 |
Mentor Twp. -
ISAAC SAWYER. Joseph Sawyer,
the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Massachusetts,
July 30, 1778, and in about the year 1802 was united in marriage to
Rhoda Toles, who was a native of New York (probably),
the date of her birth being May 10, 1779. Of the six sons born
to them, Isaac was the second. He was born in Pompey,
Onondaga county, New York, July 26, 1805. His opportunities
for the acquirement of an education were exceedingly limited, his
studies being confined principally to Daboll's arithmetic and
Webster’s spelling-book. He arrived in this country in 1811,
with his parents and three brothers, and married Sept. 1, 1829,
Rachel O. Ferry, daughter of Clark and
Obedience Ferry, of Alleghany county, New York. She
was born Oct. 22, 1805. Two children were born of this
marriage, son and daughter. The former, Vernon C., was
born June 16, 1830; married Urania A. Clark, and resides in
Mentor, short distance east of the Avenue House. The daughter,
Annett R., born Aug. 23, 1831, became the wife of A. B.
Clark, and resides in Concord, Lake County.
In the fall of 1840 Mr. S. was elected justice
of the peace of Mentor, and was re-elected in 1843, 1846, and 1849,
the duties of which office he discharged with ability. He
united with the Methodist Episcopal church of Mentor in 1834, as did
also his wife, under the pastorship of Rev. A. Plimpton.
The death of his wife occurred Aug. 15, 1874. The loss of this
excellent woman was severe stroke to him. She was, in the
truest sense, helpmeet of her husband, and an indulgent, though
judicious, mother to her children.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 -
Page 252 (Portrait of Residence on 248a) |
J. Sedgebeer
Residence of
J. Sedgebeer,
Painesville, O |
Painesville Twp. -
JOSEPH SEDGEBEER. Few men, in the private
walks of life, have had a career so checkered and eventful as the
subject of this sketch. Few men have exhibited more energy and
perseverance in the accomplishment of their purposes. His history
serves to illustrate the saying that "there is nothing impossible to him
will wills." Joseph Sedgebeer was born at Bristol,
England, Dec. 3, 1805. His father was a king's guardsman, and for
his services received a pension form the British government. His
grandfather was an English farmer in comfortable circumstances.
Through the death of his father, in 1811, and the marriage of his
mother, two years later, an opportunity was afforded the boy for the
gratification of his ambition to be a sailor. Late in the fall of
1814 he shipped as a cabin-boy on a merchant-ship bound for the West
Indies. While on this trip, which occupied a year, the master of
the ship, Captain Sands, became much attached to his cabin-boy,
and treated him with great kindness. At the early age of ten the
child showed himself to be the father of the man. From the first
he declined to drink the customary ration of "grog," and formed the
resolution of constituting himself a temperance society of one.
And such was his inflexibility of purpose and strength of will that no
persuasion or ridicule ever moved him from his boyhood resolution.
On returning to England he lost his place and his best
friend by the death of Captain Sands. His step-father,
Mr. Price, was not disposed to provide him a home, and he was
compelled to seek employment on the ocean. For some six months he
was employed on the coasting vessel, when on his return to Bristol, he
found his mother and step-father ready to sail for New York, with the
intension of making their home in America. It was talked and
understood that Joseph should accompany them; but on the night
the brig was to sail, and a carriage ready, he was given a half-crown
and sent on an errand to a neighbor, and on his return to the house they
were gone. By this strange conduct on the part of his relatives he
was left, at the age of ten, wholly dependent upon his own exertions and
judgment. He sought and found work on a farm in the country for
four months, and then, upon his return to Bristol, wandered, day after
day, among the shipping to find a situation. At length, after a
long and discouraging search, he found a chance, in 1816, to work his
passage on a ship to New York. When he arrived at New York and
went to the place he had heard his relatives were stopping, he learned
that his mother and step-father had gone to Canada, but could not
ascertain to what place or part of Canada they had removed. In
this dilemma a lady, Mrs. Hylamen, heard his story and welcomed
him to her house. A few days later this lady saw in the list of
advertised letters one directed to James Sedgbury, and
immediately made inquiries for this person, in the hope that she might
find a relative of per protégé.
She had doubtless heard that the Sedgburys, Sedgmoors, and
Sedgebeers were of the same family. Her hopes were soon
realized by the discovery that James Sedgebury was Joseph's
uncle, and that he was a brewer in good circumstances and lived in Amity
street, New York. The uncle took the wayfarer to his home and gave
him employment for several months. In the mean time, dissatisfied
with being dependent upon his new-found relative, he kept a constant
lookout for an apprenticeship to some trade, or to procure some steady
employment. In this he was not successful. February, 1817,
he accepted an offer of eight dollars a month as a sailor-boy on the
ship "Margaret," of Glasgow. After a stormy voyage, upon which the
ship was disabled and two men and a boy died from exposure and hardship,
they reached the Clyde. Here he was apprenticed for three years to
the ship-owners.
After repairs they sailed to Nassau and Havana, and
took cargo to Leghorn, on the Mediterranean. At Havana the crew
were attacked with yellow fever, and recovered by putting immediately to
sea. On arriving in Scotland they repeated the same voyage until
they arrived off Tulon, when the ship, cargo, and two men were lost in a
storm, and the survivors were sent to Scotland by the British consul.
He had now served two years under his indentures. The owners put
another ship of the same name in the same trade, with the same captain
and officers. Just as she was ready to sail, believing her to be
unseaworthy, Joseph deserted the ship, and was compelled to
remain secreted for a time, as he was advertised as a runaway
apprentice. Working his passage to New York, he there hired as a
sailor on the brig "Hibernia," bound for Dublin. On the return
trip, when he was called out in the night to go aloft, after having been
deprived of regular sleep, he went up into the rigging in a state of
unconsciousness, and fell a distance of thirty-seven feet, striking upon
a shipmate and crippling him for life. In the latter part of hte
summer of 1820 he arrived at New York, and resolved to abandon sailing.
While on the "Hibernia" the sailors called him "Old Head," on account of
his steady ways and habits, and were accustomed to make him their banker
while they would go ashore for a spree.
He had not learned that his mother lived near Port
Hope, Canada, and immediately set out on foot to visit her. After
remaining with her and Mr. Price during several months, and
bestowing upon them his labor and the money he had saved while sailing,
he worked a year in the vicinity as a farm-hand, and then entered a
hundred acres of wild land, and lived alone in a shanty after the manner
of the frontiersmen of that day. With his own hands he cleared and
sowed twenty-five acres the first season, and with the aid of a boy
cleared and sowed forty acres more the next year. In 1825 his
entire crops of wheat and barley, and also his barn, were consumed by
fire. One incident occurred about this time that illustrates the
inconveniences of frontier life, as well as the resolute character if
Mr. Sedgebeer. While chopping alone in the woods his leg was
broken by a falling tree. Without the assistance of a surgeon he
reduced the fracture, and managed the case himself. In 1826, upon
arriving of age, he began to take part in political discussion, and
expressed his opinions so frankly and vigorously that the crown
commissioner threatened him with arrest. He thereupon sold his
property and removed to Rochester, New York, and engaged for a year in
the manufacture and sale of ship-timber. By economy and industry
he had now accumulated between two and three thousand dollars, when he
married, and purchased four hundred and fifty acres of land in Niagara
county, New York, most of which was then a wilderness.
After clearing and improving this farm, he moved to
Lockport in 1834, and there engaged in business, owning and managing a
drug-store, four asheries, and afterwards a dry-goods store. Until
1837 his business projects were all successful, and speculation was at
high tide. When the panic came he was worth twenty thousand
dollars, but had indorsed largely for his friends, who failed, and in
1838 he was compelled to make an assignment and see all his property
sold by the sheriff. In 1839 he gathered into a covered
moving-wagon a few household goods saved from the financial wreck, and
started with his family to find a home in Ohio and begin the struggle
anew. He journeyed to Ashtabula, then to Columbus, and back
towards the lake. The whole family became sick, and his wife died
near Mount Vernon, and left him with three small children. Coming
to Painesville, he purchased a small farm south of the village, and two
years later married again, moved on the little farm, and built an ashery
upon it. In three years the profits of this ashery, carried on
against the most strenuous competition, exceeded five thousand dollars.
Having leased his ashery, he removed to Rochester, New York, to take
care of his aged mother and step-father, who died the following year.
He then moved back to Painesville in 1848 and opened a daguerrean room,
and for several months pursued that business successfully. In the
spring of 1849 he started for the gold-diggings of California, but sold
his teams and outfit at St. Joseph, Missouri, and returned to Rochester,
New York, where he remained until 1852, when he engaged in the business
of selling the Ross mill. He pursued this business with the
greatest energy for three years, and until the failure of Ross, when he
determined to make a mill of his own. First at Nashville,
Tennessee and then at Cincinnati, he invented, improved, and tested
different mills, until he finally invented the celebrated Nonpareil
mill. To this mill first premiums have been awarded at the
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, and at State fairs throughout the
Union. The sales of the Nonpareil have already aggregated over
four hundred thousand dollars. In the manufacture and sale of
these mills, with the large correspondence and book-keeping required, he
has been his own clerk, and has done the work with such perfect system
and accuracy that it has been attended with no considerable dispute or
litigation.
With great self-reliance and untiring industry Mr.
Segebeer has become an adept in divers trades, arts, and
professions.
In addition to his profession as a seaman, and
occupation as a farmer, he is an expert manufacturer of potash, and the
use of his own inventions and improvements was the secret of his success
in that business. At one time and another, as opportunity offered
or occasion required, he mastered the photographer's art, learned the
shoemaker's trade, became a practical miller, lumberman, carpenter and
joiner, cooper, as well as druggist, merchant, and inventor.
With no opportunity of attending school since a mere
child, he has acquired a competent business education; and whether in
the solitude of the forest or on the trackless deep, his leisure has
always been largely devoted to reading and study. With very little
instruction he became proficient in painting and music, and in 1874
premiums were awarded to his painting at the State fair of Ohio, and at
the Northern Ohio fair, at Cleveland. He is naturally of a
philosophic and religious cast of mind, and early gave the claims of
Christianity and the Bible a careful and prayerful examination.
After a patient and diligent investigation, he came to the conclusion,
mainly from the study of the Bible itself, that it could not be accepted
as of divine origin. In later years he carefully examined and
investigated the phenomena of modern spiritualism, and failed to
discover any reliable proof that the spirits of the departed were in any
manner concerned with these phenomena. He has always acted upon
the wise saying, "To prove all things, and hold fast to that which is
good." With an abiding faith in the First Great Cause, he occupies
the position of rational skepticism as to the fact of a future life.
Hoping for the immortality of the soul, he cannot find the clear
evidence to confirm his hope. His religious tenets are best
expressed in the maxim, as old as Confucius, which is known as the
golden rule. Although deeply immersed in business, and never an
applicant for office or place, he has taken a lively interest in public
affairs. He was a zealous anti-slavery advocate, and has been a
member of the Republican party since its organization. Mr.
Sedgebeer is now retired from active business, and finds enjoyment
in the investigation and discussion of moral, scientific, and
theological questions, and the perusal of history and general
literature. At the ripe age of seventy-three, after passing
through trials and hardships of more than ordinary severity, he finds
himself hale and hearty and in the full possession of every faculty as
the result and recompense of a temperate, industrious, and well-spent
life.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 - Page 224 |
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Painesville Twp. -
URI SEELEY was one of the most widely known of the
old settlers in Lake County. He came to Painesville township about
the year 1817, and soon after purchased the large farm which he owned
throughout his life. He was the embodiment of all that we are
accustomed to look upon as the pioneer spirit, - a man whose most
prominent characteristics were energy, intense activity, fearlessness,
and integrity. He was practical, brusque, rugged, and, above all,
a man of strong convictions and unflinching devotion to duty. With
these qualities as his most prominent ones, it was not strange that he
led a career which left is mark and influence upon the community, and in
some measure upon the whole country. He was sheriff of the old
county of Geauga from 1824 to 1828, and during his occupation of the
office exhibited the same rigid adherence to principle, and the same
unbiased, uncompromising sense of justice, that made him a mighty force
in the long and severe campaign against slavery. He was perhaps
the most prominent man of this neighborhood in the anti-slavery
movement, and worked side by side with Wade and Giddings.
He had a most fierce hatred of slavery, and his whole strength was
exerted in the battle for its overthrow. He was a member of the
first National Anti-Slavery convention, later a delegate to the
Free-Soil convention, and was the first representative of the abolition
element in the State legislature, his constituency being embraced in the
counties of Lake and Ashtabula. Mr. Seeley was one of the
oldest members of the Presbyterian (now the Congregational) church, and
through his long connection with the society was one of its leading men.
Uri Seeley was one of the oldest members of the Presbyterian (now
the Congregational) church, and through his long connection with the
society was one of its leading men. Uri Seeley died Aug.
10, 1877, aged eighty-six years.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 - Page 220 |
 |
Painesville Twp. -
ABRAHAM SKINNER was born at Glastonbury, Connecticut, Oct. 18,
1755, and married Oct. 13, 1788, to Mary Ayers To 1795 he
made a trip to England, and brought back from that country four
thorough-bred horses, from which have sprung some of the finest horses
in the United States. He made a visit to Ohio in 1800 or 1801, and
came to settle in1803, when he completed his purchasers of large tracts
of land in what is now the township of Painesville, also in Springfield
and Twinsburg, Summit county, and Breckville, Cuyahoga county. In
February, 1805, he brought his family to his new home. Three large
two-horse sleighs were used to convey the family and houses hold goods.
From Buffalo the journey was made on the ice of the lake, arriving on
the 5th of March, and having much difficulty in getting on shore because
the ice had separated. Mr. Skinner first moved into a log
house which stood on the ground now occupied by the residence of his
son, Augustus Skinner.
That same season he erected a frame house, which he
moved into in the fall, and in which he lived until his death, Jan. 14,
1826, aged seventy years and three months. His wife, Mary Ayres
Skinner, died Oct. 7, 1812. The building Mr. Skinner
then lived in forms the main part of the house now occupied by his
grandson, Homer H. Hine, and is perhaps the oldest frame standing
in this part of the State, being seventy-three years old.
Captain Skinner was a genial, warm-hearted, hospitable, and
enterprising citizen, to whom this section of country was indebted for
much of its early prosperity. He laid out and was the original
proprietor of Fairport. He also laid out a town which he called
New Market, some three miles, by the course of the Grand river, above
Fairport, and at the head of vessel navigation on the river. New
Market at one time bid fair to be quite a thriving place. It
contained three warehouses on the river, one or two stores and taverns,
a number of residences, and a distillery. The first jail in the
county was built by Captain Skinner, and stood in what is now
Mr. Hine's garden. The first court held in the county was held
in a large frame barn belonging to Captain Skinner, the frame of
which barn, still in good repair, stands in the rear, to the north of
Mr. Hine's house.
Captain Skinner was in active correspondence
with numerous parties at the East, trying to induce the emigration into
this country of an enterprising and valuable class of citizens.
Among those whom he nearly persuaded were the Hon. Gideon Granger,
postmaster-general of the United States, and General Champion, of
Connecticut.
Captain Skinner was noted for his liberality in
aid of all public enterprises. He built a large hewed log building
at New Market for a court-house, composed entirely of black-walnut logs
cut from his river-bottom land. He was also noted for the
free-handed liberality with which he aided the early settlers in
furnishing them with seeds, provisions, and other necessary aid.
His heirs have now in their possession promissory notes, representing
thousands of dollars, given during those early days, which still remain
unpaid. Many of those early settlers remember with gratitude the
aid then extended to them.
The children of Captain Skinner were Mary,
born Sept. 20, 1788; Abram Ayres, born Oct. 19, 1791; Paulina,
born Mar. 14, 1794; Roderick Washington, born July 3, 1796; and
Augustus, born July 7, 1798. The oldest daughter, Mary,
was married in 1807 to Homer Hine, a lawyer of Youngstown.
She was the mother of Homer H. and Augustus Hine, of Painesville,
with the latter of whom she now resides, at the age of ninety.
Paulina Skinner married Nathan Perry, of Cleveland.
R. Washington Skinner died Jan. 17, 1871. Abraham Ayres
died in 1831, after an active life. Captain Skinner died
Jan. 14, 1826, and his wife, Oct. 12, 1812, and the community lost in
their taking away two of the most worthy settlers it had.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 - Page 220 |
Chester Stocking |
Painesville Twp. -
CHESTER STOCKING was born in Glastonbury,
Connecticut, February 9, 1792, and with his family emigrated to Madison
in September, 1816. The journey was performed with a yoke of oxen,
a horse, and a wagon, the horse being attached to the wagon in front of
the oxen. He settled on the Middle Ridge, near the school-house
east of Genung’s furnace. There were at that time but four
settlements on this ridge, viz., those of the Bartram family,
Johnson, Nahum Miller, and William Potter.
His settlement was not unaccompanied by those privations and hard ships
which are almost inseparable from pioneer life. During the first
three years the family meal, frugal but wholesome, was eaten upon a
chest,—for table they had none,—and plates were improvised out of
whitewood chips. Corn-meal was an important article of food, and,
although of corn the settler had an abundance, to reduce it to a
sufficient fineness for consumption taxed his ingenuity to the utmost.
There were no grist-mills nearer than Ashtabula or Chagrin (now
Willoughby), and expedients were improvised by which the settler could
himself change his grain into flour, and thus avoid the necessity of a
trip so far to a mill over roads such as then existed.
Necessity, however, is most fertile in expedients; and one of the
earliest “inventions” for grinding grain was the following: An
oak-tree of the proper size being selected, it is cut down, and a fire
kindled upon the stump. In the fire a stone is then placed, which
slowly burns its way downward. When the cavity thus made is of
sufficient depth to contain the grain, the stone and ashes are removed
and the corn put in. A sapling is then cut oil" at the top, and
the end attached by bark to a “pestle” previously made. Taking
this in his hands, the “ manufacturer" works upon the grain until fine
enough for use. Corn was a sort of circulating medium as well.
With it the settler often purchased the material with which his family
were clothed, and other necessaries. But its measure of value was
such that the “storekeeper" required a bushel of it for a pound of
nails, and six bushels for a single yard of his calico!
Everywhere in the forests wild beasts were found, and
wolves especially rendered night hideous with their unceasing howls
around the lonely cabin. One evening, as Mr. Stocking
was walking from the Mixer farm to that of Bartram
with a quarter of mutton upon his shoulder, he heard a noise which
convinced him that an animal of some kind was in the immediate vicinity.
He hastened his steps, and, on reaching the clearing on the Bartram
farm, he discovered the brute—a bear-in close pursuit of him.
He was attracted by the smell of the fresh meat, but Stocking, who was a
man of much courage, refused to abandon the cause of his danger, and we
are glad to record that even with his burden he proved more than a match
for Bruin in fleetness, and reached his destination in safety.
His occupation was that of a blacksmith, but, although
industrious and hard working, he never accumulated a great deal of
property. He was united in marriage, Nov. 3, 1810, to Clarissa
Lee, who was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Nov. 4, 1792, and died
January 31, 1851. To them were born ten children, of whom six are
now living, as follows: Wells and William H., in South
Madison, Lake County, Ohio; George, in Rochester, Minnesota;
Lester E., in Valley Falls, Kansas; Henry, in
Booneville, Indiana ; Horace, in Topeka, Kansas. Harriet
M. died Mar. 15, 1832; Louisa A., Sept. 9, 1845; and
Jabin S., Jan. 7, 1872. Chester Stocking was killed in
the war of the Rebellion, at the time of Hood's raid around
Nashville, Tennessee.
Mr. Stocking died Nov. 22, 1876, at the
residence of his son, W. H. Stocking, in South Madison.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake
Counties, Ohio - Publ. Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 -
Page 237 |
Elias Strong |
Madison Twp. -
ELIAS STRONG was born in Hampshire county, in the State of
Massachusetts, on the 31st day of October, 1798. He came to
Thompson township (then), Geauga county, when nineteen years of age.
This journey was a very tedious one, requiring forty-three days to
perform it, during which Mr. Strong had disrobed himself but
three nights.
The country in which he had settled over what is now
known as the Grand river hill. His early educational advantages
were limited, yet, possessing good natural abilities and a strong desire
for knowledge, he acquired a fair education, and is a man of more than
ordinary intelligence. He is also a man of strict integrity.
In the year 1827, being then twenty-nine years old, he was joined in
marriage to Miss Harriet E. Russell, who was born in Hampshire
county, Massachusetts. Six children are the result of this union,
four of whom are living. Mr. Strong moved into Madison
township about five years since. His occupation has always been
that of a farmer. He, however, some time since retired from active
labor, and is now living in the pleasant village of Madison.
Source: 1798 - History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio - Publ.
Philadelphia: Williams Brothers - 1878 - Page 236 |
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