This series seek to find the earliest settlers in each township and where they came from. The time period is generally the first 50 years of settlement.
In the summer of 1808, Wareham Grant came from East Windsor, Connecticut, and built a log house on the site that the American House would later be built at Jefferson and Chestnut Streets. Timothy Caldwell arrived that same year to supervise the building of a courthouse and jail. The placement of the buildings came under great debate and was settled by Gideon Granger offering to built the courthouse at his own expense if it was in Jefferson.
The first two courthouses burned and the third one was built using what remained of the second one. Clay for the bricks was taken from excavating for the first floor.
The first public school building was built in 1841 on the south end of today’s Jefferson Historical Society lot, formerly the site of the Trinity Episcopal Church. Pelorus Wealth Management on East Satin is located there in 2026.
The building was one story at first, then, as enrollment grew, a second story was added. When the Jefferson Educational Institute was built on Market and Jefferson Streets, the building housed students who came from the surrounding area and needed to board during the week.
In 1811, the Baptists organized and built the present church in 1834-35. The Methodist Church organized the same year and erected their church in 1848. The Congregational Church was organized in 1831 and a building erected in 1835. The Episcopal Church was organized in 1836 and the building erected in 1876. The first frame Catholic Church was built in 1876 right beside the Episcopal Church.
Joshua R. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade are our two most well-known figures in Jefferson’s history, and a historical marker honors them as you enter Jefferson.
Giddings, son of Joshua R. Giddings (same name) and Elizabeth Pease, was a schoolteacher when he married Laura Waters, also a schoolteacher from Gustavus, in 1819. Her father and mother, Abner and Phebe (Holcomb) Waters, had been living in Granby, Connecticut, in 1798 when she was born. When Laura Giddings was quite young, the family moved to Gustavus where she later taught school and where she met her future husband, Joshua R. Giddings.
Three years after their marriage in 1819, Joshua and Laura Giddings moved to Jefferson where they remained until their deaths. Eight children would be born to them, Comfort Pease, Joseph Addison, infant died at birth, Lura, Grotius, Laura, and Ann, died at birth.
Laura Giddings was known to take a great interest in her husband’s interests and work and was of a quiet, sincere nature. While her husband was away in long sessions of Congress, she cared for their home and their many children.
Sadly, her husband died suddenly in 1864, and she bore the news badly. She was overtaxed in strength and the stress of the loss of her husband was so great she passed away in less than six months. The oldest daughter, Lura Marian Giddings was one of the early workers in the anti-slavery work. She had great literary abilities and wrote for the newspaper.
Laura Giddings, the youngest child of Joshua and Laura, married the Honorable George W. Julian of Indiana in 1863 and was known for her sunny disposition. Grotius served as an officer in the Civil War. In the Giddings family, there are several with the name of Lura and Laura as well as Joshua, making the genealogy confusing.
F.B. Pierce married Emiline Ryder and was one of the earliest schoolteachers in Jefferson. She lived in Austinburg. Apollos D. Bates came with his wife, Eliza Stowe, to Jefferson from Nelson, Ohio, about 1826. Bates built a grand home in Jefferson which later became the residence of the Honorable B. F. Wade.
Cyrus T. Smith came from Philadelphia with his young bride, Charlotte Jones, in 1828. They lived in the two-story white frame home that once stood next to today’s post office and was occupied for years by the Edward H. Fitch family of lawyers. Much later, it would be occupied by Annette Fitch Brewer Nelson, historian and author of “Mother-Love.” The house fell into disrepair and was torn down.
When Cyrus Smith’s health was failing the couple moved South. After he died, Charlotte Jones Smith, his wife, returned to Jefferson and married William Goodrich. Oliver Atwell and his wife, Maria (Dann), came from Ridgfield, Connecticut, with their two daughters in 1832. Maria Atwell would live until her ninetieth year.
In 1833, Dr. Horatio N. Hulburt moved to Jefferson from Vermont with his wife, Sabina (Lumbard) and one son who grew up to become Dr. Vincent Hulburt, a doctor in Chicago. They lived in the home later occupied by W. M. Kellogg, Esquire. Mrs. Hulbert was a beautiful singer and for years the Hulburt family composed most of the Congregational Church Choir.
Samuel H. Robinson and his wife, Chloe (Calkins), came from Waterburg, Vermont, the same year as the Hulburts. Chloe Robinson had ancestors who came over on the Mayflower in 1620. Her niece became Cordelia Calkins Andrus.
James Whitmore moved to Ohio in 1835 from Wakefield, Massachusetts, bringing his wife, Rebecca Johnson Woodward and their three small sons. In 1896, Rebecca Whitmore was the oldest living pioneer woman in Jefferson at eighty-nine years of age.
Sybil Sawdy came to Jefferson from Springfield, Pennsylvania and married Walter Allee, who built the first house on the Bunell farm. Mrs. Sawdy became known as the first woman in Jefferson who every shot a bear.
Three young sisters by the last name of Marsh, came in 1838 from Manlius, New York. They were the wives of Zebediah Dennison, A. K. Hawley and Thomas Marr. The sisters were very involved in Jefferson’s churches and community.
Walter Strong brought his wife, Sarah Devoe in 1843 from Linesville, Pennsylvania. They had two daughters who came with them. One married Samuel Fassett and moved to Washington, D.C. She was well-known throughout the country for her famous painting of the “Electoral Commission,” which hung in the Congress for many years and, quite possibly, may hang there today. The other daughter married J. A. Hervey of Jefferson. Their mother, Sarah, was of French descent and quite beautiful. In the early days of Jefferson, the Strong couple were considered the handsomest in the county. I wonder how that judging would take place today.
The future Mrs. Benjamin F. Wade was born Caroline Maria Rosekrans in Lansingburg, New York, in 1805. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Nehemiah Hubbard. Caroline’s father died when she was two and her mother married Enoch Parsons.
Since Nehemiah Hubbard had large land interests in Ohio from the Connecticut Land Company, Caroline and her mother, now Mrs. Parsons, moved back her in 1837 and lived for a while in the large brick house on the point at Ashtabula Harbor with members of the family of Colonel William Hubbard, their cousins. Caroline’s mother eventually built a beautiful home with turrets on Walnut Street in the harbor. Later it became the home of Joseph D. Hulbert and is still standing today.
It was from the Walnut Street home that the wedding of Caroline Rosecrans and Benjamin F. Wade took place on May 19, 1841. After their marriage, they would make their home in an impressive home nearly across the street from the courthouse on West Jefferson Street. After many years, it fell into disrepair and was torn down in 1968.
When Wade was elected to the United States Senate, she went with him to Washington and established a home for them there. After he retired, they returned to Jefferson where he passed away in 1878. Caroline retreated from the public eye and led a very quiet life. world. But her mind remained sharp and she kept up with current affairs. She lived in the Wade home until her passing on June 10, 1889, and was buried next to her husband in Oakdale Cemetery. The 1852 Wade Law office was removed from Jefferson and is in the Hale Farm and Village in Bath Township, Ohio.
We have lost the fine old homes of the families of Fitch, Wade, Giddings as well as the American House, the Beckwith House and the Hippodrome Building. But at least we have the pictures, albums, newspaper clippings and journals which you can peruse at the Jefferson Historical Society research room.
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