1798

The committee on partition, Pease, Spafford, Warren and Holbrook having reported from Canandaigua, the directors called the stockholders together at Hartford, to receive their lands. All the territory east of the Cuyahoga was included in the partition, except the six townships reserved for sale. These were Chapin, now Madison, Geuaga county; Mentor, Lake county; Charlton, afterwards Chagrin, now Willoughby, Euclid, Cleveland, then including Newburgh, and Weathersfield, or the “Salt Spring Township,” in Trumbull county. On the 29th of January, 1798, the long expected draft took place, consisting of ninety-three equal parcels, embracing a township or more. On the next day the four allotted towns were drawn, in four hundred parcels, one for each share in the company. These were, Northfield, Bedford and Warrensville, in this county, and the township of Perry in Lake county.

As the subject of civil government made no progress, a petition was again laid before the general assembly of Connecticut, reciting their numerous failures in Congress, and most earnestly praying or relief. This was in October, 1798. In December an agent was appointed, to urge Congress speedy attention to their condition, in case the assembly should fail them.

At this meeting, Gen. Cleaveland’s contract with the surveyors, made at Cleveland, Sept. 30th, 1796, was ratified and assumed by the company. Three hundred dollars was appropriated for the improvement of the Salt Springs, with a view to leasing the same. A bounty of two hundred dollars cash, or a loan of five hundred dollars, was offered to such persons as would put up certain grist mills, and two more assessments of ten dollars per share levied.

On the first of May, 1799, no relief had been obtained upon their petitions for a civil government, the losses and delays of their enterprise on this account were again presented to the State of Connecticut. This had been so embarrassing to their operations, that in the following year, the State was asked to abate the interest due upon their payments.

MSS. OF JUDGE BARR.

“Rodolphus Edwards from Chenango county, New York, came to Cleveland this season; also Nathaniel Doan and family, from Chatham, Middlesex county, Conn. His journey from Chatham occupied ninety-two days.

At Utica, N. York, he was joined by his nephew, Seth Doan, at the urgent request of the latter, who was an ambitious boy of thirteen. In 1801 Seth’s father, Timothy Doan, moved into Euclid, as his future home. Nathaniel Doan went at first into the cabin built by Stiles, and immediately put up a blacksmith shop on the south side of Superior street, not far east of the end of Bank street. Joseph Landon and Stephen Gilbert cleared some ground and sowed it to wheat, on what was afterwards the Horace Perry farm. Major Carter planted two acres of corn on Water street, just south of the light house.

In the latter part of the summer and all the fall, every person in the colony was at some time sick with fever and ague or billious fever. Doan’s family was attacked on the way, and were obliged to stop at Mentor, from whence Parker and Church brought them here. It consisted of nine persons, every one of them sick. Seth Doan was the only one with strength enough to do anything, and he had shakes every day himself. He was able, when the fit subsided to bring a pail of water, and gather firewood. For two months this boy made the trip to Mr. Kingsbury’s after his daily fit was over, and brought a little corn for the sick, when they mashed in a hand mill at Newburg. The nearest water mill at that time was on Walnut creek, in Pennsylvania. When Seth was unable to go, their only vegetable food was turnips.

When Major Carter had an intermission of the disease, he and his hounds generally secured a deer, which was liberally shared with the other sick families. Carter’s family being somewhat acclimated, suffered less than the new comers. There was no physician to prescribe, and few medicines.

In the place of calomel, they used an infusion of butternut bark, and for quinine and Peruvian bark, they substituted dog wood and cherry. For tea and coffee they burned corn, wheat, rye and peas. The families of Kingsbury and Gun, on the ridge, were in good health, and visiting the city as often as possible, were untiring in their attentions to the sick. Edwards, who had moved to the ridge, was sick, and continued so all winter. As the cold weather came on, the invalids gradually recovered strength, so that by the first of January, 1799, they were in reasonable health.

About the middle of November, four of the settlers who had a respite of one or two days between fits, started for Walnut Creek to get flour. As they were coasting along the shore below Euclid creek, their boat was wrecked in a storm, and they were obliged to return. During the winter and spring they were without flour, subsisting upon wheat and corn, ground in the hand mill and made up Graham fashion.

The Land Company caused a road to be surveyed and partially worked this year, from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania line, about ten miles from the lake, which was the first road opened through the Reserve. David Abbott, from Fort Stanwix, New York, settled at the Chagrin river, and Joseph Burk and family, in Euclid. Burton, Harpersfield and Youngstown were also occupied for the first time as settlements.”