Pierpont Township, Ashtabula County

How Pierpont Township, Ashtabula County began

Pierpont Township is named for Pierpont Edwards, a Continental Congress delegate and Connecticut Land Company part-owner who drew the township in the Reserve's 1798 division and sold it off quickly, never settling it himself. Vermont-born Edward Spear built the township's first log cabin in 1798 on the "Beaver Meadows" near lot 18, close to the Ashtabula River, raising its first corn crop the following year -- but he left around 1801, and Native people burned the cabin he had built soon after. Permanent settlement waited until fall 1808, when four families -- Wareham Grant, Harvey Rockwell, Martin Vosburg, and Ewins Wright -- arrived together. The township organized in June-July 1818, separating from Denmark Township. Two of its covered bridges survive: the modern Caine Road Bridge, Ashtabula County's first Pratt truss span, built in 1986, and the 1867 Graham Road Bridge, twice moved to escape floodwaters and still standing in a township park.

Settled 1798 (Edward Spear, first settler, did not stay); fall 1808 (four founding families, permanent settlement), incorporated June 18, 1818 (detached from Denmark Township); July 4-5, 1818 (first town meeting and election), by Wareham Grant, Harvey Rockwell, Martin Vosburg, and Ewins Wright.

Where the name comes from

The township is named for Pierpont Edwards, a delegate to the Continental Congress and part-owner of the Connecticut Land Company, who drew this township as his share of Ashtabula County land in the 1798 division, but sold his holdings quickly and never settled there himself.

Before the town

Edward Spear, the township's first known settler, built its first log house in 1798 on a spot known as the "Beaver Meadows," near lot 18 by the Ashtabula River, and raised the township's first corn crop there in 1799 -- planted directly on an old beaver dam and its surrounding meadows -- but he did not remain, leaving around 1801, and Native people burned the cabin he had built soon after his departure. No nation is named for this event, and no other Native site, village, or interaction is documented in the sources consulted for this township.

Timeline

1. 1798 — Edward Spear, from Vermont, builds the township's first log house on the "Beaver Meadows," near lot 18 by the Ashtabula River.
2. 1799 — Spear raises the first crop of corn grown in the township, planted on and around an old beaver dam; a child is born to his family, the township's first birth.
3. about 1801 — Spear departs the township; Native people subsequently burn the cabin he had built.
4. fall 1808 — Four families -- Wareham Grant, Martin Vosburg, Harvey Rockwell, and Ewins Wright -- arrive together and begin the township's permanent settlement, with Rockwell returning to Connecticut that November for his family.
5. 1810 — A Methodist congregation organizes in the township, drawing members from Pierpont, Richmond, and an adjoining Pennsylvania settlement.
6. 1811-1812 — More settlers arrive from Massachusetts, including Benjamin Matthews, Amos Huntley, Aaron H. Holmes, and Asa Leonard, building homes and farms.
7. 1813-1814 — The township's first schoolhouse is built near the old burying-ground on lot 16, with Lucy Huntley, youngest daughter of settler Amos Huntley, as its first teacher.
8. June 18, 1818 — Ashtabula County detaches the territory that becomes Pierpont and Richmond townships from Denmark, ordering an election for July 4 at Amos Huntley's home.
9. July 5, 1818 — Pierpont Township holds its first town meeting, electing Reuben Benjamin, Sihon Turner, and Harvey Rockwell trustees and Martin Vosburgh clerk and treasurer; Zebina Rawson becomes first justice of the peace that October.
10. 1823 — A Presbyterian congregation organizes in the township.
11. 1825 — A post office opens with Archibald Gould as postmaster.
12. 1830 — A Baptist congregation organizes in the township.
13. 1837 — The township's first hotel and general store open.
14. 1840 — A union meeting house, shared among denominations, is built.
15. 1867 — The Graham Road Bridge, a 97-foot Town lattice covered bridge, is built over the Ashtabula River in the township.
16. 1913 — A flood washes out an earlier bridge; a replacement covered bridge, later also called the Graham Road Bridge, is rebuilt one mile downstream from the original site.
17. 1971 — Ashtabula County commissioners move the Graham Road Bridge fifty feet to a park area to preserve it after a new metal bridge takes over vehicle traffic.
18. 1986 — County Engineer John Smolen designs the Caine Road Bridge, a 124-foot span over the west branch of the Ashtabula River near Andover -- the first Pratt truss covered bridge built in Ashtabula County, costing $150,000.

Stories

A cabin built and burned before the township had a name

A full decade before Pierpont Township saw its first permanent settlers, a Vermont-born man named Edward Spear had already tried. In 1798 he built a log house on the "Beaver Meadows" near lot 18, by the Ashtabula River, and the following year raised the township's very first crop of corn, planted right on and around an old beaver dam -- proof that the land could support a farm, years before anyone stayed to prove it twice. Spear himself did not remain, leaving around 1801; the sources give no reason why. What happened next is the more striking detail: once he was gone, Native people burned the cabin he had built. No account names which nation, or explains whether the act was retaliation, a territorial statement, or something else entirely -- it survives only as a bare fact in the township's early record. It would be another seven years, until the fall of 1808, before four families arrived together and made permanent settlement stick, this time without incident recorded against them.

A bridge that outran two floods

The Graham Road Bridge has survived more relocations than almost any other covered bridge in the county. Built in 1867 as a single span over the Ashtabula River, it was washed from its original footing by the great flood of 1913 and rebuilt a mile downstream from where it had stood. Decades later, in 1971, with a new steel bridge finally carrying the road's actual traffic, county commissioners chose to save the old wooden span rather than let it be scrapped, moving it fifty feet into a nearby park where it stands today -- no longer over the river it was built to cross, but preserved all the same. Its newer neighbor, the Caine Road Bridge, tells the opposite story: built new in 1986 for $150,000, it was the first Pratt truss covered bridge ever built in Ashtabula County, a design County Engineer John Smolen would reuse for two more bridges built after it.

Local history sources: conneautohio.us · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org

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