Bentleyville

How Bentleyville began

Bentleyville was laid out in 1831 by Reverend Adamson Bentley, a Disciples of Christ minister, who bought land at the junction of the Aurora Branch and the Chagrin River and built a sawmill, gristmill, tannery, and triphammer shop, adding a clothing store in 1836; a stone quarry and chair and rake factories followed. Nearby, the ghost town of Griffithsburg -- founded in the 1830s around a planned cotton mill that never materialized, and later a grindstone-quarrying hamlet -- was absorbed into what is now South Chagrin Reservation, whose grounds also hold the 1848 Duncan McFarland House, the 1938 WPA-built Look About Lodge, and the sandstone boulder blacksmith Henry Church Jr. carved by moonlight in 1885, long known by the name 'Squaw Rock' and today generally called Henry Church, Jr. Rock. The village, part of Chagrin Falls Township, incorporated separately in 1928-29 after residents opposed annexation.

Settled 1831 (Reverend Adamson Bentley buys land at the junction of the Aurora Branch and the Chagrin River), platted 1831, incorporated 1928-29 (sources give both years), after residents circulated petitions and voted to secede from annexation proposals; originally part of Chagrin Falls Township, by Reverend Adamson Bentley.

Where the name comes from

The village is named for its founder, Reverend Adamson Bentley, a Disciples of Christ minister who laid it out in 1831.

Before the town

No source we reviewed identifies a specific, named Native American village, mound, or treaty site within present Bentleyville; the land was part of Chagrin Falls Township, in the Chagrin River watershed, ceded to the United States by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1822 — Ralph Russell, later an early settler connected to the Bentleyville area, founds the North Union Shaker Community, a communal religious settlement in what becomes Shaker Heights.
2. 1830s — General James Griffith and investors found Griffithsburg, planning a cotton mill that never materializes; the settlement briefly grows to about twenty families before nearby Chagrin Falls and Solon draw away its trade.
3. 1831 — Reverend Adamson Bentley buys land at the junction of the Aurora Branch and the Chagrin River, laying out Bentleyville and building a sawmill and gristmill.
4. 1836 — Bentley adds a clothing store to his mill operations; a triphammer shop, tannery, stone quarry, and chair and rake factories also develop in the settlement.
5. 1848 — The Duncan McFarland House is built, a brick house later within South Chagrin Reservation near Bentleyville.
6. 1870 — A photograph documents the Griffithsburg grist mill, by then part of a fading settlement.
7. 1885 — Blacksmith and folk artist Henry Church Jr. wades the Chagrin River at night to carve a large sandstone boulder with a quiver of arrows, a serpent, an eagle, a woman, a dog, a skeleton, and a baby in a cradleboard -- a work whose intended meaning is not known.
8. 1900s (by end of 19th century) — Griffithsburg's later stone-quarrying economy contributes to an era in which over 80 percent of US grindstones come from Ohio.
9. 1928 or 1929 — Bentleyville incorporates as a separate village after residents oppose annexation, circulating petitions and voting to secede.
10. 1930 — Cleveland Metropolitan Park Board acquires the former Griffithsburg townsite, which becomes part of South Chagrin Reservation.
11. 1938 — Look About Lodge is built in South Chagrin Reservation through the Works Progress Administration.

Stories

A minister's mills, a vanished cotton town, and a carving by moonlight

Bentleyville's founder, Reverend Adamson Bentley, was a Disciples of Christ minister who turned land at the junction of the Aurora Branch and the Chagrin River into a working mill town -- sawmill, gristmill, tannery, triphammer shop, and eventually a clothing store and stone quarry. A few miles away, a very different settlement had already failed: Griffithsburg, founded in the 1830s by General James Griffith on the promise of a cotton mill that never got built, held on for a while as a stone-quarrying hamlet -- Ohio would go on to supply more than 80 percent of the nation's grindstones by the century's end -- before the post offices of nearby Chagrin Falls and Solon drew its trade away and the Cleveland Metropolitan Park Board absorbed its old townsite in 1930. That absorbed land, now South Chagrin Reservation, holds the area's strangest surviving artifact: in 1885 a blacksmith named Henry Church Jr. waded into the Chagrin River at night and carved a large sandstone boulder with a quiver of moon-phase arrows, a serpent, an eagle, a woman, a dog, a skeleton, and a swaddled baby -- a work long sold on postcards under the name 'Squaw Rock' and known today, more plainly, as Henry Church, Jr. Rock, its intended meaning still undetermined more than a century later.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · case.edu · clevelandhistorical.org · clevelandmetroparks.com · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Cuyahoga County on the full map

The Five Mile Crib, a small structure about 5 miles out in Lake Erie north of Cleveland's Edgewater Park The water here

• Cleveland Public Water System57% of residentsLake Erie
• Chagrin Falls Village36% of residentsLake Erie
• Paw Paw Lake6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-09-25

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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