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BIOGRAPHIES
 Source:
1798
PIONEER and GENERAL HISTORY of
GEAUGA COUNTY
with
SKETCHES OF
some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men.
Published by
The Historical Society of Geauga County,
1880
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Burton -
1834. -
SILAS GAYLORD
Came this' year, in the fall. Edward Griswold
was first on the ground, and built a shop, where Mrs.
Cleveland's house now stands.
Mr. Gaylord was born in Cheshire,
Connecticut, in the year 1812, and at the age of 22, was married in
Cheshire, Oct. 8, 1834, to Miss Mary, a daughter of
Capt. Stephen Tuttle, who had decided to share, with
this well proportioned, fine looking and resolute young man, a wedding
trip to Ohio, and help to build his fortunes in the west. How the
days of the honeymoon went swiftly by, as they journeyed on the "Old
Canawl in York State," with a gay and social party, in the cabins, and
on the decks of the famous regular line packets. When past Erie,
the woods and rough staging, had in it much of adventure, while hopes
for the future, kept bright the pathway of the young couple. They
went east the next spring, and he traveled and sold goods in New York.
In 1836 he was again with Mr. Griswold, and they carried
on an extensive tin business, keeping several teams, busy selling
through the country. Jamison, of Warren, worked for him,
and William Gaylord learned the trade in their shop.
His brother, Raymond, built the house, afterwards owned by
John A. Ford, west of the square. Silas and his wife
boarded there.
There was great demand for brass kettles, and this
enterprising firm sold them extensively. The Mormon settlers at
Kirtland were large purchasers, and paid for the kettles in Mormon bank
currency, the sum of $500. This was presented at the bank counter,
and the coin demanded. It was paid, and the bank soon failed,
creating great excitement in the country. Gaylord found it
convenient to be in the east until the storm was over. He always
claimed that this $500 gold, removal, "scooped the bottom rock," of that
famous institution.
In 1841 he lived in Chardon, and conducted a tin-shop.
On account of health, he went to Maine, and off the coast in a
cod-fishery excursion, and also went south. Returning, he employed
Mr. Miller, an Englishman, and set up the tanning business
in John Cook's shop. To compel out-door labor, as he
needed, for some years he bought and kept stock on the farm north of
Chapman's, on Oak hill, and worked there. Going again into
trade, his partner was Nathan Tuttle, and they occupied a
new store, on the east side of the street. Afterwards he was' in a
Farmers' store, in the Beach building, then in company with Mr.
Beach, and, later, with Mr. Boughton.
Finally, he built the new store, next to Boughton's, and, in
partnership with his son-in-law, C. A. Hawthorne, occupied it.
During the war, they carried on an extensive general mercantile
business. Henry Tuttle was last in company with him.
Elected commissioner, he was very active and useful to the county in the
time of the war, spending money and labor in the recruiting service.
With persevering industry, and by large business
capacity, he labored faithfully through all the "ups and downs" of life,
and gained a competence. Occupying the old homestead, where his
father lived, with a house full, of three families - the father's,
wife's father's, and his own - his choicest nature shone out at home.
Genial in his social intercourse with all, they gathered about the fire,
when he came in the evening, for the later hours' chat, or for reading
of books, aloud, as was often done by one of the family, for the circle,
and in that finer, and more exclusive sense, were happy with him at
home, where all real social life should find its foundation and its
enduring strength. Independent in action, he was a good citizen,
and his social ways drew to him many a traveler along the roads of trade
and commerce, for enjoyment in story-telling, whiling away the moments
of rest.
An only daughter, Ellen, born in Chardon, Dec.
31, 1842, was married to Charles A. Hawthorne, Sept. 10, 1861.
A little son, Freddie, born Sept. 17, 1860, was
prostrated, as were the whole family, by dysentery. He died Aug.
24, 1865. Old Mrs. Gaylord followed him, September 9th;
then, Elizabeth Tuttle, at 9 p. m., September 14th, and
young Hawthorne at 10 p. m. the same day. Captain
Tuttle died September 26th, and Silas Gaylord, sr.,
November 17th, the same fall, and Mrs. Tuttle the next
spring - May 31st. This awful desolation left only Silas,
his wife, and daughter, Mrs. Hawthorne - only three of a
family of ten. He died June 2, 1872. The older ones, from
the care of his strong manhood, so kindly given them, had gone first.
Vacant the places, the circle swept away, and in the shadow only two -
the mother and daughter - remain, still expressing to the passers at
their door, in cheery way and act, the influence of independent culture
in that home. Mr. Gaylord, and the three families,
were all members of the Congregational church. They were laid to
rest in the upper cemetery.
Source:
1798 Pioneer and General History of Geauga County
with Sketches of some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men. - Published by
The Historical Society of Geauga County, 1880 - Page
581 |
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Burton -
1811 - DOCTOR ERASTUS GOODWIN. This gentleman
was born in the town of New Hartford, Connecticut, about the year
1786. He only had the benefit of a common school education,
and he studied medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas
Brinsmade, and emigrated to Burton, Geauga county, Ohio, as we
think, about the year 1811, for the practice of his profession.
At this time the country was almost an unbroken wilderness, and he
was compelled to thread his way through the wilderness, only guided
by marked threes, and, as he said in after years, when night
overtook him, he would often be compelled to dismount from his
horse, lay down on the ground, with his saddle-bags under his head,
and thus await the morning. During the earlier years of his
practice, his ride was very extensive, being frequently called as
far north as Painesville, and as far south as Warren, and about the
same distance east and west. The worst enemy to encounter in
pioneer life was sickness. It was much worse in Ohio than it
has since been upon our western prairies. Ohio was covered
with a heavy growth of timber, and as it was cut down, and the sun
let in onto the ground, and the soil upturned and exposed, it caused
about the worst kind of malaria for the generation of diseases.
Almost everybody was sick, and must have a physician, and the result
was that Dr. Goodwin was compelled to visit almost every
house and hamlet. He was compelled thus to endure a great
amount of hardship and fatigue, and this told fearfully upon his
vital powers in after life, during the last few years of which,
though not so old as to have caused any very great amount of mental
decay, yet his mind was much impaired. In one of these long
rides, he was one night lost in the woods west of Punderson's,
but worked out to that hospitable house, rested, and went from there
home in the morning.
At the breaking out of the war of 1812, there was a
great call for volunteers, and a regiment was raised and started out
about the month of August, 1812. It was commanded (as we
believe) by Colonel Hayes; the brigade was commanded by
Gen. Simon Perkins, and all under the command of General
Wadsworth.
Of this regiment, Dr. Peter Allen,
of Kinsman, Ohio, was the surgeon, and Dr. Goodwin, surgeon's
mate. The regiment marched up into the vicinity of Sandusky,
and was there for a time, but did not join Harrison's army.
Dr. Goodwin was in the vicinity of Sandusky for some time,
located at Judge Abbott's, which was at the old county seat
of Huron county, a few miles above the mouth of Huron river, near
where Milan now stands. He was there at the time of Hull's
surrender of Detroit. After that surrender, some of Hull's
soldiers, released on parole, were sent down the lake in open boats,
and they landed at the mouth of Huron river. Some of the
settlers there saw them landing, and mistook them for hostile
Indians. The news that a large body of Indians had landed at
the mouth of the Huron, was speedily communicated to the settlement
at Abbott's, and they all prepared to flee. Dr.
Goodwin was at the time lying sick of fever, and unable to go.
Lyman Farwell came to him in the evening, just as the
inhabitants were about leaving, and asked him what they should do
with him. The doctor told him they would have to leave him,
and let the Indians have him. He remained there that night,
and all the next day alone - the only human being in the settlement.
Towards evening, he heard the cows lowing, and the calves bleating,
and he got up and crawled out to turn the cows in with their calves,
when a man came along and told him of the mistake, and soon after,
the citizens returned. At another time, he was riding across
the prairies in the vicinity of Sandusky, and shot was fired by an
Indian, from the tall grass, and the bullet whistled past his ear.
He turned his horse and rode to the spot from where the firing came,
but the Indian had gone.
It was while in the vicinity of Sandusky that he became
acquainted with his wife. She was a Miss Dotia Gilbert,
the daughter of Judge Gilbert, who had emigrated to Newburgh,
in Cuyahoga, county, from Vermont. Miss Gilbert was
teaching school at the time, and was the first female who ever
taught school in the town of Milan. They were married at
Esquire Ford's in Burton. She died on the 11th of
November, 1846, and with her he was living at the time of his death.
Dr. Goodwin had not the advantages for a medical education
that are now afforded to young men, but he had what, at that time,
was considered a good medical library, and always took some medical
journal, by which he was enabled to keep abreast of the times, in
medical knowledge. He was always considered one of the first
physicians of the country, and was sent for, far and near, in
critical cases, both as attending physician and counsel to other
physicians.. He had been practicing over thirty years before
he ever lost a case of parturition, puerperal fever. One of
the ridiculous stories told of those marvelous days, is that a
colored man died, was a good subject, and the doctors pickled his
body in Edson's pond.
Dr. Goodwin had six children by his first wife;
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Sherman Goodwin - who studied medicine and
practiced in Burton, until 1848, when his health failed, and being
threatened with consumption, moved with his family to Victoria,
Texas, where he has since lived, practicing his profession.
In the office, as this goes to print, is a gentleman,
W. H. Chapman, of Troy, who was at the post-mortem
examination of Truman Allen, of Montville, in 1845, and then
a medical student. He says that Sherman Goodwin was
regimental surgeon of the Geauga militia, and, in that capacity,
conducted the autopsy. Allen's body was taken to
Jonathan Brooks' harness shop, where the post-mortem revealed an
ugly wound in the heart. The cut was one and a half inches
deep. The excited crowd had to be kept from the building by a
strong guard. At the preliminary trial, held in the church,
which was packed with spectators, the excitement was intense.
At the autopsy, Dr. Goodwin acquitted himself to the
satisfaction of all parties.
Erastus L. Goodwin, - the second son, now
resides in Cleveland.
Homer Goodwin and Lewis H. Goodwin, -
third and fourth sons, both of whom, after going through college,
studied law, are practicing together in Sandusky.
His eldest daughter, Marry, married Porter
Peters, and lived in Wabash, Indiana, where she died in the
summer of 1875.
Margaret - his youngest daughter, married E.
S. Ross, and is now living at Wabash, Indiana.
Source:
1798 Pioneer and General History of Geauga County
with Sketches of some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men. - Published
by The Historical Society of Geauga County, 1880 - Page 568 |
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Newbury -
AMPLEUS GREEN. The subject
of this sketch was born in Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, Sept. 30,
1802. He was the eldest son of his parents, Winslow Green and
Desire Douglas, and with them removed to Newbury in 1816. He
was married at the age of twenty-four to Lovina Fox,
daughter of Captain John Fox, of Troy. After laboring one
year upon the farm which they intended to purchase, they left it to work
a year for 'Squire Thorndike, in the town of Thorndike -
now called Brimgeld - where he had formerly been employed, and where
they received as wages a sufficient amount to enable them to complete
the payment for the farm, upon which they afterward lived during all the
active years of their life. On account of his having once acted as
captain of a training company, he was always familiarly known and
addressed as Captain Green.
In 1832 he assisted largely in organizing in Newbury a
Congregational church, to whose interests he was ever after devotedly
attached. In the year 1850 and '51 he was prominet in the
measures adopted for the erection of a substantial brick building as a
house of worship. His means being limited, and his family large,
it was only by the laborious sacrifices and the strictest economy of the
wife and mother that he was enabled to give largely both of time and
money to this object. The greater share of the money employed in
the construction of the church was contributed by Cutler Tyler,
who with him, Anson read, Augustus Gilbert and Herman Ober,
constituted the building committee, an of whom he was for several years
the only survivor.
He was for many years deacon of the church, and his
christian life was marked in a good degree by the "faith which works by
love." It is but just, however, to record that his strict
Puritanism and zeal for the honor of the truth as he saw it, sometimes
led him to incur, and perhaps deserve, the charge of in tolerance toward
those who held opposite, and as he believed, pernicious views of
religion.
Always a friend of freedom and a champion of human
rights, he was an earnest abolitionist in the days of slavery.
After this institution perished, he soon ardently espoused tke cause of
woman's suffrage, and was one of the most prominent and enthusiastic
leaders in the movement for which South Newbury was then and still is
famous. Meeting those who charged him with acting contrary to
Scripture in advocating equal rights for woman, he was accustomed to
cite them to the words of Christ - the golden rule - which he considered
his abundant vindication. He was of a nature at once jovial and
earnest, liberal and just. His character and conduct was such as
to inspire both the respect and affection of his family, and of all who
knew him best.
In 1866, leaving the old farm in the care of his
youngest son, he removed with his wife and two daughters to the State
road, where he spent the remaining eight years of his life in tranquil
content, his death occurring Apr. 7, 1874.
As was frequently the case when important events were
approaching, he seemed for some time, even while in comfortable health,
to have a presentment of his near decease. This he would speak of
with as much cheerfulness and composure as of any ordinary affair of
life. He had made all possible provision for those dependent on him, and
for himself he doubted not his treasures were in heaven. So when
the stroke fell suddenly upon him he was ready, and after lingering,
paralyzed and almost unconscious, for three days, he passed peace fully
away, leaving behind him the ever blessed "memory of the just."
A. M. G.
Source:
1798 Pioneer and General History of Geauga County
with Sketches of some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men. - Published
by The Historical Society of Geauga County, 1880 - Page 245 |
NOTES:
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