The first man to penetrate the forest
wilderness as far west as the section in the southwest corner of
the county of Erie that came in time to be known as Conneaut
township, was Jonathan Spaulding, who went in from
New York State in 1795. The country was not only an
unbroken wilderness, but was remote from any route of travel.
The path finder of the time, however, was well pleased with the
location he had discovered, situated as it was in the rather
broad valley of Conneaut
creek, the largest stream flowing through Erie county into the
lake. For years Mr. Spaulding was
practically alone, when neighbors did come, being separated from
them by miles. But the isolation did not daunt him nor
change his purpose of hewing out of the forest a place that was
to be his home. He went diligently about it and in a
surprisingly short time had a farmstead, comfortable as things
went in those days. He was a man of energy, and proved to
be a good farmer, so that he succeeded in securing pretty good
crops. About three years after his settlement in the
county he decided that a change of diet was desirable. and with
that purpose set about getting some of his grain to the mill, so
that meal and flour might be substituted for crushed corn or
hominy. To that end he set about constructing a canoe.
He-had been a waterman in New York, and he therefore did not
experience much difficulty in constructing a good canoe out of a
tree-trunk. When he had it ready he loaded it with grain
and started down the creek. It is a long distance from
Albion to the lake, following the course of the stream, which,
flowing northward where he launched his embarkation, after a
course of four miles or so turns westward, continuing in that
direction about eighteen miles, turns eastward for about eight,
and then northward for a mile and a half to its mouth, so that
there was a stretch of thirty miles or more of the stream before
he reached the lake. From there he had to proceed to the
mouth of Walnut creek, more than twenty miles farther to have
his grist ground. The long voyage was successfully
accomplished. Returning he stopped at the mouth of Crooked
creek and spent the night with Captain Holliday,
and naturally discussed the subject of mills. With
[Pg. 444]
Capt. Holliday he looked over the ground in the
neighborhood, and together they agreed upon an advantageous mill
site, which was the same upon which a year or two later Capt.
Holliday erected the first mills in Springfield township.
Conneaut was one of the original townships when Erie
county was formed in 1800. The name is of Indian origin,
and Conneaut is one of the two townships that bear aboriginal
names, Venango being the other. Its southern boundary is
the Crawford county line; its western the line that separates
Pennsylvania from Ohio, and its northern is Conneaut creek.
Originally, however, it extended a mile farther to the north,
but in 1835 all the territory north of the creek was ceded to
Springfield for the consideration that that township would bear
half the expense of building and maintaining bridges over the
stream.
As has been related, Jonathan Spaulding
was the first permanent settler in that part of 'the county.
Two years later the Pennsylvania Population Company sent Col.
Dunning McNair as their agent, who established his
headquarters at Lexington, a short distance north and west of
Albion on the creek, and he, with a corps of assistants made
surveys, laid out roads, and made all necessary preparations for
disposing of the land to settlers. The Population
Company's road. and the road from Waterford to Cranesville, were
among the earliest in the county. In 1798 Abiather
Crane and his brother Elihu moved in from
Connecticut and located near Lexington. Abiather was one
of Col. McNair’s surveyors. Neither of the
Cranes remained permanently, Elihu moving to
Elkcreek in 1800 and Abiather to Millcreek in 1809.
The dates of the arrival of others of the pioneers are: In
1800 Matthew Harrington from Vermont, George
Griffey and Andrew Cole, and Stephen
Randall and his son Shefiield from New York State;
in 1801 Robert McKee from Cumberland county, Pa.;
in 1802 Henry Ball from Virginia, Patrick
Kennedy and his son Royal and William Payne
from Connecticut; in 1803 Marsena Keep and his son
Marsena from New York State; in 1804 Joel
Bradish and brothers from New York; in 1806 Lyman
Jack son from New York; in 1810 Michael Jackson,
son of Lyman, remained a short time and returned to New
York, but came back in 1815 and settled permanently.
Others who settled at the beginning of the century, most of them
from New York. were. Bartholomew Forbes, Howard,
John, Nathan, David and Charles
Salsbury. Thomas Sprague, James Paul,
James W'hittington, Thomas Alexander,
John Stunz, Giles Badger, Ichabod
Baker and Jacob Walker.
Henry Ball was a captain in the war of
1812, and several of the other early settlers served as privates
in the American army of defense. Jonathan
Spaulding’s sons, David, John and George,
were born in the township, the first in 1802, the second in
1806, the third in 1816. William Harrington,
the oldest son of Matthew, was born in 1805. The
first male child was Henry Wood, born in 1798; the
first female children,
[Pg. 445]
were Ruth, daughter of Elihu Crane, and
Eliza daughter of Abiather Crane, both born in
the same house near Lexington, on the same day, April 20, 1799.
Ruth Crane married Isaac Pomeroy,
and became the mother of two sons, Alden and Jerome,
and seven daughters.
Beginning with 1815 there was a fresh influx, George
Stunz and his son E. W. Stunz from Virginia,
coming in that year. In 1816 the arrivals were Medad
Pomeroy with his sons Nathaniel, Uriah,
John, Lyman, James, George and
Horace and three daughters, from Massachusetts—the
family a colony in itself; and James W. and G. Spicer
from New York. In 1817 Benjamin Sawdey
and Isaac Pomeroy came from Massachusetts; in
1818, David Sawdey, Abijah Barnes
and Samuel Bradish; in 1819, Noah Kidder
and son Francis. Edward De Wolf,
Daniel Rossiter and Samuel Sawdey,
father of Benjamin and David, with his sons
John, Job and Daniel; in 1820, Rodolphus
Loomis; in 1825, Harrison Parks; in 1829,
Jonas Lewis; in 1831. Thomas
Bowman and family, including Ralph; in 1832,
William Cornell and John Curtis; in
1833, Chester Morley and Andrew and
Silas Morrison; in 1834, Christopher Cross.
Edward Dorrence and Hiram Grifiis;
in 1837, Andrew Swap, Daniel Waters
and Joseph Tubbs; in 1838. Isaiah and
Johnson Pelton; in 1839, Marcus A. Bumpus.
There are evidences in Conneaut township—as indeed
there are in Springfield and Girard—that in remote times that
tract of country was inhabited by that race or branch of the
aborigines that we speak of in these days as the Mound Builders.
On the John Pomeroy farm there is a circular
earthwork enclosing about three—quarters of an acre. When
the country was first cleared up it was three feet in height by
six feet wide at the base, with large trees growing upon it.
One of these, a large oak, when cut down indicated by the rings
of its growth that it was not less than 500 years old.
Another circular work of a similar character existed on the
Taylor farm, later owned by J. L. Strong.
On the Pomeroy farm there is a mound about 100
feet long, 50 feet wide and 25 feet high. It stands on the
south side of a small stream. upon flat land detached from the
adjacent bluff.
At an early day John B. Wallace of Philadelphia
located in Meadville as attorney for the Holland Land Company.
In that capacity he took up tracts in various places, including
10,000 acres in the western part of Conneaut township. In
1825 this property was sold on an execution against Mr.
Wallace and was bought for Stephen Girard
of Philadelphia. It had been Mr. Girard’s
intention to make extensive improvements by erecting mills,
opening roads. etc., but while his agent was arranging to carry
out his plans, news came in January, 1832. of the death of the
millionaire. By Mr. Girard’s will the
Conneaut lands, along with others, were left in trust to the
city of Philadelphia as part of a perpetual fund for the
maintenance of a college for orphans. After the death of
Mr. Wallace, in 1833, his heirs claimed that the
Conneaut lands
[Pg. 446]
had been wrongfully sold, because the title was in Mrs.
Wallace, and not in her husband. Suit was brought
in the name of the Wallace heirs to recover the
property, and the verdict was against the Girard estate.
The oldest of the settlements in the township was
Lexington, given that name when Col. McNair
established his headquarters there in 1797 as agent of the
Pennsylvania Population Company. He laid out a plat of
1,600 acres at the big bend of Conneaut creek and opened roads,
and, being the centre of the Company’s operations in the west,
Lexington in time came to be a village of no small pretensions.
At one period it had a store, schoolhouse, hotel, distillery and
several residences. A postoffice was established at
Lexington Feb. 24, 1823, with David Sawdey as post
master, and though the village long since went down it is
interesting to know that by the Post Office Department at
Washington that office still exists but under a change of names,
for the record shows that Lexington was changed to Jackson Cross
Roads February 23, 1835; to Pomeroy’s Corners May 27, 1835; to
Jackson Cross Roads, 1837, and to Albion, while O. M. Clark
was serving as postmaster, in 1845. However, it is proper
to state that Jackson Cross Roads was the original name of
Albion. Lexington’s name might be lost entirely but for
the fact that the Erie & Pittsburg Railroad, by giving that name
to a way station or siding, has preserved it.
Keepville’s beginning was no doubt the settlement at
that place in 1803 of Marsena Keep. When the
country came to be opened up and roads laid out, two of them
crossed at the Keep place near Conneaut creek, about two
and a half miles southwest of Albion. Villages were
planted thickly in that locality when the country was
developing. Within a radius of four miles of Albion there
are Keepville, Wanneta, Wellsburg, Cranesville and Lexington.
At Keepville a Wesleyan Methodist congregation was organized in
1854 by Rev. John L. Moore, and a church was erected the
same year. Cherry Hill, on the old State road, five miles
west of Albion, is in the Harrington neighborhood and grew into
considerable of a village, acquiring a church, a schoolhouse,
two stores a smithy and perhaps thirty houses. Albion Depot, or
Wanneta postoffice, is a mile west of Albion, for the railroad
when it was built, was no respecter of persons or places and at
Albion passed by on the other side. The Depot, however,
came in time to support a store and a cluster of dwellings.
Pennside at the county line, partly in Erie and partly in
Crawford county, was originally a mill settlement brought about
by the erection of extensive saw mills by the late J. Avery
Tracy. It is of recent origin—within a quarter of a
century,—but gives promise of permanence by possessing, in
addition to the railroad station and saw-mill, two stores, a
Methodist church, a school-house, blacksmith shop and a cluster
of dwellings. Tracy, farther west, also started by
the founder of Pennside and named after him, was a more
pretentious place once than it is now, though it still lingers,
with something of the air of a rural village.
[Pg. 447]
The earliest road of this section was the Population
Company’s road from Lexington to Girard, laid out and opened in
a sort of way in 1797. The State Road, opened in 1802
across the northern part of the township to the Ohio line, was
the next common thoroughfare. The Meadville road, from
Lexington into Crawford county, was opened in the beginning of
the last century, and the Albion and Cranesville and Albion and
Wellsburg roads, the Conneaut Centre road and the Albion
and Keepville roads were also among the first. “Porky street,"
from Cherry Hill south and the Creek road from Pomeroy’s
bridge into Crawford county, have long been traveled.
Conneaut township citizens who have figured in public
life are: David Sawdey and Humphrey A. Hills,
members of the Legislature; Abiather Crane,
John Salisbury, David Sawdey, H. A.
Hills, Garner Palmer and George C. Mills,
county commissioners; H. B. Brewster, jury commissioner;
Liberty Salsbury, S. D. Sawdey, mercantile
appraisers; W. J. Brockway, S. D. Sawdey, C. F. Weigel,
county auditors; John H. Harrington, director of the
poor; David A. Sawdey, a prominent Erie lawyer, is a
native of Conneaut township.
The earliest village and the first postoffice in
Conneaut township was Lexington, named by Col. McNair,
the agent of the Population Company, when he established his
office at that place. The postoffice was established there
in 1823. In 1835, however, when a mile in width was taken
from the township along its whole breadth, the interest of the
people in the original settlement was transferred to a place
that had sprung up where Jackson’s run emptied into the
East branch of Conneaut creek. It was called Jackson’s
Cross-roads. It was already making some pretentious to
business. There was a
saw mill there, which had been built by Lyman Jackson
and a grist mill, operated by Amos King, and not a
few people, had established homes in that vicinity—Thomas
Alexander, Patrick Kennedy, William
Paine, Ichabod Baker, and Lyman
Jackson. The place continued to be a sleepy little
country hamlet until the beginning of the decade of the forties.
Then there was a sudden start forward. Accessions were
numerous. The place assumed activity, and its name was
changed to Albion. It was all due to the building of the
canal. That artery of internal commerce quickened the
entire region through which it passed, and Albion was not an
exception. Dwellings multiplied in the village; stores
were established and industries sprang up. It was the
centre of a good timber region, and was especially well supplied
with white ash forests. Mills were built to saw the
timber; manufactories of rake handles, of wooden rakes. of oars
and other things were established and prospered, and the little
community developed to such an ex
tent that in 1861 it was chartered as a borough, its first
burgess being Perry Kidder. Albion was then
at its best estate, its population being 443, and all of its
industries were flourishing.
[Pg. 448]
Albion had attained considerable celebrity as a school
town. The beginnings of education had been a little log
house in which Lyman Jackson had taught. In 1838,
however, there had been erected a school building of far more
than ordinary pretensions, and it was called Joliet Academy.
Its first principal was Elijah Wheeler. It
was organized upon a high plane and its success dated from the
start. It was widely patronized, attracting pupils from
the greater part of Western Pennsylvania, and of other states.
It made a specialty of fitting its students to be teachers, and
because of the specialty it thrived. For a time it was
greater than the little town in which it was located, and Joliet
was as often the name of the place as Jackson Cross-roads.
After the borough of Albion had been incorporated, however, the
Academy (in 1862) passed into the control of the school
directors, but the school has always been maintained of a high
grade. A new school was built in 1868. Just before
the close of the spring term in 1908 it was destroyed by fire.
In its stead there was erected and formally opened in January,
1909, a handsome brick high school building that cost $25,000,
and is the finest building in town.
The churches of Albion include the M. E. congregation
which had its origin in the neighborhood or Albion more than
three - quarters of a century ago, and at one time worshipped in
a church that stood a little west of the village. The
present church, built in 1855, was enlarged in 1894. The
Roman Catholics, Disciples and Congregationalists also have
organizations.
Albion Lodge of Odd Fellows was organized in 1849,
passed through two fires and in 1885 emerged from the last of
these disasters to establish itself in the most pretentious
business block in the town, its own property. Western Star
Lodge, F. & A. M., was chartered in 1859, and owns its own hall.
Other orders that have flourished have been Albion Lodge, A. O.
U. W., 1875; Albion Union, E. A. U., 1880; Mystic Circle, P. H.
C.. 1894; Conneaut Grange, 1893; Camp 67 State Police, 1893.
For a long period the principal hotel was the
Sherman House, built in 1828 by Benjamin
Nois, and for many years owned and managed by the
Shermans, father and son. For seventy years it was the
only caravansary of the borough.
Newspaper experience in Albion has been a repetition of
that of every other little country town. The Erie
County Enterprise, founded in 1877 by J. W. Britton
and F. J. Dumars, failed three years later, not
withstanding its name. The Blizzard was started in 1882
by E. C. Palmer and E. F. Davenport, but finally
blew itself out, consolidating with the News, managed by
C. Provo, who yielded to circumstances and sought riches
elsewhere, the various changes at length bringing to the
editorial chair, F. J. Brown, who controls its destinies
at the present time.
[Pg. 449]
The Albion of today is different from what has been.
The old Albion came into being through the influence of the
canal. The new Albion owes its existence and splendid
prosperity to another agency - the development of a railroad.
With the building of the P. S. & L. E., Railroad Albion’s hopes
were revived. When that property passed into the hands of
the Carnegie interests Albion’s hopes were confirmed. From
a population of 400 or less, in a few years the village grew to
a
town of 2,000, brought about by the fact that Albion had been
made the junction of two branches of one of the most important
railroads in the state. From a small station with a single
siding the people saw track after track laid, and acre after
acre added to the yards; saw round houses erected and shops
built, until the ground was covered with a network of steel,
miles in extent, and buildings sufficient to constitute a small
town. In 1908, the yards had facilities for storing 4,000
cars; in
1909 enlargements were begun that promised to double the area
and capacity.
Of course the town developed as the railroad increased.
Dwellings were erected at the rate of 30 or 40 every year.
Industries were added. In the place of the old Sherman
House there was built in 1901 a fine new brick hotel now called
the Hotel Albion, of which H. E. Wilson is manager; and
the Central Hotel has been opened, in charge of F. J.
Salsbury. In 1906 the borough was provided with
electric lighting, furnished by the Albion Electric Light &
Power Co. The Albion Water
Company was chartered in 1909 and granted franchises, and is
perfecting arrangements to introduce a gravity system to supply
the town. A system of sewerage has been approved by the
State Board of Health, and is soon to be introduced. A
fire department has been equipped with chemical apparatus.
The entire community is taking on modern and progressive ways.
In 1898 a half dozen of the business men formed an
organization and opened the Citizens Bank which has ever since
been successfully managed by E. F. Davenport. Steps
are now being taken to obtain a charter for it. On
September 14, 1909, the First National Bank was chartered with a
capital of $25,000, and Thomas Dolan as president,
John Eckert as vice-president and W. A. Pond
as cashier.
Of the industries of Albion, many of those of the olden
time passed out of existence, in most instances due to
destruction by fire. The flouring mill that was built by
Amos King in 1828 was purchased by Joshua
Thornton, and upon its being burned in 1889 was rebuilt
the next year. To this Mr. Thornton added
the Albion Woolen Mill, but both were burned in 1904. The
woolen mill of W. H. Gray, built in 1840, was burned in
1876 and rebuilt by Thomas Thornton in 1880.
The rake factory built by Michael Jackson in 1846,
passed to George Van Riper 8: Co., but was burned
in 1894. An oar factory built by Henry Salisbury
and Reuben McLallen in 1859, burned down in 1868,
[Pg. 450]
was rebuilt, and again fell a victim to the flames. The
manufacture of oars continued, however, A. Long & Son
having opened their present oar factory in 1897. The
handle department of the A. Denio Fork Works, was
operated for many years at Albion, but upon its destruction by
fire in 1875 was removed to North Girard. C. Grate
& Sons have for years operated a saw and planing-mill and
general lumber business.
Of the most recent of Albion‘s industries may be
mentioned the Flower Milling Company, organized in 1904, and
operating by steam a large plant alongside the railroad.
It is the most important industry of modern Albion. The
plant of the Rogers Brothers, builders of steel
bridges and buildings was established at Albion in 1905.
Their business operations extend throughout the central and
western part of the State.
These public officials have been furnished by Albion:
Assembly, Orlando Logan; Clerk to the directors of
the poor for two years, and clerk to the county commissioners
from 1890 to the present. J. A. Robison. Garner
Palmer, who was county commissioner during the war period,
and who devised and successfully carried out a plan for the
payment of the county’s war debt, still lives in Albion,
esteemed and respected by his fellow citizens.
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