HURON COUNTY.
Huron County was formed February 7, 1809, and organized
1815. It originally constituted the
whole of the "fire-lands."
The name, Huron, was given by the
French to the Wyandot tribe: its signification probably unknown. The surface is mostly level, some parts
slightly undulating; soil mostly sandy mixed with clay, forming a loam. In the northwest part are some prairies,
and in the northern part are the sand ridges which run on the southern side of
Lake Erie, and vary in width from a few rods to more than a mile. Huron was much reduced in 1838, in
population and area, by the formation of Erie county. Area about 450 square
miles. In 1887 the acres
cultivated were 139,956; in pasture, 79,944; woodland, 36,032; lying waste,
2,697; produced in wheat, 495,057 bushels; rye, 5,123; buckwheat, 929; oats,
1,035,918; barley, 5,167; corn, 698,536; broom corn, 200 lbs. brush; meadow
hay, 34,880 tons; clover hay, 6,837; flax, 20,300 lbs. fibre;
potatoes, 108,166 bushels; butter, 982,978 lbs.; cheese, 347,037; sorghum,
2,218 gallons; maple sugar, 23,087 lbs.; honey, 11,672; eggs, 493,179 dozen;
grapes, 3,579 lbs.; sweet potatoes, 89 bushels; apples, 35,552; peaches, 4,052;
pears, 923; wool, 539,534 lbs.; milch cows owned,
7,756. School
census, 1888, 9,929; teachers, 353.
Miles of railroad track, 138.
Township And
Census |
1840 |
1880 |
|
Township And
Census |
1840 |
1880 |
Bronson |
1,291 |
1,092 |
|
Norwich |
676 |
1,157 |
Clarksfield |
1,473 |
1,042 |
|
Norwalk |
2,613 |
7,078 |
Fairfield |
1,067 |
1,359 |
|
Peru |
1,998 |
1,194 |
Fitchville |
1,294 |
822 |
|
Richmond |
306 |
1,014 |
Greenfield |
1,460 |
900 |
|
Ridgefield |
1,599 |
2,359 |
Greenwich |
1,067 |
1,376 |
|
Ripley |
804 |
1,038 |
Hartland |
925 |
954 |
|
Ruggles |
1,244 |
|
Lyme |
1,318 |
2,575 |
|
Sherman |
692 |
1,223 |
New
Haven |
1,270 |
1,807 |
|
Townsend |
868 |
1,405 |
New
London |
1,218 |
1,764 |
|
Wakeman |
702 |
1,450 |
Population of Huron in 1820 was 6,677; in 1830, 13,340; in
1840, 23,934; 1860, 29,616; 1880, 31,608, of whom 21,728 were born in Ohio;
3,142 New York; 963 Pennsylvania; 124 Indiana; 76 Virginia; 54 Kentucky; 1783
German empire; 800 England and Wales; 684 Ireland; 201 British America;
Page 942
103 France; 69 Scotland, and 3
Sweden and Norway. Census of
1890 was 31,949.
Norwalk in 1846. - Norwalk, the
county-seat, named for Norwalk, Conn., is 110 miles north of Columbus and 16
from Sandusky City. It lies
principally on a single street, extending nearly two miles and beautifully
shaded by maple trees. Much taste
is evinced in the private dwellings and churches, and in adorning the grounds
around them with shrubbery. As a
whole, the town is one of the most neat and pleasant in Ohio. The view given represents a small portion
of the principal street; on the right is shown the courthouse and jail, with a
part of the public square, and in the distance is seen the tower of the Norwalk
institute. Norwalk contains 1
Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopal, 1 Methodist and 1 Catholic church, 9 dry
goods, 1 book and 4 grocery stores, 1 bank, 2 newspaper printing offices, 1
flouring mill, 2 foundries, and about 1,800 inhabitants. The Norwalk institute is an incorporated
academy, under the patronage of the Baptists: a large and substantial brick
building, three stories in height, is devoted to its purposes; the institution
is flourishing, and numbers over 100 pupils, including both sexes. A female seminary has recently been
commenced under auspicious circumstances, and a handsome building erected in
the form of a Grecian temple. About
a mile west of the village are some ancient fortifications.
The site of Norwalk was
first visited with a view to the founding of a town, by the Hon. Elisha WHITTLESEY, Platt BENEDICT, and one or two others,
in October, 1815. The place was
then in the wilderness, and there were but a few settlers in the county. The examination being satisfactory, the
town plat was laid out in the spring following, by Almon
RUGGLES [see page 583], and lots offered for sale at from $60 to $100
each. In the fall of 1817 Platt
BENEDICT built a log house with the intention of removing his family, but in
his absence it was destroyed by fire.
He reconstructed his dwelling shortly after, and thus commenced the
foundation of the village. In the
May after, Norwalk was made the county seat, and the public buildings
subsequently erected. The year
after, a census was taken, and the population had reached 109. In the first few years of the
settlement, the different denominations appearing to have forgotten their
peculiar doctrines, were accustomed to meet at the old
court-house for sacred worship, at the second blowing of the horn. In 1820 the Methodists organized a
class, and in 1821 the Episcopal society was constituted. From that time to the present the
village has grown with the progressive increase of the county.
In 1819 two Indians were
tried and executed at Norwalk for murder.
Their names were NE-GO-SHECK and NE-GON-A-BA, the last of which is said
to signify "one who walks far." The circumstances of their crime and
execution we take from the MSS. history of the "fire-lands," by the
late C. B. Squire, Esq.
In the spring of 1816 John WOOD, of Venice, and George BISHOP, of
Danbury, where trapping for muskrats on the west side of Danbury, in the
vicinity of the "two harbors," so-called; and having collected a few
skins had lain down for the night in their temporary hut. Three straggling
Ottawa Indians came, in the course of the night, upon their camp and discovered
them sleeping. To obtain
their little pittance of furs, etc. they were induced to plan their
destruction. After completing their
arrangements the two eldest armed themselves with clubs, singled out their
victims, and each, with a well directed blow upon their heads, dispatched them
in an instant. They then forced
their youngest companion, NEGASOW, who had been until then merely a spectator,
to beat the bodies with a club, that he might be made to feel that he was a
participator in the murder and so refrain from exposing their crime. After securing whatever was then in the
camp that they desired, they took up their line of march
for the Maumee, avoiding, as far as possible, the Indian settlements on their
course.
WOOD left a wife to mourn his
untimely fate, but BISHOP was a single man. Their bodies were found in a day or two
by the whites under such circumstances that evinced that they had been murdered
by Indians, and a pursuit was forthwith commenced. The Indians living about the mouth of
Portage river had seen these straggling Indians
passing eastward, now suspected them of the crime, and joined the whites in the
pursuit. They were overtaken in the
neighborhood of the Maumee River, brought back and
Page 943
Top Picture
Drawn
by Henry Howe, in 1846.
VIEW IN MAIN STREET, NORWALK.
In front in shown the Court-House,
and in the far distance the town of the Academy.
Bottom Picture
Geo. W.
Edmondson, Photo., Norwalk, 1886.
MAIN STREET, NORWALK.
The view is in the resident part of the street.
Page 944
examined before a magistrate. They confessed their crime and were
committed to jail. At the trial the
two principals were sentenced to be hung in June, 1819: the younger one was
discharged. The county of Huron had
at this time no secure jail, and they were closely watched by an armed
guard. They nevertheless escaped
one dark night. The guard fired at
and wounded one of them severely in the body, but he continued to run for
several miles, till, tired and faint with the loss of blood, he laid it down,
telling his companion he should die, and urging him to continue on. The wounded man was found after the
lapse of two or three days, somewhere in Penn township,
in a dangerous condition, but he soon recovered. The other was recaptured near the Maumee
by the Indians, and brought to Norwalk, where they were both hanged according
to sentence.
In this transaction the various Indian tribes
evinced a commendable willingness that the laws of the whites should be carried
out. Many of them attended the
execution, and only requested that the bodies of their comrades should not be
disturbed in their graves. - Old Edition.
The larger part of
the Indians that settled on the Firelands were tribes of the powerful Iroquois nation. Some of them, considering their
environment, were noble characters, and years after, when all hostilities had
ceased, and as the country began to fill up, were even disposed to hold not
only peaceable but friendly relations with the whites.
The Senecas, who were in the habit of passing through the
southern part of Huron county, on their way to eastern hunting grounds, were
particularly fierce in appearance, bedecked in their barbaric garb of feathers
and skins, but nevertheless were especially friendly.
On these hunting
trips they would trade baskets, trinkets and game with the settlers in exchange
for bread, meal or flour. Strong
and disinterested friendships sprung up between some of them and the
whites. Their appearance was so frequent,
and their actions so decorous and kindly, that even
the children became attached to them, and in some instances strong affections
were formed. SENECA JOHN, the
famous chief, used to carry the children of Caleb PALMER, a pioneer settler of
New Haven, upon his shoulders. So
strong was their affection for him, that when they saw a band of Indians, they
would rush forward with cries of delight.
And when the tall, stalwart form of SENECA JOHN greeted their eyes, they
would run to him, climb to his shoulders and ride there on the way to and from
school. The children of the whites
and Indians intermingled in their games, and each were
on as friendly terms with the others as they were with their own kind. Mrs. Platt BENEDICT, in her last years,
said: "We gained the friendship of those denizens of the forest, and they
brought us many, many presents in
their own of rude way."
Norwalk, the county-seat of Huron, is a beautiful city of
the second class, fifty-six miles west of Cleveland, about ninety-five miles
north of Columbus, and fifty-seven miles east of Toledo; is on the L. S. &
M. S., W. & L. E., and S. M. & N. Railroads. It is on what are known as the "Firelands," in the Western Reserve. On account of its fine streets being
well shaded by beautiful trees of that species, it is called the "Maple
City." It is surrounded by a
rich farming country, has a fine commercial trade, and considerable
manufacturing interests. County
Officers: Auditor, Jonathan S. WHITE; Clerk, Albert M. BEATTIE; Commissioners,
Commodore O. H. PERRY, James A. FANCHER, George BARGUS; Coroner, Frank E.
WEEKS; Infirmary Directors, James D. EASTON, Uriah S.
LAYLIN, Jonathan W. HUESTIS; Probate Judge, Henry L. KENNAN; Prosecuting
Attorney, Theron H. KELLOGG; Recorder, Robert A.
BLOOMER; Sheriff, Albert NOECKER; Surveyor, Luther B. MESNARD; TREASURERS, Orin
S. GRIFFIN, Amos O. JUMP.
Newspapers: Chronicle,
Republican, F. R. LOOMIS, editor; Germania, German, George J. Lenz, editor and publisher; Journal, COUCH & BECKWITH, editors
and publishers; Reflector,
Republican, C. WICKHAM and James C. GIBBS, editors; Experiment and News, Democratic, H. L. STEWART, editor. Churches: one Episcopalian, three
Catholic, one Congregational, two Methodist Episcopal, one Baptist, one
UNIVERSALIST, 1 Presbyterian, and 1 Lutheran. Banks: First National, Theodore
WILLIAMS, president, George M. CLEVELAND, cashier; Huron County Banking
Company, D. H. FOX, president, Pitt CURTIS, cashier; Norwalk National Bank,
John GARDINER, president, Charles W. MILLEN, cashier.
Manufacturers
and Employees. - G. M. CLEVELAND & Co., flour, etc., 6 hands; W.
B. LYKE, general machinery, 5; B. C. CARTWRIGHT, fanning mills, idle; E. S.
Page 945
TUTTLE, grain elevator, 2; C. H. GROVE & Co.,
iron foundry, 3; STEWART Dowel Pin Works, dowel pins, 17; the A. B. CHASE Co.,
pianos and organs, 160; L. S. & M. S. R. R. Shops, railroad repairs, 80; W.
& L. E. R. R. Shops, railroad repairs, 99; Norwalk Machine Works, general
machinery, 9; C. H. FULLER, carriages, 9; N. H. PEBBLES, carriages, 5; the
LANING Printing Co., printing, 26; Norwalk Electric Light and Power Co.,
electric light, 3; S. E. CRAWFORD, pumps, 3; Theodore WILLIAMS & Son,
flour, etc., 10; D. E. MOREHOUSE, planing mill, 5; C.
W. SMITH, planing mill, 10; SMITH & HIMBERGER,
doors, sash, etc., 8; F. B. CASE, tobaccos, 23; SPRAGUE & FRENCH,
advertising novelties, 225; The Hexagon Postal Box Manufacturing Co., post
office furniture, 20; William SCHUBERT, planing mill,
6; BOSTWICK & BURGESS Manufacturing Co., carpet sweepers, etc., 53. - State Reports, 1888. Population in 1880, 5,704. School census, 1888,
2,338; W. R. COMINGS, school superintendent. Capital invested in industrial
establishments, $354,250. Value of annual product, $575,000. - Ohio Labor statistics, 1887.
U.S. Census 1890, 7,195.
Up to 1852, the era of railroads, Norwalk was an
academy town. It was the seat of
the famous Norwalk Academy, having been the largest and most famous institution
of the kind in all the West, and almost as well known
to the pioneers as Yale or Harvard.
The society of the town comprised mostly the teachers and of their
families, together with the few families who moved here while educating their
children. Charles H. STEWART, Esq, in an address delivered March 27, 1883, at the
farewell reunion of the High School alumni, said:
"Everybody kept boarders; in fact, that was the main occupation of
about nine-tenths of our able-bodied citizens during that period. Board was very reasonable in those days,
too. A young man could get the best
room and nicest board in town for from $1 to $1.50 per week. Mutton sold for two cents a pound, and
as everybody kept cows and pigs and hens, which all ran free in the streets,
milk and eggs and pork were almost given away. These rooms were divided up into a large
number of smaller ones, where many young men roomed.
"Our late president, R. B. HAYES, and present Governor, Charles
FOSTER, and several of our congressman, were dormitory
boys, as they used to call them, who cooked and ate and devised mischief
there. The boys had their bread
baked, did the rest of their cooking, and used to live here nicely for 45 cents
a week, including room rent, which was $1 a term. In the fall of the year (as can be
guessed), the boys used to live on the fat of the land. On almost any night, along toward
midnight's witching hour, mysterious figures could be seen, surreptitiously
gliding into the old school building, with large, mysterious bags on their
shoulders. If you would glide up
behind one of them, you would see the contents of those bags disgorged in the
ruddy glow of the firelight which lit up the laughing faces of half a score of
future senators, congressmen, governors, judges, or-must we say it? - preachers. There
were big watermelons and roasting-ears, and sweet potatoes, apples, now and
then a plump pullet from some neighboring roost, and there was a banquet for
the gods."
BIOGRAPHY.
Platt BENEDICT, the founder of the town, was born in
Danbury, Conn., in 1775, and was a four-year-old boy when the British red-coats
came to his native town to do mischief, having burned Norwalk, Conn., on their
way. Perhaps it was this incident
that directly paved the way to his founding an Ohio Norwalk. When he came out here in 1817, he was 7
weeks on the journey coming out, with his family and household goods, the
latter stowed away in a wagon drawn by oxen. He was one of the most sturdy of that
strong body of men - the Western pioneers; a man of many virtues. He lived to the grand old age of 91
years, 7 months and 7 days, which he reached October 25, 1866.
George KENNAN,
the Siberian traveler, when born in Norwalk, February 16, 1845. His father, now 87 years of age, is
probably the oldest living telegrapher in the United States, and taught his son
the profession. He was educated in
the public schools of Norwalk, and at the Columbus High School was awarded as
Page 946
PLATT BENEDICT
GEO. KENNAN
An Ohio Pioneer.
The Siberian Traveller.
night operator in that
city. In 1864, while working as
assistant chief operator in the Western Union office at Cincinnati he made
application for an appointment on the projected overland line from America to
Europe, via Alaska, Behring's Straits and
Siberia. One night a message came
over the wires from General STAGER, as follows: "Can you get ready to
start for Alaska in two weeks?" "Yes, I can get ready to start in two
hours," was the reply.
"You may go," replied General STAGER.
As a leader of one of the Russo-American Telegraph Company's exploring
parties, he spent nearly three years in constant travel in the interior of
northeastern Siberia. The manner in
which, in the summer of 1867, he received the first notice of the abandonment
of the enterprise in which he was engaged, illustrates the complete isolation
from civilization of his party.
One day he with some others boarded a vessel in the Okhotsk
Sea and approached the captain with the remark: "Good Day, sir. What is the name of your vessel?"
The astonished captain of the bark Sea Breeze, from New Bedford, Mass.,
replied: "Good Lord! Has the universal Yankee got up here? Where did you
come from? How did you get here? What are you doing?"
Having silenced his interrogation battery, the captain gave them a lot
of old San Francisco newspapers, in which they learned that the enterprise upon
which they were engaged had been abandoned, on account of the successful laying
of the second Atlantic Cable; but it was not until the following September that
they received official notification and orders to return to America.
In 1870 Mr. KENNAN again went to Russia to explore the mountains of the
Eastern Caucasus, returning to this country in 1871.
In 1885 he was engaged by the publishers of the "Century
Magazine" to visit Russia for the purpose of investigating the Russian
exile system. He in company with
Mr. FROST, the artist, spent sixteen months on this work, during which they
suffered many hardships. Extreme
cold, fatigue and sickness were but small trials when compared with the
constant fear of discovery of their mission by the Russian government, and the
heart sickness caused by sympathy for the horrible misery of the exiles. It required wonderful tact and skill to
evade the watchfulness of the Russian emissaries.
They traveled 1,500 miles through northern Russia and Siberia, visited
all the convict prisons and mines between the Ural mountains
and the headwaters of the Amur river, and explored
the wildest part of the Russian Altai.
The publication in the "Century Magazine" of the results of
these investigations filled the whole civilized world with horror and
indignation at the inhumanity of the Russian government in its treatment of
political and other offenders
Mr. KENNAN is the author of "Tent Life in Siberia, and Adventures Among the Koraks and other Tribes
in Kamchatka and Northern Asia." (New York, 1870.)
Among the present citizens of
Norwalk is
Page 947
John GARDINER,
who has the distinction of being the oldest banker in Northwest Ohio. He was
born in New London county, Conn., September 15,
1816. In 1834 he entered as a clerk
in the Bank of Norwalk, which was then the only bank in Northwestern Ohio, and
its business embraced what is now all of 20 counties, extending as far south as
Mount Vernon and Bucyrus. He has
largely been identified with the railroads of this region, and other great
public interests of a developing nature; has lately erected a beautiful business
block in Norwalk. Gideon T. STEWART, a lawyer here, born
in Fulton county, N. Y., in 1824, has been long identified with journalism and
the temperance reform; has been thrice the Prohibition candidate for Governor
of Ohio. Through out the war period
he owned and edited the Dubuque Daily
Times, then the only union daily in the north half of Wisconsin; later it
was half owner of The Daily Blade and Daily Commercial of Toledo.
TRAVELING
NOTES.
Mr. C. E. NEWMAN, the librarian of the Firelands Historical Society, an old gentleman, showed me
in Norwalk, among the society's possessions, a tin horn which was used, he told
me, to summon the people up to church and court; and as he stated by Mr. Ammi KEELER. He
was sexton of the Episcopal church, the first church
organized, and which was in the old white court-house, and being also
deputy-sheriff he brought it into the service of the law as well as
religion. The old white court-house
was removed about 1835, and now forms part of the Maple City hotel.
Edmundston, photo.
A Historic Horn.
A few months after Mr.
NEWMAN had shown me this horn, which I had photographed, I was in Mansfield,
and called in one evening upon Rev. Dr. Sherlock A. Bronson, at one time president of Gambier. He was then about eighty years old, the
venerable rector of the Episcopal church, who had come
from Waterbury, Conn., in 1807; age then six months, of course recollections of
the journey not vivid.
While showing him my
various pictures taken for this work, I brought out this one, saying,
"This is a photograph of a tin horn used sixty years ago, in the town of
Norwalk, to blow the people up to church and to court." "Yes,"
he rejoined, and to my great surprise added, "I know it, for I am the man
that bought and blew that horn."
He then gave me its history.
"In 1827," he said, "I attended an Episcopal convention
at Mt. Vernon, and on my way to Norwalk passed through this town, Mansfield,
and here bought this horn. From
1827 to 1829 I was assistant teacher to my cousin in the famous Norwalk
Academy. The Episcopal Society met
in the courthouse, where I sometimes read service, and it was my wont to go out
upon the court-house steps and blow the horn." I had supposed we were alone in our
interview, but as he concluded I was again surprised - surprised to hear from a
dark part of the double room a female voice utter, "I want to see that
horn." Thereupon he left me,
taking the photograph, but I never saw or knew who it was that had wanted to
see that horn. And with so much, I
close my story of a horn that was not attached to a dilemma.
The next day I saw in Mansfield another venerable gentleman,
Mr. Hiram R. SMITH, who sixty years ago was a resident of Sandusky, and he gave
me another item to add to this blast.
"At the starting of Sandusky," said he, "the Sanduskians were called to church by a horn. It was on a Sunday morning of those
times that Bishop Philander CHASE, the founder of Kenyon, landed at Sandusky
with two Chinese youths he had brought from the East to Ohio for education.
Page 948
As the trio stepped ashore the horn rang out on
the clear morning air, where upon one of the lads inquired its meaning. "That," replied the bishop, "is to summon the people to church."
"Hoo," rejoined the lad: "New York, Sunday,
ring bell for church - Buffalo, Sunday, ring bell for church - Sandusky,
Sunday, blow horn."
The people of Norwalk have
a natural pride in the fact that General M'PHERSON was once a student at their
old academy. Mr. NEWMAN told me he
boarded with him, and he was a very studious, gentlemanly youth, with the
highest reputation for capacity. He
narrowly escaped failing to get into the Military Academy. He had applied for and was expecting the
appointment when Rudolphus DICKERSON, the member of
Congress through whom it was to come, suddenly sickened and died. M'PHERSON was then in an agony of
suspense. No one could give him any
information whether the cadet warrant for admission into the academy had been
granted. He was already twenty
years of age; if delayed a year he would be twenty-one, and too old for
admission. At the last moment by
bare accident the warrant was found among DICKERSON'S papers. As it was, he had to hurry and narrowly
escaped getting there in time for examination.
Norwalk
owes its chief attraction to Main street, its
principal avenue. It is built upon
for about two miles. The centre
being the business part, with the court-house, school buildings and churches;
the ends for residences, and these are lined with
maples, planted at the suggestion of Elisha
WHITTLESEY, one of the original proprietors. But few streets I know of in the
centre of any Ohio town is so dense with foliage as
the part of Main street shown in our view.
At Edmundson'S
photograph gallery I saw a picture here copied that exhibited a singular
affection between a horse and a dog.
They belonged to the firm of EASTMAN & READ, grocers. The horse was used for the delivery
wagon, and it was the habit of the dog, on the return of the horse from a round
of serving customers, to run and give and receive a caress.
The thoughtful Miss MARTINEAU, wrote that although human beings had been living
for thousands of years in the companionship of animals, there was between the
two an inseparable gulf, preventing the mind of the one from closely
communicating with the mind of the other.
Whether it be so between animals of different
kinds or of the same kind is a question.
Bellevue is a
peculiarly located. It is in Huron
and Sandusky counties, part on and part off the Western Reserve, and has a
corner also of Erie and Seneca counties.
The town is in the midst of a fine agricultural district, which produces
large quantities of cereals and fruits, enriching the people of the surrounding
country and making the town a prosperous and wealthy center. It is sixty-five miles west of
Cleveland, about ninety-five miles north of Columbus and forty five miles east
of Toledo, and about midway between Buffalo and Chicago on the "Nickel-plate"
Railroad, being the terminus of two grand divisions of that line, whose company
has here established round-houses and repair-shops. It has three
Page 949
lines of railways, the
L. S. & M. S., W. & L. E. and W. & L. E. and N. Y. C. & St. L.
(or Nickel-plate.) Newspapers: Gazette, neutral, STONER & CALLAHAN,
publishers; Local News, neutral,
George E. WOOD, editor and publisher.
Churches: 2 Congregational, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Reformed, 1
Catholic, 1 Evangelical, 1 Lutheran and 1 Episcopal. Banks: Bellevue, Bourdett
WOOD, president, E. J. SHEFFIELD, cashier.
City Officers, 1888: Mayor, John U. MAYNE; Clerk, W. H. DIMICK;
Marshall, J. P. KRONER; Treasurer, Abishai
WOODWARD. Population
in 1880, 2,169. School census, 1888, 854; E. F. WARNER, school superintendent.
Manufacturers and Employees. -
Joseph ERDICH, cooperage, 25 hands; Fremont Cultivator Co., agricultural
implements, 61; MCLAUGHLIN & Co., flour, etc., 13; GROSS and WEBER, planing mill, 6. - Ohio State Report, 1888. Capital invested in industrial
establishments, $156,000. The value of annual product, $538,000. - Ohio Labor Statistics, 1887. United States Census,
1890, 3,052.
Greenwich is eighteen miles southeast of Norwalk, on the C.
C. C. & I. R. R. Newspaper: Enterprise, local, SPEEK & MCKEE,
publishers. Churches: 1 Congregational,
1 Methodist and 2 Friends. Bank:
Greenwich Banking Co., Wm. A. KNAPP, president, W. A. HOSSLER, cashier. Population in 1880,
647. School
census, 1888, 276.
Monroeville is an
incorporated town about ninety-five miles north from Columbus, fifty-nine miles
west of Cleveland and five miles west of Norwalk. Three railroads have a
junction here, viz.: L. S. & M. S., W. & L. E. and B. & O., and the
"Nickel-plate" crosses the B. & O. four miles north of the town. It is surrounded by rich farming lands,
cereals and fruits being the principal products. Its educational facilities are superior,
and it has considerable manufacturing interests. Newspaper: Spectator, neutral, SIMMONS Bros., publishers. Churches: 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopal, 1
Lutheran, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Catholic and 1 Presbyterian. Banks: First National, S. D. FISH,
president, H P STENTZ, cashier.
Manufacturers and Employees. -
BOEHM & YANQUELL, flour, etc., 3 hands; HEYMON & Co., flour, etc., 9;
S. E. SMITH, agricultural implements, 6; John HOSFORD, fanning mills, 2. -State Report, 1888. Population in 1880, 1,221. School census, 1888,
476; W. H. MITCHEL, school superintendent. Capital invested in industrial
establishments, $30,000. Value of annual product, $60,000. -Ohio Labor Statistics, 1887.
New London is ninety miles north of Columbus and forty-seven
miles southwest of Cleveland via C. C. C. & I. R. R. Its early settlers were from New
York and New England. It has one
newspaper: Record, independent, Geo.
W. RUNYAN, editor and proprietor.
City Officers, 1888, D. R. SACKETT, mayor; J. L. YOUNG, clerk; C.
STARBIRD, treasurer; H. K. DAY, marshal.
Three churches: 1 Baptist, 1 Methodist Episcopal and 1
Congregational. Principal
industries are dairying, manufacturer of flour, tile, churn and butter boxes,
tables, carriages and wagons. Bank:
First National, Alfred S. JOHNSON, president; John M. SHERMAN, cashier. Population in 1880,
1,011. School
census, 1886, 295; Jas. L. YOUNG, superintendent.
Chicago is
seventy-five miles north of Columbus and fifteen southwest of Norwalk. The first building was erected in 1874,
and occupied by Samuel L. BOWEBY as a grocery and hotel. Chicago is an evidence of the rapid
growth of the town through the influence of railroads, three divisions of the
B. & O. R. R. terminating here and causing the establishment of the town,
which has grown to its present proportions not withstanding serious drawbacks
by fire and epidemic. It has one
newspaper: Times, independent, S. O.
RIGGS, editor and publisher. Four
churches: 1 United Brethren, 1 Methodist Episcopal, 1 Free Methodist and 1
Catholic. The B. & O. R. R. has
machine and repair shops located here.
Population in 1880, 662.
Page 950
Wakeman is ten miles east of
Norwalk, on the L. S. & M. S. R. R.
Newspaper: Independent Press,
Independent, G. H. MAINS, editor and publisher.
Manufacturers
and Employees. - J. J. MCMANN, wagon felloes, etc., 5 hands; Geo.
HUMPHREY, wagon felloes, etc., 6; S. T. GIBSON, flour, etc., 2; J. R. GRIFFIN,
cooperage, 4. - Ohio
State Reports, 1887.
Capital invested in industrial establishments, $13,300. Value of annual
product, $15,200. - Ohio Labor
Statistics, 1887.