PIONEER HISTORY OF CAMDEN TOWNSHIP, LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO
(By Dr. F. E. Weeks, Kipton, Ohio)
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Pages 81 - 90
Matthias B. Smith ["Penny"], was born in Pompey, N. Y. His wife, Betsy Hoag, daughter of Elijah, lived 50 miles east of Pompey. The family removed to Lake County, Indiana, and in December, 1848, to Camden. In 1856 he sold 5 acres of the Grills farm to Charles Danforth. The family removed to Clarksfield about 1871, where he died June 2, 1875, on his 73rd birthday anniversary. The wife had died in 1840. They had children, Sarah E., married William Peck, David, born in 1828, died Dec. 1, 1856, married Sophia Shafer [probably a daughter of David]. Abbie Louise, died in Milan in 1847. Mary [Brown] died in Norwalk in 1911. Esther Matilda, married Sumner A. Wing, of Clarksfield, and died in 1861. Elnathan M., killed in the Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864.
SQUIRES, PLATT, came here in 1833 and lived here in 1835, when the township was organized.
STEARNS, SIDNEY, born in North Olmsted, Ohio, March 18, 1823. His father was Alvah Stearns, of New Hampshire, and who moved to North Olmsted with an ox team. His mother was Polly Sherman.
Sidney Stearns came to Henrietta, living on the Ernest Baker farm in 1866, and a few years later moved to the Henry Hand farm in Camden. In 1884 he removed to Grand Ledge, Michigan, died there Sept.10, 1906. He married Martha Stevens, daughter of Lewis Stevens and Content Herrick. She was born Oct. 3, 1829 and died in North Olmsted Jan. 25, 1915.
They had a family of twelve children, whose names all began with the letter E.
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Elmina, |
married Arthur Paddock, and died in North Olmsted in 1922. |
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Elwin, |
lived in North Olmsted. |
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Emeret, |
married Charles Coven, and died in Kipton June 23, 1919. |
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Ella, |
married George Coven, and died in Kipton June 2, 1924. |
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Erwin, |
married Addie Close, and was killed by the cars at Bowling Green, Ohio. |
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Emmerson, |
married Dora, daughter of Walter Scott, lived in Mich. |
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Ernest and Elmer, |
died young. |
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Emma, |
died at the age of 23. |
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Elsworth Sherman, |
married Mamie Cook, daughter of Jay Cook of Camden, and lived in Dayton, Ohio. |
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Etta, |
married Ed. Howe, of Birmingham. |
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Egbert, |
lived in North Olmsted. |
STEDMAN, SAMUEL, whose wife was Amy, bought the Lewis Searles farm from Issac D. Swift in 1854, and sold it to J. M. Gager in 1858, being then residents of Camden. They removed to Henrietta.
STORY, FREEDOM W., in 1843 bought the Fred Bronson farm. He died Nov. 1, 1851, aged 46. A daughter married Arvy Whitney. He had two sons.
SWEET, GEORGE W., who married for his second wife, Elizabeth Sigsworth, of Camden. He lived in Camden and vicinity until his death. In 1840 he received a deed from Thomas Sigsworth, for some land in Henrietta, Sigsworth, however, reserving the right to iron ore and stone. In 1843 he received a deed of the north part of the Thomas Sigsworth farm, but sold it to William W. Whitney the next year. In 1853 he received a deed to land in Avon Township, from William and Memory Sweet, [possibly his parents]. By his first wife - possibly a Buckley - he had a daughter, who became the mother of the late George McCready, of Henrietta. By the second marriage he had Stephen, Ann, married Joe Beardsley, and died in Kipton, John, Charles, and Juliana, who married, 1st, Abelbert Peck, of Wakeman, after his death, 2nd, his brother Byron Peck. She lost her life when her house was burnt.
SWIFT, ISAAC D., whose wife was named Elizabeth, while resident in Camden, sold land in 1854. In 1853 he was a director of dist. No. 9, but resigned in 1856. In 1851 he bought the Lewis Searles farm. In 1853 he bought the Sam Hardy farm.
TANNER. A widow Tanner married John Cyrenius, as a second wife. Her son Oscar, married Vesta Hawkins. Oberlin College listed Corydon Melvin Tanner, from Camden, died at Republic, Ohio, March 2, 1893.
TAYLOR, ELIJAH L., owned the Sharp farm at the Center. He came from Portage or Summit County, Ohio. He died Jan. 30, 1884, at the age of 74. He had no children, but he had a step-daughter, Martha, who married Cyrus Robinson, and lived on the Taylor farm. He was born in 1843 and died in 1917. Martha, born in 1842, died in 1906. Their daughter, Emma E., was born in 1873 and died in 1896.
E. H. Taylor died Sept. 29, 1888, aged 87, probably a relative of E. L. H. S. Taylor, born 1863, died 1902. Hiram L. Taylor, born 1854, died 1912.
John Taylor, born in Uniontown, Penn., April 10, 1790, was a son of Joseph Taylor, a Quaker. Joseph’s mother was Sarah Chenoweth, a Scotch woman, and daughter of John Chenowith and Hannah Cromwell. The Chenowith and Cromwell families were early settlers in Virginia, and their history is interesting. The Cromwells were in Virginia as early as 1620, and they trace their ancestry in England back for a thousand years.
John Taylor served in the War of 1812 at Sackett’s Harbor. He married Mary Barton, and lived in Wayne County, Ohio, and had four children. The wife died and he married Jane [Hull], widow of Leonard Crawford, and had three children, Hannah, John and Leander - Hiram Leander. John and Jane Taylor lived in Wayne, Ashland and Lorain counties, and came to Camden about 1867. They lived in different houses here. He died in the Chevalier house in 1872. The wife died in 1888.
Hannah Taylor, born Jan. 8, 1851, married Thomas Sigsworth, of Camden, Dec. 9, 1869, and they lived west of the cemetery until 1917 when they removed to Chesterland, Ohio. She died Jan. 10, 1927. They had a daughter, Clara [Jackson].
John Taylor married Jennie Andrews, of Michigan.
Hiram Leander Taylor, born June 18, 1854, married Nettie Reisinger, of Columbia, Ohio, and died in 1912.
TEACHOUT, MARVIN, lived on the Will Davidson farm, but removed to Oberlin. He died July 11, 1885, aged 61. Leonora, his wife, died March 13, 1902, aged 81. Buried on the same lot in the Camden cemetery, are Gideon Tupper, died December 17, 1878, aged 88, and Aeruah D., his wife, died Nov. 5, 1878, aged 84. They might have been the parents of Mrs. Tupper.
TENNANT, SELDEN, eldest child of Moses and Betsy Tennant, was born in Millington, Middlesex County, Conn., Sept. 22, 1787. His parents and family removed to Otsego County, N.Y., in 1793, town of Springfield.
Selden Tennant married, at Sweden, Monroe County, N.Y., Lydia Allen, sister of Ezra and Hiram Allen, of Camden. They had children, Moses, Selden, Betsy, Allen Russell, Lydia, David Russell, and Hannah M., besides Reuben, who died in infancy. The wife died in 1832. The son Moses, had emigrated to Camden in 1839, and Selden came here in 1846, and purchased land. He disposed of his New York property and in 1847 removed to Camden, with his family, Betsy and husband, Charles B. Kingsbury, Lydia and husband, David M. Tennant, and daughter, David R. and wife and Hannah. Allen R. had previously come here. David H. lived on his father’s farm and the father lived with him until his death Nov. 22, 1871. The home place was the Lathrop farm, on the south side of the road.
Selden Tennant bought of C. B. Kingsbury the Harley Searles farm in 1839, the Lathrop farm of Hiram Allen in 1846, 75 acres of the Gibbs farm of M. D Bonney, in 1856, 21 acres more of the Gibbs farm in 1858, 40 acres of the H. H. Howe farm, on the north side of the road, in 1857. He deeded to David R. Tennant, lot 9 of the Lathrop farm in 1855, and lot 10 in 1861.
Tennant, Moses S., born May 22, 1807, married, Aug. 14, 1839, Mary Jane, daughter of Walter Billings, of Monroe Co., N.Y. They came to Camden in that year and lived on a 100 acre farm which he had purchased in 1837 [the Albert Hill and west part of the Gibbs farm]. He was a school teacher and taught school winters, part of the time in his own house, with his wife to assist him. His log house had a brick chimney, the first in the town. Their children were: William Selden, born Feb. 7, 1842, graduated from Oberlin College in 1863, lived at Flint and Saginaw, Michigan, became a Circuit Judge at Pontiac, and died there Feb. 13, 1897. Celestia Minerva Tennant, only daughter of Moses, born July 20, 1845, graduated from Oberlin College in 1866, married in 1869, Attorney John A. Williamson, and died in Norwalk Nov. 5, 1880.
Moses Tennant died in April, 1890. His wife, born in 1815, died in Oberlin in 1907.
Betsy Tennant, daughter of Selden, born April 27, 1818, married Charles B. Kingsbury.
Allen R. ["Taggy"] Tennant, born July 10, 1820, married Nancy Cook, at Sweden, N.Y., and came to Camden and lived on the Tom Whitney [north part of Harley Searles] farm, which his father gave him. The wife died April 22, 1863, at the age of 50. He removed to Kenton, Ohio, and died without issue.
Lydia Tennant, born May 22, 1822, married her cousin, David M. Tennant. After his death she married William S. Furgerson, of Oberlin and died July 22 1892.
David Russell Tennant, born Aug. 20, 1826, married Malita Burpee at Sweden, N.Y., Nov. 19, 1846. He died June 5, 1908. She was born July 29, 1827, and died March 5, 1899. They came to Camden in 1847 and lived on the Lathrop farm. Their children were: Franklin Russell, 1847, Emily Dorinda, 1850, Ellen Arminda, 1852, Clara Melita, 1854, George William, 1856, Mary Almina, 1859. Franklin R. married Ella Damon, and they lived in Camden, Cleveland and Munger, Mich. Emily Dorinda married Albert Kennedy, lived at Springfield, O., and Rockport, Indiana. Ellen Arminda married Herbert H. Howe and died Sept. 20, 1914. Clara M. married Herbert F. Bronson, of Camden. [She is, in 1935, the only descendant of Selden Tennant living in Camden.] George William Tennant married Mattie Gifford, of Camden, and removed to Manger, Mich. Mary Almina Tennant died in Cleveland, in 1882, unmarried.
Hannah Tennant, daughter of Selden, born May 12, 1831, married Moses Holcomb, Nov. 1, 1848, and died Sept. 2, 1908.
Tennant, Rev. David, a brother of Selden, was born at Springfield, N. Y., Jan. 4, 1792. He married Olive Elizabeth Tennant, daughter of John and Elizabeth [Loomis] Tennant, Dec. 25, 1813. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1823. Later he met with an accident in which he received an injury to his head, producing a mental derangement from which he never recovered. His wife died about 1824, broken hearted. In 1849 he came to Camden and lived with his son, David M., and died in 1879.
David Myron Tennant, born at Springfield, N.Y., August 20, 1820, married Lydia Tennant Sept. 10, 1844. They came to Camden with Selden Tennant in 1847, and lived on the farm afterward occupied by Herbert Howe. He died Dec. 20, 1875 by accidental gunshot wound. They had children, Mary Ann, Alfred Myron, Eleanor Lydia, Selden David and Hiram Adelbert.
Mary Ann, born at Kendall, Orleans County, N.Y., Oct. 30, 1845, married in Camden, Feb. 11, 1860, Orlando Francis Bunnell, They lived in Wakeman four years, then in Missouri, then in Willoughby, Ohio, had Eli Granger and Charles Orlando.
Alfred M., born March 31, 1848, married 1st, Mary Jane Shafer, of Camden, Oct. 4, 1871, and had Eva Josephine and Myron J. She died Dec. 9, 1878. He married, 2nd, in Oberlin, Sept. 14, 1880, Carrie Estella Smith, daughter of Ezra Smith, of Camden, and had children, Marybelle, Julia, Dorothy and Alfred.
Eleanor Lydia, born 1851, died 1858.
Selden David, born Feb. 27, died 1920, married Anna Cuddeback of Vermillion, June 14, 1877, and lived in Pittsburgh. He had children, Nellie Anna, Charles Adelbert, Myrtle E., Archie R., Ray S. The wife died in Lorain, O., Jan.14, 1899. He married 2nd, at Elyria, Florence H. Eldred and moved to Pittsburgh, where the wife died in 1904.
Hiram Adelbert, born May 25, 1861, married Mary J. Short, of Huntington, O., Sept. 1, 1886, and had children, Floyd Adelbert, Jenness Emily, Bernice Wilberta and Levanta Grace.
George F., and Edwin A. Tennant were foster sons of Moses. Bert Tennant, of Camden, is a son of Edwin.
There was a considerable intermarriage in the Tennant family. Selden Tennant’s mother was a Tennant. Rev. David’s wife was a Tennant. David M. married a Tennant.
THOMAS, MILO HILL, married as his second wife, Mary Louisa Juckett, the widow of Hiram Whitney, Sept. 20, 1854. He was born in Vermont September 6, 1827. He came to Henrietta Hill and his first wife died without issue. He brought with him his mother, brothers and sisters. After his second marriage he continued to live in Henrietta, but removed to Camden and lived in the Twining Lane, then he went to Oberlin, then back to Camden and lived on the Hudson farm, but removed to Oberlin, where he died September 5, 1875.
He had children:
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Helen Louisa, |
born April 27, 1856, married, William McLeod, and C. L. Kennan, an attorney in Norwalk. |
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Cora Eva, |
born Dec. 3, 1857, married Robert Sly and died on Hartland Ridge in 1887. |
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Angie Marilla, |
born Oct. 8, 1859, married Alwyn Kinney of Townsend and died Feb. 25, 1886, in Norwalk. |
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Kittie Bell, |
born May 20, 1861, married Frank W. VanDusen, an attorney of Norwalk. The Thomas family were noted singers. |
THOMPSON, STEPHEN N., of Camden, bought the west part of the Gibbs farm in 1841 but sold it the same year, his wife being Caroline L.
Thompson, John, of Camden, sold to Seneca Andrews the southwest part of the Mike Dunn farm [east road].
Thompson, Samuel was a director in 1856. In 1847 S. and N. Thompson lost a son.
THORP, ASA, Jr., and Peter, lived in Camden in 1839 and bought part of the Guthrie farm and the whole of the Gibbs lot, and in 1840 sold the west fifty acres of the Gibbs farm to Ira Hill in 1840, Asa Thorp being a witness on the deed. The wife of Asa Jr., was Elvira, and Peter’s wife was Martha. In 1854 they sold the remainder of their land to Philemon Allen.
Asa Thorp, probably the father, died in Camden March 10, 1852, at the age of 79. There was a Russell Thorp and other children.
TUCKER, MATTHEW, lived on the Obitts farm on the west side of the road. A son, Solon, lived in Oberlin.
TUTTLE, JOHN came to Wellington before the railroad was built, kept a store and hotel there. His wife was Mary McGraw. They had children, Elizabeth, married Green Fisher and lived in Wellington. Mary, who married Roswell Hardy, of Camden. Carrie who married Oscar Avery, lived in Wellington. Arthur, lived in California.
Mr. Tuttle came to Camden and lived in a log house on the Roy Radcliffe farm, then removed to Clarksfield, where the wife died, and he then went to Wellington, where he died. When he lived in Camden there was a schoolhouse on the Clarence Searles corner, but when Mr. Tuttle went to Clarksfield about 1864, the school was abandoned.
TWINING. The line runs from William Twining, who settled somewhere on the Atlantic coast in 1630, down through William, Jr., Stephen, Nathan, Samuel and John, to Samuel, who was born in Hunterden, N. J., Feb. 22, 1796, moved to Broome County, New York, in 1823 and died April 10, 1831. He married Elizabeth Stout September 23, 1815. She married, 2nd, February 16, 1834, Samuel Hardy, as his second wife, and had two daughter, Caroline [Matcham] and Harriet Ann [Anderson]. Mr. Hardy came to Camden and lived with his son, and Mrs. Hardy came to Camden and lived with her unmarried son, Augustus M., in a log house which stood where the Frank Twining house which was burnt, stood. He was killed by the kick of a horse Sept. 30, 1855, at the age of 28. After this she and her sister and daughter Caroline lived on the Gager place, where the daughter died, and then lived in the Rolfe house in Kipton. The sister, Rachel H. Stout, died Feb. 7, 1871 at the age of 69. Mrs. Twining-Hardy born in 1797 died at the home of William Anderson, north of Kipton, the Warner farm, in 1882.
Twining, Joseph Nelson, a son of Samuel, was born in Broome County, N. Y., Nov. 12, 1818. He married, in Broome County, Ruth A. Ames, born July 11, 1815, and died July 19, 1882. Mr. Twining owned and lived upon, the farm in Camden, later owned by his son Frank, and died in 1908. They had children, Sarah J. born Jan. 28, 1844, married Joseph Hesser. Elizabeth, born Oct. 9, 1846, married Willoughby Howe and died July 5, 1876. Rozette, born April 26, 1849, married Milo Gibson and died in 1918. Frank J., born Jan. 23, 1857?, married Emma Bates, of Camden, and died in Oberlin.
Twining, Charles Alexander, a son of Samuel, was born May 23, 1821. He married, Oct. 18, 1842, Nellie Scermerhorn, and came to Lorain County in 1849, living first in Pittsfield for three years, then sold his farm to his three brothers and returned to Broome Co., N.Y., having bought his father’s old farm. Three years later he bought a farm in Camden, sold it and bought a farm in Russia Township, then another in Henrietta. He at one time owned farms in the townships of Brownhelm, Henrietta, Florence, Brighton, Wakeman and Clarksfield, and lived in all of these places, except in Wakeman. In Camden he owned the Frank Calkins farm, which he bought in 1854. In 1860 he bought the Stephen Gager farm and the south part of the Harry Groot farm. He died in Henrietta in 1903. His wife, born in 1824, died in 1907. He was a shrewd dealer in real estate and made money by his many deals, but was once overreached by a couple of "confidence men", according to reports.
Mr. and Mrs. Twining had children: Sarah A., born Feb. 11, 1844, married, 1863, LeGrand Gibson, and died in Clarksfield May 18, 1924. She was the mother of a large family of children, fifteen we think.
William Tracy, born Sept. 5, 1847, married, 1865, Drusilla Buckley, and Buckley, and later a second wife. Lives [1935] west of Oberlin.
Alvah P., born May 28, 1854, married 1877, Sarah J. Herbert, of Brighton, and died in Henrietta, leaving a number of children.
Floyd O., born Sept.15, 1856, married, 1st 1878, Nettie Goss, 2nd, Mary A. Bates, of Henrietta.
Virgil L., born March 11, 1859, married, 1880, Adell H. Fox.
Perry E., born Feb. 21, 1863, married Mary L. Beecher of Clarksfield.
Frederick A. [Rev.] born June 30, 1865, married 1890, Carrie M. Hardy, of Kipton.
Gertrude, married Charles Bentley, of Florence, and died in Florence when a young woman.
VAN DUSEN, JAMES, born in Brownhelm, Ohio, March 3, 1827, died in Camden Dec. 7, 1884. He married Ruby Amanda Stedman Sept. 17, 1848. She was a daughter of Almeron Stedman and Wealthy Abbott, of Henrietta, born January 28, 1829 and died March 1, 1863. He married, 2nd, Sarah Ann Groatt of Camden April 1, 1865, and then removed from Henrietta to Camden. He lived in Twining Lane, in the parsonage, and at last on the John Kingsbury farm. He had children, by the first marriage, Charles Henry, born July 10, 1850, William Almeron, born May 31, 1856, Mary Amanda, born May 29, 1860. By the second marriage he had David Emerson, born May 9, 1865 and George Ernest, born Feb. 21, 1869.
Charles married, 2nd, Tura Groatt, a sister of James Van Dusen’s second wife. William B. married Elda Powers, of Camden. Mary Amanda, or Minnie, lived in Cleveland. David and George, of the second marriage, went to the Soo.
VILES, WILLIAM, was a director in Dist. No. 7 in 1853. In 1846 he sold the Roy Radcliffe and Clarence Searles farms.
Cecelia C. Viles [Mrs. J. Francis Harmon], born in Camden Sept. 18, 1842, lived in California.
Lizzie Viles [Mrs. George C. Lang] died in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1898.
William Viles, of Olmsted, wife Dorlisca, sold to John Heath the Radcliffe-Searles farm in 1846.
VOSSBURGH, JOHN, born in Redding, Steuben County, N.Y., July 26, 1826, when a small boy came with his parents to Wellington, thence to Medina Co., and in 1851 he married Hannah Jane Johnson, born in Orleans County, N.Y. April 9, 1830, and who was a daughter of the last wife of Garry Adkins, Marinda Howe. They began their married life in a log house on the Shirley Austin farm. He died there March 18, 1909, and the wife died at the home of her daughter in Clarksfield July 8, 1920. They had children, Hiram, born June 24, 1852, Ellen, born Dec. 10, 1854, Mary A., born Jan. 19, 1857, and Ida L., born Nov. 27, 1867, married Dennis Ross of Wakeman. One daughter married Harley Fletcher, of Clarksfield, and another married George Townsend. All of the daughters are deceased.
A certain John Vosburgh, of New York State came to Camden in 1835.
WAGNER, HENRY, a cousin of the wife of Abraham Reynolds, lived on the Hilliker farm. His wife was Jane Williams, daughter of John Williams, and sister of Dr. Cannan’s wife.
Charles H. Wagoner bought of Milton Williams part of the Hilliker farm in 1858, and sold to Lyman Blackman a part of the Oswin Cannan farm in 1859. Henry Wagner bought the latter farm in 1849, being then a resident of Camden.
Henry Wagner had children, Frank, killed on a railroad, Charles, lived in Elyria, Lorinda and Nettie, lived in Michigan, and Marion. The family removed to Michigan.
WARE, MANNING, lived here in 1875. A daughter married Charles Irish.
WARNER, AUSTIN P., bought the Jickels farm in 1845 and sold it in 1849. In 1849 he sold to Hiram Allen the Willie Myers-Gibson land. Charity Warner, the wife of John Heath, and Jane, the wife of Henry Crandall, were probably daughters of Austin P. Warner.
WARREN, John, lived in a log house on the Frank Twining farm, where the frame house was burnt. He was born in Hannibal, Oswego County, N.Y., July 4, 1831, and died June 19, 1903. He came to Camden about 1858, but did not own a home here. He soon went back to New York. His children were Richard, who married, 1st, Tura Groatt, of Camden, 2nd, Lizzie Colson and made his home in Elyria. Alice A., married, 1st, Chester Quackenbos, 2nd, Lewis Arnold, of Camden, lives [1935] in Kipton, John F., William W. and Susan, who all lived in New York. Richard came here at the age of 18 and lived here with his grandfather, John Farmer.
WASHBURN, ABEL, a descendant of an English family settled near Boston, was born in Lyme, New Hampshire, married Elizabeth N. Danforth, born in Londonderry, N. H., removed to Lake County, Ohio, in 1832, and in January, 1835, came to Camden, settling on the William Brumby farm at the Center. The wife died in Waterloo, Iowa, June 16, 1863, and he died in Elyria Dec. 30, 1867. They had children, Azel D., who died in 1842, at the age of 21, George G. Frederick S., wounded before Vicksburg and died at Waterloo, Iowa, May 22, 1863, and Frances E. [McBride], died in Alabama May 31, 1852. George G. Washburn remained at home until the age of 21, when he studied at Oberlin, paying his way by teaching winters, studied law and practiced for a time, but finally became a newspaper journalist in Elyria, and for forty years followed that profession very successfully until his death June 8, 1898. His first wife was Luana, daughter of Ira Hill, of Camden.
Washburn, Rufus, a brother of Azel, bought a farm in Camden in 1834, but did not removed here until 1841. His farm is the owned by Rufus Allen, at Samtown. He married, Feb. 26, 1853, Mary Allen, widow of Ezra S. Allen, of Camden. He died April 23, 1877, at the age of 76. His wife died May 31, 1877, at the age of 74. He had an adopted daughter, Frances, who married William Capen, of Berlin, and died in Pittsfield.
WATKINS, GEORGE, came from Herfordshire, England. He bought property in Cleveland in 1839. He and wife Mary Ann had four children: John, married Sarah Probert and lived in Pittsfield; Julia, married Silas Blackwell and lived in LaGrange; Elijah, married Julia Reynolds and lived in Camden on Gifford Road; George Jr., was married and had two children.
Watkins, Jared, and wife came to Camden from Morristown, St. Lawrence County, N.Y., in 1835. Delia H. Watkins married Robert Sheffield, of Camden.
WAUGH FAMILY. This family was early resident in Ireland. Four brothers of the name became residents of Camden: Gideon, Lansing, Dan and A. Burnet. They were sons of Dan, grandsons of Alexander and great grandsons of John. The family removed from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Camden, Oneida County, New York, and 1811 to Lewiston. Were the parents died, leaving eight orphan children. Their home was quite a distance from the more settled region and there was danger from Indians, so their uncle, Norman Waugh, took them back to Camden and they found homes among relatives.
Gideon Waugh, a son of Dan and Irene [Smedley] Waugh, was born at Litchfield, Conn., Sept. 2, 1797. He found a home with his uncle, Norman. In 1818 he married Minerva Minor, of Scriba, N.Y. [He served as a soldier in the War of 1812, at Sackett’s Harbor.] In April, 1833 they started for Ohio, landing at Huron on the 8th of May. The family, consisting of the wife and a son, were left at Berlin, while Mr. Waugh and his son Chapman, ten years of age, went to Birmingham with a team and wagon, and cleared a road through to the farm later owned by F. E. Weeks. This farm of 70 48/100 acres cost two dollars an acre. Here they put up a 12 x 12 foot log cabin, sleeping under the wagon box. Before the cabin was completed, two more settlers appeared with their families, Thomas Lee and Robert Douglass, whose wives were cousins of Gideon. By the first of August the cabin was completed, and the rest of the family was brought, and on the 24th of the month, another boy was born, named James H. He was the first white boy born in the township.
Mrs. Waugh was a victim of consumption, and passed away Oct. 2, 1833, the first death among the pioneers. She was buried on the farm, but when the cemetery was opened, her remains were transferred there.
On the 30th of January, 1834, Mr. Waugh married Mindwell Shepard, of Strorbridge, Mass., a sister of Deacon Shepard, of Brownhelm.
By the first marriage Mr. Waugh had Gideon Jr., born Sept. 12, 1821, Ezra Chapman, born Nov. 27, 1823, and Lansing, born before the emigration, and James H. By the second marriage he had Minerva, born Oct. 7, 1837. Gideon Waugh bought his first farm from Abijah P. Olmsted, but the deed came from the Mather heirs in 1837. He bought the Holden farm in 1833 and sold it to his brother Burnet in 1835. In that year he bought a part of the William Davidson farm and sold it in 1837. In 1846 he deeded the north part of his home farm to his son Chapman, and the remainder of his farm to Isaac Wiborn in 1850. He then removed to Wakeman, on the center road, east of the Center. In 1853, with Chapman Waugh and Joseph M. and Elvira Gager, he bought of Trinity College, land at the north end of the Gore, probably the Coon Moehl farm. He died in Wakeman May 16, 1869. He took an active part in public affairs. He and two or three neighbors built the first schoolhouse. When some of the residents applied to the county commissioners to have the township organized, their request was granted. Up to this time the town had no name, only a number. The question of a name arose, and at the suggestion of Mr. Waugh, the name of Camden was adopted, that being the name of the native place of Mr. Waugh. This fact is engraved on his tombstone. He was a Justice of the Peace for twenty years, and was known as "Squire Waugh."
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