page_title: David Hudson (pioneer)
section_title: Travel
hierarchical_section_title: David Hudson (pioneer) / Establishment of Hudson / Travel
caption_attribution_description: A Plan of the Survey made by &amp; under the direction of Augustus Porter upon the Connecticut-Reserve for the Connecticut Land Company in the Year 1796. Showing the Western Reserve divided into sections and the town and city of Cleaveland (Cleveland)
context_page_description: David Hudson was an American businessman noted for founding Hudson Township, the present-day Hudson, Ohio. Hudson was born in Branford, Connecticut and lived there until the age four when his family moved to Goshen, Connecticut. He lived in Goshen for many years, owning a farm, marrying Anna Norton in 1783 and raising the oldest seven of their nine children there. In 1789, Hudson joined a group to purchase a parcel of land in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The following year, he left Goshen to survey the parcel and settle it as Hudson Township. Hudson traveled through the state of New York, west along Lake Erie and south along the Cuyahoga River to reach his land.
  At the settlement, Hudson and his men built a home and the township's population increased steadily over the next few decades. Hudson's wife and children eventually moved to the township, where they had two more children. Hudson cited religion as a major influence on his life. He died on March 17, 1836 at age 75.
context_section_description: In 1795, the Connecticut Land Company bought land in Northeast Ohio, then known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. The parcel was divided into 129 townships, each measuring 25 square miles (65 km²). Hudson bought a plot of land in the Reserve (township 4, range 10) in 1798 in partnership with a group including Birdsey and Nathaniel Norton, who provided three-fourths of the money for the purchase. Of the group, only Hudson left for the land with a small group of settlers (including his son Ira and employees Jesse Linsley and William McKinley), on April 22, 1799.
  The group reached Albany, New York two days later, where Joseph Darrow was hired. Hudson also bought $46.50 worth of goods in Albany and nearby Schenectady. A few members of the group, including Ira Hudson, left to drive cattle to the settlement. The others then traveled across New York along the Mohawk River valley, passing through Fort Schuyler in Utica (where Jonah Meechum was hired on April 29). The group then arrived at Onondaga (near present-day Syracuse) on May 2, where Richard Blin was hired. They reached East Bloomfield, where Birdsey Norton lived, on May 5. The party replenished its supplies and Hudson met with Benjamin Tappan, who was on his way to a settlement near Hudson's. They agreed to travel together by boat, while another small group herded livestock overland, to their respective settlements. On May 16, 1799, the group, consisting of Hudson, Darrow, Blin, McKinley and Tappan, traveled north to Lake Ontario. Departing in several boats from Oswego, they traveled west towards Lake Erie.
  Although Hudson anticipated that the trip would take less than a month, it took 56 days. Most of the journey was by water, and ice on the Niagara River, inclement weather and ice on Lake Erie, and unnavigable portions of the Cuyahoga River contributed to the travelers' slow progress. Although ice on Lake Erie and the Buffalo River near Niagara Falls destroyed one boat, the group reached Cleaveland (present-day Cleveland, Ohio) on June 9, 1799. After purchasing more supplies, they set off down the Cuyahoga River. Although Hudson believed that the river could carry their boats as far south as required, they only reached present-day Northfield on June 20. When the settlers arrived in the vicinity of their parcel they had difficulty locating its four boundary markers, finding the southwest marker in late June. Only one of the two groups herding cattle overland reached the settlement.
caption: Map of the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1796
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