GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP
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Greenfield township was organized about the year 1815, and
then embraced the townships of New Haven, Greenfield, Peru,
Norwich and Fairfield, for township purposes, and continued
so until each of the above townships contained a sufficient
number of inhabitants for separate organization. In
the year 1819, the name of this township was changed to
Berlin, and continued by that name until 1822, when the name
of Greenfield was restored. The reason for giving it
the name of Berlin, was owing to there being a Greenfield
township in Highland county, with a postoffice of the same
name. At the restoration of the original name of the
township, the postoffice was called Lafayette, and Joseph
Cook was the first postmaster. The office
continued to be called Lafayette until 1835, when the name
was changed to Steuben.
The surface of the township is generally undulating.
The Huron river enters it about a mile west of the southeast
corner, runs a winding, but, generally, northwest course
through the township, and leaves it a little less than a
mile east of the northwest corner. There are several
small tributaries, the largest of which is the west branch,
which drains the western part of the town.
The original varieties of timber, east of the river,
were principally white wood, black walnut, beech and maple,
with some white oak, butternut and basswood. West of
the river, white and black oak, hickory, beech and maple
were the leading varieties. The soil is a loam of a
sandy or gravelly nature, east of the river, and a clay loam
west of it.
There is a stone quarry on the east bank of Huron
river. It was first opened by Ezra Smith,
at an early date. The quarry underlies a considerable
tract of land, with a dip to the southeast, extending into
Fairfield township, and is sandstone of the newer formation.
The stone varies from an inch to twelve inches in thickness,
and is largely used for building and flagging.
The history of Greenfield has for several reasons a
peculiar interest. The time that has passed since the
pioneer first walked into the wilderness by the side of the
Huron river is almost four score and ten years.
Strange and startling scenes have been enacted upon its
brink, before and since then. The first person that
came into the township of Greenfield, for the purpose of
settlement, was William McKelvey, Jr., who arrived
from Trumbull county in the year 1810. He purchased
one hundred and six acres of land of Caleb Palmer,
of New Haven township, on lot number twenty-five, in the
second section of this township, paying for it in work.
In 1811, he cleared eleven and a half acres and sowed it to
wheat. He had harvested his crop and was putting it in
stacks when the news of Hull’s surrender reached the
settlement. He immediately returned to Trumbull
county, where his father and the rest of the family were
then living, and joined the army as a volunteer for six
months. In the spring of 1814 he returned to
Greenfield, bringing, with a four-horse team and wagon, his
brother-in-law, Truman Gilbert, and his
family. His wheat had been burned during his absence,
evidently by the Indians. The loss was considerable,
as breadstuffs were then high. He afterwards bought
fifteen bushels of the wheat left in stack by Erastus
Smith, on his flight to Trumbull county, for which he
paid forty-five dollars, threshing it himself.
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The
township records prior to the year 1828 have been lost, and
the following facts relatives to the first election for
township officers were furnished by one who was present.
The election was held at the house of Erastus Smith
in the spring of 1816. Joseph Cook was elected
township clerk; Eli Halladay, Bildad Adams and
Nathan Warner, trustees; William McKelvey,
constable; Erastus Smith, justice of the peace.
Having no use for a treasurer none was elected.
According to the "enumeration of the white male
inhabitants of Greenfield above the age of twenty-one
years," as returned to the county clerk by Seba Mather,
lister, for the year 1819, the number of such inhabitants
was one hundred and thirty. Peru was then attached to
Greenfield, and is included in the enumeration.
Hanson Read built the first house in
Greenfield in the spring of 1811.
Franklin Read, son of Hanson and
Elizabeth Read, was the first white child born in this
township. The date was Apr/ 25, 1812.
The first marriage was that of William Smith
to Miss Lovina Pierce, daughter of
Alden Pierce, in 1817. Erastus
Smith, justice of the peace, performed the ceremony.
The first purchasers of the land derived their titles
to their farms, in the first and fourth sections, from
Isaac Mills, of Connecticut; in the second
section from Abecham D. Baldwin and Walter
Bradley, of Connecticut, and Tilley Lynd,
of Homer, New York.
The township of Greenfield was surveyed by Caleb
Palmer, of Trumbull county, assisted by Cyrus W.
Marsh and B. Newcomb, in the year 1811, and
before the war with Great Britain.
As stated before, the first house in the township was
built by Hanson Reed, in the spring of 1811.
This was on section four. The second house was built
by Erastus Smith, in November of the same year.
The above two families and their hired men, C. W. Marsh
and Jacob Rush, were the only white settlers
in the township at the time of Hull’s surrender.
A little later came William McKelvey and his son and
son-in-law, Truman Gilbert, came to the
township without their families, cleared a few acres and
sowed wheat, but did not bring their families until later.
The surrender of Hull exposed the whole
northwest to the ravages of the enemy. The frontier
settlers had to abandon their homes, or run the risk of
being massacred by the savages. The first settlers of
this township chose the former, and did not return until
peace was assured.
The first death in the township was that of an infant
son of Samuel C. and Nancy Spencer, in the spring of
1816. The child was buried on the farm.
Ruth, daughter of David Lovell, was the
first person buried in the cemetery at Greenfield Center.
Her death occurred Feb. 17, 1818, at the age of nearly
fourteen.
Dr. Moses C. Sanders, of the township of Peru,
was one of the earliest physicians that practiced in this
township. The first resident physician was Dr.
Henry Niles, who began the practice of medicine in this
township in the spring of 1831.
The first religious meeting in the township was held at
the cabin of Erastus Smith, on the first Sabbath in
the spring of 1815, on which occasion the Rev.
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Green Parker, from near Milan, officiated. A
church organization was not effected until the year 1822.
In the winter of 1814-15, Hanson Read and
Abram Powers built a grist mill on Huron river, in the
first section, near where the Phoenix Mills now stand.
This was undoubtedly the first grist mill erected in the
county as now constituted. The character of the
establishment was in keeping with those simple times.
The first sawmill was built in 1819, by Josiah
Root, on Huron river. The next was built by Hiram
C Spencer, east of the center of town, on the river, a
short distance below the bridge. It was built about the year
1827 or 1828. and did a large business. A few years
after, Archibald Easter erected a sawmill, and at
about the same time one was built by Dan Lindsey on
the west branch of the river.
It is impossible for the young people of the present
day to understand the conditions of living in the new
settlement. The first settlers in Greenfield were
among the first in the county, and they were completely
isolated from all the appliances of civilization. The
nearest mill, at which grinding was done, was at Owl Creek,
a great many miles distant, through an unbroken forest.
The grain was ground in the order of its reception at the
mill, and sometimes several days would be consumed in going
to mill and back. It was customary for one person to
take the milling of the entire neighborhood, when going with
a team. While there are no instances of suffering from
want of necessary food, in the history of this township,
provisions were by no means plenty. Wheat was at one
time three dollars per bushel, and other articles of food in
proportion. William McKelvey on one
occasion went to Owl Creek to buy some pork, and could only
find some of the “shack” variety, for which he paid
forty-four cents per pound. The meat was a poor
substitute for that of the domestic hog, being spongy and of
ill flavor. For fresh meat the early settlers had
venison and other wild game so plenty at times as to become
a drug.
In the matter of necessary clothing, the pioneers
experienced a greater difficulty. The families, in
general, came well furnished with wearing apparel, but a
year or two of wear and tear in the woods sadly diminished
their stock. Flax could be raised, and summer clothing
of tow, butternut-dyed, and bleached linen could be
manufactured when a weaver could be found to do it; for,
although every woman was a spinner, only here and there was
one weaver, and each family had to await its turn. The
old garments were often worn to rags before the new cloth
could be put through the loom.
To obtain the material for winter clothing was still
more difficult. The introduction of sheep was attended
with much difficulty. They were not safe from wolves,
and the new, wet lands proved unhealthy to them. The
summer clothing would often have to answer for winter wear,
or other expedients be resorted to. Buckskin, either
wholly or in part, frequently served as material for winter
apparel, but garments made entirely of it were never
popular. The pantaloons would frequently be wet to the
knees, and when dry would be as stiff and uncomfortable as
if made of tin.
The center of the township is two hundred and ninty
feet above the lake and the surface of most of the township
is covered with irregular, undulating hills of gravel and
drift. So many years have now elapsed since the
settlement of Greenfield, where our pioneers cleared away
the forests, tilled the soil and at
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last left all to their children and children’s children,
where today they live in luxury and peace on the farms that
are dotted with fine homes attended with prosperity and
happiness.
Mr. Seba Mather opened the first public house in
the township in the year 1816 which he kept until 1820, when
he discontinued and established the mills east of Steuben
and carried on an extensive business for thirty years when
he retired to his farm and spent the remainder of his life
and died at the advanced age of eighty-eight years.
The first church in the township was built by the
Congregationalists in 1832. It has since been greatly
improved. The church is in Steuben.
The Freewill Baptist church was erected in the year
1843. This church is at present without a pastor.
Mr. Seba Mather erected the first frame building
in the township in 1820.
But now, where once were no sounds but those of nature,
there has come the hum of industry, the bustling of trade, a
hurrying to and fro, the greetings of man with man, the
activity impelled by varied human interests, men who were
babes when the country was new, grew old and went down to
their graves. In the midst of change only the Huron
river went on unchanged.
The Steuben cemetery has been greatly improved during
the past year. It has been thoroughly graded and
leveled, gravel walks and roads have been made through the
entire grounds, also an addition of several acres has been
added and laid out into lots and numbered.
Steuben has at present two telephone stations.
Many farmers through the township also have the lines in
their residences and wold not do without them.
We have an electric railway which has been built within
the past year, and has increased the value of land in the
township from ten to fifteen dollars per acre.
Much might be said by way of improved machinery of all
kinds, the bountiful crops, the health of the township, good
prices for all kinds of produce which we are blessed with at
the present time.
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