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Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Sarah Thorpe ~ Ohio
Sarah Thorpe was the wife of Joel
Thorpe. They removed from North Haven to Ashtabula County, Ohio,
in 1799.
An incident is related in the life of
Mrs. Thorpe which illustrates the extreme privations to which
these early settlers were frequently reduced. In the absence of
Mr. Thorpe, who had gone over into Pennsylvania to procure
provisions for his family, it is told that Mrs. Thorpe emptied
the straw out of her bed to pick it over to obtain what little
wheat there was left in it, and this she boiled and gave to her
children. Mrs. Thorpe was married three times. Her first husband
was killed in the War of 1812, and her last husband's name was
Gardner. The first surveying party to enter the Western Reserve
arrived on the Fourth of July, 1796. Permanent settlers did not
come in until two years later.
In 1798 small settlements were found all
over the reserve and a little schooner had been built to ply on
the waters of Lake Erie. The necessity for the building of a
grist mill near the site of what is now the city of Cleveland is
believed to be the foundation of that city.
The child of Mr. Kingsberry is believed to be the first white
child born in the Western Reserve. The wife of Hon. John
Walworth was quite noted among these early settlers.
In 1801, it is said, the first ball was
given at Cleveland in the log cabin of Major Carter, and here
Anna Spofford opened the first school Mrs. Carter was one of the
prominent women of this settlement
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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