HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE MAHONING VALLEY-page 10

"In 1799 Richard Fitch came from Salisbury, Connecticut, to the Connecticut Western Reserve, and spent a portion of that summer on the borders of Lake Erie, and returned to Connecticut the same year without purchasing any land. In 1803 Joseph Coit came from Norwich, Connecticut, in company with General Moses Cleveland, and stayed a while at Cleveland, and then made his way to Ellsworth, and purchased eighty acres of land on the south-west corner of the center of the township. The next year, 1804, he had eight acres of the land cleared, and a log-house erected, the first house raised in the township.

"In 1805 Wm Ripley, Harvey Ripley, Elisha Palmer, and one or two others from Scotland, Windham County, Connecticut, came to Ellsworth and commenced clearing and improving the land west of the center section, which they had previously purchased.

"In the Spring of 1806 Wm Ripley moved, with his wife, to Ellsworth. In the spring and summer of 1806 came Daniel Fitch and wife from Norwalk, Connecticut, and the same season, from Salisbury, Conn., came Richard Fitch and his two brothers, Charles and William, with their families,consisting of a wife and one or two small children each, all of whom settled near the center of the township.

"The same year, 1806, Thomas Jones and Hugh Smith, with their families, from Maryland, settled in the east part of the township. The same year, Philip Borts and Philip Arner, with their families, from Pennsylvania, settled on land east of the Meander, on the road leading to Canfield; and John Leonard, from Pennsylvania, with his family, near the Meander, north-east of the center. It is thought no other families settled in the township this year.

"These heads of families all lived and died in Ellsworth, with the exception of Wm. Fitch and wife, Charles Fitch and wife, and Mrs. Hugh Smith. Wm. Fitch is now living in Wayne, Ashtabula County, aged ninety-three years, and is hale and hearty.

The first three children born in the township were Thomas Jones, Jr.; Jennette Smith, daughter of Hugh and Mary, and Mary L., daughter of Richard and Lucinda Fitch, all of whom were born in the early part of the year 1806.

Richard Fitch, Martin Allen

Incidents occurring to the first settlers

"The most of the families that came from Connecticut, in 1806, were not provided with cabins, and occupied Capt. Coit's till they could raise some for themselves, he being a single man did not require much room, and was engaged much of the time making improvements on a tract of land that he owned in the north part of the township. While thus engaged one day his house, by accident or the carelessness of the occupants, took fire and was consumed, destroying his watch, books, money, and all his clothing, except what he had with him, amounting to three garments. The occupants were also heavy losers in the line of clothing and household goods. When Mr. Coit came home toward evening and witnessed the destruction of property and found the women, who had the care of the house, much cast down and in tears, the spectators were much disappointed at witnessing the cheerfulness and resignation manifested by Mr. Coit, he being a good singer, and often seeking relief from care and anxiety in music, seated himself near the ruins, and sung the song called "Contentment," the first verse of which is:

"Why should we at our lot repine,

Or grieve at our distress?

Some think if they should riches gain

They'd gain true happiness.

Alas, how vain is all our gain,

Since life must soon decay."

The following is the chorus:

"And since we're here, with friends so dear,

Let's drive dull cares away."

"In the early part of the Summer of 1806 Wm. Ripley had his leg broken by a log falling on it while assisting in raising Daniel Fitch's cabin. The fracture was a severe one, as the whole weight of the log fell on the limb, mashing it to and into the ground, and there was no surgeon nearer than Youngstown to reduce it. Mr. Ripley was laid by from business the greater part of the summer.

"Richard Fitch, Martin Allen"

Pioneer Industry

"The object of our reunion today, if I understand the purport, is to write up the early history, not alone of the young Iron City of Youngstown, but of the entire Mahoning Valley. The entire foundation of the wealth of this city is intimately connected with the coal fields of the Mahoning Valley, from which is drawn the hidden resources of productive capital that furnish the material aid to sustain the growth, the wealth, the resources, and the prosperity of our people. This is the Aladdin's lamp that lights up the fires of all of our productive industry.

"In recording this history I am well aware that you want no more such Baron Munchausen stories as I played off upon your imagination at the first reunion of the old citizens of Youngstown one year ago. I allude to the claim I then set up of being the oldest resident citizen of Youngstown, dating back to the year 1799, when my grandfather, Jesse Newport, removed with his family, including my mother, from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, to Youngstown, settling on a farm on the east side of the road running to Mill Creek Falls, which event happened just sixteen years before I was born. That kind of stuff might amuse the boys, but the many old pioneers here present today desire to be fed on stronger meat. The dishes to be served to them they ask should be the solid facts that are interwoven in our early history.

"The pioneers of the Mahoning Valley will all remember when their local currency, which Carey, of Philadelphia, so extols, upon which they had to rely for the purchase of tea, coffee, dry goods, spices, and salt, was young cattle, wood, lard, tallow, beeswax, ginseng, and goose-feathers. To get cash for wheat, corn, potatoes, and other products, requiring heavy transportation to the seaboard markets, was almost an utter impossibility. These things the old men remember well, and the straits they were put to to raise the few dollars requisite to pay their small annual taxes, and the very few other money obligations they entered into.

"The completion, in 1840, of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, which opened up to our people a line of water communication by canal to Cleveland, by lake to Buffalo, by canal and river thence to the ocean, was an important era in the history of this valley, not only in thus affording an outlet to our cereals, but because it opened up a market for the hidden wealth that lay dormant in the coal fields of the Mahoning Valley. It was then our people advanced in business interchange with each other from mere barter to money. And it was then that the foundation was not only laid for the development of the wealth of our coal fields, but also the solid substratum for our iron industry, which rested on a more secure foundation when the connection with the lake markets was made more complete by the building of the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad in 1854.

"When any man lays special claim to his own effort in this development of wealth, he must be reminded of the words, "I, Paul, planted, and you Apollos watered, but God giveth the increase". The planting and watering is all well, but the grand source of this most extraordinary growth of wealth, of resources, and of population, which we see scattered all around us, comes from Him who alone can give the increase. In this case it came from His hidden wealth, which has been called forth and utilized by the muscular forces of productive industry.

"I well remember the first feeble attempts of our people to rise up from the lower plane of agricultural production to the higher forms of the accumulation of material wealth. I remember when the water power of Mill Creek was employed to run grist-mills, woolen-mills, saw-mills, a furnace, and an ax factory, and thus became the center of productive industry near Youngstown, outside of the general agricultural employments of our people. I remember, in this connection, the carding and cloth-dressing establishment of James Taylor, on Mill Creek, about a half mile below the falls; the building of a twenty-foot dam by James Heaton, still further down the stream; the starting of a woolen factory there; then the building by his son, Isaac Heaton, and by John Kirk and Charles Rockwell of a blast furnace, to be blown by the water-power of this dam; then the construction of an ax factory by John Ross, at the same place, and driven by the water-power of the same dam.

"In 1838, while employed as book-keeper at the Heaton furnace, I undertook to cut out some blocks of an increase of capital with some of the axes manufactured by Ross on Mill Creek, which, however, ended by handling edged tools too sharp for my then experience, letting out by one clean cut about four hundred dollars (gold value) of the fruits of my preceding industry. And thus, in place of cutting out a block of increased capital, I simply had my own eyeteeth cut to the tune of one-half of all the savings of my preceding industrial operations. I sold the axes in Michigan for a note payable in white fish, to be delivered at Cleveland; but the fish never came to land there as contracted. At the time of the sale of the axes it looked as though I had a good bite, with the hook well baited, the line strong and well fastened at the end of the pole, and the butt-end all secure in my own hands; but, I presume, the fish are still swimming in the upper lakes or the Detroit River, from whence they were to come, as they have never yet been hauled ashore. The realization that my eyeteeth were sharply cut, that I was ground out of four hundred dollars of my business capital, one-half of all I was then worth, produced reflections that went to the bottom of things; and, taking survey of the bottom of my breeches-pocket, from which four hundred dollars had gone where the "woodbine twineth", I concluded the real trouble was neither the sharpness of the edged-tools I had handled nor the imperfection of the fishing-tackle I had used to fill my net, but that it was to be found in another and quite a different quarter. I had been reading Combs's "Phrenology," and I concluded the whole trouble was to be traced to the simple fact that my head was too small for that kind of trade, and so the matter ended.

"Heaton's furnace blazed away a few years and stopped, because he could not make it pay. Ross's ax factory soon ground down to the bottom of his pocket, and then ceased to grind any more. Redman, at a later day, undertook to run the Heaton furnace with stone coal, but his pocket soon blistered by the heat of the furnace fires, was crisped to ashes, and burned all out. Then Greer, of Pittsburg, tried his hand at the business, with no better success.

"The Eagle Furnace, built by Philpot, above town; the Youngstown Rolling-mill, built in town by Wicks, Manning, Heasley, Kirk, Powers, Fuller, and Dangerfield, the same now owned by Brown, Bonnell & Co., proved a dangerous field of operations for its owners; the Phoenix Furnace, at the lower end of town, built by Charles Howard and James Ford, like the others, carried out of the pockets of the original owners the main body of the moneyed capital invested in their construction.

"Whatever fortunes have lately been made from the iron industry of the Mahoning Valley, the pioneers were unable to say, "everything is lovely and the goose hangs high," and many a "chill" was experienced, not only in the furnace stacks, but also in the hearts and pockets of our pioneer operators.

"These items are given as a brief, imperfect view of some of the incidental history connected with the pioneer industry of the Mahoning Valley. And these are given that our young men may know the character of "hard tack" the old gray-headed men had to feed upon who were the pioneers of the iron industry that has made Youngstown the thriving young city we see here today.

"Jesse Baldwin"

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