SETTLEMENT, 1816.

     However inviting, Munson was among the later settled, dating nearly with Russell and Montville in this respect.  Samuel Hopson is the conceded first settler.  He built the first cabin in the summer of 1816. Hopson was one of the earlier settlers of Burton, removed from there to Mesopotamia, where he remained two years, when he penetrated the Munson woods, built his cabin, in which he place

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his family the autumn following.  This first white man's residence stood some thirty rods in the rear of the present residence of Thomas Carroll, a mile or so southwest of the centre.  His family consisted of a wife and four sons.  He was a man of note in those days.  For many years he had the agency of the lands of Titus Street, a proprietor of the township, until he was superseded by Seabury Ford.  His name occurs among the supervisors elected for Burlington, in April, 1817, was the first justice of the peace, was an intelligent, hospitable man, a member of the Presbyterian church, well to do, and died about the year 1840, followed by his wife two or three years later.  His sons’ names are Lucien, Addison, Calvin, and Samuel P.  A daughter was born to him two years after settling in Munson.  Samuel P. removed to Mississippi, and was engaged in devising means for the destruction of the “northern hordes" in the first years of the Rebellion.* T he rest of the family have disappeared from the vicinity of their Munson residence.
     LEMUEL RIDER also became a settler in Munson, in 1816.  A native of Connecticut, a resident of Vermont, a rover on the seas as a cabin boy in his youth, which he quit on reaching manhood. Being a sensible man, he came to Munson, and took up six hundred acres of land on the north line, in section one.  He drove in a team of oxen, brought his wife and five children, - William, Betsey, Stephen, Adna, and Edward.  Four were born to the parents later, - Laura, Truman, Lemuel, and Calvin.  Of these, Edward is now a resident of Mentor; Adna, wife of Albert Hoyt, resides in Stockton, Illinois; Lemuel also in Mentor; and Calvin on the homestead, only survive.  Lemuel, Sr., died in June, 1848, aged seventy-two years, and his widow in February, 1872, aged ninety.  They were buried in a family burying-place on the farm owned by Edward.  Lemuel Rider was a useful man in his day.  He collected the waters of several springs, formed a water-power, and set up a grist-mill and carding-machine in 1822.  These important structures were many years since destroyed by fire, of unknown origin.
     In 1818, Asahel Davis, a stalwart, dark-brewed youth, walked from Canandaigua. New York, to Munson woods, with his knapsack, and settled on the brow of beautiful Maple hill, near the southern line.  He cleared some twelve acres, built a cabin, and in 1820 wedded Anna H., daughter of Asa and Betsey Hamblin, then at
the age of seventeen, - the first marriage in the township.  The young couple moved into the doorless, chimneyless house, and lived through the first winter in that condition, missing nothing.  The old maple wood, the grandest in all the forest, protected them from the severity of the season.  Faithful, true, industrious, prosperity attended the couple.  Near this first cabin, in 1836, they erected a stately dwelling for that day.  Mr. Davis died in 1864, aged sixty-eight, and was buried in the Maple hill burying-ground.  His widow, at the age of seventy-five, with mind unimpaired, and full of the memories of these early days, still occupies this dwelling.  This honored couple were the parents of twelve children, seven of whom survive.  Maria, the wife of Edwin Tuttle, lives in Munson; Augustus and his sister Minerva, wife of Hercules Carroll, in Iowa; Newton, in Wisconsin; Asahel H., physician, in Willoughby, Lake County; Hartzell, in Kansas; Adaline, wife of Addison Benton, in Chardon.  Two brothers of Asahel, Sylvester and Addison, moved into Hanson in 1817, with their families, and settled on Maple hill, living in their wagons, as many did till their cabins were ready.  They moved away years ago, and died leaving no descendants in Munson.  Christopher Langdon came from Chardon, where he was an early settler, into Munson in 1818, and purchased three hundred acres of the Phelps tract.  He at that time had five children.  Lothrop now lives in Tuscarawas county, Ohio.  Mary became the wife of
H. Canfield, of Chardon, and died in Illinois in 1877.  Sylvanus also died in Illinois.  Caroline, who married a Mr. Stone, is a widow in Claridon.  Francis lives in Illinois.  Langdon, Sr., was a man of enterprise, and built a grist-mill, the first in Munson, the year of his settlement there.  He also erected a saw-mill in 1820.  He died in 1823.
     In 1818 or 1819 Isaiah Hamblin and family came, built a cabin, cleared land, and in 1832 became a Mormon and cleared out.  With him came Thomas Stodder and family, who settled also.  They came from Vermont.  None of these  remained in Munson.
     In the year 1819 Asa Hamblin and wife, with whom came Mrs. Asahel Davis, and his brother Barnabas with their families, settled in Munson.  They stopped in Conneaut, came on and stayed one night with Lemuel Rider, who piloted them through the woods to their place of appointment, rest, and toil on thirty-two, East Division.  Asa moved away and died long ago.  Barnabas worked through in Munson, and died at the age of eighty, a year since.  In the autumn of the same year, Nathan Mann and his son Benjamin came from Vermont and purchased south of Fowler's mills. In the house they built there was preached the first sermon in Munson, by Mr. A. Porter, a year or two later.
     Elijah Hovey, from Munson, Massachusetts, reached Munson the same year, 1819.  He took up about two hundred acres on the north line, and more subsequently.  He brought his wife, three sons, Oliver, Horace, and Hiram, all of whom settled in Munson.  They had one daughter**, the wife of Loren Parsons, who came with the Munns to Newbury in 1818, returned, was married, and moved to Munson in 1828.  Hovey, Sr., was a man of wealth and peculiarities.  He and his wife were at ripe middle age when they reached Ohio, and after
a short sojourn returned to Massachusetts.  Made two or three journeys; on the last Hovey died in New York.  The wife returned, and died in Massachusetts.  Hiram married Abigail Foster, who lives in Munson.  He died.  Oliver also married.  He and his wife died; the daughter lives west.  The four sons live in Munson.  The daughter also.
     Orrin Parsons, a son of the daughter, resides in Newbury.  His father and mother, who resided in Munson, died many years ago.
     Hovey built the first framed house in the township, on the Munson and Chester road, half a mile west of the stone bridge.  The house, extended and improved, still stands. It is claimed that quite all the male population of Munson were present at the “ raising" of this edifice, and did many things of township interest among them; a vote was taken to change its name to that of Munson, in honor of the town of Mr. Hovey’s Massachusetts residence.  When the first “bent" was set up, Captain Roswell Eaton, master-carpenter, broke upon it a bottle of whisky, as on the christening of a newly-launched ship, and declared that the township was named Munson, which was received with cheers and whisky from the crowd below.
     Caleb M. Peck, from New York, settled on tract three in 1819.  He removed to the northeast corner, built on the State road at the foot of Chardon hill, married the daughter of Hosea Stebbins, and became a man of local note.
     Andrew Hazen, a native of Connecticut, who had lived in Vermont and Pennsylvania, came to Munson in 1820 with his wife and seven children; three of these only are living. Sidney, a bachelor, resides in Munson, Harriet in Indiana, and Lois in Chardon.  Hazen settled on the present farm of Wm. Stephenson.  He was in the battle of Plattsburg, and died in 1836, and his wife in 1854.  Jonathan Haynes came from Vermont in 1820.  Origen Miner tells of the first ball of Munson, a house-warming at Cyrus Davis’ new house, Jan. 1, 1821.  All the young men and maidens of Munson, Chardon, Newbury, and Chester were there.  The day was the coldest ever known in Ohio, as Miner says, before or since, but it did not interfere with the festivity and gayety of the occasion.
     Nathan Porter settled in Munson in 1821.  His land adjoined Hovey's on the west.  He was a Baptist preacher, became a “disciple," and was set apart to preach the word in 1824.  He preached the first sermon in the Munn house, at the request of Samuel Hopson.
     Thomas Hazen came with his wife from Vermont, on the Canada border, in 1822.  He brought his wife, many sons, and one daughter; others were born to them here.  He lost his life accidentally by being thrown from his wagon in 1854.  An uncultured man, of giant frame, and much intellectual endowment; a natural manager, if not a leader of men.  He had six or seven stalwart sons, to whom should be added a son-in-law, Chas. P. Knight, and several other strong men of that day, the Lusks, Parmer Lusk, of unpleasant odor, and others,
who altogether made an important group of rather rude, but not bad men, but who helped to give to the township its early reputation for good-natured lawlessness.  Those were the days when Munson was “ the State of Munson."  Of the sons, S. P. was the oldest, and lives in Munson.  Fayette was a man of thrift, became wealthy, went barefoot, and died.  Ransalier was “Rant Hazen," and went away.  There were the twins, Winfield and Winchester, considerable men, enterprising and active.  The first went west; Winchester is in Munson, as is Livingston.  Mrs. Knight lives in Chardon.  Another daughter, Mrs. E. K. Miller, resides in Munson.  Tom, Jr., “ Jack,” I have no account of.  A granddaughter is Mrs. D. J. Warner, of Fowler’s Mills.
     Jerry Wheeler, a soldier of the war of 1812, married a sister of Banabas Hamblin, and came to Munson in 1822.
     Daniel Hagar, mentioned in the histories of Hambden and Chardon, came and bought the Langdon mills, in 1826.  Drove a team from Dorset, Vermont, to Troy, New York, from there to Buffalo, over the Erie canal; thence by steamboat to Cleveland, - the new route to Ohio from the East.  He owned a mill in Hambden, and one in Chardon, previous to his purchase in Munson.  He repaired the flouring-mill, ran it two years, and, with the restlessness of his nature, moved away.  A taciturn man, good mechanic and miller.  The new mill in Munson was always known the country-side through as Hager’s mill, till rebuilt by Judge Bosley, in 1840 or '41.  John R. Justus settled in Chardon in 1817, went to Munson in 1829, and set up a tannery on the present farm of S. L. Brainard, - the only tannery ever in Munson.  He was married in Chardon, to Abigail Towsley,
in 1818.  She died in 1858.  He in 1862.  He was a soldier in 1812.

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     ** Found a Loren Parsons in 1850 Census Munson, Geauga Co., OH whose wife was listed as Harriet.  There 8 children listed, viz.:  Asahel, Henry, Van, Melina, Alvin, Harry, Mortimore, and Oliver.