was in those days inhabited by a species of hybrid, half human, half animal, better known at the present time by the name of Canadian French.  These creatures united in their character the cunning of an Indian, and the sagacity of the white.  They were principally friends to the British interest.  One among them, who had long been an Indian trader, was, however, a true American in feeling.  His name, Peter Manor, should ever be remembered, for he was a true friend of the Americans.  He knew Sacamanc, pretended a friendship for him and for the British, and learned from him that in the space of eight or ten days, it was the intention of the confederated tribes in the British interest to hold a council near Malden, and in six days thereafter to make a general descent upon Monroe, Maumee and the other places on their trail to Fort Wayne, whither they were going, with about fifteen hundred British, to aid the beseigers of that fort, for the purpose of pillage, massacre and rapine.
     Sacamanc and his four men left for the interior of our State the day after the others had came to Malden.  Manor visited Major Spafford the next day, asked him what he intended to do; and was informed that he intended to remain on the river and attend to his business.  Manor told him of the conversation he had had with Sacamanc, at which the Major took alarm, and concluded to make preparations to go down the lake.  As the contemplated attack was some two or three weeks distant, he was in no hurry.  About five days after this, at or near ten o'clock in the morning, a man, who was brought up among the Indians, and who had been befriended by Major Spafford, came running to his house in breathless haste, with the astounding information, that a party of some fifty Pottawatomies were with six miles of the foot of the rapids, and that they were massacreing every Yankee they met with.  The Major spread the news among his neighbors.  They immediately launced an old barge, which was built by the army a year previous at Fort Wayne, and used by Col. Undermick and other officers, to come down the river on their way to Detroit.
     Having put on board of this crazy hulk, what few articles of provision and furniture they could, the little party consisting of the Major's family and three other families, set sail for Milan, in Huron county.  Scarcely had they got under cover of the point, below the amphitheatre at the foot of the rapids, ere the Pottawatomies made their appearance.  They inquired after the Yankees, and were told by Manor that they had been gone a week.  The Indians stole what money and other property the fugitives had left, and started for Malden.  Meantime, the little barge, favored by prosperous gales, reached Milan in safety.  Major Spafford established his office as collector there until after the war, at the close of which he and his old companions returned to old Fort Meigs.  When they left they had dwellings, horses, fine corn-fields, and comfortable homes.  On their return they found their fields destroyed, and their horses and cattle stolen by the Indians.  Government promised redress for the injuries committed by our army.  Their families obtained a small compensation, for the supposed quantity of corn taken from the fields by Gen. Harrison's army.
     This small sum was obtained through the energy of Major Spafford, who, on behalf of himself and neighbors, made two trips to Washington, and spent much time there before aught could be accomplished.  Nothing disheartened he commenced repairing his ruined homestead.  Of the old arks that were used to transport provisions to our army during the war, from Fort Amanda and other places on the Auglaize and St. Marys rivers, he constructed a comfortable farm hosue and office, both of which are still standing in front of Fort Meigs.  He received a grant from Government of a tract of land next above and adjoining the Fort, which is now owned by his son, Judge Aurora Spafford, of this place.  He retained his office of Collector until 1818, when he died at his residence.  Major Spafford  took an active part in all the early affairs of this county.  He named our town Perrysburg, in honor of the hero of Lake Erie.  I have several letters of his in my possession, one to General Harrison and one to President Madison, setting forth in the most graphic language, the losses to which he and his neighbors had been subjected by the war, and asking for redress.  He was a sound headed, pure hearted man, as all say who knew him, and as his papers abundantly prove.
                                                  Yours faithfully,
                                                                Hez. L. Hosmer.

     In Judge Atwater's  description of the personal appearance of the surveyors, he says of Spafford, "he was more than medium in height, very straight, broad in the forehead, with a sober, serious countenance; rather slow in his motions, and on the whole was an excellent man."
Source: Early History of Cleveland  by Col. Chas. Whittlesey - Publ. Cleveland, O. 1867 - Page 347

  ANDREW SQUIRE, attorney, b. Mantua, Portage Co., O., Oct. 21, 1850, s. Andrew Jackson and Martha (Wilmot) Squire.  As a pupil in the public schools of his native town Andrew Squire continued his studies until eleven years old, after which he entered Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram, O., his parents removing to that place in 1863.  In 1867 he entered upon a course of medical lectures in Cleveland.  While pursuing his studies in that direction his interest became awakened in law and he determined to prepare for that branch of professional service.  Following his graduation at Hiram he began the study of law in the office of Cadwell and Marvin of Cleveland, and on Dec. 3, 1873, was admitted to the bar at Columbus.  Mr. Squire at once located for practice in Cleveland, and upon the election of his former preceptor, Mr. Cadwell, to the common pleas bench, he was admitted to a partnership by Mr. Marvin.  On January 1, 1890, Mr. Squire resigned his former associations and joined Judge William B. Sanders and James H. Dempsey in the existing firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey.  In recent years he has largely concentrated his attention upon corporation law and is now legal representative for some of the most prominent business concerns of the city.  Mr. Squire is a stalwart Republican and in 1896 was a delegate to the St. Louis convention, which nominated William McKinley to the presidency.  He has become financially interested and also has a voice in the management of the Bank of Commerce National Association; is likewise a director of the Citizens Savings and Trust Company, the Cleveland Stone Company, the C. & P. R. R. and various other organizations, and is trustee of Western Reserve University and Adelbert and Hiram Colleges.  He received the highest honors of Masonry when the thirty-third degree was conferred upon him, and he is prominent in the club circles of Cleveland, being a member of Union, Country, Mayfield Country, University, Rowfant and other clubs, also being a member of the University club of New York City.  His activities are varied, and his example and efforts are forceful factors toward the betterment of all conditions bearing upon the social, professional and intellectual life of the Ohio metropolis.
Source: Early History of Cleveland  by Col. Chas. Whittlesey - Publ. Cleveland, O. 1867

NOTES:


OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS

 

Biographies

Source: Early History of Cleveland
 by Col. Chas. Whittlesey -
Publ. Cleveland, O. 1867

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 

 

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