LORAIN COUNTY OHIO - History of Lorain County, Columbia Township (Part 1)
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The following is the Columbia Township portion of the Williams Brothers
_History of Lorain County, Ohio, with Illustrations & Biographical
Sketches of Some of It's Prominent Men and Pioneers_ Published in 1879
in Philadelphia.  I have attempted to copy it as written, complete with
the capitalizations and punctuation of the authors.  The only
intentional change is that surnames are written in all caps.  


COLUMBIA

Physical Features

     In the western part of the township the surface is level.  In the
central and eastern portions it is undulating, but nowhere rough and
broken.
     The soil is generally a clay loam, varied in some places by
gravel.  It is one of the best watered townships in the county.  Rocky
river flows northward through the township, gathering up in its course
many tributaries.  Plum creek flows in a nearly parallel direction
through the western part of the town.  The timber native to its soil was
beech, maple, hickory, black and white oak, black and white ash,
basswood, elm, sycamore, buckeye, walnut and butternut.

Purchase

     Prior to the apportionment by draft of that part of the Reserve
lying west of the Cuyahoga river, Levi BRONSON, Azor BRONSON, Harmon
BRONSON, Calvin HOADLEY, Jared PRITCHARD, and some fifteen others,
formed an association called the "Waterbury Land Company".  This
company, together with William LAW, Benjamin DOOLITTLE, Jr., and Samuel
DOOLITTLE, drew at the fourth draft, April 4, 1807, this township as
number five, range fifteen, with two thousand six hundred and fifty
acres in the townships of Boston and Richfield, in Summit county,
annexed to equalize it.  The draft was in the following proportions: to
the Waterbury Land Company, twenty one thousand six hundred dollars;
William LAW, two thousand eight hundred and ninety-two dollars; Samuel
DOOLITTLE, eighty dollars.  The deed was executed on the 28th day of
May, 1807, by John CALDWELL, John MORGAN, and Jonathan BRACE, for the
Connecticut Land Company, to Levi BRONSON, Calvin HOADLEY, Jared
PRITCHARD, Azor BRONSON and Harmon BRONSON, in trust for the Waterbury
Land Company.  Pending the negotiation for the extinguishment of the
Indian claim to the lands west of the Cuyahoga, the Company bought of
William EDWARDS a thousand acres of land in tract two, town eight, range
eleven, Euclid, (now East Cleveland), and a number settled there the
summer previous to the draft.

Survey

     In the summer of 1807 the township was surveyed.  A surveyor by the
name of LACEY was first employed, but his chain was found to be of an
incorrect length and he was discharged.  In August of the same year
Robert WORDEN, a surveyor from Columbiana county, was engaged, who, with
Levi BRONSON, Daniel BRONSON, Benoni ADAMS, and Elias FROST of Euclid,
as ax and chain men, set out from Cleveland taking a southwest course
until the northeast corner of the town was reached.  From this point
they proceeded west two and a half miles, thence south a like distance
to the center of the township.  The party made their encampment here, on
the west bank of the Rocky river.  A daughter of Levi BRONSON, Mrs.
Oliver TERRELL, accompanied the party to do their cooking, to whom must
be accorded the honor of being the first white woman that ever set foot
on the soil of Columbia.

Settlement

     In September, 1807, a company numbering thirty-three persons, left
Waterbury, Connecticut, for this township.  They were, Bela BRONSON, his
wife and one child; Calvin HOADLEY, wife and five children; John
WILLIAMS, wife and five children; Lemuel HOADLEY, wife and three
children, his father and his wife's mother; Lathrop SEYMOUR and wife;
Mrs. PARKER, and four children; Silas HOADLEY and Chauncey WARNER.  Two
months afterwards the company reached Buffalo, west of which place there
was then no road, and they were compelled to chose between the dangers,
at that time of year, of lake navigation and those attending a journey
along the beach.  The company divided, four families embarking on the
lake, while the remainder preferred the land route.  The little party
set sail under a bright sky and with a favoring breeze, but not long
afterward encountered one of those sudden gales common at that time of
year, which carried them back a distance of several miles, where the
vessel went ashore.  A week was spent before another start could be
made.  Arriving in sight of Presque Isle the vessel was again struck by
a contrary wind and driven back to a point on the Canada shore under
which the voyagers took shelter.  They remained here two weeks for a
favorable wind, when the journey was resumed.
     They proceeded without further reverses until within sight of
Cleveland, then a pretentious place of three log cabins, when a violent
wind struck their craft, and they were forced to retreat until near the
site of the present city of Erie, where they went ashore.  They were now
thoroughly discouraged with their experience by the lake.  The season
was growing late, and whether to make another attempt by water or
undertake the long journey on foot was not a pleasant alternative. 
Calvin HOADLEY determined to make another trial, and, with his family,
arrived at Cleveland after encountering many experiences similar to
those we have mentioned.  The most of them, however, determined upon the
land route.  Bela BRONSON, wife and child, were of this party; Mrs.
BRONSON carrying the child in her arms for a distance of fifty miles
west of Erie, where they were met by teams with which friends had gone
back from Cleveland in search of them.  Arriving at Cleveland, the
company made a location there, with the exception of Bela BRONSON and
family, who, with ox-team and sled, pushed on toward Columbia.  They
were accompanied by Levi BRONSON, Jared PRITCHARD, John WILLIAMS, Silas
HOADLEY, Calvin HOADLEY, and five or six others who went ahead and cut a
road for them.  The family brought along in the sled cooking utensils -
with which Mrs. BRONSON prepared the food for the company- and camp
equipage.  Their progress was, of course, slow, eight days being
consumed in reaching Columbia.  Two days subsequently - on the 7th day
of December, 1807 - they arrived on lot twenty-seven, where Bronson and
family made a location.
     The company divided into three sections, commencing simultaneously
the erection of three cabins, one for Bela BRONSON, on lot twenty-seven;
one for John WILLIAMS, on sub-lot three; and one for Calvin HOADLEY, on
lot thirty-four.  During the erection of BRONSON's house, the box of the
sled was turned up against a tree, and under this the family took
shelter until their cabin was built.  The house was ready for occupancy
by Christmas.
     In 1810, Mr. BRONSON changed his location to the Center, where the
cellar of the house in which he resided can yet be seen.  He died here
in October, 1811.  He was one of the ten sons of Seba BRONSON.  His
wife's maiden name was Sally TWITCHELL.  Mrs. BRONSON subsequently
married Benoni ADAMS.  Two children of this pioneer family are now
living - Rev. Sherlock A. BRONSON, D.D, who was eight months old at the
time of the settlement of the family in Columbia, now an Episcopal
clergyman of ability and usefulness, resident of Mansfield, O., and a
daughter, Sally, living in Ottawa county.  In an address delivered to
this township July 4, 1859, Rev. Dr. BRONSON gives the following
interesting picture of their situation in the winter of 1807:
     "Our post office was at Painesville, fifty miles distant; the
nearest mill was at Newburgh, twenty-eight miles away; and but little
provision could be had at Painesville.  That winter my father wrote back
to his friends that he was the richest man in town.  He might have
written himself down the greatest nabob of all of Ohio that lay west of
Cleveland and north of Wooster, and there would have been none to
dispute his claim.  For a time, that winter, ours was the only residence
in Western Ohio.  Gloomy, desolate and lonely as those times were, my
mother kept up good cheer, and said she always hoped for better times. 
Taking into account the time of arrival, late in December, no house
ready for occupancy, that in the company was a woman with an infant only
eight months old, and the nearest dwelling twenty miles distant, you
have before you a rare picture of pioneer life."
     The second family that settled in town was that of John WILLIAMS,
who moved in from Cleveland after spending the holidays with his friends
there, arriving January 3, 1808.  They took up their abode in the cabin
already partially prepared for them on sub-lot three.  In 1810 he
removed to a farm a mile south of the Center on lot forty-eight.  Mr.
WILLIAMS died in the spring of 1813, and his remains lie in an unmarked
grave in the Center burying ground.  The only surviving member of the
family is Mrs. Weaver HARRINGTON, now residing in Eaton county, Mich.   
     Calvin HOADLEY followed closely after WILLIAMS, arriving in the
first part of March of the same year, and commenced life in the Columbia
woods in the house previously built on lot thirty-four.  In the summer
of 1809, he built a grist mill on the Rocky river, south of the Center,
the first mill in the county.  He afterward built a grist mill and also
a saw mill, on the same river, on lot twenty-one.  Captain HOADLEY was a
man of great energy of character, and became one of the most prominent
men of the town.  He was a son of Lemuel HOADLEY, Sr., who raised a
family of eight children.  Calvin was the second child and oldest son. 
He was a carpenter by trade.  His wife's maiden name was TERRELL.  They
raised a family of five children.  A daughter, the only living
representative of the family, resides in Berea, O.
     Early in the spring of 1808, the following additions were made to
the settlement: Lemuel HOADLEY, Sr., and Lemuel HOADLEY, Jr.,on lot
forty-seven; James GEER, on lot thirty-five, south part; Lathrop
SEYMOUR, on lot eleven; Jared PRITCHARD, on lot thirty-one; Silas
HOADLEY, on lot twenty-nine; Isaac FROST and his two sons, Elias and
Lyman, on lot twenty-eight; Nathaniel DOAN, on the north part of lot
thirty-five; and Benoni ADAMS, on lot fifty.
     The HOADLEYs were originally from either Salem or Plymouth, Conn. 
Lemuel HOADLEY, Sr. was the father of eight children.  Mary, the eldest,
became the wife of Sahel OSBORN.  Of Calvin we have already given a
brief history.  The next was Lemuel; he was a colonel in the war of
1812.  Sally married Zephaniah POTTER.  Lemuel was a mechanic, and much
of his life was engages in the erection of mills; he built most of the
grist mills in this region of the country.  He removed to Brecksville in
1812, and built the first mill in that town; and two years subsequently
he went to Bath and erected mills there.  In 1819, he settled in
Olmsted, Cuyahoga county, and erected for himself the pioneer mill in
that township, and also built the first frame house there.  In 1824, he
exchanged his farm and a mill in Olmsted for a farm in Ridgeville, west
of the center of the town, and took up his abode there.  In 1832, he
sold out and moved back to Olmsted, and with his son-in-law, John
BARNUM, built a saw-mill at the mouth of Plum Creek, and laid out a
village there.  In 1838, he removed to Chillicothe.  He married Chloe
TYLER.   
     He was known everywhere as Major HOADLEY, a title which he
acquired, it is said, on the journey from Connecticut.  The company
would sometimes be obliged to construct a bridge across a swollen
stream, and Mr. HOADLEY was so perfectly at home at such work that his
companions gave him the honorary title of  "major", which he ever
afterwards bore.
     Luther was also a colonel in the war of 1812, and died in the
service.  David, a carpenter by trade, died in Connecticut.  Urania
married Riley WHITING, an extensive clock-maker of Winsted, Conn.
     In 1810, James GEER, changed his location to the north part of the
township, exchanging his original purchase with Calvin HOADLEY, for land
on lot twenty-one.  Here he established a rude tannery, using sap
troughs for vats, and an axe to pulverize the bark.  He also followed
shoemaking, having learned the trade of his wife, formerly Mrs. Mary
PARKER, whose first husband was a shoemaker.
     Of some of the other settlers mentioned, no knowledge can now be
obtained of their later history.
     Nathaniel DOAN was a man of more than average ability, and was a
leading man in the settlement.  He was the first justice of the peace of
the township.  He subsequently moved to Cleveland.
     Benoni ADAMS was at that time a single man, but in 1810 he married
Mrs. Sally BRONSON, widow of Bela BRONSON, and settled at the Center. 
In 1808, Mr. ADAMS carried the mail on foot from Cleveland to Maumee. 
The only habitations of white men on his route were those of Nathan
PERRY, at the mouth of Black River, and a Frenchman at Milan.  Two weeks
were usually consumed in making the trip.  He lost his way on one
occasion, and failed of reaching the end of his journey within the
required time, and his pay was withheld for that trip.  Sometimes the
streams were swollen to such a degree that he was compelled either to
travel a long distance to find a place through which he could wade, or
to construct a raft with which to cross.  His route lay through Black
Swamp, the passage of which, from its extent, could not be made in a
single day, and he was obliged to spend the night in the woods, usually
making his bed on the trunk of a fallen tree.  Says Dr. BRONSON, whose
mother subsequently became the wife of Mr. ADAMS: "I have heard him say
he has traveled the swamp when the water was half-way to the knee, and
he was obliged to break the ice the whole forty miles."
     During the same year, Seba BRONSON,Sr., and his two sons, Seba and
Daniel, moved in from Ashtabula county.  The elder BRONSON settled on
sub-lot four, Seba, Jr. living with him.  Daniel located on the north
part of lot thirty-six.
     In 1812, Seba BRONSON, Jr. removed to Liverpool, Medina county,
remained a year, and then returned to Columbia.  In the spring of that
year, it is said, he dug out a canoe, and journeyed down the river to
the lake, thence to the mouth of the Sandusky river, thence up that
river, to Lower Sandusky (now Fremont).  There, in an opening in the
forest, he planted a piece of ground to corn, under the protection of
Fort Stephenson.  After harvesting his crop, he returned to Columbia,
residing there until his death, in 1851, aged seventy-five.
     In 1809,  Roswell SCOVIL, Horace GUNN, Timothy DOAN, Daniel
BUNNELL, Zephaniah POTTER, Wm. HOADLEY, Noah WARNER, Marcus TERRILL, and
Joseph BURKE joined the settlement.  SCOVIL settled on lot thirty; GUNN
on lot__.  The latter carried the first mail west of Cleveland, in
1808.  In June, 1809, he married Ann PRITCHARD, daughter of Joel
PRITCHARD, which was the second marriage in Columbia.  Timothy DOAN
located on lot twenty-nine, buying out Silas HOADLEY, who returned to
Connecticut.  BUNNELL drew, by draft, lot one, which he exchanged with
Samuel PARDEE for land in Olmsted.  Potter settled on lot __.  He was a
doctor - the first in the township.  HOADLEY settled on lot thirty-five,
south part, but returned to Connecticut in 1811.  Marcus TERRILL settled
on the north-west corner of lot thirty-nine.  WARNER, in 1811, removed
to Liverpool.


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