Here is some very basic historic/geographic info in case anyone wants to also research camp lands. There is some that has to be done by going on site somewhere and sifting through old records. A lot can be done via internet. But the most interesting will be done from talking to the descendants of the many families who lived on our land. And those descendants can be anywhere.
When the Connecticut Land Company had title to the Western Reserve, they parceled up the land by dividing it up into squares - 6 miles on a side. They called those the Townships. Townships were then divided up into smaller grids - 10 squares to each side called sections. When people bought the land, they bought it sight unseen. Based on the numerous early land transfers in the Medina Recorders' Office; it seems that once people found their designated land, they were just as likely to exchange it as keep it.
Land was measured by chains (roughly 80 feet) and links. They also described direction in some way that makes no sense to me. 89.5 degrees east seems redundant, but OK /// 89.5 degrees west makes no sense. RHS is checking with a surveyor to see if he understands what this means. Also - instead of metal surveyors pins, most of the Richfield boundary markers consisted of "post and stones" . Early surveyors were aware that posts would be relatively short-lived. But they had to use was they had handy. To lenghthen the span of usefulness, they piled up stones around the base of their post. We think one of Spazz's kids may have found one such pile when we were looking for the Green Cathedral - but there's no way to know for sure.
Needless to say, I'm a bit fuzzy on on exact parcels, but luckily for us, the section numbers are clearly evident on the early maps and listed on the early title transfers. Crowell Hilaka consists of sections 16 and 25. The western edge is shaved off by Oviatt Rd. The Driveway runs all the way across section 17 and the tip of it at Broadview sticks out a little into section 18.
On a map, the land is a rectangle standing on one end. Historically, the property boundaries ended up dividing the land into thirds. Don't know why. But I can see it happened that way.
In 1834, the property ownership was:
North third: Nathaniel Oviatt ( who also owned a large chunk of surrounding land ) and S. King ( he had just the one strip)
Middle third: Salmon Oviatt (who had a house in the midddle of town plus assorted scattered parcels)
South third: Mason Oviatt
Driveway: Welton:
in 1856:
North third : Nathaniel Oviatt
Middle third (plus the strip formerly occupied by S. King) : Robert Gargett
just south of that: a strip owned by Welton
South third: Mason Oviatt
driveway : Welton
1874:
North third: Milton R. Freeman ( plus large adjoining chunks)
Mid third : James Sammons
South third: Mason Oviatt
driveway: Adeline Axtell
Supposedly Freemans sold to the Neals, but I found an atlas from 1881 saying that Milton Freeman had moved to Michigan, and his daughter Hattie was living in the family farmhouse with her new husband Milo Halliwill, and they were running the place. I also found some fuzzy title transfers from JAMES KIRBY to Claire Neal! He wasn't supposed to be up that far North! A puzzlement.
I do not know ANYTHING about most of the people in the middle - but it does seem to me that the presence of these historic mid-property owners indicates that SOMEWHERE in camp must be the remains of some other old houses. One of our current service team members, Lynne Carter, says that her father used to work for Ohio Edison and helped clear the gas cut. They did not find anything of archeologic interest there. So - we can rule that location out. But if anyone wants to take on any of these other families as a research project, that would be great because I'm too obsessed over Mason and Fanny Oviatt to deal with anyone else.
Some possible leads: LInda at RHS mentioned, when I brought up these other names, that the Gargett's were the family that had the famous murder. But she assured me that the murder did not take place on camp land. There is some scandalous possible link between the Sammones and Mr Freeman. The 1881 atlas says Milo Hallliwill's father Joseph was a famous sheep expert. I'm telling you we should install some sheep at camp - Or sell little Halliwill sheep dolls. As for Adeline Axtell - owner of our driveway in 1874 - I never heard of before yesterday. But her husband has a sketch in the 1881 atlas. It seems they were a typical second-generation pioneer family. She went out with him to California in 1851, and while out there, he picked up a law degree & got into politics. He was governor of Utah territory 1875 [the Mormons were settled in, but hadn't yet renounced polygamy at that time], then New Mexico, then back to Ohio. Hmm. we might be able to work that into something: "The Adeline Axtell Memorial Driveway"
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