Tidbits from The Pioneer and General History of Geauga County

Pioneer and General History of Geauga County Published in 1880 by the Geauga Historical Society has a lot of Henry history facts.  I have transcribed some below. The whole document is available at http://sidneyrigdon.com/books/1880Pion.htm#pg137b

“On the eighteenth of September, 1817, Simon Henry and family started from Washington, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and arrived in what is now Bainbridge, on the first of November. The family consisted of himself, wife, and ten children — Orrin, William, John, Rhoda, Nelson, Ann, Mary, Calvin, Milo, and Newton. Orrin and John came on the season before, cleared a piece of ground, raised some corn, and built a cabin to receive the family. They settled on lot fourteen, tract three, the first land being procured of Simon Perkins in exchange for the Massachusetts farm. Subsequent purchases were made from Medad Eames, and others.

In Washington they were neighbors of George and Robert Smith, and John Fowler, who had preceded them to Ohio by a year or two. George Smith’s family were their nearest neighbors, and when they parted with them it was without hope of meeting them again. Two years after the departure of the Smiths, they decided to try their fortunes in the wilds of Ohio, so, bidding good-by to their friends, they started on the wearisome forty days’ journey.

The last night of the journey they stayed at Hudson’s Corners, in Chester. Between there and the center of Bainbridge there was but one house, and that without a tenant (built and afterwards occupied by Gideon Russell, of Russell township). Orrin, the eldest son, met them in Chester with two fresh teams, and the Smiths and Fowler came up soon after and kept them company through the day. Their meeting with these friends can be better imagined than described. With George Smith and Simon Henry, especially, was this a glad meeting. They worked together while young men, clearing their rugged mountain farms, and when, after a separation which both thought final, George Smith rode up to them, those men of fifty years could only clasp hands, while the starting tears expressed what their tongues refused to tell. With the help of the fresh cattle their own jaded ones were enabled to be at nightfall within a half mile of their future home. This now smooth meadow was then a black-ash swamp, and after struggling over roots and through mud till about half way across, the wagon settled hopelessly down in the more, and in spite of all the drivers could do, had to be abandoned for the night.     The mother and smaller children were carried to dry land by the grown up sons (the girls, and Calvin, a boy of nine), had been sent off before dark on the horses of their old neighbors, and were already among friends. Packing on their backs the necessary articles for cooking, they went on foot to the cabin which the sons had built, whose ample chimney gave them a view of the tree-tops waving in the November wind.

They were the ninth family in the township, and with three young men and as many young women, made an important accession to the isolated settlement. When the sons came to want homes of their own, their father settled them on farms near himself. Orrin married. Densey Thompson, and settled on the farm west of and adjoining his father’s. Still farther west, William and John settled. Calvin owned, but never occupied, the farm now occupied by Sullivan Giles; Nelson was to remain on the homestead with the parents, but feeling called to a higher work, he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, and went to Missouri, where he married, and resided till his death, in 1853. He was a very able and devoted minister. Orrin, after about thirty years’ residence where he first purchased, sold and removed to Iowa, and died about 1873; William and John both remained on their farms until their decease; John died in 1868; William, in 1860.

After the removal of Nelson, Calvin married Lorette Jackson, of Auburn, and resided with the parents, though subsequently he also became a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church; he never removed his family from the homestead, where he died in 1853. He was highly esteemed as a minister and citizen. Milo married Chloe A. Osborn, and resided a few years on the farm now owned by Oscar Niece; from thence he removed to Illinois, and died near Nauvoo. Newton went to sea, and was mate of a whale ship at the time of his death. He was buried in the Pacific ocean.

The three daughters married and spent most of their lives in Bainbridge. Rhoda married Robert Root, and is now (1878) the only survivor of the twelve who came from Massachusetts sixty-one years ago; Ann married Jasper Lacy, and died at Chagrin Falls in 1852; Mary married Elijah French, and died in Bainbridge in 1877.

The mother, Rhoda, died in 1843, and the father in June, 1854, aged eighty-seven years. He was the second justice of peace elected in the township, and previous to his removal from Massachusetts he was elected representative to the legislature of that State.

There are now forty grandchildren, about sixty great-grandchildren, and ten great-great-grand-children who are descendants of this couple, most of whom are residents of the western States and territories. Calvin left two children — the daughter, Julia, married and resides in Newburgh; the son, Nelson C., married Mary Chase. He owns and occupies the homestead of his grandfather. K. W., the only surviving son of William Henry, resides on the farm where his father lived and died. He married Rose Case. His mother also resides with him. She was a daughter of Samuel McConoughey, of Aurora; is about seventy-eight years old, and very hale and vigorous. Her three surviving daughters are married — the eldest, Emerett, married A. S. Willey, and resides in Bedford; Caroline, married Carl Blair, and resides in Aurora; Florence, married Girdon Riley, and also resides in Aurora. Harrison, the second son, and two daughters, Jane and Ellen, died in youth, and Carlos, the eldest, at middle life.

The farm of John Henry is occupied by his widow, and owned by her and her son, Charles E. Henry who resides in Cleveland. He is the well known detective in the United States mail service. Simon J. removed to Michigan some years since. The daughters married. The eldest, Maria, married S. P. Goodsell, and has resided for some years in Bainbridge. Martha Ann married Henry Brewster, and resides in Bainbridge. Eliza married James Brown, and resides in Newburgh. Newton, the second son, is a Methodist minister. He has no settled place of residence.

• From notes by N. C. Henry.

March 12, 2018 Linda http://sidneyrigdon.com/books/1880Pion.htm#pg137b