"A Winter Journey"
Letter from Mary Hosmer, in Seville, OH, to her parents in Connecticut.
(From "1816-1966, A Book About Seville, Ohio," by Lee Cavin.)

March the 30, 1817
Beloved Parents:

I shall for the first time undertake to inform you a little respecting our journey and present situation...we were five weeks getting to Wadsworth Center. We had a very good road as far as Albany. From there to Canandaigua was very bad.... After staying at Canandaigua four days, to get fresh supplies and recruit ourselves and horses, we set out again on Friday and passed through Buffalo Monday where we found excellent sleighing, but the snow was not deep enough to injure the wagoning. Coming up the Lake was very tedious.... The men froze their ears and Chester froze his toe very bad. We came with our wagon as far as Pennsylvania, where the snow was so deep and drifted that we were obliged to take the sleigh, which we arrived at the end of our journey with.

We stayed in Wadsworth four weeks at the house of Esquire Salmon Warner, where we had every respect and kindness shown us that we could wish for.... It is a town of excellent land and well watered. It is but three years since the first family moved in. Now there are twenty-three and one school house. Besides there are several young men taken up farms.

We moved from Wadsworth the first day of March. I shall never forget that day. The ice had broken up in the River Styx, which made it impossible to cross with our load. Abigail and myself waded through. They then undertook to cross the sleigh. The horses broke through the old ice but the boys sprung in and left them from the harness, which undoubtedly saved their lives. They then felled trees and brought over the sleigh and load with much difficulty and got the horses through the weeds before we reached our habitation. Now here we are all healthy and well pleased with our situation....

Traveling in the 1800s New York Public Library Picture Collection

Our house is very comfortable. We have no chimney, but we calculate to have one built next week. We have neighbors within three miles, on what is called Congress Lane....We have not been more than a mile from the house since we came here, but we are calculating to go down to the Indians' camps in a day or two....

I have not seen but one woman since I have been here, but there are men traveling past almost every day. Last week a Mr. Horton from Westfield and a Mr. Elsworth from East Windsor stayed all night. They were much pleased with the land. They said it was the best they had seen on the Reserve. We have had no other visitors except Indians. They visit us almost every day. I was a little afraid of them at first, but they appear to be very kind and friendly. I feel as contented as I expected to. I wish you were all here. You cannot think how I want to see you all....

You must not sell things you can possible fetch, for everything is very scarce and dear in this country. Mother, I see the want of you and your counsel and advice every day, but I content myself by thinking that the time will soon come when I shall be blessed with the enjoyment of living once more with you.... Abigail sends her love to you all. You must write as soon as you receive this.

From your Affectionate Daughter Mary

Among the "young men taken up farms" in Guilford township were John and David Wilson. David was a Methodist minister from Wheeling, VA and recent veteran of the War of 1812. (His father, William, originally from County Antrim, Ireland, had emigrated to Pennsylvania and fought in the American Revolution at Brandywine and Three Rivers.) Distance did not count much on the frontier and the Wilson boys soon came calling on Abigail. According to the History of Medina County (1881), "it seems that the Wilson brothers found their new-made friends very interesting." David informed his brother one day that ''he had concluded to relieve him of the irksome duties of housekeeping." On the 18th of December, 1818, he married Abigail Porter.

We were married at the house of Lyman Munson, who lived at Seville at that time. As Mrs. Munson, who was a sister of the prospective bride, was sick at the time, Abigail did the honors as hostess herself. Brunswick, Medina, Wadsworth, Mogadore and Seville were fairly represented by wedding guests. After dinner had been served and the house put in order, the bride made her toilet, almost unaided. Her little dressing-room was partitioned off from the rest of the house by quilts. She wore a steel-colored silk dress, her hair in finger-puffs, and she looked charming.' Esquire Warner of Wadsworth was the officiating officer, and on the day following the wedding, Mr. Wilson took his wife home with him, they both riding upon one horse.

Excerpt from the life story of Ed Sinclair Smith written for his children and grandchildren, February 6, 1933.

My mother, Elizabeth Platt was born May 6th at or near Steuben, Ohio, 11 miles south of Monroeville. A beautiful rolling country. She was next to the oldest of nine children half of whom died in infancy. Levi Platt was the fifteenth of seventeen. (If they had stopped at 14 I would not be writing my life story.) Grandfather was the last survivor of his fmaily, dying at ninety two. He was born near Huntington, Connecticut, December 22, 1795.

Grandfather gathered his grain with sickle. When I was a young man, I followed the Cradle. I helped my grandmother mold candles. Remember when they first used coal oil lamps. I remember when a boy seeing the lamp lighter going from corner to corner lighting the coal oil lamps.

DAY and ELY FAMILIES

Robert Hoskin's maternal ancestors, the Day and Ely families, were among the earliest settlers in the Connecticut Western Reserve, and because they were among the first in what is now Deerfield Township, they have been featured in books of local history.

The stories of the Day and the Ely families, who came to America aboard the same ship 365 years ago, are so intertwined that it is almost impossible to tell of the one without telling of the other. Some historians believe that Robert Day and Nathaniel Ely had been close friends back in County Kent, England, for years before they made the long journey westward in 1634. On arrival in this country the two families lived side by side in Cambridge, MA, until they migrated with Rev. Thomas Hooker to found Hartford, CT. They owned adjoining farms in Hartford. From there they moved farther into Connecticut, and then on into Massachusetts, intermarrying several times as they went. By about 1790, Lewis Ely and family were living in Granville, MA, and Lewis Day and family were nine miles down the road in Granby, CT.

It is no surprise that these two friends came together to the Connecticut Western Reserve. It was 1799, the State of Connecticut had kept possession of its land south of Lake Erie, and the Connecticut Land Company was selling it off to all comers. Lewis Day knew about this—it was advertised in newspapers and posters everywhere. Lewis Ely's wife, the former Anna Granger, was a relative of Gideon Granger, one of the proprietors of the Connecticut Land Company. Gideon Granger owned, jointly with Oliver Phelps the land that later became Deerfield Township. The two Lewises must have planned together to make the big move, and they bought their lots from Oliver Phelps.

When Connecticut deeded over her western lands to the United States, and reserved a portion for herself, she set off a chain reaction of misunderstandings regarding jurisdictional authority. No one knew for sure who was in control. The Days and Elys apparently risked everything they owned on a very uncertain future.

Whatever his reason for taking the risk, early in the summer of 1799, Lewis Day, with his son, Horatio, came across the mountains, using a one-horse wagon. It was the first horse-drawn wagon to come across the Allegheny Mountains and into the area which is present day Portage County. It must have been a monumental task—the wagon probably had to be pushed a good bit of the way. Once arrived, though, they lost no time in building shelter and settling in. A month later, Lewis Ely arrived at his lot, bringing his family with him, settled on the land, and built a cabin for permanent residence. Both families cleared their land and put in crops. In the fall, Lewis and Horatio Day returned to their home in Granby, CT, and spent the winter there making preparations to move the family.

Early in February 1800, Alva Day (a son of Lewis), John Campbell, and a third young man left Connecticut and walked across some 600 miles of the snow-covered Allegheny Mountains to the Reserve. Sometimes trudging through 5-6 feet of snow, yet managing to average 25-30 miles a day, they finally reached their destination in early March. John Campbell lost no time in marrying his sweetheart, Sarah Ely. It was the first marriage in what is now Portage County, and was performed by Judge Calvin Austin, the closest official to them with the authority to carry out such duties.

When Alva Day and John Campbell established their homes in April, 1800, they were in Connecticut's Western Reserve. By the time Lewis Day arrived, three months later, they were living on the same land, but now in Trumbull County of the Northwest Territory. Two years later, they found themselves residents of Franklin Township, in Trumbull County. In 1803, their little corner of the Northwest Territory became part of the State of Ohio. So now the Days and Elys were residents of Franklin Township, Trumbull Co., Ohio. Then, in 1806, Deerfield Township was formed, and the next year, Portage County split from Trumbull County. Finally, my ancestors were settled in Deerfield Township, Portage County, Ohio, the family home as we knew it....

When Ohio became a State, one of the first tasks of the new legislature was to set up a state-wide militia. There were Indians in the area, and even though they had been quiet and friendly since the Greenville Treaty eight years earlier, memories of past Indian attacks lingered. Lewis Day's mother, Sarah Munn Day, was born in Deerfield, MA, 20 years after the Deerfield Massacre, but her parents and oldest sister, one-month old at the time, lived through it. Many others in Deerfield, OH, had similar memories—many probably first-hand. A local militia would have offered some reassurance, but, also, some anxious moments for many a mother, sister, and wife.

1804 also saw the marriage of one of the Ely girls to one of the Day boys—Lucy Ely and Munn Day. It continued the tradition of intermarriage between these two families, and assured my presence in this world. Lucy and Munn were my great-great-grandparents. The name Munn Day seems amusing at first glance, but he was named for his paternal grandmother, Sarah Munn Day. Lucy and Munn were married on Jan 2nd, and had their first child at the end of the year. They had eight children in a 24-year time span, but only six survived to adulthood—a typical family for the time....

In 1811, fears of warfare grew again in Deerfield, as in all of the northwestern frontier.... The Deerfield Company, organized in 1804, had not maintained their battle readiness. "The command had no uniforms, but each man was 'armed to the teeth' with a rifle, a tomahawk, and a large knife." War was declared on June 18, and soon thereafter Col. Campbell (commanding the Second Regiment, of which the Deerfield, or First, Company was a part) was ordered to take his Company to the front, on the River Raisin, just south of Detroit. Before they arrived at their destination, many took seriously ill. John Campbell and Seth Day were forced to turn back.... Several days later, encamped at River Raisin, Alva and Lewis Day also became very ill. Word was received of Gen. Hull's surrender of Detroit to the British, and being considered a part of Hull's Army, the men of the Deerfield Company became prisoners of war, without ever seeing action. A few of the men, physically able, managed to escape and return home, but 21 were taken to Ft. Malden, Ontario, Canada. Lewis Day, Jr. died there, August 26. Three days later, the remaining 20 men were released and sent home, Alva Day carrying the heavy news of his brother's death.

The town folk were happy to have their men back home, though under a cloud of apprehension, because the British victory at Detroit left them uncertain as to what the future might hold. A year later, it seemed their worst fears were about to be realized. In the middle of a barn raising, word came for the militiamen to leave for Cleveland the next morning. The women and children were told to prepare to retreat to Pittsburgh. They could hear the sound of the cannonading on Lake Erie, some 50 miles away, as the sea battle between Commodore Perry and the British raged on. During the night a horseman came dashing along the road, shouting at the top of his voice, "Hurrah, hurrah! Perry is victorious!"

PLATT FAMILY

Joseph Platt's (1750-1819) ancestors came to America in 1638/39, with Rev. Peter Pruden and his group. They settled at New Haven, in the Colony of New Haven, where the church and secular society were much stricter than in the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut Colonies. Within a year, Pruden's group left New Haven and established a new settlement, at Milford, CT.

In 1804, Joseph and his wife, Lydia Ellsworth, and their son, Eli, moved from New Milford, CT, to Boardman Township, Trumbull Co., OH. In 1846, Mahoning Co. split off from Trumbull and Columbiana Counties, and Boardman Township became part of Mahoning County. So the Platts had to play the same game of musical addresses as the Days and Elys. The Township was named for its proprietor, Elijah Boardman, and it may be that the Platts bought their lot in the Reserve from him.

St. James Episcopal Church is the oldest in [Mahoning] County, having been organized in July 1809. Among the first members were Eli Platt, and Joseph Platt. The congregation worshipped in schoolhouses and private dwellings until 1828, when a church edifice was erected.

At first the Church was without a minister, and Joseph Platt served as its lay pastor, but the church members wanted a trained, ordained minister. Joseph was a clothier and owned a fulling mill. On one of his business trips to Pittsburgh in late 1814, he was able to obtain the services of Rev. Jackson Kemper, who later became well known in the Northwest.

Joseph, Jr., and his family lived in Canfield, Mahoning County. One of the daughters, Polly Platt (1810-1889), moved to nearby Shalersville in 1826. Her obituary implies that she went there with her family, but this is unconfirmed. Polly met Milo Hoskin in Shalersville, probably in 1826, when she was 16 years old, and he was 25. They were married in 1829. Polly moved into the Hoskin Homestead in Shalersville, and spent the rest of her life there. Milo's mother, Lue (Mallory) Hoskin, died in 1835, and his father, John, in 1849, so Polly lived there with her in-laws for 20 years. She would not have been the lady of the home for six years, and she and Milo didn't inherit the farm outright for another 14 years. Their persistence may be the reason Milo finally inherited the farm. He had two older brothers who were 56 and 52 years old when John died, and perhaps they didn't wait around to inherit the farm.

Polly was baptized in the Shalersville Disciples Church, a big step for someone raised in the more conservative Episcopal church. She must have been an impressionable, maybe even somewhat rebellious, teenager who got caught up in the fervor of the Disciple movement. She remained an active, faithful member the rest of her life.

Polly was strong willed about other things, too. She did not like for Milo to go out in the woods hunting, and asked him not to. He agreed, but wanted to go on one last hunting trip. He returned with a handsome rack of antlers, and, true to his promise, never went again (Hoskin lore). The antlers hung in the old homestead for years, and then somehow made their way to our home in Akron, OH. They were lost when my parents moved to Virginia.

Polly died in 1889, and is buried in the Hillside Cemetery in Shalersville.

HOSKIN FAMILY

John (1770-1849) and Lue (Mallory) (1770-1835) Hoskins, my great-great-grandparents, were living in Colebrook, CT, in 1816, when they bought land in the Connecticut Western Reserve. There is no way of knowing what was in their minds as they took this big step. We don't know what their reason was for pulling up their roots and moving 600 miles to some strange new land, but it could have been any one of several. Just driving through Colebrook it is pretty obvious that the area is not meant for farming. It is beautiful country, nestled in the Berkshire Hills, but too hilly and rocky for good farming. Connecticut was becoming crowded, and good farmland was hard to come by. Add to that the horrible cold weather they had seen that summer, and there would be good reason to move on to the west seeking good land. There were problems in Connecticut, and the land opening up to the west must have looked awfully tempting. It is not surprising that many—singly or as family groups—sold their land and homes, packed up everything they owned, and headed for the Paradise in the Western Reserve, promised to them in ads everywhere they looked.

John and Lue purchased a quarter-section of land for $375 from Nathaniel Shaler, of Middletown, CT, another one of the proprietors of the Connecticut Land Company. They sold their land in Colebrook, packed up their family of 12 children, and moved to their new home in Ohio. One of the things they brought with them was a child's bed, simple in design and painted white. My daughter had the old paint stripped, and under it found a beautiful, solid cherry bed. It has been refinished in its natural color, and her children are still using it today.

Four or five of the boys would have been old enough to help their father on the journey, and two of the girls were able to help their mother with the cooking and the care of the younger children. There were three children between the ages of 2 and 8 years, and keeping up with them would have been a full-time job. As it was they lost little four-year-old Cloe when she fell from the wagon and was run over by one of the wheels. She was buried somewhere along the trail in an unmarked grave. The date of Cloe's death was carefully and lovingly recorded in the Hoskin Bible—Aug. 20, 1816. It was only one of many heart-wrenching losses along that trail.

The family arrived at their new home, one mile east of Shalersville Center, in late August or early September, and immediately set to work building temporary shelter. It would have to be crude, rugged, and uncomfortable, but adequate, until better could be built. Then they quickly turned their attention to clearing the land, readying it for crops. This meant felling trees, clearing away brush and rocks, draining bogs, and preparing the soil, much of which was wet and swampy. Later when he had the time and money, John Hoskins managed to build a permanent home for the family, a frame building, beautiful in its simplicity. This was sometime before 1849, the year of his death. It was much like many New England homes of the time. The main entrance led into a common room, which filled the entire eastern end of the house. The family spent most of their time there.

Towards the back of this room, on the left, was a door leading into the kitchen, which was small, with a wood stove, a sink, cupboards, and counters. In those days water would have been carried in and kept in a pan on the counter, and used water would have been thrown out the back door. I remember a sink with running water, piped in from the well, but this would have been a later addition. Any garbage would have been fed to the hogs. A back door led from the kitchen out to the backyard, where there was a squeaky old windmill, a cool milk house using cold well water brought up by the windmill, and the outhouse.

A middle doorway from the common room led to a very narrow, steep stairway up to four bedrooms. These were very plain, and heated only by grill work over holes in the floor, allowing warm air to rise from the lower floors.

A third door, still along the left side of the common room and towards the front of the house, led from the common room into a formal parlor, which was used for special occasions only. This was beautifully furnished with carpeting, drapery, overstuffed furniture, beautiful tables (maybe some made by Julius Day), and lamps. There was a wood stove, which shared a chimney with the stove in the kitchen.

The western end of the house had a formal dining room in front, with a door into the parlor, and a small bedroom in back, used by the head of the household. There were doors between the dining room and the bedroom, and between the bedroom and the kitchen. In the dining room hung a handsome pair of portraits, one picture of my grandmother and one of my grandfather. Their stiff, stern countenances stared at each other from the large, oval, ornate wooden frames for many, many years.

This house is still standing and lived in. Until about 10 years ago it was in possession of my cousin, and then of her son. I have many wonderful memories of visits there as a child. The common room and the kitchen were scenes of many happy times. My earliest memories include trips to a very cold outhouse. The path that led to it was hedged with tall elderberry bushes, which, in the fall , were the source of wonderful elderberry pies. (I still make elderberry pie. Rarely do I find people who know what it is. If they do, further questioning will reveal that they, or their ancestors, came from northeast Ohio. One of my friends from Kent calls it "fence post pie.") One other room familiar to me was an upstairs bedroom, which was not as cozy warm as the rooms on the lower floor, but laying there at night, under warm blankets, listening to the chirping crickets, the barking dogs, the wind in the trees, and the squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak of the windmill was a magical time forever burned in my memory.

The other rooms—the parlor, dining room, and "master bedroom"—did not have the same warm familiarity for me. Instead, they projected a sense of awe and stern propriety. I was almost afraid to move or breathe in those rooms. Only once or twice a year were we children allowed there—Thanksgiving and family reunions. One other special gathering in the parlor and dining room was the funeral of my Aunt Nora. Always before when we visited the farm, she had greeted us at that warm, inviting front door, with arms open and a wonderful smile on her face. This time she wasn't at the door, and a somber crowd was gathered in the parlor and the dining room, with grandmother and grandfather looking down on them from the oval portraits. They all filed by the open casket, to offer their final goodbyes. I was about 7 years old and Aunt Nora was the first dead person I had ever seen. I have a feeling that the old house, and the lives lived therein, in the 1930s, hadn't changed a great deal since the house was built in the 1840s.

The Hoskins had probably been members of the Congregational Church in Colebrook, CT. When they settled in Shalersville they quickly became caught up in the revival atmosphere of the Disciple movement. All along the western frontier in the early 1800s, there was a growing feeling of frustration with the stifling orthodoxy of the established churches and the sectarian spirit of the small, local churches. The settlers, of necessity, were self sufficient, independent minded folk and did not appreciate being told what to believe or being refused participation in ecclesiastical sacraments because they might have differing beliefs, however minor. In Ohio, people sharing this common feeling, were attracted to the preaching and teaching of Thomas and Alexander Campbell. However, the Campbells' approach was intellectual and restrained and lacked the charisma to sustain any kind of revival. In the early 1820s, they were joined by an enthusiastic young minister, Walter Scott, who decided to concentrate his work in the Western Reserve. His sensible approach and charismatic manner, set off a religious revival that rapidly spread through the Reserve. The Hoskins were caught up in the rush.

In Shalersville, as in so many of the small towns in the Reserve, those excited about the new, relaxed approach to church practices tended to gather together in groups, open to any who wished to join them. What they hoped to do was encourage the old, established churches to be more open and accepting of those who differed in beliefs. They had no intention of forming yet another sect—but it happened. They remained local, autonomous congregations, but they worked together, and were organized enough by 1828 that the movement began formally recognizing each little gathering as a local church. The Shalersville group was so recognized in 1828. Now, four generations later, the Hoskins are still active members of the Disciple Church. Born on the American frontier, sparked by the revival spirit of the Western Reserve, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) now numbers roughly 900,000 members—still in local autonomous congregations and refusing to call themselves a denomination, but with overriding national and international agencies that facilitate their cooperative work.

Bowler Hall Barb DeHaven lived here for four years while at Hiram College. Photo courtesy of Hiram College

The Disciples, very early in their development, stressed the importance of education, and began starting colleges. The Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, at Hiram, Ohio, was opened in 1850. "Courses were offered from the elementary grades to the college level.... Western Reserve Disciples were proud of their new school. It was the fourth educational institution of its kind organized within the framework of the movement.... In its basic aims, it would compare with the high schools of this day.... In 1867, the school was organized on the college level and its name changed to Hiram College."

After the War of 1812, many sons of Connecticut frontier landholders made a sort of "grand tour" to view their family holdings on the frontier. It was more adventurous to tour the Ohio frontier in 1811, when the British and Tecumseh were again threatening the Great Lakes region. Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was one of twin sons of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Ellsworth, Esq., of Windsor, CT, a large investor in the Ohio Western Reserve. Henry Ellsworth's diary of a tour of his father's lands in the Western Reserve is a candid and charming account, full of fascinating observations on all those surprising creatures he encountered—from the young farm women of Pennsylvania, to the awkward local militia who were hastily polishing their rusty rifles, and the usual bad roads and sleepless nights in roadside taverns along the way.

See: (A) Tour to New Connecticut in 1811
The Narrative of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
Edited by Phillip R. Shriver
1985 141 pp. illus.
$11.95 cloth 0-911704-32-9

Published by the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland and distributed by Ohio State University Press.

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