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BATH TOWNSHIP

     Of the early settlers of Bath Township there are two families which stand out preeminent - the Hales and the Hammonds.  The influence of the Hale family during the years subsequent has been stronger and wider felt that that of perhaps any other family in the county.  It has been of incalculable benefit, exerted, as it always has been, in behalf of high thinking and clean living.  The fact that for a long time this region was called "Hammondsburgh" shows the prominent part Jason Hammond played in

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the performance of its early affairs. The Hamlet of Hammond's Corners still bears the name of this first settler.  The first real settlement of the township was made in 1810.  During the summer of that year, Jonathan Hale and Jason Hammond, both Connecticut men, came to Ohio to settle upon the land they had recently purchased.  They were obliged to dispossess other white men whom they found living upon their land without color of title.  A survey of the township had been made in 1805, and the name "Wheatfield" given to it by Rial McArthur, the surveyor, probably because his eyes had been gladdened that day by a sight of a waving field
of that grain.  It is a pity the name did not survive.  Fine fields of wheat may be seen on all hands, today, in season, and it is one of the successful crops of the township, while the name of Bath is of no significance, locally, whatever.  It is said the name was given to the township in joke.  It is now firmly affixed and "Bath" this township will ever be.  Bath was organized as a township in 1818, and Jonathan Hale was made the first trustee; Jason Hammond, supervisor; Henry Hutson, justice of the peace, and Eleazer Rice, constable.  Bath sent nearly one hundred men into the Union Army during the Civil war and many of her citizens have occupied prominent places in the county and state.  Among them may be mentioned Gen. A. C. Voris, Peter Voris, R. O. Hammond, J. Park Alexander, Sumner Nash, C. O. Hale, Jared Barker and O. W. Hale.  The principal places in the township are Botzum, a station on the Cleveland and Terminal Valley
branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; Montrose (formerly called Latta's Corners and sometimes Ellis' Corners); Hammond's Corners and Ghent.  At the picturesque village last mentioned there were extensive sawmills, grist mills, a general store, etc.

BOSTON TOWNSHIP.

     Boston Township contains three villages—Peninsula, Boston Mills and Everett. The earliest settlers were also from Connecticut. In 1805, the purchasers of the holdings of the Connecticut Land Company sent many surveying corps into Summit County for the purpose of alloting the lands.  In this year Alfred Wolcott, James Stanford, John Teale and Samuel Ewart came into Boston Township for the purpose of making a survey.  In 1806, Wolcott and Stanford both purchased land surveyed by them the summer previous and located upon it at once.  They thus became the first settlers in the township. The Wolcott family afterward became very prominent and influential.  The township was organized in 1811, as a part of Portage County.  Its first officers were Timothy Bishop, Andrew Johnson and Aaron Miller, trustees; William Beers, clerk; Launcelot May, treasurer; Alfred Wolcott and Moses Cunningham, justices of the peace, and James Jordan, constable.  More than one hundred and forty men of Boston Township fought for the Union in the war of 1861-65, the most distinguished of whom was Col. Arthur L. Conger.  On July 4, 1889, Colonel and Mrs. Conger presented to Boston Township the fine soldiers' monument which stands in the village of Peninsula at its

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western border. Peninsula has an extensive flour mill and, in the southern part of the village, a large stone quarry of a fine-grained, white sandstone, from which mill-stones are made.  Boston has sawmills and the great paper mills of the Akron-Cleveland Paper Bag Company, the power for which is partly secured from a large dam thrown across the Cuyahoga River.  Col. A. L. Conger and Hon. S. P. Wolcott are the Boston citizens who have earned for themselves the greatest fame.

COPLEY TOWNSHIP.

COVENTRY TOWNSHIP.

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HUDSON TOWNSHIP

     The original proprietors of Hudson Township were Stephen Baldwin, David Hudson, Birdsey Norton, Nathaniel Norton, Benjamin Oviatt and Theodore Parmalee.  It consisted of 16,000 acres, and, in the distribution of the lands of the Connecticut Land Company, it was sold to the above mentioned proprietors at 32 cents per acre.  In 1799 David Hudson organized a party of eleven persons for the purpose of inspecting the new purchase.  They started overland from Litchfield, Connecticut, and with their wagons, oxen and cows, made a very respectable looking caravan.  They were nearly two months in making the journey, reaching the present township about the latter part of June.  The summer was spent in surveying; erecting a bark hut and a more substantial log house; clearing land of timber ; planting and sowing crops, and platting the village, now called Hudson, after its founder.  Early in October the survey of the township was completed and David Hudson, with his son Ira and the two surveyors, started back to Connecticut, leaving the remainder of the party as a
nucleus of the future settlement.
     By offering bounties of land and other inducements, Mr. Hudson succeeded in getting together twenty-eight colonists who agreed to return with him into the wilderness and assist in the pioneer work of settling the new township. In this party were Heman Oviatt, Joel and Allen Gay

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PHOTOS:

MUNICIPAL BUILDING, AKRON

CENTRAL POLICE STATION, AKRON

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lord, Joseph and George Darrow, Moses Thompson, Samuel Bishop and others.  After enduring the usual perils and deprivations incident to pioneer journeys, they arrived safely in Hudson in May, 1800.  Their first act was a public meeting to conduct services of thanksgiving for their safe journey and deliverance from the perils of the way in the wilderness.  On Oct. 28, 1800, there was born to David Hudson and his wife, Anna (Norton) Hudson, a daughter, whom they named Anne Mary Hudson.  She was born in Hudson and was the first white child born in what is now Summit County. 
     Early in 1802 the county commissioners of Trumbull County, of which this locality was then a part, organized Hudson township and arranged for the first election in April, 1802.   There were elected at that time, Heman Oviatt, Ebenezer Sheldon and Abraham Thompson, trustees; Thaddeus Lacey, clerk; Rufus Edwards, Ebenezer Lester and Aaron Norton, constables, etc.
     On September 4, 1802, the first church organization in what is now Summit County was made by David Hudson, with twelve of his fellow colonists, who were members of Congregational Churches back in Connecticut.  The first church thus established was a Congregational Church, and, from that day to this not a single Sabbath has passed without public worship being held by the Congregational Church of Hudson.  In 1820 the society completed a fine church edifice on the site of the present Town
Hall, which was used continuously until the splendid brick church on Aurora Street, next to the "Pentagon," was built in 1865.  This has proved sufficient for the needs of the Congregational Society until the present day.
     In 1828 Moses Draper, Daniel Gaylord and Perley Mansur organized a Methodist Episcopal Church, the history of which is not a record of unvarying success.
     The Protestant Episcopal Church was organized in 1842 by Frederick Brown, Anson Brewster, Henry O'Brien, Arthur Sadler and others.  It is called the "Parish of Christ Church, of Hudson, Ohio." Its membership has never been large and, at times, the organization has been maintained with difficulty.
     St. Mary's Catholic Church was built in 1858 and has been maintained in connection with the church of that denomination in Cuyahoga Falls.
     In 1890 an organization of the Disciples of Christ was effected and Rev. F. H. Moore was installed as its pastor.
     From the very beginning Hudson led the intellectual life of the Western Reserve.  What the influence of Western Reserve College has been has been told elsewhere in this work.  The spirit of which that institution is a product manifested itself the year after the founding of the first settlement.  George Pease, of Enfield, Connecticut, established the first school in a log house, about where the present Town Hall stands.  The growth of the schools kept pace with that of the population.  In 1868 the fine brick high school building was erected. In addition to the public schools many private schools have been conducted at various times.  The first

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was the Nutting School for young ladies, established in 1827.  Then followed the Hudson Academy for boys and girls in 1834; Hudson Female Seminary in 1845; the Grosvenor Seminary and the Phelps "Seminary for Ladies," established a few years later; the J. W. Smith School in 1853; the Emily Metcalf School in 1860, and the Hudson Academy, revived in 1874 by Rev. H. B. Hosford.
     In the decade of the '50s Hudson was badly smitten with the railroad fever. There was scarcely one of her citizens of means who did not invest every penny he could possibly raise in one or more of the railroad enterprises undertaken at that time.  Professor Henry N. Day, of Western Reserve College, seems to have been the moving spirit in all these schemes.  The investors lost every cent they put in and the depreciation in Hudson business has been constant since that time.  The town never rallied from the great financial losses brought about by the failures of these railroad projects.  The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad was completed from Cleveland to Hudson in 1852.  The "Akron Branch" was built soon after.  These were successful and improved business conditions in Hudson so much that when subsequent projects were broached no difficulty was encountered in getting the support of every Hudson citizen.  In 1852 Professor Day and his associates "promoted" "the Clinton Line Railroad," which was to be part of a great transcontinental railroad.  In 1853 the same parties organized a bankruptcy club, the. members of which were allowed to contribute to "the Clinton Line Extension," to run from Hudson to Tiffin.  In the same year Hudson citizens were asked to contribute toward defraying the expenses of another dream, iridescent and alluring, called the "Hudson and Painesville Railroad," designed as an extension of the "Akron Branch Railroad."  The work on all these railroads was started and carried on to various extents.  Much of the old grading, fills and culverts may yet be seen in the woods and pastures near Hudson.  At least one of the roads was nearly half completed, when, in 1856, the bubble burst.  The dream was over, but the lapse from consciousness had cost the village every available nickel in it.  These roads remain today just as they were left when work stopped in 1856.  As a promoter, Professor Day was a very great failure.  Besides his railroad enterprises, which ended in disaster, might be mentioned his "Pentagon" scheme and his book-publishing company, both of which were wound up by assignees.
     It is a pleasure to turn from these business failures to some other enterprises which were built upon a more substantial basis and thus became successes.  The most conspicuous is the immense business built up by S. Straight & Co., established in 1867.  Their business was the manufacture of butter and cheese and at one time they operated fourteen factories.  In 1870 E. A. Osborne erected his butter-tub and cheese-box factory.  Other mills were those of Erastus Çroy, built in 1878; E. B. Shields, 1890; E. J. Tobdell; the Oviatt Manufacturing Company, in 1878, and the G. H. Grimm Manufacturing Company.  Hudson's mercantile status is better today, perhaps, than at any time in the past.  The great fire of some years ago, which wiped out the entire western portion of the

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business part of the town, has been the means of bringing about a great change for the better.  Fine brick blocks have taken the place of the antiquated frame buildings in which business was formerly done and merchants have filled these modern rooms with larger stocks of finer goods.  The Cleveland Bank failure, which brought so much loss upon Hudson merchants, through its Hudson branch, has been largely forgotten.  After the fire above mentioned, Hudson possessed but one hotel, "The Delta," located near the depot, the old "Mansion House," located on the west side of Main Street, having been destroyed in that conflagration.  In 1907 a fine, new hotel was opened up in the old Beebe Mansion, on the north side of the square, and called the "Park Hotel."  Among the prominent merchants of the past and present should be mentioned Charles H. Buss, Edwin S. Bentley, John Whedon, George V. Miller, Dennis J. Joyce, R. H. Grimm, Sebastian Miller, James A. Jacobs, Henry Wehner, John G. Mead, C. A. Campbell, C. H. Farwell, J. N. Farrar, P. N. Shively, J. L. Doncaster, W. M Beebe, Charles Kilbourn and others.
     Hudson village was incorporated Apr. 1, 1837.  At the first election, held that year, Heman Oviatt was chosen mayor; Lyman W. Hall, recorder; Frederick Baldwin, Harvey Baldwin, John B. Clark, Jesse Dickinson and Daniel C. Gaylord, trustees.
     Hudson was one of the centers of anti-slavery sentiment in Ohio.  Like Oberlin and Tallmadge, her citizens took an open and active part in attacking the great evil and arousing public opinion against it.  Many fugitive slaves found an asylum here.  When the Civil War broke out Hudson did her full duty and furnished more than one hundred and fifty men for the Union Army.  Today, nowhere in the county is Memorial Day more reverently celebrated.
     Hudson Township has given us Judge S. H. Pitkin, M. C. Read, W. I . Chamberlain, and James W. Ellsworth.

NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP

     In the drawing of lands of the Connecticut Land Company the present township of Northampton fell to W. Billings, David King, Ebenezer King, Jr., F. King, John Leavitt, Jr., O. P. Holden, Luther Loomis, Joseph Pratt, Timothy Phelps, Solomon Stoddard and Daniel Wright.  It was first settled
in 1802 when Simeon Prior, a veteran of the Revolutionary war, brought his wife and ten children overland from the beautiful village of Northampton, on the Connecticut River, in the Green hills of Hampshire County, Massachusetts.  Other early settlers were Justus Remington, David Parker and Samuel King.  Later came Rial McArthur, David Norton, Nathaniel Hardy, Sr., Daniel Turner.   Northampton Township was very slow in being settled. The Indians remained here longer than in
any other part of the country.  It was not until the American forces began to assemble here for the War of 1812 that the last of the red men departed.  Many of their village sites, mounds, etc., may be seen at the present time.  Here was a rendezvous for militia during the second war with England,

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and three vessels of Commodore Perry's fleet are said to have been built in Northampton and floated down the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie. 
     In 1836 the village of Niles, at the mouth of Yellow Creek, was platted.  It never grew to anything more substantial than a vision in the minds of its projectors, Peter Voris and his associates.  The site is now called Botzum.  Other hamlets are Northampton Center, Steele's Corners, McArthur's Corners and French's Mill.  Northampton did far more than her share in furnishing men for the Union Army in 1861-65.  More than one hundred and forty of her citizens responded to the call of the nation.

NORTHFIELD TOWNSHIP

     Northfield was first settled in April, 1807, when Isaac Bason brought his family from Massachusetts and built a log house for them about a mile and one half from the present Town Hall.  Other early settlers were Jeremiah Cranmer, George Wallace, Orrin Wilcox and William Cranny.  The township was organized May 24, 1819, when an election was held, at which Jeremiah Cranmer, John Duncan and George Wallace were elected trustees; Henry Wood, clerk; Watrous Mather, treasurer  and Abraham Cranmer and Edward Coyne, constables.  In 1840 the township had a population of 1,041.  It furnished more than one hundred and twenty-five men to the Federal Army in the Rebellion.  Its centers are Northfield, Little York, Macedonia and Brandywine.

NORTON TOWNSHIP

     Norton Township was originally a part of Wolf Creek Township, but was organized as a separate township in April, 1818.  It was named for Birdsey Norton, one of its Connecticut proprietors.  It was first settled in 1810 by James Robinson, who came from New York and built a cabin for himself on Wolf Creek.  Other early settlers were John Cahow, Abraham Van Hyning, Henry Van Hyning, John D. Humphrey, Charles Lyon, P. Kirkum, Seth Lucas, Charles Miller and Nathan Bates.  At the organization in April, 1818, the following officers were elected: Clerk, Joseph D. Humphrey; justice of the peace, Henry Van Hyning, Sr.; trustees, Charles Lyon, Abraham Van Hyning and Ezra Way; supervisors, John Cahow, Elisha Hinsdale and Joseph Holmes.  Norton possesses some of the richest land in the county and many of her citizens have amassed much wealth from agriculture and mining of coal.  The township also possesses some of the most prosperous hamlets, like Norton Center, Western Star, Loyal Oak, Hametown, Johnson's Corners, Sherman and Dennison.
     It is also fortunate in having within its limits that marvel of the closing years of the nineteenth century, the "Magic City"—Barberton.

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP

     Green and Franklin are the southern townships of the county, and originally were part of Stark County, being inhabited by the descendants

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