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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
1798
History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio
with Illustrations
and Biographical Sketches of its Pioneers Most Prominent Men
Philadelphia - Williams Brothers
1878
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Chardon -
EDWARD PAINE, a son of General Edward Paine, and, with his
father, a pioneer of Painesville, was known through the long life of his
father as Edward Paine, junior. He was a native of New
England, and was born at one of the seats of the Paines, so many
of whom with their descendants became settlers of the old county of
Geauga, where they were for many years a powerful, almost a controlling
element, the influence of which, though latent, still doubtless remains.
Edward, Jr., was also known as Captain Paine.
He married Mary Phelps, daughter of Judge
Seth Phelps, and thus in a way cemented the older alliance of the
Paines and Phelpses. His daughter became the wife of a son of
Governor Huntington. These unions indicate the social
position of the Paines in the early history of northern Ohio.
As is seen by the history of Chardon, he was one of the three real
pioneers of that township, where he took up his residence in 1812, and
where he continued to reside until his death.
He was then clerk of the county, which office he held
until 1828. He was also auditor and recorder of the county, and
the first postmaster of Chardon, which offices he filled for many years.
He was in early manhood when he went to Chardon, and
though carrying with him the manners and polish of the older eastern
school, he at once lent himself with great energy to the demands of
pioneer life, with which he was already familiar. He was one of
the first on the Reserve, was at Cleveland in 1798, and became a
resident of Painesville in 1802. In person of medium size, well made,
lit-he; of active habits, and capable of great endurance. He was
adventurous, and having a relish for out-door exercise, he became an
accomplished woods man and a skillful hunter. In his hunting excursions
he wore the Indian moccasin. His mastery of the craft won for him
the reputation of luck, and many anecdotes used to be told of his
success in slaying bears, deer, and wolves. At the time of his
settlement at Chardon the beaver-dam and meadow near the village were
inhabited by its ingenious and interesting builders, and Captain
Paine became a curious and friendly neighbor and student of their
life, manners, and customs.
He was among the most energetic of the younger citizens
during the darkness of the early days of the war of 1812, and went at
once to the most exposed points at the front. His father was then
general of brigade, and he was active in duty on his staff.
Captain Paine was a man of great quickness and sparkle of
mind. He received a good English education; was a man of much
general information, approachable, and mingled with all the
leading men of his time. Though he held many of the minor offices
he was unambitious of high place, nor did he seem ever to care to place
his rather brilliant mind to any great use. He excelled as a
conversationalist when the art existed as such, and was worthy of
cultivation by men of parts. Mr. Paine was one of
the happiest sayers of smart, sparkling things, in which he excelled
most of the men of his time; was rather emulous of the reputation of
being the producer of conversational pyrotechnics. An ardent partisan,
by his warmth of temperament he usually over whelmed his opponent with
squibs and crackers, or sent him skyward on a rocket, or confused and
bewildered him with a profusion of fire-works.
In politics a Whig, and not over tolerant was he of any
form of Democracy; nor had he for Democrats much of that amiable
weakness sometimes called charity. The persons of his political
opponents usually came in for the sarcasm and contempt which others
might have reserved for their political doctrines only.
So in religion. A confessed disbeliever in Divine
revelation, the constitution of his mind made him an intolerant opponent
of orthodoxy; and his brother-in-law, E. F. Phelps, used to say
of him that he was the most bigoted liberal he ever knew. Could he
look upon Chardon now and see an orthodox church newly planted on his
lawn, and his mansion-house turned to a parsonage, it might provoke a
tempest of pyrotechnics.
These, however, were a small part of the real man. He
was warm-hearted, true, noble, and generous, and such he proved himself
through a long life. His bitterness was superficial, had no place
in his nature. It was rather the conversational habit of one who spoke
in epigrams, and the seeming acerbity was but to add edge and point. I
doubt whether he ever had a real enemy.
So abounding was his kindness, so open and broad his
practical charity, so transparent his real nature, and so widely his
true character appreciated, that Democrat and minister alike would
approach him as a man, with the certainty that his utmost service would
be freely rendered to the needy, the afflicted, or the sufferer by any
form of ‘misfortune. A practical Christian who questioned the
authority of the law which was the rule of his life. His
opportunities in the world were large, his talents much above the
average, and of the character and quality which attract and win.
One cannot but feel that while his life was just and charitable, his
conduct regulated by strict truth, high honor, and the purest integrity,
he might easily have labored in a field of much wider usefulness, and
filled places where he could have more largely contributed to the
general welfare. It was his misfortune to have early been the
centre of an admiring circle of friends, instead of being launched upon
the world in a way to have called into action his fine endowments and
considerable acquirements in such a manner as to have developed the
latent and more manly qualities of ambition, when he certainly would
have gone to the lead of affairs in a great State, instead of being the
witty sayer of smart things in a small country village.
Still, the life was useful, its early strength given to
the planting of men in new situations, and it was for him to choose his
career and mark the lines beyond
which he would not go.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties,
Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 121 |
H. E. Paine |
GENERAL HALBERT E. PAINE Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties,
Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 77 |
Hon. Robert Breck Parkman |
HON. ROBERT BRECK PARKMAN.
In 1792, soon after attaining his majority, he went to Cayuga county and
began the study of the law, at the same time teaching school in order to
defray his expenses. He also while studying engaged in dealing in real
estate, and was so far successful that he became the owner of'
considerable land in and about Cayuga. By too close application to
study and business his health failed, and he returned to his father’s
house, in Oneida county, where he remained two years. During this
time, in 1797, he made his first visit to Ohio. This journey,
which was made on horseback, was undertaken in part on account of his
health, and partly to explore a tract of land which his uncle, Samuel
Parkman, of Boston, had before this purchased, and which now
constitutes the township of Parkman.
On his return to Cayuga he engaged very actively in
forwarding the building of the first bridge across Cayuga lake, giving
to the enterprise both time and money. This bridge was completed
in 1799.
Early in 1800, Mr. Parkman was admitted
to the bar, and began at once the successful practice of the law.
In 1803 he again visited Parkman, at this time for the purpose of making
a survey of the township, and also to become acquainted with its
capabilities with a view to future settlement. At the same time he
passed an examination before the Supreme Court, and was admitted to
practice law in the State of Ohio. Just before his return to
Cayuga, May 29, 1803, he was married at the house of Judge John
Walworth, at Grand River, now Painesville, to Miss Lucy Phelps,
second daughter of Judge Seth Phelps, of Aurora, New York.
The bridal journey of several hundred miles was made on horse back.
Early in June, 1804, he left Cayuga with his wife and
infant son for a permanent settlement in Ohio, and arrived at Grand
River on the 17th of that month. Leaving Mrs. Parkman and
child at the house of Judge Walworth, he at once proceeded to
Parkman, the scene of his future labors. While laying the
foundation for the practice of his profession, he acted as the agent of
his uncle in forwarding the settlement of the township, having, in
short, the whole management of the business. The letters of the
elder Parkman at this time show great deference to his
opinion and confidence in his judgment and integrity, which continued
unabated through the many years of their close association in business.
Mr. Parkman was accompanied by his
brother-in-law, Alfred Phelps, then a lad of eleven years,
who was his companion in his first encampment in the forest. They
found on their arrival that the commission appointed by the legislature
to run the State road through Trumbull county was on the ground, and
Mr. Parkman’s first care was, if possible, to secure its
passage through that part of the town which the water-power indicated as
the future centre of business. In this he failed, and his next
object was to erect a shelter for his family. Having chosen a spot
near the river, and cleared it sufficiently by the help of a few
settlers in adjoining townships, his cabin was made habitable, and in
five weeks after his first arrival he saw his family installed in their
new abode.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 86 |
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SAMUEL
PARKMAN, the eldest son of Robert B. Parkman, was born at
Aurora, Cayuga county, New York, Feb. 26, 1804. He was an infant
three months old when his father
first settled in Parkman, and was therefore the first white child ever
in the town, - a pioneer of pioneers. He grew up in the forest,
and was inured to its labors as well as a partaker of its pleasures.
His education had been begun at the schools which were early established
in the town, and continued by the diligent and thorough perusal of such
books as his father’s small but select library afforded, and the
instruction of parents who lost no opportunity in filling the minds of
their children with useful knowledge. While yet quite young he
laid the foundation of a library for himself; and the list of
books—Tacitus, Montesquieu’s “Spirit of Laws," Smith's “Wealth of
Nations," Junius, Massillon's “ Sermons," Goldsmith’s and Montgomery's
poems-shows a taste for reading rare in the mind of one hardly past
boyhood.
Before he was sixteen he had learned surveying with
very little instruction, by evening study at home,—and soon after he
accompanied Mr. Otis Sprague, as his assistant, in making the
first survey of Medina county; camping in the woods, and sharing fully
in the discomforts of the expedition.
Having attained his majority, and having chosen
surveying as a profession, in November, 1825, he left home for the
purpose of establishing himself in that business. His first
destination was Steubenville, and from thence, in the same month, he
made a journey to Washington on foot, in the hope of obtaining a
government contract for surveying. Failing in this, he returned to
Steubenville, again on foot, having made thus a pedestrian journey of
five hundred and forty miles.
He at once proceeded by way of the Ohio river to
Shawneetown, and from thence he made another journey of seventy miles,
on foot, to St. Louis, where he remained some months.
In August, 1826, he went on a surveying tour three
hundred miles up the Missouri river, to Fort Osage, at which place he
was prostrated by fever, and was for some weeks dangerously ill, and
destitute of even the commonest comforts of civilized life, and from
which he did not recover sufficient strength to travel till the spring
of 1827, when he returned to Fayette county, Missouri. Here he
remained two years, engaged in farming, and at the same time held the
office of postmaster at Pettisaw Bluffs, on the Missouri river, two
hundred and fifty miles above St. Louis.
Having fully regained his health, in the summer of 1829
he joined the fur company of Smith, Subletz, Jackson
& Co. in an expedition to the Rocky mountains. This company was a
competitor in the fur trade with the Hudson Bay Company, and in this
expedition they penetrated to the sources of the Lewis and Clarke
rivers.
The expedition was pecuniarily a successful one, and
the members of it gained an experience full of pleasure and interest, as
well as a large share of hardship and exposure to danger. In his
letters home describing this journey, Mr. Parkman says, “I
have ascended heights never before trodden by the foot of the white man;
I have traveled twelve hundred miles through the Indian country, forded
many large rivers, and ascended many high mountains whose tops were
covered with perpetual snow. I have during the summer felt the
extremes of heat and cold, of hunger and thirst, having been at one time
five days without food."
(This occurred as they reached the borders of Missouri
on their return, and the long fast was broken by a meal prepared by the
wife of a son of Daniel Boone.)
In a letter to one of his brothers, who was himself an
expert hunter, he mentions having killed sixty-five buffaloes, and
relates that at one time having gone on in advance of his companions, on
ascending a high bluff he was suddenly confronted by a herd of many
thousands. In such a dilemma retreat was "the better part of
valor."
This long journey was performed on horseback, but the
return was made on foot, as the horses were all required to bring in the
furs which were the rich results of their months of toil.
On this return on the 4th of July, 1830, the party
reached a high point well known to all who have crossed the plains
,which in honor of the day they named Independence Rock. In the
autumn of this year they reached St. Louis, where Mr. Parkman
remained during the winter, busied in arranging the notes and preparing
maps of the route over which they had passed. At the same time he
employed his leisure in gaining a knowledge of the Spanish language,
having in contemplation a visit to New Mexico, which he accomplished in
the spring of 1831, at which time, having formed a partnership with
Peter Smith, the leader of the Rocky Mountain expedition,
with the intention of carrying on a trade with New Mexico, the journey
was commenced.
The caravan consisted of seventy-three men, with
twenty-five wagons, and camp equipage. Their route, the old Santa
Fé road, led through the Great American Desert, in crossing which they
traveled three days without a drop of water, and without seeing any
trace of vegetation; at the same time encountering a wind from the
sand-plains of the south, which. he describes as being “as parching as a
Sirocco.” Here the senior partner, Mr. Smith, having
left the caravan in search of water, which was to them in their
suffering state the most desirable object on earth, was attacked and
killed by the Camanches.
After this disaster the whole charge of the expedition
fell to Mr. Parkman, and under his guidance they reached
Santa Fé on the 4th of July, 1831. Here he remained a year, with
the exception of the time consumed in making a journey across the
country to Upper California.
In the autumn of 1832 he visited the city of Chihuahua
(Mexico) on business, and found himself on his arrival in the midst of a
revolution, headed by Santa Anna, which proved both disastrous to
his enterprise, and was not without personal danger. By good
fortune he escaped, and in 1833 he reached the city of Mexico.
Here he made the acquaintance of a party of English gentlemen, who were
owners of silver mines, who proffered him the post of superintendent of
a silver mine in the city of Guanajuato, which he accepted, and which
ultimately led to his appointment as superintendent of the silver mines
of the State, which, with the addition of the buying and assaying of
silver ore, was his employment for the remainder of his life.
Here his wanderings ceased and his domestic life began.
In 1835 he married Antonia de la Vega, a Mexican lady of Spanish
descent, who survives him. He never returned to Ohio; his purpose
to do so was delayed from year to year till the death of nearly all the
members of his father’s family would have made the return a sorrowful
one.
His only visit to the United States was made in 1862,
at which time he made a journey to California, where his step-sister,
Mrs. Alonzo Delano, resided. At that time no
railroad across the continent annihilated the distance, and he returned
by the Pacific ocean to Mexico. When he first went to Guanajuato
there was in the city but one American except himself, but some years
before his death a good number had made it their place of residence, to
all of whom he was well known. His intelligence, probity,
generosity, and hospitality gave him a high place in their regard, and
many a friendless countryman has been placed by him on the road to
independence, while others have been taken to his home in sickness, and
either nursed back to health or soothed in their last‘ moments by words
of friendly sympathy.
In the midst of an active life he still kept the love
of literature which his early years foreshadowed; and although for more
than forty years he lived in the midst of a foreign population, and
spoke a foreign language, his love for his native land never waned, and
his delight in the productions of her authors never decreased.
His decease took place at Guanajuato, May 2, 1873.
His memory is revered in his family as that of a tender husband and a
careful and loving father. He had a family of twelve children, of
whom seven, three sons and four daughters, survive him.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 159 - Parkman Twp. |
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CAPTAIN JAMES B. PERCEY
was a native of Canada, but while still in his minority he removed from
thence with his parents and settled in Munson, soon after the close of
the rebellion in Canada. By his own untiring exertions he gained a
fine education, and at the breaking out of the great Rebellion, in 1861,
he obtained the position of teacher in the high school at Piketon, Pike
county, Ohio. His sympathies being with the Unionists, he gave up
his position as teacher and enlisted most of his scholars in the Union
army. His company of volunteers, which he commanded, was called
the Methodist company. Shortly after Captain Percey’s
entrance into the army he was offered promotion for his valor; this he
declined, choosing to take his chances with his company rather than
leave them to another commander. At one time that part of the
Union army to which Captain Percey belonged was encamped
on the side of a deep creek, which was much swollen from recent rains.
The officer in command of the army wishing to ascertain the depth of the
water, called for some one of the men to wade in. Now, as a
portion of the Confederate army was stationed just on the other side of
the creek, this was something of an undertaking, as he who should offer
would he in full sight of the enemy. The only one who responded to
the commander's order was Captain Percey. His offer
was accepted with reluctance by his superior officers, but, preparing
himself, he waded out into the stream, in full view of the rebels.
Reaching the middle of the stream, where the water reached his neck, he
turned and made his way back, while his enemies from the other shore
shouted after him, “Bully for the Yankee" While at
Vicksburg, where he and his company were afterwards stationed,
Captain Percey was struck by a stray ball and killed.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties,
Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 203 |
Residence of
Philo Pease,
Hambden Tp.,
Geauga Co., OH |
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Wm. L. Perkins |
WM. L. PERKINS Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio -
Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 62 |
S. L. Phelps |
CAPTAIN SETH LEDYARD PHELPS Source: History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 73 |
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Chester Twp. -
S. B. PHILBRICK.
Chester has always had a good number of men above the average in
ability, intelligence, and worth. Among the first of these stands
S. B. Philbrick, Esq. He was born in Ware, Hillsborough
county, Ncw Hampshire, in 1800, where he grew up a New England boy,
youth, and young man, with the sturdy vigor, intelligence, and granite
foundations of character of the better of the race of that birth and
rearing. He went to Cleveland in 1826, and from thence to Chester,
in 1828, and purchased and settled on lot 35, tract 3, which placed him
a little south of the Centre. Here he married Nancy A., a
daughter of Libbcus Norton, and began the earnest work of life.
J. E. Stephenson also became a son-in-law in this family.
Every man soon becomes known and appreciated for his real qualities,
good or bad, and fares accordingly. Mr. Philbrick’s
neighbors and townsmen soon came to know that there was among them a man
of quick parts, much sagacity and shrewdness, public spirit, probity and
the qualities which mark a man for usefulness, and they availed
themselves of these in the young man, and kept him in some of the more
important of the offices much of the time. He has also served as a
county commissioner.
He became connected with the Free-will Baptist church,
and was a leading man in creating the sentiment of this young and
zealous religious body in favor of planting an institution of learning
that should secure a purified, progressive form of education. This
sentiment he aided largely to organize and embody in the form of action.
Many conventions were held, at which he presided; was the chairman of
the active committees, which prepared addresses and issued vigorous
circulars; and when finally, in 1843, a Democratic legislature chartered
the proposed institution at Chester, and attached to it this purely
Democratic condition, that if any pupil of African blood or extraction
were received into it, except as a boot-black or washer-woman, then the
charter was at once to become void without the useless formality of a
judicial proceeding, Mr. Philbrick and his associates,
after the manner of the late lamented Greeley, indulged in some
fierce and proper expectoration in the face of this section, and
proceeded to organize, and vigorously prosecuted their enterprise
without let or hindrance from the Democracy. The institution
became widely popular and of great usefulness.
Mr. Philbrick is one of the enlightened
and zealous collectors of the items of pioneer history, is the historian
of his township for the historical society of the county, and was of
great use in furnishing the means for the sketch of Chester in our work.
When the historical society refused us the use of its material, and
declined to return to him his own history for our use, on the ground
that it had voted that we should-not have it, Mr. Philbrick
at once placed his material and data at our disposal, as did the
historians of several other of the townships, while some not only
withheld theirs, but they and their friends refused to answer questions
as to matters within their personal knowledge. One or two of them
had secured the military records of their townships, notably in Auburn,
and, public though they were, refused us all access to them, and
compelled us, at large expense, to go to the State capital to secure
what was public property. If imperfections are found in some of
our histories, it is not the fault of Mr. Philbrick and
many of his enlightened spirit, but this remarkable course should be
remembered in explanation of them.
Mr. Philbrick, now at ripe age, in the
full possession of mature faculties, the fruits of a large experience,
the gathering of extended observation, and enjoying the well-won
confidence and the deserved esteem of a large circle of friends and
acquaintances, may expect to enjoy many years of a rich and mellowed
life.
Source: History of
Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers -
1878 - Pg. 148-149 |
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Chardon Twp. -
DR. POMEROY. Dr. Orange Pomeroy, son
of Horace Pomeroy, and grandson of the first pioneer of
Huntsburg, was born in Huntsburg, Dec. 7, 1835, and educated at the
Western Seminary. He commenced the study of medicine in the office
of Dr. Steer, then of Huntsburg, now of Burton. In the
spring of 1857 he attended medical lectures at the college of medicine
and surgery, at Cincinnati, from which he graduated Mar. 1, 1860.
He located at Fowler's Mills, in Munson, and the following May was
appointed assistant surgeon in the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Volunteer
Infantry, which his business would not permit him to accept. In
1863 he was appointed to the Sixteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; joined
his regiment at New Orleans, of which he had the entire medical charge.
Under the heavy pressure of work and the unhealthful climate of the
coast, his health broke down, compelling him to resign. He
returned to Fowler's Mills, and resumed his practice as soon as he was
able. In June, 1867, he moved to Chardon, and, wishing to advance
himself in his ever-advancing profession, he went to New York to attend
a course of lectures at Bellevue Hospital, where he graduated, after
which he returned to Chardon and established himself. He may be
considered one of the most successful physicians, as well as one of the
most enterprising citizens.
Source:
History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia,
Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 124 |
Gen. Joseph Adams Potter |
JOSEPH ADAMS POTTER,
brevet brigadier-general United States army. Born in the village of
Potter's Hollow, Albany county, New York, June 11, 1816. His
father, R. H. Potter, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in
1782, where he spent his boyhood until the age of eleven.
His grandfather, Samuel Potter, with six
brothers, enlisted in the Revolutionary army the day Washington assumed
command of the army, under the old elm tree yet standing near Cambridge,
Mass. He rose to be a sergeant in the army, and was detailed as
sergeant of the guard at Washington’s headquarters at the old stone
house in Newburgh, New York, during the famous winter when Washington,
Lafayette, Knox, Putnam, and others made it their winter home.
The mother of J. A. Potter was of the Adams
family of eastern Massachusetts, and a direct descendant of
Samuel Adams, - hence his name. His grandfather,
Joseph Adams, built and resided in the third house built in
Catskill, New York.
Of J. A. Potter, up to the age of seventeen, his
youth was spent in school and university, occasionally assisting his
father, who was a large merchant for those days, when tan-yards,
asheries, and other branches were component parts of a business man's
operations.
At the early age of six his passion for powder and
firearms was developed to such an extraordinary degree that a careful
watch had to be kept over him. Where there is a will there is a
way, however, and in connection with his brother, Champlin R. Potter,
three years his senior, he outwitted his parents often, and had many a
hunt on the bills at the base of the Catskill mountains with his
brother.
The school and university days, passed without more
than the usual escapades of spirited youth, brings him to the age of
seventeen. Through all this time, however, the love of his rifle
exceeded that of anything else, and many a day was spent in the woods.
It may not be amiss here to illustrate how early predilections will
cling to a man through life.
At the age of nine or ten his most intimate boy friend
was a boy by the name of Tremaine. One day, while they were
sitting under a tree, they talked together, as boys will, as to their
plans when they had grown to manhood. Tremaine said, “I am
going to be a lawyer and remain at home in this county." Potter
says, “ As soon as I get to be my own master I will go to the far west
and lead a roving hunter’s life.” The life of Hon. Lyman
Tremaine, attorney, judge, member of Congress, and attorney-general
for his State, shows how his prediction was fulfilled. As for the
other, these pages will show part of his career, as before stated.
In the early summer of 1833, at the age of seventeen,
by consent of his father, he went to Michigan with a party of friends,
ostensibly to pay the taxes on his father’s lands, but in reality to
carry out his ideas of adventure as far as possible. The party he
traveled with were relatives of General Charles C. Paine, and
stopping here a week with them gave him his first look at Painesville.
But pages could not write his history from that date.
After a series of adventures in the territory of Michigan, he went by
stage to White Pigeon, paid the taxes on his father’s lands, and then at
the suggestion of a Chicago merchant, Mr. P. F. W. Peace, who was
a fellow-passenger in the stage, be accompanied him to that village,
then not having over six hundred inhabitants. The only way of
getting there by land was by wagon from Niles, Michigan, down to the
beach of Lake Michigan, near Michigan City, and from there on the beach
around the head of the lake to Chicago.
After a few days there with nothing to do, he joined a
party of Indians, being put under the care of the chief by Robert
Kinzer, then an Indian trader of Chicago, and went on a tour with
them west and north of Chicago.
They went directly west without finding inhabitants
until they reached the house of Mr. Dixon, at what is now
Dixon’s Ferry, Illinois; and this was the last house seen until they
reached Fort Winnebago, way up in now the State of Wisconsin. “'here the
city of Madison now stands there was one trapper’s shanty, according to
his recollection; and coming cast the next point they made was the
trading-post of Mr. Junot, where the city of Milwaukee now
stands. There were few, if any, white inhabitants there or in the
vicinity. Mr. Junot told him there would be a
village there some time, but it might not be in his day; but people
would eventually settle there. The Milwaukee of to-day would seem,
to have fulfilled the prediction.
He relates with much interest the incidents of the
trip, - the days of feasting and starvation, and the gradual change from
white man to Indian in looks, - starting with clothing, and returning
with nothing but a coon-skin cap, buckskin shirt, leggings, and
moccasins. Returning to Chicago from Milwaukee, they followed the
beach of the lake when practicable, though a short distance backwas a
good trail on the bluffs, passing Root River, Little Fort, etc.
After five days’ tedious march the flag of old Fort Dearborn came in
sight.
The romance of the Indian character had descended to a
very common reality, and after a half-day's scrubbing and a change to
the habiliments of a white man he felt much relieved. He has never
repeated the experience of that five weeks. Returning to Monroe,
Michigan, he was invited by a Mr. Wadsworth to accompany
him on a trip through the woods from the river Raisin to the
trading-post, where the city of Grand Rapids now stands. After
getting up their outfit, - a pony, saddle, a tin-cup or two, a fryingpan,
and other necessary traps, - they started. Living entirely
on the products of their trusty rifles, sleeping under the trees with no
covering but the canopy of heaven, studying nature in its wildest forms,
an almost daily adventure with the wild denizens of the forest, it was
truly one of the pleasantest episodes of his life; and while he has
always looked upon his Indian trip with disgust as the most disagreeable
of his life, the trip of four or five weeks in the wilds of Michigan is
among the bright spots of his existence.
The winter of 1833-34 was spent at Monroe, Michigan,
and in the fall of 1834 he went to Illinois with his father and family,
spending the winter of 1834-35 in a log house on government land just
below La Salle, on the south side of the Illinois river, near where the
village of Toneca now stands.
The uneventful life of a farmer could not suit him; and
after seeing his father and brother in a good house on a section of land
they had united in purchasing, he bade them good-by, and in two weeks
was back again at Monroe, Michigan.
Being at once employed by the government as assistant
engineer on the ship canal just commencing at this point, it decided his
destiny and business for life.
In 1836 he was tendered an appointment to West Point by
General Lewis Cass, which he declined, but was immediately
appointed civil engineer, attached to the war department, and as such
was sent in 1837 to superintend the repairs at Grand Run harbor, Ohio.
This brought him to Painesville, where he married Catherine,
daughter of the late Dr. S. Ross, on the 31st of December, 1840.
She died in February, 1853, at Painesville, Ohio.
Being tired of public service, and in consequence of
the reduction of his pay by the failure of appropriations, he engaged in
mercantile pursuits in a small way; but not having the requisite tact
for trading soon found himself in embarrassed circumstances, and after
struggling along for a year or two he applied again for duty as an
engineer. The connection between himself and the government had
not been entirely severed, as he was at all times in receipt of a small
pay as agent in charge of public property and repairs at different
harbors along the lake.
Reporting again for duty, he was sent to make the
survey of the reef in the northern end of Lake Michigan, on which the
far-famed Waugothanee light-house now stands.
Being off duty for six months, he was engaged by the
Lake Shore railroad company, and built the greater part of the road
between Painesville and Willoughby, with the first bridges, both at
Willoughby and Painesville.
While thus engaged he was called to go to Waugothanee
and complete the light-house there. From that time he has never
left the service. The war found him engaged in surveys on Lake
Superior, under the then Captain, but afterwards Major-General,
George G. Meade, United States army.
Being ordered back to Detroit, he there found his
appointment as lieutenant, Fifteenth Infantry, United States army, and
captain in the quartermaster’s department, with orders to go to Chicago,
to take charge of the fitting out of the troops for Illinois, Wisconsin,
and incidentally of Iowa and Minnesota.
Very few know the amount of business devolving upon a
quartermaster in time of war. It was no uncommon thing to disburse
two or three million dollars in a month. The numerous employees
necessary, the necessity for signing each paper in person, and the
entire responsibility for the extended operation, render the position
one of great care.
In addition to the regular duties of supplies, the
charge of building, maintaining, and providing for the prison camps at
the west was on his hands. At one time he had thirteen hundred
prisoners in Camp Douglas, one thousand at Madison, Wisconsin, and from
four to six thousand at Springfield, Illinois.
While stationed in Chicago, he married Mrs.
Hattie Spafford, of Hartford, Connecticut, whose sad death,
at Galveston, is spoken of farther on.
Made a colonel by act of Congress, July 4, 1864, he was
transferred to Fort Leavenworth, to the charge of that immense depot,
and the districts of Kansas and Nebraska, including the plains to New
Mexico, in one direction, and Salt Lake on the other. All the
posts on the plains and the new posts in the Territories drew their
supplies from this depot and St. Louis, and, as maybe supposed, the
officers responsible for all could not have what might be called an easy
time of it.
The daily pay-roll of men averaged eleven hundred
employees, as teamsters and laborers at the depot. Two hundred
six-mule wagons daily on duty for depot work. One winter, thirteen
thousand mules and four thousand horses on hand, and at one time,
twenty-three hundred wagons, with their outfit of mules and men, on the
plains.
Early in the spring of 1867 he was ordered to Detroit
to settle his accounts, and managed to get there just in time to meet an
order directing him to report to General Sheridan in New
Orleans. Arriving there in March, he was ordered to Galveston,
Texas, to report to General Charles Griffin, as chief of the
quartermaster's department.
Previous to leaving Leavenworth, his rank of colonel
expired by limitation, and for fourteen days he was a captain again, but
he was immediately promoted to a majority. On the 13th of March he
was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general
United States army.
The events of the year 1867 in Galveston will ever fill
a page in the history of yellow fever epidemics. On the 5th of
July the fever was pronounced epidemic, and it was too late to try to
get away. Suffice it to say that, worn out by the constant
attentions required, the almost daily calls to bury some friend, the
only officer except General Griffin left on duty at
headquarters, doing the duty of adjutant-general, inspector-general, and
chief quartermaster, he went to his residence on the last day of August,
bidding his general good-by, as was their daily custom, for they knew
not when they parted daily at two P. M. that they would ever meet again.
That evening at seven he was attacked by the fever, and on the evening
of the third day was pronounced dying.
His wife, who had kept up her courage until that
moment, when her husband was dying in one room, her infant son in a
dying condition in another, and the corpse of her nurse-girl being then
carried out of the house, kneeling down beside the bed, kissing him
good-by, she was picked up and carried from his bedside with the fever
raging in her veins. She died in six days.
During that night the fever took a favorable turn, and
he was saved. After twelve days he was taken from his bed, to find
his wife, his commanding general, his two body-servants, dead, and no
one left but his little boy, his house in the hands of servants and
strangers, and every trunk and drawer ransacked, and all his wife's
jewelry, silks, laces, etc., gone.
Immediately he received a telegram, by order of
General Grant, giving him three months’ leave, and on the
10th of October he was assisted to the steamer, bringing with him his
little boy north. At the expiration of his leave he reported again for
duty at Austin, Texas, where the headquarters had been established.
During the time he was stationed in Texas he was charged with the
affairs of the quartermaster‘s department, and the building of several
new posts at points selected in the western and northwestern part of the
district.
In the course of duty he had occasion several times to
visit the Mexican border, and speaks of some of his notable trips to the
Rio Grande, and his pleasant visits at Matamoras with the different
military governors. Being invited, with a number of officers, to
an entertainment given to them by General Palacio,
governor of Tamaulipas, Nueva Leon, and states bordering on the
frontier, he was fortunate enough to meet an old school acquaintance in
the person of the chief of the Mexican staff, who was a thorough English
scholar, and who commanded the firing-party that shot Maximilian,
Mejia, and Miramon.
The regiment of Zapadores being paraded, the
very men who fired on poor Maximilian were pointed out, and he was
presented with several pieces of coin as being part of that distributed
to the men by the emperor just before they shot him. One of the
dollar pieces he sent to Horace Steele, Esq, of Painesville.
A history of one notable trip through western Texas
beyond the Cross Timbers, with a command to select a site for a new
post, near the borders of the “Llano Estacado,” or Staked Plains, would
be very interesting. The game killed, the change of base in consequence
of Comanche interference, the hurried march to the highlands, and the
return to Austin by an entirely new route, after a two months’ tour,
would fill a volume alone.
In the spring of 1869 he was relieved in Texas, and
ordered to the charge of the large depot at Jeffersonville, Indiana, and
after a year there was sent to New Mexico as chief quartermaster for
that district, taking post at Santa F6.
The year there was most agreeable. During his
stay he erected complete sets of officers’ quarters, building them of
the sun-burnt “adobes' of that country, but putting on them civilized
roofs of tin, very much to the surprise of the owners of the flat,
mud-roofed residences of that country.
He burnt the first brick and built the first brick
chimneys in Santa Fé. With a climate unsurpassed on the globe, and
fertile valleys, the purest of water, hot, cold, and chalybeate springs
equal to any known in the world, and more gold than in any known mining
country, it does not seem to fill up with settlers.
His health failing he was sent out of the country, and
after a year and a half on duty at Detroit, he was sent South, where for
the past four years, during all the reconstruction troubles, he has been
in New Orleans.
Returning to Painesville, Ohio, to settle his accounts
this spring, by order of the War Department, he hopes to be retired from
the army, and spend his old age among the companions of his early years,
and wind up his long life in a home of his own.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio
- Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 81 |
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LEMUEL
PUNDERSON. Few of the persons
now living in Newbury can remember to have seen Lemuel Punderson,
the pioneer settler of the township. He was born in New Haven,
Conn., June 4, 1782, was married to Miss Sybil Hickox, Oct. 20,
1808, and died at Newbury, Aug. 30, 1822, at the untimely age of forty.
His early educational advantages must have been small. He learned
the house-carpenter’s trade of John Ford and a brother, in
Cheshire, Connecticut.
In 1803 he came to Ohio, and the first point he made
was Poland, the first place settled on the Reserve. From there he
went to Warren, and built the old mansion-house of General Perkins.
He also built a flouring-mill for a company at the rapids of the
Cuyahoga river, remnants of which I remember to have seen there in 1829.
He reached Burton in 1806 or 1807, and soon after formed a partnership
with Eleazar Hickox to sell goods and build mills at the foot of
the “Big pond," in Newbury, a then unnamed five miles square of unbroken
woods.
On the same evening of his marriage, his partner,
Hickox, married Stella Umberfield, and soon after the young
husbands cut a road west from Beard’s mills to the township line,
and thence to the seat of their new enterprise. Punderson
purchased a large tract of land, with the pond and all it covered to
high water line, so as forever to control it. Here they built a
cabin, moved in, and hired workmen. This story is sufficiently
told in the histories of Burton and Newbury. The mill was built, the dam
swept out, reconstructed, and the mill set running. Then the
whisky-still, and later the saw-mill. Emigrants began to arrive, and all
went to Punderson's. He became wider known, was agent for
large quantities of lands, and in fact opened an extensive land-office.
One of the most interesting of books is Lemuel Punderson’s
account-book, kept in his cramped, close hand, every line being an entry
in his peculiar orthography. The names of his customers, the
things in which he dealt, and the prices he charged, are all set there,
with date and year, and altogether, matters of interest. Mean
time, Mr. Punderson built barns, and finally a fine
mansion-house. He opened roads,—the old State road from
Painesville south, with many a turn to his own mills and rising little
burg. This in 1813 or 1814. In 1820, with a gang of hands,
he went and marked and underbrushed a road to Chagrin Falls, on the way
to Cleveland, and there met a similar party from Cleveland. At the
first election he was elected a justice of the peace, and re-elected
till his death. When a post-route and office was established he
became the first postmaster, and held that also at his decease.
In the summer of 1822 he was taken with a prevailing
fever of the country. Scott and Goodwin, and finally
Denton, were called; the disease yielded, he was pronounced
convalescent; as was said, be persuaded his attendant to give him a
little of the ripe core of a watermelon, to wet his mouth. It was left
in his reach; he ate of it; the fever returned, also the M.D.'s.
This time it was too much for them, and he died.
What an almost commotion, as the word ran along roads
and trails through the woods! Punderson is dead! It could
hardly be. So much rested on him, so many interests, so many were
involved.
An immense concourse assembled at the funeral.
The elements of a fortune great in possibility, the achievements of the
coming years, which were to be and were not, all the hopes and
expectations of others, resting in the net-work of his life, vanished,
leaving fragments, broken hopes, sad, sad memories, and for wife and
children heartbreak and anguish.
He had at that time innumerable outstanding contracts
for sales of lands for which he was agent, many of which, and their
status and terms, were known to the parties alone. He was just
ready to go East with a burden of matters. He was the owner of
extensive lands, - over two hundred acres on the north side of Euclid
street, in Cleveland, - for some of which he was indebted in part.
All the large and small schemes and plans of a strong brain and will, an
extensive web reaching in various directions, dissolved like frost-work.
The man was dead, the heart cold, the brain an inert
mass, the will had disappeared, and the hand palsied. Men buried
him, talked, wondered, and went their ways.
They laid him in the new, little burying-ground on the
beautiful side-hill, near his own mill-pond, where the rays of the
afternoon sun fell pleasantly in the heart of the new world his brain
and hand had created, and the world went on.
Mrs. Punderson, Sybil, the sister of
Eleazar Hickox, of slender health, in the early years of her
married life had many of the strong intellectual qualities and traits of
character of her distinguished brother. The estate went into the
hands of that brother and Eleazar Paine. as administrators
for settlement, and was settled. This strong and resolute woman
saved what she could out of the shattered fragments, held her family in
her firm woman's grasp, and made the best and utmost of what remained to
her. A true woman, a good mother, a brave heart.
In person Lemuel Punderson was not unlike
his second son, Daniel, - large, a little heavy, with a big,
well-formed head, florid, as I remember him; a little slow in speech, a
man of fine native powers, of great executive ability, force of will and
character. He was possessed of much sagacity, and other men had
the greatest reliance on his judgment.
Mr. and Mrs. Punderson were the parents
of six children; of these, the daughter and John, the third son,
both unmarried, reside together, in a very pleasant home in the village
of Burton; Samuel, the eldest of the sons, died in young manhood;
Miles, the fourth son, lives in Troy; Daniel, the second
son, and one of the first, if not the first, male born in Newbury, owns
a fine flooring mill on the site of the old Punderson & Hickox
mill, and has a charming residence just across the old State road from
his mill. He is a man much esteemed. His wife, Ann Shaw,
a sister of Mrs. Elijah Haws, Mrs. Crane, and Mrs. Uzial
Burnett, is a lady of unusual intelligence, widely known, and has
the charm of pleasant manners, kindliness, and goodness. There are
few so pleasant places the country-side through as theirs. They
are without children. Eleazar, the youngest, with wife and
children, owns and resides in the old homestead of Lemuel and
Sybil; and here the mother, after a widowhood of fifty years, died
in 1872.
Source: History of Geauga and Lake Counties,
Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia, Williams Brothers - 1878 - Pg. 179 |
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