Vernon Township, Trumbull County

How Vernon Township, Trumbull County began

Vernon Township was first settled in spring 1798, when Thomas Giddings and Martin Smith paddled a canoe loaded with bacon, flour and a barrel of whiskey up the Pymatuning Creek from Pittsburgh, landing south of the present center bridge and building a rude brush-roofed cabin near a spring. Before its formal 1806 organization the township was known locally as Smithfield, honoring settler Martin Smith; the 1882 county history reports that the change to 'Vernon' so offended Smith's friend in neighboring Kinsman township that he offered Smith a farm if he would leave in protest, and states plainly that no one then living could say why 'Vernon' was chosen. Early settlers, mostly from Connecticut, recorded several encounters -- some tense, some almost anthropological -- with Native people still moving along the Pymatuning valley, including a detailed account of an Indian funeral held near the creek. Burg Hill, a station on the Atlantic & Great Western railroad in the township's south, grew into its main trading point after the railroad's arrival, while Vernon Center retained the post office and town house. The unincorporated community of Burghill still occupies the township's southern portion today.

Settled 1798-04 (spring 1798), incorporated 1806, by Thomas Giddings and Martin Smith, first settlers in spring 1798.

Where the name comes from

Before its 1806 organization the township was known locally as Smithfield, in honor of early settler Martin Smith. The 1882 county history states plainly that 'why it was changed to Vernon is not now known,' and that the change so offended Smith's friend Mr. Kinsman, of neighboring Kinsman township, that he offered Smith a farm in Kinsman if Smith would leave the township in protest (Smith declined and stayed). This directly conflicts with the Wikipedia claim that the township is named for Vernon, Connecticut.

Before the town

The 1882 county history devotes an extended passage to Native people encountered by Vernon's earliest settlers along the Pymatuning valley, describing them as frequent but often unwelcome visitors who 'never allowed an opportunity pass for drunken revels when by entreaty or barter they could procure whiskey.' It names two men who often visited the settlement, called 'Yankee Jim' and 'Cadashaway' in the book's spelling (the same 'Cadashaway' named as a visiting chief in the neighboring Brookfield township chapter of the same book), and records that the pair once killed three elk nearby and took only the tongues, leaving the antlers to be found and kept as ornaments by settlers. It also records, in detail, an incident it titles 'The Indian Funeral': two men from a party camped south of Vernon obtained whiskey from settler Martin Smith, became intoxicated on the way home, quarreled, and one stabbed the other to death. The killer was apprehended by his own people, and a funeral procession brought the body to Smith's cabin, where settler Joseph DeWolf built a coffin at the tribe's request; the dead man's wife placed moccasins, a hunting shirt, rifle, knives, pipe, tobacco and a lighted coal into the coffin for his use in 'the happy hunting grounds,' and the killer was made to hold his victim's feet throughout the burial as punishment. The book does not name the nation any of these people belonged to.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Seneca, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Grave from 'The Indian Funeral' (burial) — eastward from Martin Smith's cabin, near the banks of the Pymatuning Creek, early settlement period (after 1798), undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1798-04 — Thomas Giddings and Martin Smith, having canoed up the Pymatuning from Pittsburgh with bacon, flour and a barrel of whiskey, land south of the present center bridge and build the township's first cabin, a brush-roofed log structure, near a spring.
2. 1798-07 — Aaron Brockway's family arrives; his wife becomes the first white woman in the settlement, and the first permanent cabin is built for the family near the present burial grounds at Vernon center, with six Indians and one white woman present at the raising.
3. 1799 — Martin Smith returns from Connecticut with his family, Joseph DeWolf and Paul Rice, cutting their way through the woods from Beaver; at harvest they thresh Smith's wheat and take it nine days round trip to the mill at Beaver, living meanwhile on game and corn pounded in a hollowed stump.
4. 1800-06 — Jeremiah Yemans, about nineteen, drowns while bathing in the Pymatuning; the same evening a child born to Aaron Brockway's wife dies, and the double funeral opens the settlement's first grave, in a cemetery on Brockway's farm half a mile south of the center.
5. 1800 — Martin Smith is commissioned the first justice of the peace, his commission signed by Arthur St. Clair at Chillicothe, and Joseph DeWolf builds the first sawmill on Mill Creek about a mile northwest of the center; Zachariah Palmer, born that fall, is the first native-born settler to reach maturity.
6. 1801-1802 — The township's first schoolhouse is built.
7. 1802 — Ruhamah DeWolf marries Jesse Pelton at Vernon, with Martin Smith officiating, to claim the hundred acres Josiah Pelton offered the first woman to settle in Gustavus; Electa Smith teaches the first school the same summer to eight scholars.
8. 1803-09-16 — At a meeting at Martin Smith's house Rev. Joseph Badger organizes the Church of Christ in Hartford, Vernon and Kinsman, with nine founding members; the first communion the next Sunday is held in a grove for about forty people because no building is large enough.
9. 1806 — Vernon Township is formally organized under its present name, having been known locally as Smithfield beforehand; the 1882 county history states the reason for the name change was already unknown by the time it was written.
10. 1836-03-07 — Mary P. Sutliff (nee Plumb), first secretary of the first Female Anti-Slavery Society of Vernon, dies at 23; her grave lies in the rural graveyard south of Burg Hill.
11. 1853 — A post office named Burg Hill opens in the postal-history list (renamed Burghill in 1894); the station gets its name from the older Burg Hill in Hartford Township after the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad came through.
12. 1855 — The Vernon Township hall at Vernon Center is built; it remains in use today.
13. 1860-1880 — The township's population is 964 in 1860, 930 in 1870 and 1,018 in 1880, according to the county history, with four cheese factories in operation by 1881.
14. 1867 — O. Hull & Son build the township's sawmill at Burg Hill, with a capacity of 3,000 feet of lumber per day.
15. 1874 — Ransom Hull erects the township's only flouring mill at Burg Hill, a two-story frame building with a 20-horsepower steam engine.
16. 2020 — The census records 1,337 residents in Vernon Township, which includes the unincorporated community of Burghill in its southern portion.

Stories

A canoe, a barrel of whiskey, and Vernon's first cabin

In the spring of 1798, Thomas Giddings and Martin Smith rowed a canoe all the way from Pittsburgh up the winding, drift-choked current of the Pymatuning Creek, laden with bacon, flour and a barrel of whiskey, becoming the first white men to enter what would become Vernon Township. They landed south of the present center bridge, followed a clear-running brook to its spring, and built a rude cabin of unhewn logs with a thatched roof of brush and leaves -- the first human habitation in the township, its first tree felled by Giddings's own axe. Lacking harness for the horse they had somehow acquired, they stripped bark from an elm tree to rig gearing and lashed two poles into a crude sled to drag their provisions, whiskey included, from the landing to the new cabin. The sound of their axes drew curious Native visitors, who would ask Giddings for whiskey; he told them he had none, though the barrel he sat guard over the whole time gave the lie away, until he finally rolled it under a brush heap to hide it from view for good.

The Indian funeral on the Pymatuning

The 1882 county history records, in some detail, a funeral held by a Native encampment south of Vernon after two men, having obtained whiskey from settler Martin Smith and drunk it on their way home, quarreled and one stabbed the other to death. Fearing he would be blamed, settler Asahel Brainard of Hartford reported finding the body to Squire Smith, and word soon reached the dead man's people, who apprehended the killer themselves. The body was carried in procession to Smith's cabin, where settler Joseph DeWolf built a coffin of puncheon slabs at the tribe's request, and the group buried him eastward along the Pymatuning's banks. The dead man's wife placed moccasins, a hunting shirt, his rifle, knives, pipe and tobacco into the coffin, and finally a lighted coal, for his use in 'the happy hunting grounds'; the confessed killer, pleading only that 'whiskey did it,' was made to hold his victim's feet through the entire ceremony as punishment before the party returned down the Pymatuning.

A drowning, a lost newborn and the first grave

In June 1800 a nineteen-year-old named Jeremiah Yemans was bathing in the Pymatuning with other men and boys and, unable to swim, went out of his depth and sank. He was seen to rise three times, and no one had the nerve to go in after him until Martin Smith arrived and dived several times before bringing up the body. It was carried to the house of his sister, Mrs. Aaron Brockway, where a first Vernon-born child was expected; because of the expected birth, the dead boy was laid in an outbuilding. That evening a heavy thunderstorm broke, and the baby was born, but was not permitted to live. The little settlement gathered for the double funeral, and the next morning chose a cemetery on ground Brockway gave, half a mile south of the center, where the first grave in Vernon was dug.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · postalhistory.com

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Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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Roster as of 2026-08-24: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 2 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 2 of 2.

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Auditor of State record

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• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-17

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