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Goshen, Connecticut, and Nathaniel Norton of Bloomfield, New York.  It is not now known who made the subdivisions, or when.  Theodore Lacy divided the south tract in forty lots, in 1801; the middle, or tract two, into twenty lots, as was the north also.

THE OLD CHILLICOTHE.

     As the laying out of this road preceded the settlement of Chester, mention may here be made of it.  Like all the old State roads, it was established by an act of the General Assembly, which named three persons, called commissioners, who ran and marked the line.  This was actually usually done by one of the three.  General Edward Paine, father of Captain Edward Paine, late of Chardon, was the commissioner who did this bit of old-time engineering, in 1801.  His surveyor was Abram Tappan, often named in the records of those days.  It extended from Painesville, meandering southwest through Mentor, thence crookedly to Kirtland flats, where it turns more southerly, and missing the centres, traverses Chester, Russell, Aurora, Hudson, to the old Portage, and down the Tuscarawas to its junction with the Walhonding, to where Coshocton stands, to Chillicothe, the old capital.  General Paine was directed to “open the road," which he did by blazing the trees and lopping the brush, - “ underbrushing” a way along on the best ground for a road nearest the marked line.

SETTLEMENT AND SETTLERS.

     I return to Dr. Wm. N. Hudson and his associates of that petition, and note their arrival in the Chester woods, with some words of their lives.  The mislaying hands of time and accident have placed that old paper beyond my reach; but the kinder hand of S. B. Philbrick, Esq, has placed two or three old letters, from Dr. Hudson and other men, in my possession, which will help me to some interesting facts of some of the stout old pioneers.
     Justice Miner, in point of time and importance, has the precedence. He was born in Norfolk, Connecticut, in 1762.  At a time not stated, he emigrated to Lima, Ontario county, New York. It must have been in 1800, for after a year's residence he started, in 1801, farther west; was a land-owner at Lima, for he traded off his farm, and in company with Harvy Sheflield, a son-in-law, a son Philo, Harvey Nettleton, and a Mr. Allen, he started for the Western Reserve, driving about forty head of cattle belonging to different persons then in the western woods.  These were distributed, and proceeding to our nameless five miles square of woods, and what they held, he selected three hundred acres in the southeast section, and about the 1st of May he commenced the first clearing and built the first cabin ever known in Chester.  This was on the farm now owned by William Smith.  After cutting over some four acres, they returned to Lima to prepare and remove their families.  In the February of 1802 the little band,  - Miner, Sr., his wife and five unmarried children, Sheffield, his wife and infant child, and Philo and his wife, - started, with ox-teams, to traverse the two hundred and fifty miles of intervening roadless wilderness to their lonely hut in its circle of trees.  On sleds were they, and in three days came a thaw, which delayed them a week.  They camped out more than once ere they reached Buffalo, which consumed two weeks.  Here young Mrs. Philo remained with a sister living there.  Leaving her, they pushed on to Cattaraugus.  The snows left and spring was coming, and they rented an old block-house of the Indians, where, with the oxen, the party remained, while the two young men pushed west to find some sort of a craft to freight them up the lake coast to the Reserve.  They heard of one at the Chagrin, but failed to get it.  They finally found one, badly stove, at Austinburg, which they secured and repaired.  In this the adventurers coasted pleasantly down the lake. On the morning of the last day of this voyage a furious gale broke their cordage and tore their little sail to shreds.  Nothing but courage and coolness saved them.  They finally made the Cattaraugus, and an Indian helped to drag their shallop onto land, above the danger of being swept away.  They went on to Buffalo for Mrs. Philo.  Here they met a Mr. Phelps, whom the Miners supposed to be the well-known Judge Seth Phelps. Many things tended to this idea; nor can I determine who he was.  He was there with a second wife and two small children, on his way to the Reserve.  Judge Phelps, as Origen Miner calls him, found their party a most valuable accession.  He was quite a sailor, and they found him a man of courage and enterprise and great intelligence.  At Cattaraugus the boat was overhauled, made stanch, the goods packed, and the four families-fifteen souls-finally embarked on the almost unknown waters which have so often since proved treacherous.  The passengers and crew on top of the goods made a too heavy deck-load.  April 15, the expedition, with tents for landing, sailed out of Cattaraugus creek, with prow west ward.  The voyage was prosperous.  There were nightly landings, unladings, and tent-pitchings on the woody margin of the lake, moon and star lit, camp-fires built, springs found, suppers, night-watches, and care, breakfasts at dawn, when the skies were scanned, and if they smiled the tents were struck, the boat laden, and another embarkation.  Sometimes they remained weather-bound.  On May day they entered the mouth of Grand river, landed at General Paine's, who welcomed them with the heartiness of the pioneers, old-school gentleman as he was.  Meantime, the oxen had been driven by two younger, and hitherto unnamed, men, - John Sheffield, a brother of Harvey, and John Miner, a son of Justice.  These seem to have made the journey in ten or eleven days, and took the cattle to Burton.  On arrival of the boat, the men went to Burton for the teams, while the women and children remained at General Paine's, except Mrs. Miner, Jr., who was conducted to the new cabin to cook, - the chronicle hath it, - but really to charm the rude beginnings with her woman's presence; and thus she was the first of Anglo-Saxon blood to place her woman's foot on the untouched ground of Chester.  The Phelpses, as is said, remained with General Paine.  The last year's chopping was cleared and planted with corn, and another house built.  In July all the Miners, goods and household, were sheltered in their new homes.  It seems Mrs. Sheffield lingered at Painesville, or Burton, or elsewhere on the way, to add to Harvey's household joys and cares another baby, - the present Mrs. Benjamin Ellsworth.  He erected a house, and moved his wife and babies into it on the 1st of September.  This was on the farm now owned by a Mr. Post.  These three went on with their rude but rich forest life till the next May came, with its wild-wood buds and flowers.  Then came also another wonder.  On the 9th of that month our young wife, Mrs. Philo, the Eve of this savage paradise, gave to it the first child of European blood.  The little bud was a girl, and they called her Altha, - a pretty name.
     During this summer of 1803, Dr. John Miner, brother of Justice, came on, took up a lot adjoining the land of the older residents, made a small clearing, built a cabin, returned and brought on his three children, and moved into it in the spring of 1804.  I find no mention of a wife.  A Mr. Beard also came in and built a house.  Mrs. Harvey Sheffield also increased the small community by the addition of a small boy, the second birth of Chester.  It will be remembered that John Sheffield came plodding along, driving the oxen.  John knew what he was about, and so did Anna Miner, all the time.  In April, David Hudson, Esq., came through the woods from the township of that name, and joined them in wedlock; and so this eventful 1804 opened with a baby and a bride.
     These two primal events of human history were quickly followed by the in evitable third, in such unusual form that it is told in every history of the peopling of the then wilderness.  It is about the only thing said of Geauga County in Mr. Howe’s worthless “Historical Collections.”  Dr. John Miner had moved into his bark-covered cabin, still without floor or door, in the midst of the woods, and, with the men of the little settlement, was busy with the pressing necessities of the present and plans for the future. From the birth and marriage the season had ripened to mid July, when one of the fearful tornadoes, engendered on the lake, that have more than once smitten and devastated the highlands a few miles from the coast line, struck the forests of Chester.  Serene was the morning, when slowly and silently the storm-cloud, black as night, cast its shadow over the wide still woods.  Slowly it arose to the zenith, when its van could be seen through the green tree-tops.  In the admonition of its shadow, beasts fled to their inner most haunts, and birds sought their deepest covers; while the known dwellers of the wood, with a boding sense of danger, half instinct and half the offspring of a higher intelligence, fearful of the defense which their cabins might yield,shrunk with pallid faces into their darkened recesses.  A roar of loosened, resistless winds, mingled with the crash of the destroyed forest, was heard swiftly approaching from the northwest.  An instant, and it struck a single, continuous, awful buffet; and where had stood the century-grown forest was a wide mass of huge prostrate trunks, broken shafts, upturned roots,  splintered, shattered, and intermingled limbs-and tree-tops, with the broad expanse of raging storm-cloud above.  Then came the thunder and a deluge of water, while the tornado went shrieking and tearing its devastating way to the southeast, overthrowing the beautiful forests of Newbury and Burton. In the central path of its fury it left nothing standing.  A sixth of the forest of Chester, says Dr. Hudson, perished in its breath that hour.  Dr. Miner placed his children on the ground, below the naked “sleepers" which were to sustain the floor, and this saved them.  After the first crash he stepped from his own cover to observe the effects, when a giant oak, grown and hardened by the rains and snows of a thousand years, from around which the lesser and frailer children of the forest had been swept, yielded to its now unbroken fury, and fell with its full weight and force on the doomed cabin, crushing it as if made of hollow reeds.  Dr. Miner was instantly killed.  His sagacious care saved the now orphaned children.  As no mention is made of a mother, we infer there was none at that time.  The effect, beyond the gloom which for years the event cast on the survivors, was disastrous to the settlement of Chester.  Beard moved away, and wherever the tale of it was told east ward emigrants sought homes elsewhere.  Dr. Miner's tragic death thus became the first demise of Chester.  His crushed remains were buried by the hands

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of the sorrowing pilgrims, and his children sent to the care of kindred at the East.
     I hastily follow the interesting Miners of the Chester woods.  Justice was twice married.  His first wife was Mabel Plumb, and they were united in 1779.  She died in April, 1811, and he wedded Hannah N. Moss, Jan. 1, 1812.  She died in October, 1831.  He followed them July 27, 1850, aged seventy-one.  His eight children were by Mabel.  Of these, Philo, who was a man of ideas, and a justice of the peace, moved to Michigan in 1831, and died the next year.  Charlotte, Mrs. H. Sheffield, died in Chester in 1855.  Sarah died there in the early days of 1811.  Anna died in Illinois in 1845; John in 1854; Betsey in Michigan in 1859.  Of the whole family, Origen only is living.  He is now seventy-two, and lives in North Munson, on a small place, a man of great intelligence, full of the lore and love of the pioneers, and has contributed more of the early history of Geauga, especially of Munson, and the religious movements of his day, than any other writer in the county.
     In 1803 the first apple-seeds were planted.  From these sprang many orchards, especially those of Mr. Smith, Mr. Wells, the Sheffields' orchard; also, that of Post, Pratt, and Jones.
     After the disaster of 1804, no new settlement was made till 1806, when William Archer came on, and married Sally (Sarah) Miner, and settled in the neighborhood.  This was the second wedding in Chester.  Following the venerable Dr. Hudson, from that to 1809, no accessions by emigrants were made to the small community.  On the 2d day of May of that year that gentleman and a little brother passed up the old Chillicothe, a mere trail, almost impassable from fallen trees, with a led horse, from Aurora, the nearest settlement south, into the Chester, or Wooster woods, intending to make a settlement at what is now called Chester Cross-roads.  He found it difficult even to trace the trail, so indistinct was it.  To lose it would be a disaster in the otherwise trackless wilderness.  He “blazed" the trees -hewed off the outside bark with an axe has he went.  He seems to have located there that summer.  That season, on the application of the Wooster men, the commissioners of the county appropriated ten dollars to reopen the road between Chester and Aurora.  The population of Chester was out aiding in this work for a week, camping in the woods, and finally the way was made passable.  The doctor, then young Mr. Hudson, of barely twenty-one, built by the spring, where a Mr. Hinkly also built, about 1850.
     On the 22d of August of the same year Mr. Hudson undertook to remove his very young wife from Hudson to his new cabin in the woods in Chester.  He traveled with an ox-carriage on runners.  They reached Aurora that night.  The next he put up on the hospitable bank of classic West Silver creek, this boy and girl husband and wife.  He unyoked the team and placed a bell on the "near" ox, and turned them to feed on the rank herbage of the rich bottom.  A brush wood leafy bower - “bough-house" - the young man constructed, their only shelter.  It was raining-rained all night.  He intended, ere darkness, to yoke and chain up the oxen.  Beguiled into forgetfulness in their leafy, leaky bower, the two passed the night drowsing and listening for the bell which clanged near, grew faint to a tinkle, and faded off in dreams.  What did they care for oxen, those wedded lovers?  On search the next morning, he found them not.  After filling them selves, forgetful of the pair, they had returned to Aurora, whither, leaving his wife by the creek, he followed them with what expedition he could, recovered and hurried the treacherous brutes back to the lonely, waiting wife, with whom he reached Chester that night, and they became, he says, the sixth family there.  John Miner, son of Justice, was married that year.  Like Cain, he may have found his bride in the land of Nod, for I find no mention of her.*  In 1811 came Jeremiah Iles, who wooed and wedded Betsey Miner, and made a lodgement in the neighborhood.  Also another Sheffield, Alpheus by name, came and took Dorothy, a daughter of Dr. Miner - who seems to have returned - to wife.  A marrying people were the Chester folk.  The same year, 1811, Asahel Gilmore moved in from Massachusetts.  The next year came also his brother James and family, their children mostly unmarried, and settled on lot 12, tract 2, the site of the village, near the centre.  On the fall of Detroit, in August, all the males but John Miner hastened off to defend Cleveland. In their absence a strange rumor got itself whispered in the Chester woods that the Indians were scalping the defenseless women and children in the settlements east of them, and all the women, by a common impulse, gathering their children, fled and hid themselves in the woods.  John hunted them up at nightfall, and induced them to return to the house of Harvy Sheffield, where he and a young Sheffield stood guard, or pretended to.  In the morning came a joyful contradiction of the rumor, and a sense of safety was restored.
     Silas Tanner came in 1814.  He was from Massachusetts; had lived in  Pennsylvania.  He brought his wife and five children, and settled on lot thirty-six, tract three; was a justice of the peace; removed to Illinois, where he died.  His wife died in 1847.  Of the children Chester remained in the township, and died at sixty-four, from the kick of a horse.  His wife was Alzina Tiffany, who came from the East with her parents in 1815, and settled where Horace Herrick now lives.  Reuben Hulburt with his wife and children came, and settled in the north part of the township in 1815.  Amos Satterlee and two unmarried brothers came in 1815.  Amos erected a house that season in the north part of the township, east of the Chagrin, and returned for his family, and moved them to Chester the next year.  Lyman Hitchcock came in 1816 and settled near him, on the west side of the river.  John Scott took up lot thirty-five, tract three, in 1817; he died in 1859.  His brothers, William and Asa, came about the same time, and James later.  Among the early settlers, the years of whose several arrivals have not been ascertained, Dr. Hudson mentions Stephen Bassett, Libbeus Norton and brothers, David, Allison, Asa, Winsor, William Scott, and Asa Scott, - Dr. H. thinks in 1817, at which date, he says, there were about twenty families in the township.  He attributes the frequent visitation of Chester by tornadoes as a great hindering cause of its rapid settlement.  The one of 1804 was followed by another
in June, 1810, only less destructive, doubtless the one which devastated the forests to the northeast.  He also mentions one of the last of June, 1812, which swept the southern borders of Chester, laid waste the forests of Orange, Russell, and Newbury.  It blew down a log house in Newbury, scattered the heavy logs, and even blew out the heavy puncheons of the floor, the man and his wife (the Rices; see Newbury) escaping with little save their lives.
     Joel Gilbert, originally from Connecticut, came from Genoa, New York, to Chester in December, 1817, and settled a mile and a half west of Mulberry Corners.  He died in March, 1852.  His widow, third wife, survives, and resides on the old homestead.  She is now seventy-two years of age.  Mr. Gilbert was the father of seventeen children, of whom two - Warren C. and Almon - reside in Mentor.
     Samuel Adams, from Genoa, New York, settled in Chester in 1817.  Also from the same place, and in the same year, came Charles Odell, who located on lot 26, of tract 1.  He subsequently went East on a visit, and there died.  His brother Eli came and took possession of his property in about the year 1828, but there are none of the family now in the township.
     Benjamin Fisk, an early settler on lot 6.
     M. W. Cottrell, son of Nicholas Cottrell (see Willoughby), was born Mar. 3, 1807. He was sixteen years of age at the time of the emigration of the family to Ohio.  After a residence of some six years in Willoughby he came to Chester, and commenced the improvement of his purchase, previously made, located in lot six, tract one.  The first year be cleared twelve acres and sowed it to wheat, made one thousand pounds of maple-sugar, and also erected his cabin.  He was then unmarried, and boarded with the family of Stephen Bassett, for
whose uniform kindness and generosity he cherishes the warmest feelings of gratitude.
     Nov. 18, 1830, he married Mary R. Covert, of Willoughby (then Chagrin), whose parents, Luke and Dinah Covert, located in that township in 1816.  The result of this marriage was eight children, only three of whom survive.  Mr. Cottrell, by dint of industry and good management, accumulated a large farm, some five hundred acres, which he divided among his children as they married.
     Stephen Bassett, originally from Connecticut, moved to Genoa, New York, in 1809, where he remained until 1817, when he emigrated to Chester, settling on lot sixteen, tract one.  He married, in 1810, Sally Adams, daughter of Samuel Adams, of Genoa, New York.  To them have been born ten children, seven of whom are living, viz., Betsey, now Mrs. Mordecai Tumbling, who lives in Illinois; Lucyette, wife of Russell Eldred, and lives in Lorain county, this State; Lynda, now Mrs. H. E. Hebert, and lives in Illinois; Stephen H., who resides on the homestead; Amy, wife of Lysander Howard, and lives in Kansas; Maria, wife of M. F. Howard, now in Illinois; Mary, wife of Wesley Franklyn, and living in Colorado.  Mr. Bassett died in September, 1868.  The widow survives, at the age of eighty-eight, but in feeble health.  She lives with her son, S. H. Bassett, on the old homestead.
     I gather and group a few of the more recent names of the early settlers of Chester: Clark Philbrick, at twenty-three went to Mentor, in Lake County, from Weare, New Hampshire, thence to the middle part of the State, from which he found his way to Defiance, where he remained three years; married Mary Hilton, moved to Cleveland, and, a year later, to Chester, which was in 1828.  He purchased lot thirty-five, tract three, where he raised a family of five children, and died in 1849.  Soon after, Chester became the residence of five more Philbricks,
brothers, of whom but one survives. The Philbricks were men of Substance, intelligence, and influence.
     S. B. Philbrick, whose name is so prominently connected with the various enterprises of the township since his settlement in it, was born in the town of

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Weare, New Hampshire, in the year 1800.  He removed to Cleveland, Ohio, when twenty-six years of age, where he taught a school one winter.  He also taught three winters in Newburgh.  He settled in Chester in 1828, and located on lot thirty-five of tract three.  Oct. 4, 1835, he was married to Nancy A., daughter of Lebbius Norton.
     I part with stout old Dr. Hudson with regret.  Brave old pioneer, large dispenser of calomel and jalap; orthodox in creed, in faith, in the lancct; a wide and fearless rider, or trudging on foot the devious forest-paths of all the surrounding townships.  A stanch, cheerful, trusted, intelligent, public-spirited man.  A son of David Hudson, proprietor of Hudson township, born in 1788.  He left Chester in 1818, studied his profession, returned in 1825, and we shall see and hear more of him. He was the first postmaster, the first to “speak in prayer," and left Chester, removed to Meigs county in 1838 or 1839, where he lived at the time of John Morgan's stupid raid into Ohio.  At that time Dr. Hudson was crossing a street of Pomeroy, then in the hands of the rebs.  One of them called, “Halt l” Not supposing it was addressed to him, he continued to walk on, and was shot down and died in the street.
     To these may be added:
     James Gilmore, one of the earlier settlers of the township, came from Massachusetts, bringing his family of nine children, five boys and four girls, with him.  He settled on the present site of the town-hall.  His son, Ashbel, settled on the farm occupied by Silas T. Gilmore.   Six of his children are now living, and three are dead.  G. W., the eldest, resides at the cross-roads; Silas A., a short distance south of the centre; Mary and Martha were twins, and married, the former, David Scott, and lives a mile and a quarter east of the Centre, and the latter Aretus Scott (deceased), and resides at the cross-roads.
     Alonzo Meloin, from Cummington, Massachusetts, settled in Chester in 1824 or 1825, on lots 13 and 14.
     S. C. Ferry, from Massachusetts, settled on lot 12, about 1826.  Now resides there.
     Oliver Ranney came to Chester from Genoa, New York.  He was married in 1820 to Lynda Adams, daughter of Samuel Adams, of Genoa, New York, and settled on lot 24, tract 1.  To them were born four children, viz., Emily, now Mrs. E. O..Lyman; Thomas, deceased; Julius B., who lives on the old home stead; and Alice, also, who is single.  Mr. Ranney died September, 1876, aged nearly eighty.  Mrs. Ranney still survives, at the age of seventy-eight.
     AZARIAH LYMAN was born Dec. 6, 1777, in Westhampton, Massachusetts, where he remained until past the meridian of life.  From Westhampton he removed to Norwich, in the same State, where he resided seven years, when he came to Chester, arriving in the year 1823, at which time there were but thirty-nine families in the township.  He and Nicholas Cottrell traded their Massachusetts farms for lands on the Western Reserve belonging to Solomon Stoddard, and they came together with their families in Ohio, Cottrell however, settling in Willoughby.  The deed from Stoddard to Lyman, now in possession of E. O. Lyman, commences thus: “We, Solomon Stoddard, Jr., of Northampton, in the county of Hampshire and commonwealth of Massachusetts, Esq., and Sarah Stoddard, his wife, and Azariah Lyman, of Chester, in the county of Geauga and State of Ohio, yeoman," etc.  He located on lot 25, tract 1.  He married, Nov. 27, 1799, Rhoda Rust, of Westhampton, Massachusetts.  The children of this marriage are Fidelia, deceased, Sophrona, deceased, Roenna, now the widow of Alonzo Meloin.  She lives in Wisconsin.  Rhoda, widow of Seth Frissell, lives in Chester, and Mary dead.
     The date of his second marriage was Jan. 8, 1811, to Sarah Bartlett, of Westhampton, Massachusetts, his first wife having died Nov. 17, 1809.  The children of the second marriage are Newman R., deceased, Elihu O., of Mulberry Corners, Melissa, wife of E. W. Page, of Bloomfield. New Jersey, and Osman A., deceased. Mrs. Lyman (2d) died Aug. 14, 1859.  He died May12, 1857.
     The youngest of the children. Osman A. Lyman, possessed superior ability.  He graduated at Western Reserve College in the summer of 1844.  He was educated for the legal profession, and in early manhood practiced law with good success and promise of reaching high honors in the profession.  But, obeying his convictions of duty, he turned his back upon the vocation of his choice, with all its flattering prospects of honor and wealth, and entered the ministry.  During the war he served a portion of the time as chaplain of the Forty-first and Ninety-third Ohio Regiments.  He was, in May, 1868, installed pastor of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian church in Cleveland, in which capacity he labored faithfully and successfully until he was stricken down with paralysis, in the very prime of life, in the forty-sixth year of his age.  Dr. Lyman stood in the very front rank of the Cleveland clergy for ability and usefulness.
     As a matter of old-time interest, I insert from the tax duplicate of the county, for 1877, a. list of the charter-owners of taxable personal property, horses and cattle, and the tax assessed.

 

ORGANIZATION.

     Chester was early known by the name of Wooster, a name given it by Justice Minor.  In the Newbury woods, across my father’s land, was a well-beaten trail which we called the “Wooster road," coming from the northwest, and conducting to Punderson’s mills, on which at an early day the Wooster men often journeyed.  As will be remembered, the township of Chester, by that name formed of towns 7 and 8, of range 8, was established in October, 1816.  Chester as thus formed remained till March, 1827, when township 7 was detached and became Russell.
     The organization of the old Chester was effected the same year, and the first town meeting for election of township officers was held at the house of William A. Hudson, on Monday, Nov/ 18, 1816.  Justice Miner was called to the chair, and Silas Tanner and William N. Hudson chosen judges.  The following officers
were elected: Town Clerk, William N. Hudson; Trustees, Amos Satterlee, Silas Tanner, Justice Miner; Overseers of the Poor, James Gillmore, Lebbius Norton; Appraiser of Property, Philo Miner; Lister, Lebbius Norton; Fence Viewers, David Allison, John Roberts; Supervisor, James Gillmore; Constable, Philo Miner; Treasurer, Ashbel Gillmore; Justice of the Peace, Justice Miner.
     To these we append the township officers for 1878: Assessor, Ira Lyman; Treasurer, E. M. Lyman; Clerk, B. D. Ames; Trustees, H. A. Herrick, M. C. Ferry, R. Scott; Constables, A. P. Post, H. Damon; Justices of the Peace, T. E. Smith, J. R. Reed.
     The following have been the justices of the peace of Chester, and elected in the order named: Justice Miner, Silas Tanner, Lebbius Norton (serving fifteen years), Hatsel Hurlburt, S. B. Philbrick (fourteen years), Erastus Bates, Bela Shaw (six years), Austin Bisbee, James E. Stephenson (fifteen years), Philetus Hovey, Henry Damon, Silas T. Gillmore, Tracy W. Scott, Lucius Bartlett (six years), John Curtis, Tracy E. Smith, John Reed.  Those whose time of service is not mentioned held the office for a shorter period.

RELIGION-—PREACHERS.

Conspicuous as Chester became for a high religious character, there is little evidence that the first comers were conspicuous for early piety.  Dr. Hudson says that until 1809 there were but two sermons preached to them.  These were by Rev. Thomas Robbins, third missionary to the Reserve.  They were not in the habit of assembling for worship, “nor is it known that a family altar was erected there till the beginning of 1810."  Early in 1809, Rev. Hosea Shefiield, a Methodist, visited his friends in Chester, and preached to them.  In 1810, Rev. Thomas Barr made a passing call, preached, and tried to induce the inhabitants to hold regular public worship.  It was objected that no man in the settlement could “speak in prayer."  He recommended Davidge’s “Rise and Progress," to be used standing, as a substitute, which was acted upon, not without effect.  Dr. Hudson thinks he observed a falling off in profanity, as if men used to swear in Chester.  But it was in the wilderness then.  Evidently the sturdy young man set up that “family altar" about these times, and soon came to “speak in prayer" at the Sabbath meetings.  During the first of these exercises, Esquire Miner had been in Burton with his children for the benefit of a. school.  On his return he entered the place of worship on the Sabbath and said, abruptly, “Mr. Hudson, I understand you have prayed in meeting; I would like to hear you." 
Being thus challenged, the brave youth responded, as he says, “at first in a very broken manner, but soon the mouth began to be filled with arguments, and finally found ready access to the throne of grace, and more freedom than had ever before been experienced in that privileged exercise.”  Notwithstanding this set back, I think the elder Miner and Philo held to their own notions.  A school house was set up in 1812, and from that time Chester bore sabbatical witness in the cause of orthodox Christianity.  The zealous Methodists came and preached, a class was formed, and “family altars” arose.
     Then came pious James. Gilmore, a devout Baptist, who struck hands with

---------------
     *By the record, he married Remitty Corchran, of Cleveland, Feb. 5, 1809.

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the stanch Hudson, “and a missionary now and then came to feed the hungry inhabitants."  Once in four weeks came a hard-riding, hard-working, faithful Methodist around in his orbit of four hundred miles.  Other zealous workers, among them Elder Stephenson, came in time, and Chester saw many “powerful revivals;” and the various branches of the church - Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, and the later Disciples - gathered large and most respectable memberships.  Of these

THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL

THE PRESBYTERIAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.

THE BAPTIST CHURCH.

THE FIRST FREE-WILL BAPTIST CHURCH.

THE DISCIPLES' CHURCH.

SCHOOLS.

THE WESTERN RESERVE FREE-WILL BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY.

POST-OFFICES.

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TAVERNS.

     John Roberts built the first hotel in the township, which was located on the Chillicothe road, near the south line of township (date not given).  The only tavern at present in the township is that of O. Shattuck at the cross-roads.  Austin Turner opened one at the Centre; at the same time he commenced merchandising there, which was continued till many years after his death.

PHYSICIANS.

     Dr. Ira Lyman, physician and surgeon, received his degree at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, and soon after located in Chester.
     Dr. Warren H. Gardner, physician and surgeon, came to the cross-roads about three months since from Nottingham, near Cleveland.

POPULATION.

     In 1850 the census shows 1103; in 1860, 865 an astonishing falling off for ten years; in 1870, 727, - a further diminution of 138; a total of 376 in twenty years.  See some observations on this grave matter in the history of Russell.

STATISTICS FOR 1878.

     Chester, next to Newbury, has the longest list of suicides, of which Origen Miner furnishes the following account:
     Some time about 1850, Elder Thomas B. Stephenson, a worthy minister of the Baptist church of Chester, became deranged, I think, during a fit of sickness; but after he had recovered, his derangement continued, so that he needed watching for some time after; but at length recovered from his derangement so as to preach occasionally.  I think it was during the winter of 1851 and 1852 that he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor - while on his bed.
     In the month of August, 1853, Silas Williams, a young man, son of David and Anna Williams, became partially deranged, so that his friends had applied for medical advice in his behalf.  Towards the close of the month he cut his throat - I think with a pocket-knife - and died.
     It was in the month of November - about 1870 - that Mr. Asahel Baker, a man sixty years of age, cut his throat with an axe.  He was found some distance from his house.  He had shown signs of derangement previous to his death.
     I believe it was in September - about 1872 - that Elijah W. Scott, a worthy member of the Disciple church, in Chester, cut. his throat with a pocket-knife, and was found dead, or nearly so, some distance from his house.  He had been subject to seasons of depression of spirits for several years.  He was about sixty five years old.
     It was in the winter - I cannot remember the year - that Mr. Edwin Herrick, of Chester, requested his brother to take him to the lunatic asylum, as he was getting deranged; but his brother thought it was not necessary, and did nothing about it.  A few days after he hung himself with a log-chain in his barn.
     About two years ago,  James Baker, son of Asahel Baker, told his friends that he wanted to see his father.  They suspected he was deranged, and watched him as much as possible; but he hung himself in the barn a few days later.  These were all persons of good moral character, and at least three of them professors of religion.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

LIBBEUS NORTON
S. B. PHILBRICK.