Source:
GENERAL HISTORY
of
GEAUGA COUNTY
with
SKETCHES of
Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men
Publ. by
The Historical Society of Geauga County
1880

RUSSELL.
BY SAMUEL ROBINSON, ESQ.
Pg. 109

     RUSSELL TOWNSHIP is No. 7, range 9, in the Connecticut Western Reserve.

FIRST SETTLERS.

     The first settlers were the Russell family, consisting of Gideon Russell, wife and five children - three sons and two daughters, namely: Ebenezer, William, Alpheus, Jemima, and Sally.  They moved into the woods, in the year 1818, on the Chillicothe road, a little south of the center of the township.  For about two years they were the only inhabitants that we know of.  In the fall of 1820 Mr. Simeon Norton moved in with his family, consisting of himself and his wife, Sally, and one daughter, Melinda.  he built a split and hewed log house, which is now standing, about half a mile south of the center on the north part of what is now known as the Benjamin Mathews farm, but was then the Russell farm.  The house has been removed.  It was built by Mr. Norton back from the Chillicothe road some sixty rods or more, near a spring and not far from a road that was laid out from Cleveland to Warren, and partially opened for travel.  The Norton family was the second in town, and Orson Norton, the pioneer baby, was born on the thirty-first day of March, 1821, being the first white child born in Russell, now living in Solon.  Mr. Norton moved, in the fall of 1821, to what was then known as the Eggleston Mills, in the southwest part of Bainbridge, now owned by James Fuller, son of Thomas Fuller the founder of Fullertown, at the northeast corner of Russell, in 1821 or 1822.

THE CHILLICOTHE ROAD.

NAME - EARLY PROPRIETORS.

     The township was named Russell in 1827, I suppose, in honor of the first settlers.  I think it was the last township settled and named in the county of Geauga, which at that time embraced Lake County within its limits.  At the commencement of its settlement, it was called the West Woods by the people of Newbury.  The reason why it was not settled as soon as the adjoining townships, I suppose, to be that the speculators who bought of the Connecticut Land company, held it out of the market, or held it above the market price.  In 1810 Samuel Huntington had about four hundred acres in the northwest quarter of the township.  Henry Champion owned one thousand acres, and the heirs of Daniel L. Coit owned a large quantity in the north and east parts of the township.  Thomas and Frederick Kinsman owned a strip, about a mile wide,

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through the center of the town east and west, and Aristarchus Champion owned a large part of the south half of Russell.

EARLY EVENTS.

     Clark Robinson moved from Shaftsbury, Bennington County, Vermont, to Middlefield, in the fall of 1820, and in 1825,mvoed to the west part of Newbury, and bought a lot of land in Russell Center, division of Thomas Kinsman, on the east line of the township, at three dollars per acre.  He commenced the woods near the spring, where his son, David, now lives, and on the eighth of November, 1825, moved his family, consisting of his wife, Rebecca, and four children - three sons, Clark, Edwin and David, and one daughter, Phebe, into the body of a log house, put up the day before, with no roof; had some loose boards for a floor, and in the night, had to get up and put up some boards endways to keep of the rain and snow.  The old lady, between eighty and ninety years of age, lives with her son, David, on the same old farm.  She has probably done more hard work in the township than any other woman, having lived in it more than fifty years.
     Clark Robinson built the first frame buildings.  The first was a cheese house, and is yet standing. The next was a barn.  It was the custom, at that time, to name buildings when they were raised, and have a jug of whiskey at the raising.  At this raising the boss, Samuel Coleman, took the jug and stood on the ridge-pole, and as many as had a mind to, and were sober enough, went up and stood with him and swung their hats and hurrahed while he named the building and threw the jug down into the gulley below the spring.  Three of the first settlers in that part of the township came from Vermont, and married sisters - William Jones, Thomas Manchester, and Clark Robinson.  Jones located on the north side of the center road, on the east line of the township opposite the Clark Robinson farm, and paid two dollars and seventy-five cents per acre for his purchase, cash down; and Manchester made his purchase and located farther to the west.  Roswell Jones, son of William Jones, lives on the old farm, and is the most extensive land owner in town.  The three sisters were smart, energetic women, reared among the hills of Vermont, near the Green mountains, and were well calculated to endure the hardships of a new country.  When David Robinson was six weeks old he started from Vermont undertake a journey of five hundred miles under such circumstances.

     First School House - The first frame school-house in town was built on the Jones farm, and is now used as a blacksmith shop at the center, by William Chase, an ingenious workman.
     We have two blacksmith shops at the center.  The other is run by Jacob Chase, at present a justice of the peace, township clerk, and postmaster.
     John Robinson was the first teacher in the new house, and was followed by Esquire Utley, an old settler of Newbury.
     The first election held in the township was on the second day of April, 1827.  There were twelve votes cast.  Ebeneaer Russell was elected clerk; Gideon Russell, Clark Robinson and John Lowry were elected trustees; Jonathan Rathbone and John C. Bell were elected overseers of the poor; Thomas Manchester and James M. Smith were elected fence viewers; William Russell was elected supervisor of highways for district No. 1.  April 10th, the trustees met and laid off the township into two highway districts.
     Clark Robinson was the first justice of the peace elected in Russell.  His commission bears date October 25, 1827.
     Mr. John Bell came to Russell with his family of seven children from Mass-

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achusetts, in the fall of 1821.  Jonathan Rathburn and family moved in from Newburgh in 1823.  Then Lewis Street, Silas Barker, Mr. Black, Mr. Goodwell and others soon after, settled in the south part of the township.

     First School Teacher. - Lucy Squire taught the first school in the back part of Jonathan Rathburn's house, in 1829.  She has been unfortunate, and became partially deranged, and after wandering about the streets for many years, became an inmate of the insane asylum at Newburg in 1877.
     The first meetings were held in the south neighborhood, by a missionary sent by some society, with instructions to get what pay he could by contributions where he preached, and the society would make up the balance of his salary.  It is said that the contributions were rather dry, the six pences being scarce at that time.

     First Wedding - Mr. John Bachelor, of Newbury, and Miss Sally Russell were the first couple married in the township.  The ceremony took place on the twenty-sixth day of November, 1825.

     First Death. - Abel Brockway was the first man who died in Russell.  He was living with Mr. Rathburn, and had been boiling sap until the nine o'clock in the evening; he came in, and went to bed apparently as well as usual, was taken sick in the night, and yelled, and then came down stairs with his pants in his hand.  They saw that he was very sick, and sent George Bell to Aurora for the doctor, but before he came to Brockway, he was dead.  His death, perhaps, was the most sudden of any that has occurred in the township, without any known cause.

     Blacksmith - The first blacksmith shop was built near where David Robinson now lives.  William Chase, sr., was the first blacksmith.

     Doctors - The first physician located in the township, was Dr. Brown.  He came to the Center in 1842, staid about a year, and was of the regular practice.
     Doctors Eggleston and Ayres, both botanic physicians, came soon after Dr. Brown left, and staid a few years.  Then Dr. Clark, botanic, located a little in Russell for doctors to stay long.
     Clark Robinson started the first store, traded in anything the people had to sell, and kept for sale such goods as were then needed.  One of the staple articles of commerce at that time was black salts - something that every one could make that had land to clear up, by saving the ashes from the burnt log heaps and leaching them, and boiling the lye down to salts, which he would buy and haul to Pittsburgh and trade for mails, glass and other necessaries, there not being many superfluities when calico was forty-four cents a yard, and girls worked out for fifty cents a week.  C. Robinson took the job to cut the timber and log out the east and west road through the center of the town; he built the store and hotel at the center; was the first man in the township that bought cattle and drove them east.  He died March 21, 1840.  Clark Robinson, jr., married Emeline Munn, and died in Newbury, December 6, 1848.  Edwin Robinson married Almena Prouty, and now lives in Newbury with his third wife.  David Robinson, married Candace Scott and lives on the old farm.  Phebe Robinson married Theodore King, and lives in Harpersfield, Ashtabula county.  Nathan Robinson, jr., half brother of C. Robinson, came to Russell in September, 1826, married Mary Morton of Newbury, and went into the grist mill and distilling business in Newbury.  They had one daughter, and in a few years his wife died, when he married Miss Laura Chase, for his second wife.  They had three children - George, Calvin, and Sophia, who are all living.  Nathan moved from Newbury to Orange river, sold out in 1843 and dissolved partnership.  Nathan Robinson moved to Russell and bought the saw-mill west of the center; run it

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until July, 1851, when he was killed while breaking a pair of colts, being run over by the wagon, and died in about an hour, at the age of forty-seven.  After a few years his widow married Mr. Irben Green, and lives in the western part of Ohio.

     Edwin Robinson says that about fifty years ago the winter was so mild and warm that the herbage grew in the woods so that Esquire Hickox, of Burton, he drove a hundred head of cattle down to Russell, in March, to feed them there.  He helped to watch and yard them nights, and they did well without any other feeding.  In 1832 N. S. Robinson took a job to make a road across the gulley on the east and west center road in Russell, about three-quarters of a mile west of the center.  They took an ox-team and sled, with tools and provisions, and followed the newly cut road until they came to the river, went up stream to find a place to cross, had to cut away the underbrush to get along, built a brush shanty to sleep in nights, had straw and blankets for bedding and built a fire to cook pork and potatoes over.  There the writer did more cooking than ever he had done before or since.  It took three of them and a team a week to do the job, for which they received seventeen dollars in cash.

LOCATION - NATURAL FEATURES.

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MILLS.

SCHOOLS.

CHURCHES.

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BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.

SECRET SOCIETY

SOUTH RUSSELL.

     The South Russell cemetery is located about a half mile west of Soule's Corners, on a nice, dry, gravelly knoll.  One-half acre was purchased of S. R. Willard, Nov. 15, 1849, for forty dollars.  In 1863 it was enlarged.  A strip two rods wide, on the south side, was bought of Isaac Rairick for ten dollars, and added to the lot.  The first one buried there was Stephen Losey, who was killed by a tree falling on him while chopping.  This was first public burying-ground located in Russell.  Before this time, for about thirty

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years, many of the dead were buried in family burying-grounds.  There are quite a number of them in the township.
     Nathan Robinson, sr., died in Russell, Dec. 2, 1860, at the age of ninety-seven, and was buried in the family burying-ground of his son Clark.   Asa Robinson came to Newbury in 1818, from Massachusetts, and died at the residence of his son Benjamin, in Russell, in 1844, aged seventy-three.  He had a family of nine children, five sons and four daughters- four sons now living in Russell.  Artemus and Benjamin came in 1835.  Artemus located at the center; Benjamin a little south.  John Robinson was one of the clerks at an election held in Russell in n1827, and now lives about a mile north of the center.  David lives in the southwest part of the township.
     Anson Mathews was a justice of the peace of Russell in 1833.  He was a prominent business man, and a member of the legislature about 1847.
     David Osborn, an early settler in the southwestern part of the township, died Mar. 26, 1849, aged eighty-nine years and nine months.  His wife, aged fifty-six, died the same day, and both were buried in the same grave.
     Benjamin Mathew came to Russell from Massachusetts in 1832, with his family.  Mrs. Mathews died in April, 1873.  The children are married; some living in Ohio, some in Michigan.
     Harry Isham and Tabor Warren came to Russell about 1835, and located on the Chillicothe road, about one and one-half miles south of the center.  Mr. Isham died in 1855.  Mr. Warren is still living these.
     Harry Burnett, one of the early settlers of Newbury, came to Russell in 1843.  Mr. Burnett and wife are living with their son, Joshua, west of Soule's Corners.  Both are between eighty and ninety years of age.
     Ithiel Wilber and wife, also from Newbury, are living where A. L. Soule did before he went to Michigan.
     Parley Wilder, one of our oldest citizens, lives east of the corners.
     John Lines, living southeast of the center, on the Champion tract, paid eight dollars per acre in 1848.

POPULATION - DROUTH.

     The population of Russell in 1840 was seven hundred and forty-two, and in 1850, was one thousand and eighty-three; from about that time it has been growing less.  In 1852 there were over fifty scholars in the center school district, now less than ten (in other districts the decrease is less), and there are some reasons for it.  One is, the children have grown u and gone, another is, one man has bought out his neighbors, their farms have become larger, and schools less.  It is estimated that the population has decreased about one-third.
     The great drouth of 1845 was very severe.  The district of country that suffered the most, was about one hundred miles in length, and fifty or sixty in width, extending along the southern shore of Lake Erie.  Geauga county suffered greatly.  There was no rain from about the first of April until the tenth of June, when it rained a little for one day; no more until the second of July, when it rained enough to make the roads a little muddy; no more until September.  Many wells, springs and streams of water became dry, and others nearly so.  The grass crop almost entirely failed, the pastures in some places were so dry that the dust would rise in walking over them.  The grass in meadows would burn like a stubble.  Corn and oats were nearly a failure, some fields of wheat were not harvested; scions set in the nursery dried up; forest trees shed their leaves much earlier than usual; many withered.  The grasshoppers were so plenty, and green herbage so scarce that they trimmed thistles and elders by the roadside.

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DAIRY INTERESTS.

SONS OF TEMPERANCE.

     July 13, 1876, there was a division of the order of the sons of temperance organized at the center of Russell, with about forty charter members, called Russell Center Division, No. 44, Sons of Temperance.  The first officers were: Jacob Ghase, W. P.; Mrs. Marion Wilber, W. A.; W. A. Chase, R. S.; A. E. Pelton, A. R. S.; S. Robinson, treasurer; Joseph Wooley, chaplain; H. S. Black, P. G. W. P.; W. A. Pelton, O. S.; Mrs. W. A. Pelton, I. S.; Herman Green, C.; Mrs. Herman Green, A. C.

AN EARLY EVENT.

     About forty years ago it was said that there had been some land cleared in the northwest part of Russell, and had grown up to bushes and briars, and it was called Huntington place.  No one seemed to know when it was done, until now, I have found a sister of the pioneer.  She says her brother, David Huntington, came to Russell about 1820 or 1821, and bought a piece of land in the northwest quarter of the township, but a log house on what is called the Burgess farm, made a clearing, raised a piece of wheat there; that his health failed him, and he left the place in four years.  Being unable to work, he wrote to his brother Daniel, and in 1827 he came from New York State, and went on the place and lived there a while; that their neighbors were in "Chester, on the north, to get corn; would take a bushel and carry it home on his back at night, and the next day take it to Fuller's mill to be ground, and home again the same way, making in all about ten miles' travel with a bushel on his back.  No wonder he left.

POLITICAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS.

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vice-president; Miss Lucy A. Robinson, secretary; Haven Roberts, treasurer.

BUSINESS INTERESTS.

     Wagon Makers - the first wagon makers in town were Alfred Smith & Bro.  They came about 1844, built a lot of wagons for Nathan Robinson, at the saw-mill, then located at the center, and stayed until 1852, when C. L. Bartlett, our present wagon maker, came.
     Shoemakers. - The first shoemaker, that I know of, in town was Thomas Manchester, who located in the east part of Russell; then Hiram Jones, Ansel Savage, Emery Savage, and others.  Hiram Jones built the first shop at the center; had plenty of work for a number of years.  There has been no shoemaker here for the last ten or fifteen years.  All have left; as also have the tailors.  The people buy their boots, shoes, and clothing, ready-made.
     Taylors. - Benjamin Goodell was the first tailor in town.  He located in the south part, and was there in 1832.  Mr. ____ Heath had a tailor shop at the center for a few years.  He left the place in 1850, or about that time.
     Postmasters. - Ebenezer Russell was the first postmaster in the township.  His compensation, the first quarter, amounted to about thirty-one cents.  Christopher Edic was the next postmaster.  He, living at the center, held the office awhile under postmaster Russel - when he was appointed.  Iddo Bailey, jr., says that he has carried the mail from Russell to Cleveland, nineteen miles, several times on foot - but generally on horseback.

THE CONTRAST.

     In the art gallery at the centennial were found two portraits, in the exhibit of that enterprising photographer, Ryder of Cleveland; one of Col. A. S. Parks of Elyria, Ohio, who, in 1820, carried the mail from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, Ohio, on horseback; and, by the side of it, that of General Geo. S. Bangs, who, in 1875, inaugurated the means of carrying the mail over the same route, in fifty ton lots, a mile a minute.
     Samuel Robinson came to Russell, in 1830, was married to Miranda Patterson, of Newbury, Dec. 2, 1832; went into partnership with his brother, Nathan, continued in it about fourteen years, under the firm name of N. & S. Robinson; bought a grist-mill and distillery, that Henry Burnett and Ithiel Wilber had built, in Newbury, on the east branch of Silver creek, just before it runs into Russell.  They ran them about seven years; did custom work in the mill.  Besides grinding for the still, they ground many grists that men and boys brought on their backs from Russell and the west part of Newbury  They had the underbrush cut out through the woods, from the Bell settlement to the Chillicothe road, so that the people could come to mill with ox-sleds, stone-boats, on horseback, or a-foot.  Some came from Bainbridge.  The mill was in the woods, between two roads that were a mile apart; yet it was not very lonesome there.  They had a good run of custom, for some reason or other.  The mill-stones were worked out of solid flint rocks, or large hard-heads; were four feet across, and the runner would weigh over a tone.  Mr. Thomas Billings, of Newbury, said that he helped get them out, and that they cost about sixty dollars.  They have been at works in three places - first in Newbury, next to Orange and then in Russell, where they now lie buried, where the Bailey saw-mill stood.

CASUALTIES.

     The saddist affair that has ever occurred in Russell was the burning of Mr. Cyrus Millard's house, Mar. 7, 1843, when a brother of Mr. Millard's aged fourteen, and four children, the oldest seven and the youngest two years old (one son and three daughters), were burnt to death in it, while Millard and wife were gone to a neighbor's in the evening.  How it too fire is not known.

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     Joseph Holland, a young man about seventeen or eighteen years of age, just over from England, was drowned while trying to cross the Chagrin river in a canoe, Dec. 2, 1847.  About this time, or perhaps before, there was a man by the name of Jerome living near the northwest corner of the township; a lame man.  One stormy day, late in November, he went to the center and got a jug of whiskey, started for home towards night but failed to reach there.  The next day search was made for him.  It having snowed that night huge was not found until the following day.  When found he was sitting up against a tree, dead and frozen, with his jug standing beside him.
     In the spring of 1851 Mr. Lyman Washburn was killed by the fall of a tree.
     In the fall of 1851 Frank Newel was killed by the fall of a limb from a tree during a shower.  He was the first one buried in the new burying ground of north Russell, but it was filled up quite fast since then.
     Northwest Russell began to be settled about 1833.  Charles T. Bailey, George Edic, and John Wooley were about the first in the woods, about 1836.  Alexander Frazer, David Nutt, and Joseph Wooley came soon after.  IN 1838 and 1839 provisions were very high and scarce.  Joseph Wooley said that he and some others traveled in four townships before they could find anything to make bread of.  They would eat coons, woodchucks and wild turkeys, but deer were then scarce, and the first settlers not used to hunting, being mostly foreigners.
     In 1840, 1841 and 1842 J. M. Chiles, James Logan, Allen Burgess, Orrin Ford, Van Valkenburghs, Judd, Barber, David Houghton, Washburn, the Coltons, and others, all built log houses, had logging bees, were sociable and friendly, went to meeting on foot or with ox and sled, wagon or stone boat, worked hard, slept well, and took comfort.  About 1838 there was a revival of religion when Joseph Wooley joined the Methodist church.  He was very active and took a prominent part in the cause; was recemmended by the class to the quarterly conference, and was licensed to exhort in 1845, appointed deacon in 1854, and ordained in 1859, by Bishop Scott.  He was yet with us, a good, faithful, christian man, well liked as a neighbor and preacher.  there have been two others preachers raised here in the woods - Henry Whipple who  became an emment preacher of the Free Will Baptist order, a self made man.  In 1840 he had a little hut made of poles and covered with poles and brush.  It stood near where the Weslyan meeting house now stands.  It was called "Henry Whipple's study."  Henry S. Childs was born and brought up here, he went to Oberlin a year, and is now preaching for the Wesleyan order.
     I am indebted to Mr. J. M. Childs for a considerable portion of the history of northwest Russell.

THE GREAT FRESHET.

     On the morning of Sept. 13, 1878, the Chagrin river rose higher than it had ever been known to rise before.  It had been raining steadily for three days, the rain falling in torrents on the night of the twelfth.  The destruction of property was very great.  Cattle, Sheep, fences, fields of grain, mill-dams and bridges were swept away.

MILITARY ROSTER.
pg. 119
_________

     It was the policy of our fathers to prepare for war in time of peace, hence we had company trainings and general trainings; but the militia system was so changed that trainings ceased, and the Rebellion found us unprepared for war.

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