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Archiver > OH-FOOTSTEPS > 2000-09 > 0969554867


From: Betty Ralph <>
Subject: Bio - 1885 - Portage Co, OH, Garrettsville # 4
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 11:47:47 -0500


Bios: Newcomb, Norton - Portage County, Ohio, from "History of Portage
County, Ohio" published by Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885

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OTIS S. NEWCOMB, retired farmer, Garrettsville, was born in Ontario County,
N.Y., March 13, 1814; eldest child of Orrin and Pamelia (Robison) Newcomb,
natives of New York and Connecticut respectively, and who had a family of
twelve children. Orrin Newcomb, who was an early settler of Geauga County,
Ohio, a farmer and shoe-maker by occupation, died in 1836. His widow died
in 1878, aged eighty-five years. Our subject was raised on a farm and
obtained a limited education. His parents removed to Geauga County, Ohio,
in October, 1818, and he grew to maturity fully acquainted with the
vicissitudes of pioneer life. He entered on his career of life as a farmer,
and followed agricultural pursuits until 1873, when he retired from active
labor and removed to Garrettsville, where he built a fine residence in which
he now resides. He was married in November, 1841, to Mary A. Wright, of
Geauga County, Ohio, born in 1819, and died in 1864, the mother of five
children: Selah W. (died in Perryville, Ky., October 8, 1862); Neri,
engaged in the Buckeye Works at Akron, Ohio; Wallace E. and Andrew B.,
farmers, and Aurie V., wife of W.S. Freeman. Mr. Newcomb married on second
occasion, October, 1864, Lucy A. Chapman, who died March 2, 1884, leaving to
his care two children: George A. and Gertie A. Our subject has never been
a politician or office seeker, but has been content with the plain home life
of a farmer. He may be considered a self-made man, and was one of the
practical as well as substantial farmers of Geauga County, Ohio. He is a
member of Garrettsville Lodge, F.&A.M.

JAMES NORTON, real estate, insurance and collection agent, and Notary
Public, Garrettsville, was born September 9, 1833. His parents were then
living in a log-house on their farm, on the west part of Lot 29, in Hiram.
At an early day the homestead was changed to a farm on Lot 49, in the south
part of Hiram Township. Here the subject of our sketch passed his childhood
and youth, except four or five of his earlier years. When thirteen years of
age a great misfortune came upon him, the result, as supposed, of being
thrown from a horse about a year before. For several months his life hung
upon such a slender thread that the community were in daily expectation of
hearing that he had passed away. A surgical operation was performed upon
the injured limb December 31, 1846, by Dr. De Wolf, of Ravenna. Not until
the spring following did it appear that he could possibly survive the
fearful attack disease had made upon him; an iron constitution alone was in
his favor. For three years his health was so poor, and his disability so
great, that he did not attend school at all. At sixteen, his health being
still very far from good, he recommenced his studies at the district school
in Freedom, about one and a half miles from home, to and from which he
walked with crutch and cane. The advancement of those who had been his
class-mates and associates before his sickness, caused a very dark cloud to
envelop him. To hear them recite about numerator and denominator, reduction
ascending and descending, and use other terms which it seemed to him he
could never comprehend or understand, brought humiliation, sorrow and
weeping. Energetic and determined application to his books soon dispelled
the darkness and gloom, and at the close of the term he was fully up with
his class. Thereafter every resource available for improvement was made use
of, and at the commencement of the autumn term in 1851, he was permitted to
enter the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, well advanced in the common
branches. During this term a physician, learning of the existence of an
unhealing and dangerous sore of some years' standing, upon an arm of our
subject, engaged with his father for a stipulated price to effect a cure.
After about six months the doctor's efforts were rewarded with permanent
success. The acquaintance with young Dr. Smith (who died the next year) our
subject looks back upon as being the highest importance to him. About a
year later, after three terms' attendance at the Eclectic Institute, he
engaged as teacher of a district school in Freedom, on the Freedom and
Ravenna diagonal road. After this and until the close of the year 1861, his
time was occupied in attending school and in teaching. Most of the time he
attended school at Hiram, but one term he attended the academy at
Shalersville. He took a commercial course at the college in Cleveland, and
took lessons in penmanship of P.R. Spencer, Sr., at his log-writing academy
in Geneva, Ohio. He taught the district school at the center of
Shalersville three terms, taught two terms in different districts in Hiram,
and in 1858 commenced as teacher in Garrettsville, and there remained as
teach of the fall and winter terms until December, 1861, when he resigned as
teacher to enter the Recorder's office at Ravenna, to which the citizens of
the county had elected him in October by a proud majority. Much of his day
school work was supplemented by evening lessons given in penmanship. Of his
services as Recorder we find the Portage County Republican-Democrat of
January 8, 1868, speaking as follows: Mr. James Norton retired from
official connection with the County Recorder's office on Monday, after a six
years' term of service. Mr. Norton had proved himself a model Recorder, and
there is no risk in pronouncing his records as handsome and accurate as any
in the State. Mr. Norton entered upon the duties of this office January 6,
1862, and up to January 6, 1868, has recorded 6,302 deeds, 2,039 mortgages,
134 leases, 409 soldiers' discharge papers, and released 1,705 mortgages.
When it is taken into consideration that every deed, mortgage, etc.,
contains, say 700 words, some estimate of the amount of work performed may
be arrived at. In the entire six years Mr. Norton has not been absent from
his office one single business day, and has made nearly all the records
himself." Our subject declined to go into the convention as candidate for a
third term, because there were several disabled soldiers seeking the place
at that time. The suddenness of the change from years of close application
to business to days of leisure, subdued the anticipated enjoyment and
comfort of the latter. A line of business did not readily open up to our
subject. He therefore spent the summer and autumn of 1868 in reviewing his
studies at the Commercial College in Cleveland. It was his desire and
purpose to go into the real estate agency business in the city, but no
satisfactory opportunity presented itself or was found, he engaged with
others, in the winter of 1868-69, in organizing a banking institution at
Garrettsville, and for a time was its Cashier. The perils incident to
banking in those days, added to other harassing features then existing, were
a severe strain upon his undisciplined and overly sensitive nerves, and he
withdrew from the business, one of the acts of his life, as he says, upon
which he looks back with regret. A vacancy having occurred in the
superintendency of the Garrettsville schools in the midst of a school year,
he engaged as Superintendent and occupied that position four terms.
Subsequently he has twice been elected Justice of the Peace, twice as Mayor
of the incorporated village of Garrettsville, four times as member of the
Board of Education, and has also been Clerk of the Board many years. He has
often acted as Executor, Administrator, Assignee and Guardian in the
settlement and management of estates. In politics Mr. Norton is a
Republican. In 1848 he united with the Disciple Church at Hiram, and had
his membership with that denomination at Hiram and at Ravenna. There has
been no disciple Church in active working condition in Garrettsville for
several years, and he has therefore worshipped with the Baptists, the church
wherein his wife was reared. For five years he was Superintendent of the
Baptist Sunday-school, and for many more years was teacher of the Bible
class. December 17, 1859, he was married to Miss Ann Eliza Taber, at the
home of her parents in Garrettsville, which was also the home of her birth.
Her father, John Taber, was born in Providence, R.I., April 29, 1798, and
died suddenly when on his way to worship, March 12, 1871. Her mother, whose
maiden name was Mary Henrietta Greene, a realative of Gen. Greene, of
Revolutionary note, was born in Barre, Mass., June 21, 1799, and died June
2, 1884, in Garrettsville, in the house where she had lived a little more
than half a century. John Taber and Mary H. Greene were married in
Providence, R.I., October 19, 1819. Mr. Taber was carpenter on board of
ship, and made some very long sea voyages. His ship was at Callao when
Bolivar entered Peru with his Columbian Army. They took a ship load of
royalists to Cadiz, Spain, with immense quantities of gold and silver. This
was a six years' voyage, mostly in South American waters. The next was a
three years' voyage, chiefly doing a coasting business in European seas. In
early life Mr. and Mrs. Taber were members of the First Baptist Church of
Providence, which was founded by Roger Williams. They moved to Ohio in
1829, and after a residence of four years in Mogadore, Summit County, they
moved to Garrettsville. Mr. Taber spent about three and a half years among
the gold mines of California, starting for that then far-away country in the
spring of 1850. Mr. and Mrs. Taber were the parents of four children: Mary
Henrietta, born November 15, 1929; John Herman, born August 10, 1832; James
Hunter, born June 21, 1835, and Ann Eliza, born September 23, 1837. The
first three, after living to mature years, deceased before their parents.
Mary Henrietta (Mrs. Dr. A.M. Sherman) died in Garrettsville, October 26,
1853; John Herman died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, November 8, 1856, and James
Hunter died in Adrian, Mich., December 5, 1866. Three sons have been born
to Mr. and Mrs. James Norton. The first born and died in infancy and is
buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Ravenna; James Edgar was born in Ravenna
March 18, 1866; John Herman was born in Garrettsville February 12, 1869.
James Edgar graduated from the Garrettsville High School in 1883; the
subject of his graduation oration was "The Heirs of the Ages." He is now
upon a classical course at Hiram Collage. John Herman is still (1885) in
the Garrettsville High School. There is a chart and record of the Norton
families reaching back nineteen generations. Originally the name was
Norville, a corruption of the French "Nord-Ville" (North-Villa or
North-Town), and Nor-ton or Norton was subsequently adopted. The family
have published a pamphlet showing the Norton families back seven
generations. This is as far back as most people care to trace the ancestral
line. To those, however, whose curiosity may lead them, the chart and
record is accessible, although but few copies are known to the families here
to be in existence. Thurel Norton was born at New Hartford, Oneida Co.,
N.Y., March 10, 1801. He was third son of Peter and Elthina (Thompson)
Norton. He died in Hiram, April 2, 1880, in a few hours after, and from
injuries received by, being thrown from a buggy by a runaway horse. When he
was six years old his parents moved to Ohio, stopping two years in Vernon,
Trumbull County, a short time in Tallmadge, and then located permanently in
Springfield, then in Portage County, but now Summit County, a short distance
east of Middlebury, the old home farm being still occupied by his brother
Thomas. Here Thuel grew from childhood to manhood. Where the city of Akron
is now was dense forest then. He shot his first deer upon the hillside in
the vicinity of where Howard Street is now. At hunting large game, however,
he was never as successful as his older brother, Almeron, although for a
close shot he had no superior in those days. He learned the carpenter's
trade and put up many buildings in and about Middlebury and Tallmadge. He
was an expert at scoring and hewing timber, and in "bossing raisings." He
was a man of powerful muscle, and often would astonish the people at
"raisings" by picking up and carrying to its place a stick of timber that
ordinarily would require two men to carry. As a framer of timber he was
notably a close workman. At Hiram, August 4, 1822, Thuel Norton was married
to Harriet Rebecca Harrington, who was born July 15, 1803, at Salisbury,
Litchfield Co., Conn., but the most of whose childhood and youth was passed
in Utica and Rochester, N.Y. Her father's name was John Harrington, and her
mother's maiden name was Asenath Marvin. Her father was a boot and
shoe-maker, and lived in Hiram a short time, nearly sixty years ago. Her
mother is buried in the family lot at Hiram. John and Asenath Harrington
were the parents of a large family of children. One year Mr. and Mrs.
Norton resided in Rootstown, this county, nine years in Springfield, Summit
County, and in 1832 they moved to Hiram, first locating on a farm on the
West center road, but subsequently moved to the south part of the township,
and there lived upon a farm many year. Although Mr. Norton preferred the
carpenter's trade to farming, he gradually quit the former and took up the
latter. But his fondness for timber work was somewhat gratified by
operating a saw-mill which he had upon one of his farms. It was more of a
diversion, however, than a money-making business. When old age had come
upon Mr. and Mrs. Norton, they left their home farm and lived the remainder
of their years at the center of Hiram. In August, 1880, Mrs. Norton went to
visit a son and a daughter in Garrettsville, and while at the home of the
latter she became worse and died in the evening of August 30. Their remains
rest in the family lot in Hiram Cemetery. Thuel and Harriet R. Norton were
the parents of ten children, as follows: Anna, born October 21, 1823; Seth
D., born August 19, 1825; Edwin, born July 16, 1827 and died September 8,
1827; Amelia C., born January 4, 1829; Julia M., born April 24, 1831; James,
born September 9, 1833; Lois E., born November 28, 1835, and died in
Trenton, Mo., April 27, 1866; Emily E., born May 6, 1838; Richard C., born
June 16, 1840, and Harriet R., born January 28, 1846. Seth D. is an
attorney-at-law, living in Ravenna. Richard C. is President of South East
State Normal, at Cape Girardeau, Mo.

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