The highest point of elevation in the county and the western part east of the State road may well bear the lofty and rural name of “Owen’s Mountain.” The scenery is very beautiful and picturesque.

The Indians first held possession here. Encampments found not far from the Pymatuning covered nearly an acre, and the land was cleared a little. Where their village stood a nest of leaf-shaped flint implements were found, consisting of 250 pieces, buried in the swamp, and covered with sand to mark the place. The western part of Andover was settled first and all business of the town was carried on there.

Zadoc Steel came on foot from Hartford, Conn., to Albany, then by boat up the Mohawk River, then on foot and by the aid of compass found Andover, made slight improvements for a home, and in 1808 brought his wife and son and the household goods in a sleigh for the far western wilderness.

Their children were Walcott, William, Francis, Almon, Harriet, Abbie, and Olive.

Caroline Woodruff married William; Rosetta Andrews married Francis; Ann Adams, Almon; Harriet, Eldred Merrill.

Epephras Lyman came from Connecticut, built a cabin and married Laura Brown in 1810. Their children were Horatio, Betsey, James, George, Lois, Willard and Edmund. In 1822 Mrs. Lyman died, and her husband married Mary Hutchinson, of Salisbury, Conn. Mary, Eliza, Albert, and Laura, their children, all settled near them after marriage.

Apple, peach, pear, and all kinds of seeds were planted, and they waited patiently for them to grow. Epephras Layman planted the first orchard.

The first daughter born in Andover was Miriam Houghton.

Mrs. Dorothy Houghton taught the first school in a log barn of Francis Lyman.

The marriage of Polly Carpenter and Artemas Smith was the first wedding in Andover. The death of Dorothy Houghton was the first bereavement of the kind.

Rebecca Hurd married Sylvanus Mosier, and moved from Sandersfield, Mass. Besides caring for her large family in those days she carded, spun, and wove the cloth for all of their clothes, knit stockings, made shoes, and spun flax for thread and tow for candlewicks, made soap, candles, sugar and vinegar from maple trees. Brooms cut from wood and called brush brooms were very heavy. A linen handkerchief of blue and white checks was VERY DRESSY for ladies to carry.

Rebecca used to attend the sick, and often jumped on her horse, with a tin lantern lighted with a candle, and rode off in the darkness. She once rode under a clothesline, which threw her off, breaking her limb. Dr. James Lyman made a frame and fastened it in and in a few weeks she was able to be out again.

Elizabeth Woodruff married Benjamin Withenbury April, 1829. They resided at Hartford, but sold their city home, and came west, and, as it had been represented as thickly settled, they sold all household goods, but on their arrival here found it a dense forest, with scarcely a tree cut, the population consisting mostly of bears, wolves, deer, and wild turkeys. Only a few scattering families were to be found. They could not even procure a chair for two years.

They soon put up a log cabin, and the pioneer mother began to toil for her family from Monday morn till Saturday night. Being an expert tailoress, as the population increased she found ready work, often earning $30 in a winter, besides carding, spinning, weaving cloth, and making all the clothes for her household.

She raised eight children. Unceasing toil was her portion. The oldest son and youngest daughter reside at THE OLD HOME.

Aurelia Weeks came from Vermont across lake and canal in 1829. She lived in a cabin with a blanket for a door and wolves howling outside. Her husband was Plin Smith. There were eleven children in her household. She assisted him making rails to fence their land.

Sarah Seymour married Erastus Stillman in 1828. They came from Connecticut with a one-horse wagon and four children. Theirs is the first house mentioned in the history of Andover. The floor was basswood logs split and laid on the ground.

They made a thousand pounds of sugar from the maple trees on their farm one season.

The family of Rufus Houghton came in 1814 and set running the first grist mill for many miles around.

Mr. and Mrs. Warren Bout started a wooden dish factory. Then the mothers were made glad to have bread bowls and chopping bowls and wooden mortars to pound spice in, etc.

In Brown, N. Y., Nancy Coburn married P. T. Willkins and came to Andover in 1838 the mother of six boys and six girls.

Mrs. Abigail Drake married Edmund Chapman and came from a fine brick house in Windsor, Conn., in 1861, to live in “the far West,” with their family of five.

Reuben Bates, Benjamin Carpenter and Alba Coleman emigrated with their families from Chester, Mass. It rained hard on their arrival and the mothers sat on the logs and held their children in their arms all night, with bears, wolves and wild cats, HOWLING A WELCOME.

Orzin Kingsley, of Becket, Mass. married Joseph Picket in 1819 and started for Ohio. They were six weeks on the way with oxen — runners for snow and wheels for other roads. Eleven children were educated. Most of them were teaching school before eighteen. Nancy Wade married John Picket.

Joseph’s second wife was Mary Marvin. Marvin Picket was their son.

The Wades came to Andover from Springfield, Mass., in 1820, and brought with them a table which was quite wonderful, as almost everyone only had a chest to eat upon. They were three — Benjamin (of national celebrity), Sidney, and Theodore.

Anna K. Mann was born in Sandisfield, Mass., in February, 1789. Both her parents died when she was twelve years of age. She soon after went with neighbors to what was then known as the “Genesee country.” Here she was married to Jesse Ainger in 1815. In 1832 this couple, with a family of four children, settled on the old State road in Andover. Here they reared and educated their children. Two sons, Charles D. and William F., chose the profession of law and acquired an honorable practice.

A portion of the law library of Hon. J. R. Giddings is still owned by one of these sons. An only daughter, after teaching very successfully for several years, married a wealthy stock raiser of Trumbull County. The venerable mother died at the home of her son in Andover at the advanced age of ninety years and lies in the family lot in the cemetery at West Andover.

The Hon. J. R. Giddings cut down and burned off the heavy timber on the farm where this venerable pioneer resided in Andover to enable him to make the first purchase of his law library.

Janet Marvin taught school in Wayne and Williamsfield and for four summers at Andover. In 1831 she married Horatio Lyman and is still living. She is quite well at eighty-six years and gave assistance in this work in a well-written letter from Ashtabula.

The Wights came from the Isle of Wight. A saw is in the possession of E. Hall which they brought from there, over a hundred years old.

MYRA B. AINGER, Historian

From “Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve,” Part II. Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, Editor [Women’s Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission, September, 1896], p.p. 276-278.

Caroline Wells with her husband Roger Cadwell and five children came to Andover from Bloomfield, Conn., in 1817, and settled east of the State Road, the first family in the locality. The Cadwells began housekeeping there in a log cabin erected in a small clearing in the woods. At first glimpse of it, the wife and mother sat down on a log and cried over the cheerless prospect; but like others of the brave, courageous souls of that pioneer day, she made the best of it and was afterward rewarded by feeling at home in the small cabin.

It had a chimney built of stones as high as the fireplace and above that of mud and sticks; a puncheon floor; long split shingles on the roof and weight poles to hold them on. The only road in the township was a mile and a half distant. Her eleven children were grown before they could see another house from their doorstep. Mrs. Cadwell possessed a superior education and as school advantages for pioneer children were limited, she became their teacher, in addition to her duties as mother and housekeeper.

The son, Darius, became Judge Cadwell of Cleveland, a man highly respected and admired. Emily married a Wade and was the mother of Judge E. C. Wade and Mrs. Warren. Malinda married J. Birchard; Mary married S. Case; Roger married Mary Putnam and their son was James Cadwell, Judge of Probate Court.

From “Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve,” Part V, Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, Editor [Women’s Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission, 1896-1924], p.p. 979-980.