LYME TOWNSHIP
pg. 234
Lyme township was originally embraced in the present
township of Groton, in Erie county, and was called “Wheatsborough,”
after Mr. Wheat, who owned a large tract of
land in it. It was afterwards organized by itself, and
called Lyme; many of its first settlers having emigrated
from a town of that name in Connecticut.
The general aspect of the township is level prairie,
interspersed with ridges, covered with groves of young oaks
and hickories. In many places on the prairie
cottonwood trees have sprung up. The west part of the
township was formerly covered by a heavy growth of oak
timber. The soil of the prairies is generally a
mixture of black muck and sand, while gravel and clay abound
on the timber part.
Quarries of lime stone have been opened in the west
part of the township, which supplies stone for building and
making lime. A common kind of stone is found in the
center for building purposes.
Pipe and Pike creeks arise in the township, which run
northward into Groton. Stull brook originates in
Sherman and runs a northeasterly course through the township
and enters Huron river at Ridgefield. A large creek
which arises in Seneca county crosses the south part of this
township and enters the Huron river south of Monroeville.
Deer used to roam over the prairies, affording fine
sport for the Indians and other hunters, to chase in the
fall of the year after the prairies had been burned over,
which was done every year. Wolves and bears sometimes
troubled the sheep.
The history of the settlement of the west is of
constantly recurring interest. The enterprise,
intrepidity and self-denial of the pioneers who left the
comforts and privileges of their eastern homes and came to
the Firelands, then a far-off region, associated in the
minds of civilized people with savage wild beasts and
Indians, must always command our highest respect and
admiration. They endured hardships and privations
without number, not for their own advantages merely - for
they well knew that old age would steal upon them long
before they should enjoy the fruits of their toil - but for
their children and their children’s children, that to them
they might leave a goodly heritage. The most of those
truly, but unconsciously, heroic men and women, have long
rested from their labors, but the good they accomplished
remains, the blessings they secured and
transmitted endure, and are now the precious legacy of a
happy, prosperous and intelligent posterity.
Scattering settlements had been made in all the
townships along the lake shore prior to the war of 1812; but
the surrender of Detroit by General Hull,
exposed that portion of country to the ravages of the enemy,
that a general exodus of the settlers, southward, followed,
and it remained almost entirely denuded of inhabitants until
the signal victories, on both land and water, of the
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forces of the United States, rendered it safe for the former
residents to return to their abandoned and, in many cases,
ruined homes.
The early settlement of Lyme, like that of most of her
sister townships, was never very rapid. Much of the
land was owned by minor heirs, and entangled with unsettled
estates; more ha been bought up by speculators and held by
them at either so high a figure as to greatly retard
immigration, or not offered for sale at all; and besides all
this, government land adjoining, so soon as it came into
market, could be had for less than half the price generally
at which the Firelands’ tracts were held.
The first settler was Conrad Hawks, who
penetrated the thick woods of Lyme in the year 1808.
His location was in the northeast corner of the township on
the farm afterwards so long occupied by John F. Adams.
The first building erected was the log dwelling of
Conrad Hawks, built in 1808. The first
frame house was erected by Colonel Nathan Strong, in
the year 1817, on the Bemiss place. The
first brick dwellings were those of John F. Adams and
Horatio Long, built in 1827.
The first settlement at Hunt’s Corners was made
in the southeast part by several families named Sutton,
and the locality has since been known as the “Sutton
Settlement,” or Hunt’s Corners.
Levi Sutton, a native of Virginia, bargained
for the Moses Warren tract, consisting
of eleven hundred and ten acres, for one thousand dollars,
and came on and took possession in the fall of 1811.
In 1818, Asaph, Erastus and Israel
Cook came with their father, who settled at Cook’s
corners near the eastern line of Lyme. They
built a large treading mill and dry house for dressing and
cleaning hemp without rotting. This business excited
considerable interest and was expected to prove profitable
to the owners and the community.
The first saw mill was built in the south part of the
township on Frink run by Levi Sutton, in 1814
or 1815. Another saw mill was built about 1830, on a
creek which drains the prairies in the west part of the
township in Bellevue. It was afterwards used for a
brewery.
A tannery was built about 1827, by Horatio
Long, on a few acres of land purchased by him near the
line of Abner Nims and Zadoc Strong.
He carried on the business of tanning and shoemaking some
ten or twelve years, when he discontinued the business and
became a farmer.
John C. Kinney came to Lyme about 1828, and
opened a blacksmith shop near the corner of lot twelve or
thirteen.
Mary Ann Strong, daughter of Francis and Mary
Curtis Strong, was the first child born in the township.
The date of her birth was Aug. 3, 1817. She became the
wife of Isaac D. Collins in 1840, and died a short
time afterwards. The pioneer nuptials were those of Burwell
Fitch and Susan Hawks, celebrated in the winter
of 1816 and 1817. They settled in Sherman township,
where they resided until their death. The next
marriage was that of Ira Bassett and Polly
Hand, which took place in the spring of 1817.
The year 1834 will long be remembered as the one
signalized by the first visit of that fearful scourge, the
cholera, to this country. On the 20th of August, in
that year, the wife of Mr. Sheffield was taken
with that fearful disease, and
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died in a few hours. The old famiy Bible
contains a record of her death in his own hand writing.
On the 22d he was himself taken with the same disease, and
died just after midnight on the 23d.
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