Norwich bulletin., 1916-07-01
NoRwIcH-wEsTERN RESERVE LINE

combat between four men and a bear, at another namesalze of Norwich, a Norwich which was the sixteenth township on the UnadiI1a river. The four men were Dr. Dan F'oote, Enoch Marvin, the 1atter's son, and 9 hired man. Three of them were badly wounded; but the animal was finally conquered, and weighed when dressed, 260 pounds.
 The Western Reserve, called also longing to the state of Connecticut, which lay on Lake Erie, west of Pennsylvania It contained three mill lion acres. The Fire-Lands, conpris- ing the western portion of 50O,000 acres, had been granted by the state l to those towns in Connecticut which had suffered from the torch of the enemy in the Revolutionary War. During 1786, the general assembly passed an act to survey and dispose of the remainder of the territory. Hon. Benjamin Huntington, of Norwich, was one of the three commissioners appointed for this business. company, organized for this business, and under their management the whole three millions of acres, then an almost unbroken wilderness, was sur- veyed and distributed into townships and farms, and offered to settlers on l easy terms.
 This territory now forms a tier of counties in the northern part of Ohio. Its settlement began in 1796.
 Gen. Joseph Williams, of Norwich, was a prominent member of this Land l Company. Daniel L. Colt, another of | the original purchasers, devoted time, labor, means and influence to promote | 1dVaf I1 I'd visits thither, undisnayed by the long l and tedious, as well as dangerous | journey. Among new towns founded, ] WilIiamsf1eld and Coitsville perpetuate 1 the names of these men. l Wheeler W. Williams, who went from Norwich, built in 1799, with his partner, Major Wyatt, the first grist i mill and saw mill in the Western Re- l serve. No greater benefit could have 1 been conferred upon the new country at that time.
 The towns of Norwich-another 1 namesake of this town-Huntingt
 Kinaman and Kirtland, in this range l of territory, indicate the origin of ] some of their first settlers. Col. Simon Perkins, of Lisbon, | Revolutionary officer, moved with his family to Warren, Ohio.
 Hon. Samuel Huntington, one of ! InS ClSCInSuISneQ or these eTnl-
 grants to the Western Reserve, left 1 Norwich with his family in May, 1891, | settling first at Cleveland, but after wards at Paipesville, where his de- l scendants still reside.
 1 The new country found in him a useful and efficient magistrate He was colonel of the militia, judge of l the supreme court, and governor of 1 the state from 1908 to 1S10. He held many other offices by which he pro- | mn DP Do ! merits the honor of being accounted one Of the founders of Ohio. He died | at Gainesville, June 8, 1877, a young man for one Of his honors, being only 49.
 The first settlements upon these ] wild lands were made by small bodies 1 of enigrants, scattered at considera ble l distances from each other, some amid 1 dense woods and others near the In- l dian borders. Consequently they suf- 1 fered much from the horrors of the l wilderness, as well as for want of
 proper food and clothing. l Wonderful were the accounts sent back to the mother-town of Norwich, | perhaps by Hartshorn's state-wagon, l possibly by some homesick and re- | turning emigrant, concerning the | hardships and adventures of these 1 sturdy settlers.
 Some of these tales were more
 
 1 perfences of the early settlers at Wy | Oming, the territory in Pennsylvania l opened up by Norwich and vicinity 1 emigrants.
 It was related that Governor Hunt 1 ington, while riding through the woods, was suddenly attacked by a pack of wolves from which he only
 escaped through the f1eetness of his horse.
 A party of young people gathering l hAT~Y-ioc 1,a ly alarmed by the sounds of the blood cUrdling war whoop rising from the nearby thickets, fled in wild dismay to the shelter of their fort.
 News was brought home at one time
 that a cabin of some of the early emil
 grants was buried by the snow of
 mid winter and that it was fully three
 days before the family was extricated.
 A boy kidnapped by the Indians had
 grown almost to manhood before he was released.
 As was to be expected, the toma-
 hawk and scalping knife, savage beasts and deadly serpents, figured largely
 in the tales written home in letters
 brought by the quaint parcels post
 route of the Norwich-Western Reserve Line.
 The striking feature in all these stories of early emigration from Nor
 wich is the intense love of the pfo-
 neers for their home town.
 They carried the name of Norwich through the trackless wilderness, over unknown rivers and into savage and
 forbidding territory, naming new
 towns for the beloved town of their birth, never losing their fondness for
 that distant hometown, giving of their best to uprear new cities, and states, and transmitting to their chil- dren those traits of nobility of char
 acter, industry, enterprise, true de- mocracy, love of liberty, which they
 always fondly attributed to the tradi-
 tions and influences of that Norwich
 in Connecticut from which they had ] gone forth.
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