The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1958-09-04

prizes III luis year ) teSL1VdA, III
in the forest for a second load
he found the emigrant and his
family gone and the camp aban-
doned and partly pillaged by the
Indians. He later learned that the
emigrant caretaker had joined a
rival party of settlers.
Tappan started with his second
load of goods on through the
woods to his destination, but
when far from any settlement or
other place where help could be
gotten, one of his oxen became
overheated and died. This left
him deep in the woods with no
team, no assistance and no way
t0&sfove on out of the predica-
ment. He had only one dollar re-
manning in his pocket. That was
enough - there was no place to
spend it anyway.
Sending one of his men with a
compass about 100 miles through
the woods to Erie, Pennsylvania,
to ask the commandant of the
fort there for a loan of money,
Tappan himself tramped through
the forest to Youngstown where
James Hillman, its then lone set
tier, sold him an OK on credit
at a fair price. That was the
way Benjamin Tappan got out OF
the wilderness and was later
able to found present Ravenna.
Portage county. 1t was too late
TO raise crop that year so Tap
pan and one, Bixby, to whom he
had given 100 acres of land,
built a log cabin and moved into
it New Years day, 1900.
Until their cabin was up Tap
pan and BiXby lived in an aban.
doned Indian bark hut and their
tent. When the supplies brought
along were exhausted they lived
on game, some of it bought from
the Indians, and on meal secured
through long trips to western
Pennsylvania. The Indians there
were Onondagas and Oneidas and
were friendly during the first part
of the 1800's.
Benjamin Tappan's cabin was
in the southeast part of the town.
ship and there in 1908 he laid
out the town, calling it Ravenna
after that city in Italy. He offered
a town lot as prize for the first
child born in the town, and a
son of David Thompson got it
born in 1910. Tappan also donat-
ed a graveyard where Nathan
Chapman, 81, was the first bur-
ial - in 1909. Nobody got a
prize for that. A later cemetery
was laid out in 1913.
Ravenna legend relates that
Jesse r. Grant, father of u. S.
Grant, had a tannery there when
about % years old. Nearly OPP
posite the Presbyterian church,
on the northeast corner of the
street, the shop stood a little back
from the street ana had the tan
vats in the front yard. In 1895
DR.. Isaac Swift lived opposite it
and had little drug store beside
his house. A sign that read "JeS-
Sc Grant, Tanner" then leaned
against the old building, still
used as a tannery though Grant
had left there years before. Long
after the old watts were taken up
and some of the wood made into
sticks.
Originally land there was cheap
Franklin township, where Kent,
six miles from Ravenna on the
Cleveland road, Cuyahoga river
and Mahoning canal, now is,
comprised 10000 acres in 1898
and was bought for twelve and
one-half cents an acre by Aaron
Olmstead of Hartford, Connecti-
cut. Kent originally was named
Franklin Mills. In 1863 it and
Carthage. contiguous to it, were
combined under the name Kent,
Marvin Kent, owner and
first president of the N. Y. p. &
o. r. r., which ran its first pas
senger train through the place
March Z, that year.
The first settlers in Franklin
township were the Haymaker
family. A son, Frederick Hay
became private secretary
to Aaron Burr and knew all his
secret plans but never divulged
them. He died in 1851, still non
committal.