|
History of
Ashtabula Co., Ohio
SOURCE: History of Ashtabula County, Ohio
Large, Moina W.
Topeka :: Historical Pub. Co.,, 1924, 1132 pgs.
Rome Township
CHAPTER XXXIV
FINE FARMS—STREAMS—ELIJAH CROSBY—OTHER
PIONEERS &—FIRST RELIGIOUS MEETING — FIRST POSTMASTER — INDUSTRIAL LIFE —
TOWNSHIP NAMED-ACADEMY—RAILROAD.
That section of Ashtabula County
embraced in the township of Rome, in which are some of the finest farms in this
part of the state, was sold by the Connecticut Land Company for 40 cents an
acre, in the year 1798. It was then almost solid forest, through which flowed
along the west border the Grand River and along the east border the Rock Creek,
names given to the streams by the Indians many years before the foot of a white
man ever touched that soil. The two streams afforded splendid water supply and
excellent fishing, and, in the early years of the settlements, boats of a
considerable size plied the Grand River the entire length of the county and
beyond.
The first work of the white man's ax was done by
direction of Elijah Crosby, who purchased 550 acres in lots 13 and
14, a little northwest of the center of the township. Crosby and
Daniel Hall rode horses from East Haddam, Conn., to look over the
former's possession, in 1805, and he left Hall with instructions to clear
two acres on the northeast corner of lot 13. Crosby returned to the East
for his family and to arrange his affairs so that he could leave them
permanently for a new home in the West. The following year he journeyed again to
Ohio and left his family at Rock Creek while he erected a log house on the
clearing that had been made on his property.
In the meantime Abner Hall had bought a
homestead in lot No. 12 next north of Crosby's and made a clearing and
built a house, which was the first one in the township. These two separate
clearings were adjoining, making them as one and when Crosby's home had
been built it constituted quite a good
start for a new settlement, and the Crosby family also formed a very
respectable nucleus for a new town's population, including as it did the parents
and ten children and two young men who had accompanied him from the East to help
in the work of establishing the home and also to eventually make homes for
themselves. Mrs. Crosby, some months after their settlement here,
gave birth to the first male child born of white parents in the township, and
that was good luck for the family, for the original owner of the township,
Henry Champion, had agreed to give to the first boy baby born in the
township a deed to fifty acres of land, which he promptly executed for the child
Henry. Further impetus to the population was given this year by the
arrival of a caravan from Connecticut which brought Mr. and Mrs.
William Crowell and their eight children, Mr. and Mrs. John
Crowell, Mr. and Mrs. David Walkley, Jonathan Walkley
and Ephraim Sawyer. This entire company spent the winter —their
arrival having been late in the fall—in the original log house erected by
Abner Hall, which had been vacated by Mr. Hall. During
the winter months Mr. Crowell constructed a home for his family,
into which they took up their residence in the spring. The Walkleys also
settled nearby and made homes for themselves. Joseph Hall,
Sylvester Rogers and Henry Brown were the next to
arrive and establish their future abiding places. Doubtless with design and
looking into the future, nearly all these homes were built in alignment, and the
pathway that was broken in making their neighborhood calls developed, in after
years, into a driveway and eventually into the principal north-and-south
thoroughfare through the county. Other early settlers in the township included
Asa and Linds Tinker, four Linan brothers, Edward
C. Dodge, Calvin Church, David Rood, Simon
Maltbie, Richard Miller, Samuel Ackley,
Samuel Crowde, Henry Hungerford, Sylvester
Cone, Erastus Chester, Andrew Champion, James
Baldwin, Hazard Morey, Edmond Richmond,
Stukely Stone and Azariah Smith. In view of their
numerous offspring it was quite natural that Elijah Crosby and William
Crowell should be deeply interested in the future educational facilities
of Rome, and it was fitting that they should. be the ones to make a start in
that direction, which they did in 1810, when they turned to and constructed a
log school house. Upon the opening of school in the new house, each of the
families named was represented by seven children. Prior to erection of this
building, Miss Lucinda Crosby had taught a school class at
the home of John Crobell. In 1821 the pupils of the Rome school
graduated into a new frame school house, which was also used for holding
religious assemblages.
In 1808 at the home of Elijah Crosby the
Rev. Jonathan Leslie, of Geneva, conducted the first
religious meeting. A Presbyterian Society was organized in 1819, with the Rev.
Giles Cowles as pastor. This organization built a church home in
1836 and one of its later ministers was the Rev. Ingersoll, father
of the late Robert G. Ingersol, the famous lawyer, orator and
infidel." Young "Bob" spent some years of his boyhood in Rome and there
are -still living some who were his schoolmates and who tell amusing stories of
the pranks of the preacher's son. The Congregational Society of Rome was
incorporated in 1836.
The Baptist Society built a church in 1835, the
Episcopals in 1837 and the Methodists in 1877, the latter being located at Rome
Station, in a building moved from the Center and rebuilt.
Elijah Crosby was the first postmaster
appointed in Rome, the office being located in his residence in 1815.
The industrial life of Rome began in 1818, with the
installation of a sawmill built by E. C. Dodge on the bank of Rock Creek.
Two years later John Reid constructed a grist-mill, and in 1830
Walkley & Hall added another saw-mill. In 1824 T. A. Miller
opened the first store in the township. Sylvester Rogers, in
response to the demand for accommodations by travelers, converted his home in
the early '20s into a public tavern, which soon gained an enviable reputation as
a good place at which to stop. In 1819 John Crowell built the
first tavern and stage house. Among other public houses of succeeding years was
one conducted at Rome Station by James Kelsey, which he named the
"United States Mail." Rome had its cheese factory and cheese-box manufactory,
which were almost indispensible to towns of Ashtabula County.
Rome Township was regularly named in 1828, up to which
period it had continued as the last vestige of the original township of
Richfield. The death knell of Richfield, which had at one time embraced
practically all of Ashtabula County, was rung in a petition filed with the
county commissioners on June 2, 1828, notation of which appears on the records
as follows: A petition of Christopher Champlin and others,
inhabitants of the township of Richfield, praying that the name of said township
be changed, was presented and read, whereupon it was resolved by the board that
said township, it being surveyed township No. 9, in fourth range of townships,
and heretofore known by the name of Richfield, shall be hereafter known and
designated by the name of Rome, and said name of Richfield be abolished." In
pursuance of the organization of the newly named township, there was held, on
the first Monday in April, 1829, an election which resulted in an organization
with the following officers: Joseph D. Hall, William
Watrous and Samuel Crowell, trustees; Justin
Williams, clerk-treasurer; Charles Crowell and Justin
Williams, constables; Lynds Tinker, Reuben
Sanders and Silas Washburn, supervisors of highways;
Sylvester Rogers and Asa Tinker, overseers of the poor;
Daniel and David Walkley, fence viewers. The first justice
of the peace was Justin Williams.
One of the educational advantages of Rome was an
academy that was incorporated in the spring of 1836 by the Rome Academical
Company, which conducted a more or less profitable school for some years in the
village.
When the railroad was put through Rome, in 1872-3, it
had the effect of soon making a new center of activity about the station,
somewhat removed from the village center, and with stores, mills and numerous
residences the new settlement assumed the
position of a rival to the original town. |
Back
to Table of Contents - History of Ashtabula Co., Ohio
|
